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Air Serbia has cancelled plans to launch flights between Belgrade and Sochi amid the ongoing war in Ukraine and a volatile economic climate in Russia. Ticket sales for the route have been discontinued. The flights, which were originally part of the company's line-up of thirteen new destinations for this summer, were due to be inaugurated on June 2 and run twice per week. The airline was relying on transfer passengers to fill seats on the route, particularly targeting onward connections to Berlin, Vienna, Zurich, Dusseldorf, London, Ljubljana, Milan, Paris, Prague, Podgorica, Rome, Tivat, Venice and Zagreb. Air Serbia scheduled its Sochi flights in late January, well before the outbreak of the war in Ukraine.
This summer, Air Serbia is maintaining eight weekly flights to Moscow and three weekly services to St Petersburg. Its seasonal operations to Krasnodar and Rostov on Don have not resumed after the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency, Rosaviatsiya, extended a flight ban across eleven airports in central and southern Russia for the sixth time. The ban has been implemented due to safety concerns in the area following the outbreak of war in Ukraine. Currently in force until early tomorrow morning, the ban is expected to be extended further. Air Serbia has scheduled its preliminary service resumption to Krasnodar for May 1 and to Rostov for June 15, however, this is subject to change.
Air Serbia is continuing to be targeted for maintaining operations to Russia. Yesterday evening, the airline's sales office in downtown Belgrade was evacuated following a hoax bomb threat. Similarly, Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport was evacuated yesterday after an anonymous e-mail warned of a bomb, forcing several incoming flights to divert and others to be cancelled. Its website has also been hit by hackers. Air Serbia's operations to Russia have been the target of over a dozen threats over the past month, with the e-mails becoming more sinister, now including death threats against the company's staff. All of the tip-offs have so far proven to be false, with the e-mails being sent from Ukraine and Poland.
Despite the suspension of its planned Sochi flights, Air Serbia will go ahead with the launch of twelve new routes. The carrier's CEO, Jiri Marek noted, “New destinations that will be available from June onwards are Amman, Bologna, Bari, Hanover, Lyon, Nuremberg, Palma, Salzburg and Trieste. As an introduction to the exciting summer ahead, we are starting the expansion of our network with beautiful Valencia on April 21”. The carrier is also due to start operations from Belgrade to Rijeka, Niš to Athens, as well as from Kraljevo to Tivat in June.
Will they replace it with another route?
ReplyDeleteThey could especially since it's not such a short rotation.
DeleteWhat route would you suggest?
DeleteI suggest night flights to Ankara <3
DeleteBut isn't there already Anadolujet to Ankara? I would prefer some unserved route.
DeleteThe entire Sochi rotation took 6 hours (over night). Don't know what could work within that timeframe.
DeleteThere is and they seem to be doing really well, they are considering adding a third flight... as was reported elsewhere.
DeleteI wish the situation in Lebanon was better so that they could bring back BEY. However with the economic situation there I don't see it happening any time soon. It also doesn't help that Aegean's A320 was shot while on final approach.
Interestingly I constantly see some Serbian travel agency advertising Lebanon trips.
DeleteDoes Cairo fall within that 6 hour rotation or no?
DeleteNope, Cairo is too far since flying time is 02.45 and block is somewhere around 3 hours.
DeleteThe issue is that these flights would have to be replaced by something that is going after transfers. You can't put a flight to some German city at to depart BEG at midnight.
DeleteTrue. It is a tricky slot to replace.
DeleteWhy not introduce two weekly scheduled Antalya flights? You have heaps of charters. The scheduled flights would sell well and you can run them in the middle of the night.
DeleteIf they introduce scheduled flights to AYT then it would anger TK and Anadoloujet.
DeleteThere aren't that many options they can use at the moment. Russia was fantastic because flights fit. Maybe they could introduce 2 weekly flights to Damascus :D
True, I forgot about the issues with Serbia-Turkey bilateral.
DeleteThey should just bring back Tel Aviv.
Delete^ Would there be enough demand? Most Israeli prefer to fly with Israeli airlines and they will use Arkia and Israair.
DeleteBEG-TLV flight time is 2H50M.
DeleteOr at least that is how Arkia displays its flight time from BEG.
DeleteConsidering the current global situation they should stick with what they have. 12 new routes is more than enough for this summer.
DeleteThey should replace it with scheduled flights to Heraklion. BEG-HER is on fire during summer
DeleteAegean is already starting Heraklion
DeletePlus there are Wizz Air flights from Belgrade to Heraklion.
DeletePerhaps JU may consider Batumi in Georgia. It would add up not more than 10 minutes per leg compared to Sochi
Delete^ +100
DeleteIt would make a lot of sense
https://www.exyuaviation.com/2021/10/airlines-in-discussions-over-serbia.html
I also think Georgia would be a good replacement for ROV and KRR. Batumi is closer and better for a KRR or AER replacement, TBS would be a good alternative to ROV.
DeleteAlternatively, restarting TLV could be an option.
How long would BEG-TBS be?
DeleteBEG-TBS would be roughly 03:15, TBS-BEG 03:30.
DeleteMakes sense
ReplyDeleteThese threats are seriously getting out of hand. There was utter chaos in BEG yesterday.
ReplyDeleteImbeciles. They should be stopped.
DeleteYou really wonder if it is worth it anymore to keep these Russia flights.
DeleteFunny how the West didn't waste any time in attacking Serbia for not introducing sanctions against Russia yet they are quiet when it comes to condemning these terrorist actions from Ukraine especially since JU crew got death threats.
DeleteOf course it is worth it because planes are packed to the last seat. Why should they stop them? Just because a few extremists think they have the power just because they are sitting at some keyboard?
DeleteI have a feeling these attacks are orchestrated by the Ukrainian government. After all they were the first to attack JU.
Several JU flights were diverted to Nis last night because of this.
DeleteBelgrade Airport site is still under attack...
DeleteIn all honesty Serbian government should take this a bit more seriously.
DeleteWell, I think the Serbian government is busy with licking its wounds after the elections. lol
DeleteThey are more preoccupied with surviving in Belgrade than with dealing with JU. If I were them I would immediately kick out their ambassador from Serbia.
Well thankfully you are not them. Running politics based on your personal emotions is the worst thing you can do.
DeleteThis has nothing to do with emotions but with reason. Ukraine has become extremely hostile towards Serbia and is negatively affecting its economy. Kicking out the ambassador of a hostile nation is the right thing to do. After all, we would be streamlining our foreign policy with the EU which is not wasting a single moment when it comes to kicking out Russian diplomats.
DeleteIn any case some action should be taken. At least summoning the Ukrainian ambassador for talks, as Hungary did just today.
DeleteDoes anyone remember the scheduling for this route?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/p/air-serbia-belgrade-sochi.html
DeleteThank you
DeleteI expected this would happen.
ReplyDeleteGood that it is just one route impacted.
ReplyDeleteWell potentially three - KRR and ROV too.
DeleteI'm surprised they are keeping these two since I thought these were also mostly filled with transfers.
DeleteLet's wait and see what happens with their Russia flights in the end.
DeleteConsidering that the number of transfers would have been much much lower and I doubt many foreigners are going to head to a summer in Russia, it was the only rational thing to do.
ReplyDeleteRussia has also introduced visas for all EU countries today.
DeleteI thought it was already the case before as Russian need visas for all EU countries.
DeleteTo be more precise, citizens of several EU Member States, Norway, Switzerland, Denmark, and Iceland, will no longer be able to benefit from a simplified visa issuance scheme.
DeleteNothing strange here
ReplyDeleteI wonder if anyone bought tickets for this route. They were on sale for at least a month.
ReplyDeleteI doubt they would have cancelled it if there were too many bookings.
DeleteI'm assuming that many who bought tickets cancelled them.
DeleteHighly likely
DeleteNot surprised
ReplyDeleteSmartest decision they could make at the moment.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteProbably for the best
ReplyDeleteI honestly think that Air Serbia Management has done quite a good job in the last months. Still, I think that more investments shall go into premium passengers & facilities. I believe that a very good model for Air Serbia to look after (similar size) is Aegean. Personally, I think Aegean is an underrated airline and they just opened an amazing new lounge at Athens airport: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/aegean-airlines-miles-bonus/2074323-pictures-new-extra-schengen-a3-lounge-ath.html
ReplyDeleteI think Air Serbia has good premium facilities. They have a great business class lounge in Belgrade and their business class and service on the A330 is excellent. As for inter European business, they are above average in comparison to other European airlines. Yes you get the same economy seat but at least you get a menu and 3 food choices. Comparing to Lufthansa, inter European business they are another league.
DeleteI agree with you that A3 is a great airline.
What I think JU should do the most and what would also improve the flight experience is a much younger fleet (or brand new planes).
Agree with the above. Although, shame they ended wifi on most planes as well as their inflight entertainment streaming service. This set them apart from many European airlines.
DeleteDoes TK fly to Sochi?
ReplyDeleteYes they do
DeleteDo you happen to know how many times per week?
DeleteThey currently fly 4 times per week with the A321.
DeleteAnd there are 19 weekly Sochi-Istanbul flights operated by Aeroflot.
DeleteWOW
DeleteAll are operated by Sukhoi Superjet 100
DeleteYes, so they avoid their planes being potentially impounded in IST.
DeleteSochi is Aeroflot's new base from which they are operating a lot of new flights (all with Sukhois). They had to open a base in Sochi because it is south enough to reach desired destinations with the SSJ100.
DeleteI doubted they would be successful.
ReplyDeleteThey have been successful in other similar cities in Russia. They would have been here too. Of course the current situation is not suitable for such flights.
DeleteThey were quite quiet about this suspension.
ReplyDeleteName me an airline that advertises a route cancellation or suspension...
DeleteThey should launch something else as a replacement.
ReplyDeleteI don't think they will be doing so. They have 12 new other routes and that is above what most other European airlines of its size are doing.
DeleteThis is an interesting decision. The war will likely be over by June.
ReplyDeleteBut the economic situation and isolation probably will not.
DeleteIt will take decades and decades for Russia to recover from this war, whichever way it ends.
DeleteThey could bring back Helsinki instead.
ReplyDeleteWho is going to fly from Helsinki on a flight that departs at 4AM?
DeleteDoes HEL have flights in the middle of the night?
DeleteThey do
DeleteRotation wise it would fit perfectly
DeleteThere isn't sufficient demand for HEL. Route didn't perform well before Covid. They used the CRJ900 on this route during the height of summer.
DeleteMiddnight flights to HEL would connect into the Western European flights, which makes no sense. The only logical connection in that bank would perhaps be ZAG, TGD, TIV and LJU. With a full regional network, HEL was a weak destination for JU.
DeleteYes, I don't think we will see HEL back any time soon.
DeleteInterestingly Wizz Air planned Belgrade-Turku as part of its 2020 expansion which never came to life.
DeleteWhy not Trabzon (Turkey) or Yerevan (Armenia) or Baku (Azerbaijan)? Baku would be perfect!
ReplyDeleteI think Turkey is problematic due to bilateral. According to that recent ex-yu article Tbilisi actually has the most point to point demand in the Caucuses from Belgrade, then Baku, Sochi and then Yerevan.
DeleteThe question is which has the most transfer potential.
DeleteThe hack attack on BEG's website must have been significant since it is still down.
ReplyDeleteIt's back online now.
DeleteFinally
DeleteBanja Luka should look into offering a deal for JU to fly to Sochi. It will certainly pick up a lot more transfers than it currently has. Plus no way would Ukrainians or Polaks would dare send threats. They wouldn't know who to email.
ReplyDelete