Air Serbia handled 280.958 passengers in July, representing its busiest month since September 2019 and a 63% increase on the month before. Of those, 74.797 travellers were welcomed on the airline’s summer charter flights, while the remaining 206.161 were carried on services out of Belgrade, Niš and Kraljevo. During July, Air Serbia maintained operations to 41 destinations as part of its scheduled network, with Tivat being the busiest. It was followed by Podgorica, Paris, Zurich, New York and Moscow. In comparison, in May, the national airline operated flights to thirty destinations, carrying more than 100.000 passengers, while in June it recorded a 68% increase on the month before with more than 170.000 passengers handled, and 38 destinations served.
Commenting on the results, the airline’s General Manager for Commercial and Strategy, Jiri Marek, said, “We are glad that the growth trend continues, despite the circumstances caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. This is an indicator that we have made the right business decisions at the right moment. We monitored demand and increased capacity to the most popular destinations in our network whenever we had the chance, thus providing our passengers even more choices during the summer season. We will continue to do so in the coming period as well, with the aim to provide strong connectivity between cities in the region, Europe, and the whole world”.
During July, Air Serbia put back into operation one ATR72 turboprop aircraft after having been grounded since September of last year. The carrier’s active fleet now comprises of eighteen aircraft, including five ATR72s, ten Airbus A319 jets, one A320, one A330 and one Boeing 737-700 which is on wet-lease from Smartwings until September 26. One of the carrier’s eleven A319s has been grounded since early November 2020. During August, the airline will operate the most scheduled flights to Tivat, Podgorica, Paris, Zurich and Tirana, while the most capacity will be offered to Tivat, Podgorica, Paris, Zurich, Moscow and New York.
Impressive!!
ReplyDeleteAnd how many suitcases have they lost on the way. Well they managed to loose ours on both flughts we took with them. A nightmare to get them back. Much less impressive...
DeleteBack in 2013 when airline was rebranded Air Serbia some comments repeatedly talked about airline being bad due to lost baggage. When news about Air Serbia are positive there is always a comment about some part of the service not being perfect. If Air Serbia announces second long haul destination we will hear a lot about lost bags or flight delays!
DeleteAre you okay?
DeleteAre Serbia haters are not okay when Air Serbia performs above expectations. Their pain is palpable.
DeleteWhat is this? North Korea? You cannot critisize national because they didnt handle baggage well?
DeleteDoes this look like Air Serbia customer service site? Airlines like Aeroflot and Lufthansa lose a lot more bag than Air Serbia every day, so what?
DeleteDoes this look like JUs managment office? No, but people still are talking where JU needs to fly long haul and how much. The only one who has problem with critisizing JU for bad baggage handling is you.
DeleteEvery airline can be criticized for a lost bag, that's not a problem. Trying to repeatedy paint Air Serbia in a bad light because of lost bag is a behaviour that really needs to be criticized. That's not a concern, it's hate.
DeleteSure, every carrier loose the baggage. British airways, Lufthansa, Air France. That's nothing new and happened daily
DeleteHey Jiri, you are head of commercial at JU. Let's see how much you stimulate demand in winter and how competent you are to keep as many frequencies as possible.
ReplyDeleteEx CEO at Delta Anderson said some years ago that the whole point is not to burn in winter what you made in summer.
So far Jiri failed at that.
They need to do more to bring Russian tourists. We saw how much interest there is especially with N4 wanting to launch ROV-BEG.
Delete+100
DeleteAeroflot plans on sending widebody planes to belgrade which means advance bookings are good.
Unfortunately Air Serbia lost the battle in Russia with regards to Moscow and S Petersburg, JAT at the time had the upper hand on those destinations and was the preferred choice for travel. SU is definitively a much better airline and the price of tickets is often lower than JU. Air Serbia would have to re-image it's schedule, improve catering and navigate away from the airport current handler who is incapable to turn around the aircraft on time and join one of the alliances.
DeleteJiri , I basically wrote down the homework for you with regards to Russia, remains to be seen if you can (care) turn the situation around.
I agree that JU needs to join an alliance ASAP (OneWorld making the most sense) and that it's ludicrous that they're still sticking to the sinking ship that is EY in terms of miles accrual & benefits.
DeleteJoining any airline alliance is beneficial only if airline is dominant within given continent or region. Air Serbia would not have that dominance with any alliance, so no reason to join.
DeleteJat did not have the upper hand on LED as they were not flying there. In SVO they probably had the upper hand when SU was still flying the Tu-154 to BEG.
DeleteJU has massively reimagined its schedule as Air Serbia to the point that even the flight numbers have changed. The past couple of years they have adjusted flights outside of their typical 4 waves ie ROV, ZAG, LJU, LCA, BNX, TGD with plans for additional CDG and ZRH rotations at 4pm prior to the pandemic. For an airline of its size it's more than ok.
As for catering, European market asks for cheap flights over comfort. That was a costly mistake EY management learnt with all their European adventures. JU service is pretty much almost identical to most other Euro airlines. On JFK they are at worst on average with other Euro carriers.
As for ground handling, JU had that as ASGS but found for an airline of its size to be quite expensive and threw that to Belgrade Airport to reduce costs.
In regards to specific details for Russia, the market will decide on that. After all, SU overall has the upper hand due to its size and network which will always attract a larger crowd. SU's subsideries are all larger than JU. However, JU has the past couple of years maintained stable frequencies to SVO, LED introduced 5 years ago and still operating, KRR for 2 and ROV introduced in a pandemic. Again, for an airline its size it's more than ok.
@Vlad
I think at this point there is no point in changing the JU FF program. Expensive adventure for almost no benefit. I dont think they will change it unless forced to do so.
Joining an alliance comes with a cost and JU is cooperating more with SkyTeam airline companies. In fact, Jat was supposed to be an associate member of SkyTeam in 2009 with AF-KLM sponsorship. JU has next to no cooperation with Oneworld members, JU flies to 3 Oneworld hubs out of its 41 destinations with 1 requiring visas to transit (LHR) for Serbian nationals. Their expansion plans in the near future don't include any Oneworld hubs if AMM is not included, which brings little value to JU. JU also has little value to all alliances.
You missed his point, he refered to ground handling in SVO which is incapable of turning around an A320 in an hour. SVO is constantly delayed but people like Jiri don't seem to care about it so life goes as usual.
DeleteJat flew to LED for a brief period of time, I think it was only for one or two seasons back in mid 2000s.
@09:03 thanks for clarification to the "no critic fan". Turn around of 50 min at Svo is completely unrealistic hence every departure is late 20-45 min ( even when plane from Beg lands ahead of schedule).
DeleteThat's a very good result all things considered.
ReplyDeleteThey need an extra plane ASAP.
ReplyDeleteThey need it yesterday but upper management doesn't seem to care.
DeleteExactly.. Little too late.
Deletesttategic planners retired the B733 with valid resoirces in order to lease another plane...sve strucnjak do strucnjaka.
DeleteGde se može videti kada avionima ErSrbije ističu resursi? Hvala.
DeleteGood news
ReplyDeleteThere are some really positive developments coming out of JU lately. They are restoring the network and introducing new routes, signing new partnerships, adding aircraft when needed. Good job.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteGood to see demand returning
ReplyDeleteIt just shows the market will recover much faster than some expected.
Deleteafter so much doom and gloom this last few months this is great. Hope we see them expand even more.
ReplyDeleteLoads are solid and things are returning to normal
DeleteNice
ReplyDeleteWhat is the average load factor?
ReplyDeleteI think around 50%
DeleteWhy is one A319 stored? They could make good use of it.
ReplyDeleteWow at the number of passengers on charter flights.
ReplyDeleteGood to see New York among top performing routes.
ReplyDeleteIt's been like that for some time.
DeleteThis is a great result. I expect Auguat will perform even better.
ReplyDeleteLet's see. I fear the EU travel ban will be reintroduced.
DeleteYes, the EU is reviewing the travel ban for third countries next week. I think Serbia may be removed. The US will be put again on the travel ban list.
DeleteSerbia won't be banned because it's still below the limit.
DeleteYes, but we are being careless with this who Indian covid turism.. You think EU doesn't see this sh*t happening??!
DeleteCases rising have nothing to do with Indians. India has been listed as safe country by the UK now for example. The number of cases in India, proportionate to the country size, is lower than in Serbia and the rest of Europe. Also everyone of them to enter Serbia needs to do a Covid test 48 hours prior to entry, another covid test upon landing and another Covid test before leaving. Unlike the local population in Serbia, they all wear masks on the street and follow covid protocols. So please, spare me the concern. I also doubt you are from Serbia, as you would no all of this and would know how the local population is behaving.
DeleteIt was reported this morning that most new cases are brought into Serbia by holidaymakers returning from abroad.
DeleteEven if Serbia is removed from the list, this will not affect vaccinated travelers. If EU was to sanction vaccinated people, it would be a big slap on the face to the vaccination programs in both the EU and third countries. So obligated quarantine and testing might only be required from unvaccinated, vaccinated chaps will be fine.
DeleteCongratulations
ReplyDeleteThis would mean BEG had close to 500,000 passengers in July.
ReplyDeleteIf JU has 50% share at BEG then it means total number of passengers was close to 550.000 which isn't bad at all.
DeleteI think today is the first time ever a Saturday has more departures than Sunday! Yesterday was wild, I think BEG had 96 departures which was a new record.
DeleteSerbia just keep on climbing.
JU menadzment ima više sreće nego pameti, tako mi se čini...
ReplyDeleteИмају пуно среће али има и нешто мало памети међу локалним запосленима који суштински одржавају фирму у животу. Видећемо шта ће бити када зима дође. ЈУ мора да се потруди да консолидује позицију у тржиштима одакле долазе туристи током зимских месеци. Тако ће успети да колико толико ублаже ефекат сезоналности.
DeleteHaha pa kao da o njima ovisi zima. Bice kljucanja, kakav crni turizam
DeleteНеће бити затварања, чак и запад одбија да уведе нове мере сада када опет расту бројке.
DeleteU osnosu na druge regionalne avio kompanije imaju i vise srece i vise pameti.
DeleteJedi sira braleeee
DeleteNicely done JU.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great result. I expect July will perform even better.
ReplyDeleteKeep up the good work
ReplyDeleteTheir fleet is starched to the limit.
ReplyDeleteThis is great but still unfortunate they have not resumes several destinations since Covid.
ReplyDeleteTheir Montenegro flights are doing extremely well. One of my friends that works at the airport says they are all constantly full. To Tivat and Podgorica.
ReplyDeleteYes I was told the same. Yesterday Montenegro had a LF of 60% to Tivat. That's very bad, I guess people don't trust them.
DeleteYou know they have 8 daily flights to Tivat so it is possible that in one direction on one particular day there are less passengers while it's full on the way back. Or do you believe they made up their July results as well. lol.
DeleteYou are right, they should trust Air Montenegro that is constantly late, cancels flights and if the flight is going ahead it is usually overbooked since they have two planes and constant issues with maintenance.
DeleteThe other day they had a massive delay and they kept passengers in the terminal building with no a/c. Complete PR failure.
DeleteImpressive. This is more passengers than some capital city airports in ex-yu have.
ReplyDeleteThose are great numbers regarding the general situation. But if analyze little bit further we can see that more than 60% of passengers are charter or Tivat flights, which telling us that those passengers are not product of strategic planning or some other activity from Mr Marek and company. Those destination and demand will not exist from October till next May. I hope that JU will find adopt some real strategy, fare prices and stimulate demand through out the fall and winter, or I do not see some bright future.
ReplyDeleteAccording to your analysis Air Serbia had 60% of 280k on charter + TIV. Sixty % of 280k is 168k , - 75k charters = 93 thousand passengers on TIV flights in July. That's dead wrong. I don't see bright future with those math skills.
DeleteWhat is really concerning is the TrustPilot reputation and ranking. It is simply not good and the management should take immediate actions:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.trustpilot.com/review/airserbia.com
Just checked, and it is indeed concerning. However, considering an airline like QR and SQ are rated 2.0 and less, I would be asking myself how useful this website really is...
DeleteSitepilot review of Trustpilot gives them just 1.63 stars out of 5, which indicates Trustpilot can't be trusted. It's concerning when those who criticize Air Serbia have to resort to such untrustworthy source:
Deletehttps://www.sitejabber.com/reviews/trustpilot.com
TrustPilot is a quite reliable source in the Western world, trust me. I am not being cheeky or anything but most of the negative comments are about lost/missing luggage. This can easily be fixed by giving training to the airport staff.
DeleteI don't trust you, I trust reviews that say TrustPilot is not to be trusted. They admitted to having millions of fake reviews and were trying to remove them to improve the image but trust has been broken. Using TrustPilot to paint a negative picture of Air Serbia is a fiasco that just exploded in your face. You are getting deeper and deeper in that hole and there is no way out. If you did your homework you would know Air Serbia haters tried to use similar methods many times since 2013 and they were always, without exception, berated and belittled for their asinine efforts. But you didn't do your homework.
DeleteNo homework here. When you have many reviews about lost or missing luggage then definitely it's up to the company management to interfere. Please, don't act so dramatic and learn to accept criticism because it does sure exist, ok?
DeleteLufthansa has a low rating of just 1.3, Wizzair 1.4 so Air Serbia rating of 1.5 looks fantastic!
Delete