Air Serbia posts strong operational results for 2021


Air Serbia has achieved strong operational results for 2021, which continued to be heavily affected by the coronavirus pandemic. The airline saw improvements in almost all key performance indicators, with its figures above the European industry average. It carried 1.586.665 passengers in 2021, representing an increase of 83% on the year before, with the airline’s average annual cabin load factor standing at 64%. The carrier’s traffic volume grew 39% compared to 2020 but is still down 35% on the pre-pandemic and record-breaking 2019. Its best performing routes in 2021 were New York, Moscow, Tivat, Paris, Podgorica, Zurich, Istanbul, Amsterdam, London and Athens. On flights to New York, Air Serbia reported an average load factor of 71%, growing to 80% during the summer months. The route’s performance almost reached pre-pandemic levels last year. Since launching its sole long haul service in 2016, Air Serbia has carried more than 360.000 passengers between Belgrade and the Big Apple.

Air Serbia’s passenger share at Nikola Tesla Airport hovered around 50% throughout the year, which is an improvement on its pre-Covid figures. During 2021, Air Serbia Cargo registered its best results on record with its performance surpassing the pre-pandemic period by as much as 55%. During the summer season, from mid-April to the end of October of 2021, Air Serbia operated a total of 1.100 round trip charter flights, carrying approximately 140.000 tourists to popular resorts in Turkey, Egypt and Greece. The most popular charter destinations among Serbian travellers last year were Antalya in Turkey and Hurghada in Egypt. In addition, Air Serbia’s Premium Lounge at Belgrade Airport was visited by 29.090 passengers during 2021, marking its second-best result since opening its doors in 2015.


Commenting on the airline’s performance, Air Serbia’s CEO, Jiri Marek, said, “By being flexible, adapting quickly to changes on the market, using sound resource management and constantly embracing innovation, we managed to accomplish satisfactory results during the biggest global crisis in our industry. We are glad that the previous year was better than 2020 and we are prepared for a strong expansion in the coming period”. He added, “The challenges we successfully overcame represent a firm foundation for further development, enabling us to implement the strategy we planned before the pandemic. We are looking forward to a further expansion in markets in Europe and the Middle East, between April and June, when we will be launching flights to as many as twelve destinations from the Serbian capital. We began a stage of continued growth as a regional leader, and we are already on track to meeting the goals initially set for 2023, which is reaching pre-pandemic levels from the record-breaking 2019”.



Comments

  1. Anonymous09:01

    Good result

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous11:37

      And what about financial results?

      Delete
    2. Anonymous11:38

      They are released in July.

      Delete
  2. Anonymous09:02

    Congrats. The huge demand for holiday flights this summer really helped them as I think their charter performance was better than pre-pandemic years

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:30

      I'm interested to see what the volume of charters will be this year. Will it match 2021?

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:32

      It will probably be above 2021 levels.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:33

      If they have the aircraft for it.

      Delete
  3. Anonymous09:03

    How many passengers did they have in 2019?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:06

      2.8 million

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:06

      Thanks. Is it possible that they will reach this number this year?

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:09

      And in 2020 they had 899.000 :/

      Delete
    4. Anonymous09:19

      Do you know what was the load factor in 2019?

      Delete
    5. Anonymous09:23

      74%

      Delete
    6. Anonymous09:47

      @9.06
      It all depends on how this Covid virus develops.

      Delete
    7. Anonymous10:14

      The CEO certainly thinks so

      "We began a stage of continued growth as a regional leader, and we are already on track to meeting the goals initially set for 2023, which is reaching pre-pandemic levels from the record-breaking 2019”

      Delete
    8. Anonymous10:22

      Well in his statement he doesn't mention what will return to pre-Covid levels ;) It could be anything.

      Delete
  4. Anonymous09:04

    How many detitanations will JU have this summer?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:08

      57 by my count.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:09

      This is scheduled routes, not including charters.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:10

      Quite an improvement as in summer 2021 they had 36.

      Delete
  5. Anonymous09:10

    All things considered pretty good.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:13

      Somebody is doing something right.

      Delete
  6. Anonymous09:11

    Who would have thought New York would become their best performing route.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:14

      Time for a second A330 to join the fleet.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:14

      Definitely not the gentlefolk who were hysterically trying to convince us how this was, from the start, a failed Vucic political project.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:15

      ^ And those same people are now claiming the same thing that there is talk of a second and third long haul route.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous09:16

      Psi laju, karavan prolazi.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous09:22

      You forget that to US was not possible to enter from EU, so this LF doesn't have anything to do with JU strategy.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous09:26

      Or perhaps it does, because they too could have reduced frequencies but they kept them at pre-pandemic levels and replaced their A330 to get a cheaper lease rate to generate better results.

      Delete
    7. Anonymous09:27

      They also renegotiated their landing and service fees in New York and switched terminals. So it certainly seems they had a strategy in place to improve results on their New York route. If they didn't have a strategy they would have done nothing.

      Delete
    8. Anonymous16:30

      So the response to "JFK is Vucic's project" is "Vucic said it's profitable". Strong argument.

      Delete
    9. Anonymous09:10

      It's hilarious that people do not have a memory to remember the same things repeated every year.. i.e. year 2018: "JFK operations have finally become profitable, whoever claims otherwise is a traitor!", year 2019: "As of this year JFK flights started to make money, this is a result of our vision!", year 2020: "Corona corona...", year 2021: "JFK flights are finally profitable despite(!) corona, whoever claims otherwise is a hater!" It looks like the route is becoming profitable every year for the first time :))

      Delete
  7. Anonymous09:11

    Go Serbia!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous09:12

    Not surprised cargo is performing the best it has. Is there any value in them getting 1 cargo plane?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think maybe a small freighter atr 42 or saab 340 would be OK. But I am not an expert

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:41

      I remember Adria used to have a small cargo plane for some years. A Saab I believe. Anyone know what they transported or what was the purpose of it?

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:46

      It will be nice to develop the cargo segment as well.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous09:57

      They should have converted those 733 into freighters.

      Delete
  9. Anonymous09:13

    Nicely done JU.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous09:13

    It would be interesting (and more important) to know what were the financial costs to achieve these operational results.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:16

      They publish their financial results in July. Operational results are very important and a good indicator of the health of an airline and the market it serves.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous16:01

      One interesting observation: every time positive news are published about Air Serbia there seems to be a number of rookies showing up with questions about Air Serbia financial results. They don't ask questions about Air Serbia fleet, destinations etc but somehow they are unable to find out when is Air Serbia publishing financial results.

      Every single time. Amazing bunch, aren't they?

      Delete
    3. Anonymous16:35

      It's more like common sense to match operational and financial results to get sense of someone's state of business. Nothing personal.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous19:12

      Nothing personal, but how come it's easy to google things like "Air Serbia fleet" but somehow it's not easy to search for "Air Serbia financial results" ? This exact same question about financial results repeats every single time positive news are published about Air Serbia. Common sense says it's not a coincidence. Some people have a problem with Air Serbia and it shows.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous09:09

      I see more questions on this portal about JU fleet than about their financial result. Why 1 or 2 questions about JU finances bother you so much?

      Delete
    6. Anonymous23:47

      It was already answered. Care to read?

      Delete
  11. Anonymous09:14

    Encouraging results

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous09:17

    Good job, many airlines are in a worse off position than Air Serbia.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous09:18

    This is more passengers than most capital city airports in ex-yu had in 2021.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous09:18

    The load factor is good considering the situation.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Anonymous09:20

    And then February 2022 came and their whole network absolutely collapsed. Hopefully the situation improves soon.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:23

      Their network didn't collapse. There is significantly less demand and there are still many travel restrictions in place. They operated far fewer flights and routes last February. At the end of the day, they are also taking note of their financial results and flying routes that will generate revenue and profit, rather than pleasing aviation fans.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:54

      Market doesn't seem to be affected with omicron more than in January. JU is cutting way more than others at BEG so that is warning sign

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:56

      Market is very much affected by Omicron. Perhaps you missed the hundreds upon hundreds of cancelled flights by Lufthansa, Austrian, Swiss, Wizz Air, Ryanair, Eurowings etc.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous09:57

      Wizz Air alone has suspended over 120 routes between January and March.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous16:38

      120 out of how much? Don't see anyone with quarter of network out of business right now.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous16:40

      Air Serbia has temporarily suspended total of 3 routes for the month of February. For a network of 39 routes at the moment, that is not a quarter. Work on your maths.

      Delete
    7. Anonymous09:12

      They suspended 3 routes but overall cut is one quarter of their January flights

      Delete
    8. Anonymous09:14

      No, they did not. Please stop using Purger as a relevant source for anything.

      Delete
  16. Good results by Air Serbia as national airline.
    As Belgrade Airport fast changing and building
    larger Hub in part part of Europe.
    Naturally air Serbia will be major on this Airport.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous15:06

      Tako je Čika Rade.

      Delete
  17. Anonymous09:29

    Loads are solid

    ReplyDelete
  18. Good results by Air Serbia as national airline.
    As Belgrade Airport fast changing and building
    larger Hub in this part of Europe.
    Naturally air Serbia will be major operating airline on this Airport. 🛫🌐✈

    ReplyDelete
  19. Anonymous09:35

    At the start of summer they forecast they would reach 45% passenger levels in 2021 but they they managed 54%. That's good.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:46

      They obviously miscalculated, which was illustrated by them needing to wetlease a plane this summer.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:08

      That was one expensive miscalculation.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10:13

      It just shows the market will recover much faster than some expected once restrictions are not in the way.

      Delete
    4. JATBEGMEL12:24

      @10,08

      Would you care to share how expensive it was? Or the difference between a 3 month wet lease and long term dry leasing an aircraft that would be barely flying 6 months.

      Delete
  20. Anonymous09:49

    For an airline operating from a country that is not exactly a tourist mecca and whose citizens were unable to enter the EU for over half of 2021, these results are excellent.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:06

      +1

      Delete
    2. And now compare it with neighbouring company and country which is tourist mecca and whose citizens could move freely around EU all the time, and their results

      Delete
    3. Anonymous18:22

      Stvarno si dosadan!

      Delete
    4. Pa ako sam izazvao reakciju kod Vas, mozda izazovem i kod nekoga tko moze nesto promijeniti. Znam da su sanse u promilima, ali dok postoji i jedan promil sanse, nastavljam. A Vas pozivam da ubuduce ne citate ono sto sam napisao ako sam Vam dosadan. I samo jos jedna sitnica : ovaca nemam i nikada ih nisam cuvao, a Vi tikajte one s kojima ste ih cuvali. Postovanje!

      Delete
  21. Anonymous10:06

    This is good but still unfortunate they have not resumes several destinations since Covid.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. JATBEGMEL11:59

      HEL, KBP, CAI, TLV. A few, not several.

      In the mean time they have announced AER, VLC, PMI, TRS, BLQ, AMM, LYS, HAJ, NUE and SZG.

      Delete
  22. Anonymous10:07

    Charters have been Air Serbia's saving grace last summer.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:12

      It was a combination of things. Good number of transfer passengers also helped.

      Delete
  23. Anonymous10:13

    Encouraging results

    ReplyDelete
  24. Anonymous10:23

    Overall 2021 has turned out relatively well for JU. They managed above average passenger numbers, introduced some new routes, retired their oldest aircraft, repaid the Etihad Partners loan in full.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Anonymous10:24

    An alliance now would be very beneficial for them, considering the size of their upcoming summer network. Have they actually ever looked into it?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:25

      They should join Oneworld which is currently fishing for new members. Qatar CEO is now leading Oneworld and he said his main priority was significantly expanding the alliance.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:43

      You need to pau to join an alliance. So it does not come cheap.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous11:07

      Air Serbia in a tandem with Qatar could do wonders.

      Delete
    4. JATBEGMEL11:53

      @11,07

      QR did amazing with Air Italy...oh wait.

      @10,25

      JU has next to no partnerships with One World members. In fact, they partner mostly with Sky Team airlines and were at one point invited to join SkyTeam. JU barely fly into One World hubs (LHR, MAD, JFK and soon AMM), one of which is the only European country to request visas for Serbian nationals to even transit the country let alone enter and is insistent on it. LHR has rejected JU additional slots. So why One World?

      Delete
    5. Maybe they can join Star Cartel, withdraw from JFK, cancel plans for additional long haul, cancel half of the services, phase out all or most of the medium range Airbuses, and start 10 daily to MUC and FRA, for peanuts, of course, making heavy losses, and doing all that, they can sing Danke Deutschland. Sounds familiar?

      Delete
  26. Anonymous10:49

    ok they are struggling as many other airlines. But let's wait and see turnover vs state aid received last year.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:51

      They are struggling? Their results are better than most airlines in southeastern Europe.

      Delete
  27. Anonymous10:59

    Good to see demand returning

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous23:52

      They still need to add 1.8 million passengers to return to 2019 levels. I think that will be difficult in 2022 but let's see.

      Delete
  28. Anonymous10:59

    Wow at the number of passengers on charter flights.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous23:52

      Very profitable sector for them.

      Delete
  29. Anonymous11:00

    Good to see New York among top performing routes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous11:00

      It is the top performing :D although this has been the case for some time.

      Delete
  30. Anonymous11:00

    Their fleet will be starched to the limit if they don't get more planes for the summer.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. JATBEGMEL11:41

      Stating the obvious here. However, they are not stretched, they are short of aircraft.

      They are down 2 A319's compared to last summer and 2 additional B737's had to be leased in short term. So far 4 short. Plus the new destinations announced recently.

      Additional aircraft have already started to arrive, YU-ALY being the first. We found out here first of their new ATR's before JU released a statement. Patience.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous23:51

      Yes but they will need more A319s. Or maybe they go for something like the CRJ900 like they did in 2019.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous23:51

      In 2019 they even had an Etihad A320 operate just to London.

      Delete
    4. I thought that A320 from Etihad was just operating on their behalf to keep the slots Etihad bought.

      Delete
  31. Anonymous13:09

    They never said they would swap ATRs 1:1. We may witness the arrival of newer ATRs, enlarged ATR fleed over the summer, and only then the retirement of the older aircraft.

    However, I do wonder how many A32S they need for the Summer schedule.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous13:15

      Marek said around 2 weeks ago that entire ATR fleet will be replaced with the newer ones coming this year. But he said this will happen until the end of the year so they will have more than 5 in use.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous23:50

      Well one of the dormant ATRs that has been sitting on the apron since November had a test flight yesterday. So it's coming back into service.

      Delete
  32. 71% lf on BEG-JFK and couple of days ago vučić claimed that this was profitable????!!?!?!!?!?!?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous15:52

      Ako ti je lakse, i Er Srbija je rekla da je profitabilna. Sad kad smo izbacili politicke ostrascenosti iz price da ukljucimo mozak i pogledamo cinjenice: Nije samo LF vec yield razlog za profitabilnost. JU je bio u situaciji da trazi vecu cenu od pocetka kovida iz ociglednih razloga. Onda je tu povecani kargo promet od pocetka kovida. Dodaj jeftiniji A330 lizing, veci broj mesta u biznis klasi, jeftinije troskove na drugom terminalu na JFK itd.

      Delete
    2. JATBEGMEL16:26

      @Petar

      CLF doesn't really say if a flight is profitable or not. Lots of factors play into this. Ticket prices, business loads, cargo. What you missed in the article is that CLF is also higher in the summer months.

      Looking at fares, quick check on google flights, however reliable they are, BEG-JFK return for Y class, prices are on the higher side. JU isn't the cheapest option either to a couple of their common transfer destinations TGD and TIA, with LH group being roughly 85-180€ cheaper, TK around 255€ cheaper. For J class on the other hand, JU is the cheapest with a price difference of roughly 330€ compared to no#2 TK. However, the TGD/TIA-BEG-TGD/TIA sectors are mostly on the ATR with no J class.

      Factor in cargo as well, which is in high demand, as well as lower operational costs with a cheaper aircraft and cheaper handling fees in JFK. Perhaps overall it is a profitable route.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous23:49

      Exactly, LF means little. You can sell out all tickets on a plane for 1 euro and have 100% LF while operating with a huge loss.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous09:32

      LF means a lot, especially on transatlantic routes. And it's not only the LF, but also the fare, in which JU comes the last among competitors.

      But life is magic, somehow everyone else loses money and JU generates profit.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous23:52

      It's not magic. If you care to read those commnets and research state of transatlantic routes since pandemic you would understand. But you don't care to understand, you are here to hate Air Serbia.

      Delete
  33. Anonymous23:49

    Good result. Now looking forward to seeing how Croatia Airlines and Air Montenegro performed last year.

    ReplyDelete

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