Air Serbia with further potential for short-haul network growth

Air Serbia has begun the process of introducing twelve new routes this month with services to Trieste, Lyon, Hanover and Bari inaugurated over the past seven days, while Bologna, Nuremberg, Salzburg, Palma and Sochi are all set to follow this week. “Thanks to this important network expansion, we will be operating flights to more than seventy scheduled and charter destinations during the summer season”, the carrier’s CEO, Jiri Marek, said. The airline has put a greater focus on leisure destinations in Italy and Spain this summer with the leisure travel market recovering the quickest from the coronavirus pandemic. The likes of Bologna, Trieste and Valencia were all within the top twenty busiest unserved destinations from Belgrade until the Serbian carrier launched them this summer. Several points in these two markets, including Catania, Florence and Malaga, remain popular from the Serbian capital and potential future destinations.

Air Serbia has staved off introducing longer European sectors to its network which remain the most popular destinations from its hub in Belgrade. Lisbon is one of Belgrade’s busiest unserved routes, with Porto also fairing well. Wizz Air was to introduce services to the Portuguese capital in the summer of 2020 but cancelled its plans due to travel restrictions resulting from Covid-19 at the time. Previously, the route was operated by TAP Air Portugal for just six months, from July 2014 until January 2015. At the time, an airline spokesperson said, “The route performed well during the summer, but bookings for the winter months were not encouraging”. During the winter season, triangle flights via Budapest were maintained. The Portuguese carrier was also experiencing a chronic fleet shortage at the time and discontinued several other destinations in its European network. Another popular route which could be of potential interest to Air Serbia is Manchester, with the bulk of Belgrade traffic to and from the city currently being handled by KLM which launched services to the Serbian capital only last year.

Belgrade Airport has seen growing demand for flights from the main gateways in the Caucuses, which combined with transfer traffic to and from Western Europe and North America, could provide healthy loads on nonstop flights. The Georgian capital of Tbilisi was within the top twenty busiest unserved European cities from Belgrade. It was followed by Baku, Sochi and Yerevan. On the other hand, Krakow remains a potential destination for the Serbian carrier and the eleventh busiest unserved city in Europe. Last year, Mr Marek noted, “When it comes to Poland, we would most likely be interested in opening our own flights from Belgrade to one of the airports in the south of the country, perhaps to Krakow”. Air Serbia considered introducing flights to Poland’s second largest city as early back as 2014”.