Air Serbia carried over 1.5 million passengers from January up until the end of last week, an improvement of 76% compared to the total number of travellers handled during the whole of 2020 when the figure stood at 899.877. However, the passenger levels are still down 43% on the pre-pandemic 2019, which was Air Serbia’s busiest. Back then it welcomed 2.81 million travellers as it added 23 new routes to its network. The airline’s cabin load factor since the start of the year has averaged at 66%, which is above the European norm. In 2019, loads stood at 73%. The airline’s passenger share at Belgrade Airport now amounts to 51%, up from 45.6% two years ago.
Air Serbia has scheduled its busiest December since 2019, despite travel restrictions and worries over the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus. The carrier has scheduled some 1.764 flights this month, up 116% on December of last year. It will increase frequencies on a number of its routes from mid-December until mid-January and will also restore limited operations to its summer seasonal destination of Rostov-on-Don, on December 24 and December 26, as well as the first week of January. In addition, this month, Air Serbia will operate charters to Hurghada on December 23 and 29, Sharm el Sheikh on December 24 and 30, as well as to Dubai on December 12, 19 and 26.
Commenting on the airline’s operational results, Air Serbia’s General Manager for Commercial and Strategy, Jiri Marek, said, “We are proud of the results we have achieved, despite the changing travel restrictions. This year was more successful than the last, and let’s hope this trend continues in the future as well. Our goal is to fully recover and get back to 2019 levels, and we are on a good path in this regard. Still, we are aware that the situation with the coronavirus pandemic is getting worse, and we are cautiously planning for the upcoming period, relying primarily on our flexibility and ability to quickly adapt to changing circumstances on the market”.
I wonder if next year there will be such interest in Egypt and Turkey again?
ReplyDeleteThese are like regular flights :)))
DeleteDefinitely
DeleteGood result. Quite surprised.
ReplyDeleteFor now they are the best flag carrier in Ex Yugoslavia.
ReplyDeleteMost serious one at the moment, that's for sure.
DeleteCroatia Airlines are equally as good and are members of an Alliance.
DeleteSo what if they are part of an alliance? It has done them very little favours in the past years. And I don't think they are equally as impressive. They have barely launched any new routes in past two years. They operate almost no charters despite coming from a tourist country, their fleet is getting older and older and they haven't located anything east of Skopje on the map of Europe.
DeleteLikely to soon be the only flag carrier left in ex-YU.
DeleteIt's humorous to compare OU to YU. Perhaps a few years ago yes, but not anymore. And regarding the "alliance", it's alway been about a one way stream towards mutti. Ironically, part of OU's overall problem and their gradual decline can be partially attributed to being part of that alliance. Nothing glamorous there.
DeleteCongrats. The huge demand for holiday flights this summer really helped them as I think their charter performance was better than pre-pandemic years
ReplyDeleteCharters were very strong. Around 10% of all passengers came from charters this year.
DeleteThat's a big share of charter passengers. Good on them.
DeleteCharters have been Air Serbia's saving grace this summer.
DeleteThis is the best way to make money.
DeleteGood for them, with this extra revenue they will get extra cash and there will be less of a burden on taxpayers.
DeleteLet's see how they manage next year when they have gotten rid of so many planes.
DeleteMaybe soon they will launch exotic charters to Maldives,Zanzibar,Cuba,Mexico,Thailand!
ReplyDeleteThis is Air Serbia we are talking about so I highly doubt it.
DeleteAnonymous09:20
DeleteAir Serbia is anything but intransigent, so I'm not quite sure what you are alluding to?
Exactly my thoughts!
DeleteHavana and (at least) one more Caribbean destination during the winter times (Punta Cana, Willemstad/Kralendijk, Bridgetown, St. Martin) would do miracles for transfer numbers and P2P!
For Havana and Punta Cana we do not even need visas (Dominican Republic visa issued on arrival 5 USD), so at least during winter times they would work well.
I mean, 5 days per week A330 idles on tarmac in Belgrade! Make that bi*ch work!!!
Goodness, 2020 was such a disaster. Under 900,000 passengers.
ReplyDeleteWell the world stopped for 2 months.
DeleteI know. It's just an observation at how big the initial covid blow was.
DeleteSuper!
ReplyDeleteNow they have over 50 destinations (Wikipedia shows)!
They don't have over 50 destinations.
DeleteMore like 36/37 at the moment.
DeleteGood news is that Serbia is receiving 1.000 units of the oral anti-covid drug this month. It should lower hospitalizations and death rates which is great. With covid numbers going down and with drug almost here, hopefully it will slowly help in aviation recovery. This year was already very good. I am sure 2022 will be the same.
ReplyDeleteThe early covid wave in Serbia will still negatively impact JU because it had to deal with early Covid wave in September, October and part of November and now has to deal with the wave in rest of Europe for another two months even though situation in Serbia is rather good.
DeleteAll things considered pretty good. My guess is they could handle around 1.6 million passengers this year.
ReplyDeleteSomebody is doing something right.
DeleteImpressive
ReplyDeleteNicely done JU.
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting (and more important) to know what were the financial costs to achieve these operational results.
ReplyDeleteJU performed well because our government didn't put us in an endless and costly lockdown.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteTime for a second A330 to join the fleet.
ReplyDeleteYes a 2nd A330 should join.. start other USA markets and Toronto, Asia expansion.
DeleteEncouraging results
ReplyDeleteHope we see them expand even more next year
ReplyDeleteThey will launch the 10 new PSO routes. Plus maybe they start one or two new routes from BEG.
DeleteIf an opportunity presents itself I'm sure they will.
DeleteThey will need more planes next summer, that's for sure.
DeleteGood joob, many airlines are in a worse off position than Air Serbia.
ReplyDeleteGenerating this result in the middle of a pandemic is an achievement.
DeleteAre all JU aircraft operational at the moment?
ReplyDeleteDon't think so
DeleteCongratulations
ReplyDeleteThis would mean BEG has surpassed 3 million passengers.
ReplyDeleteThat isn't bad at all.
DeleteTheir goal was 2.9 million so it's good.
DeleteImpressive. This is more passengers than some capital city airports in ex-yu have.
ReplyDeleteMore then most ex-Yu airports actually.
Delete*than
DeleteThe load factor is good considering the situation.
ReplyDeleteJust a few points behind 2019!
DeleteI'm surprised with the LF. Not too far off in 2019 levels.
DeleteKeep in mind they had much more capacity in 2019.
DeleteLF is not bad when you take the charter service into account and it helps in pushing the numbers however the LF is quite poor on regular service. Remember one Y tube video where 8 (or 11) passengers are flying TIA - BEG on a A319. Flight was quite full going to TIA but overall it is around +/- 40%
Delete^you really can't judge load factor on a route based on a single flight.
DeleteIn the rest of Europe the LF among airlines is even worse.
DeleteWhat is the EU avarage?
DeleteThose are great numbers regarding the general situation
ReplyDeleteGood news is coming on a daily basis from JU. It is good to see how well they maintain their network and increase frequencies.
ReplyDeleteSome increase but some decrease too.
DeleteAs they managed to get charters to pre-pandemic levels, lets see how fast they can restore regular flights.
ReplyDeleteMost have been restored.
DeleteLoads are solid
ReplyDeleteMontenegro Airlines' bankruptcy certainly helped.
ReplyDeleteOn the Montenegro-Serbia flights they certainly did
DeleteOthers too.
DeleteYes, several other of JU's routes benefited from YM's demise. Especially Russian market.
DeleteKeep up the good work
ReplyDeleteBoth BEG and JU had a good year. I wonder how cargo did. I noticed DHL upgraded BEG from B734 to B752 and flights operate to Italy in stead of Austria.
ReplyDeleteAt the start of summer they forecast they would reach 45% passenger levels in 2021 but they are up to 57%. That's good.
ReplyDeleteThey obviously miscalculated, which was illustrated by them needing to wetlease a plane this summet.
DeleteIt was an expensive miscalculation.
DeleteThey should consider some new charter destinations.
ReplyDeleteIt's up to tour operators not JU.
DeleteTime to think about long haul charters
DeleteIt's already been discussed before. JU said the costs would be too high for this type of charter.
DeleteThe tour operators would also have to lobby for the airline to start these flights and they are just as unimaginative and lazy as Air Serbia.
DeleteGood job.
ReplyDeleteIt will be nice to develop the cargo segment as well.
ReplyDeleteThey are the leader of everything in Serbia. Regular, charter, regional, intercontinental flights.
BEG also has the most cargo traffic in ex-Yu.
DeleteThis is true.
Delete2020 statistics:
BEG: 20,064 tons
LJU: 10,559 tons
ZAG: 9,852 tons
Thank you for the list
DeleteIt is interesting that Belgrade is ahead of Sofia this year, which shows that despite the pandemic, Serbia has not suffered so much. Sofia served 7 million passengers in 2019, there is a decline in Varna and Burgas.
ReplyDeleteAnd this despite Bulgarians not being banned from entering the EU for the better half of the year.
DeleteI think LCCs reduced operations out of Sofia heavily.
DeleteSo hopefully we could expect around 2 million passengers next year?
ReplyDeleteI think they can do even better than that.
DeleteIt all depends on how this Covid virus develops.
DeleteJury is still out on the latest vafiant.
DeleteFor me, the only disappointment with JU is their fleet which is old, some of the planes are literally falling apart inside. The rest of the airline seems to function rather well.
ReplyDeleteI expect disasterous year for whole air bussiness.... ramps will be everywhere
ReplyDeleteWe will see. This will have to end at one point.
Delete