Air Serbia plans to introduce up to eight aircraft to its fleet this summer as part of its expansion plans. Some of the planes will only be used during the summer months before being returned to their lessors or operators. Apart from the incoming four ATR72-600 turboprops, which are all expected to enter the fleet by the height of the summer season, the airline has announced the arrival of an Airbus A319 jet, which is due to enter the fleet in late May or early June. A further two Airbus A320-family aircraft are being considered along with the addition of a Boeing 737 jet to its fleet. However, plans remain subject to change due to ongoing market volatility. Air Serbia is set to introduce thirteen new routes this summer and will boast a record charter season.
The Serbian flag carrier currently operates a fleet of seventeen aircraft. It is due to phase out its ATR72-200 and -500 turboprops by the end of the year as it takes delivery of the newer -600 version. Despite some uncertainties, Air Serbia’s CEO, Jiri Marek, recently noted, “I’m proud that we are continuing to record growth in passenger numbers month on month. This encourages and provides us with hope that we are moving closer towards a full recovery in air transport and the decline of the pandemic, while it also serves to confirm that we have taken sound strategic decisions and moved in the right direction even during the most difficult of periods. We are continuing in the same direction: towards new opportunities, convinced that passengers are equally looking forward to additional travel and holiday opportunities”.
As a result of its planned fleet and network growth, Air Serbia has begun hiring new crew members for the first time in two years. Over the weekend, the carrier held an assessment day in Belgrade, with over 200 candidates applying. “An exciting and challenging summer season awaits us, with many flights and destinations, so for that reason, we are opening our doors to new colleagues, in order to jointly contribute to achieving planned goals and providing the highest quality of service to our passengers”, Milica Netković, Air Serbia’s General Manager for People and Performance, said. It marks the airline’s twelfth cabin crew assessment day since it rebranded in 2013, with previous events also taking place in Banja Luka, Podgorica and Niš.
Comments
"A further two Airbus A320-family aircraft are being considered along with the addition of a Boeing 737 jet to its fleet."
* 2 A319 dry lease, 1 A319 wetlease, 1 B737 wet lease
Most are aircraft replacements. So it means they are growing their fleet by 1 (or 2) A319s? The other are summer wet-leases.
The title is very misleading for the reasons above + when you read the article, it says that the ATRs replacements will be introduced by year-end (so not summer).
Thanks
Dry lease is longer term and involves your own airline's crew operating the aircraft. Also usually involves repainting the aircraft in your own livery.
During last summer, Air Serbia wetleased Transavia B737 which was operated by Czech crew.
They have a single A320 that was scheduled to Moscow most of the days but now can't fly and the A319 is being sent instead.
Source: trust me bro
I think the next ATR will be YU-APZ, followed by YU-ASA.
VCE-BEG 40 pax
Not bad on the flight back
Because of gate space planning, BEG needs to know more or less to know how to plan ahead.
JU has a large uptick in traffic for 3 months. For the other 9 months, its fleet is sufficient. Wet leasing allows them that added short term capacity. JU isn't the only airline to do that. It's not ideal, but it's cheaper than holding onto additional capacity for months at a time, especially during periods of uncertainty. Most important thing is that additional dry leases are coming in, which means an overall growth in their fleet.
With wet lease, choice of aircraft doesn't matter. They used to wet lease CRJ's before for the summer season, which too wasn't part of their fleet.
INI-ATH
KVO-TIV
BEG-BRI
BEG-PMI
BEG-RJK
Year round:
BEG-AMM
BEG-BLQ
BEG-HAJ
BEG-LYS
BEG-NUE
BEG-SZG
BEG-TRS
BEG-VLC
But A220 is nice plane.Very quiet and beautiful.
On the one hand, it doesn't make sense from a ground handling perspective to introduce a new aircraft type if it's only one or two flying, but on the other hand, the aircraft's low fuel consumption might still make it interesting the way fuel prices are at the moment. My guess is that Air Baltic got a good price when ordering the aircraft so that they can afford to offer a good wetlease price that after all makes them a potential candidate along with other airlines offering older aircraft for wetlease.