NEWS FLASH
Air Serbia plans to utilise its wide-body Airbus A330-200 aircraft on flights between Belgrade and Zurich this April. The airline used the 257-seat jet on the route last Sunday. According to “AeroRoutes”, it will also make use of its wide-body between the two cities on April 16, 18, 23, 24 and April 30. All of the flights will be operated by its “Nikola Tesla” A330 jet (registered YU-ARB), with exception to the April 24 service, which will be maintained by the “Mihajlo Pupin” aircraft (registered YU-ARC). Similarly, the A330 to Zurich will be operated on the evening service, with exception to April 24, when it will be deployed on the morning flight. Changes remain possible. Zurich is one of Air Serbia’s and Belgrade Airport’s busiest routes.
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| Air Serbia A330 business class cabin |
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| Air Serbia A330 economy class cabin |
If they had enough A319 and A320 they wouldn't have to do it. I guess Marek failed to make JU Wizzier than Wizz Air so they have to do this.
ReplyDelete+1000
DeleteI'm kind of wondering what sort of CEO would make you happy. You get 40 new routes in 2 years, new long haul routes, replacement of old ATRs that were falling apart,. additional aircraft, second long haul plane and third coming shortly, profitability and you are still unhappy.
DeleteI just checked and it seems like my flight to LCA was 'downgraded' from A320 to A319.
DeleteHopefully their planes start arriving soon, either as fresh deliveries or from maintenance (scheduled and unscheduled).
Anon 10.45
DeleteI am sorry but I have to step in right here. All that is fine but this sort of behavior is unacceptable. Their operations are literally falling apart. Delays are chronic and every day it seems like another plane breaks down.
Growing left and right is fine but only if you can sustain this growth.
Aegean, airBaltic, Icelandair... are all rapidly growing but their network isn't experiencing daily meltdowns. I'd rather have JU grow at a slower pace than to have this situation.
As for Jat Tehnika, this is nothing new. We all knew they were useless a long time ago. They should have worked around that. What is worrisome is that we are not even in high season.
How the f**** can you compare A320 and A330?
DeleteObviously there is demand for something larger than the A320, and given that due to some unknown, hidden and mystic laws A321 doesn't exist as an aircraft on JU's radar (or there is some curse around it), A330 is all they can get.
@Nemjee,
DeleteThat is exactly right, as much progress Air Serbia has made the poor service and disruption can destroy it all again.
Also another area that isn't talked about, not just the planes is the customer service from Air Serbia staff, usually terrible, though some are good at their job.
Indeed, they seem to have a problem with talent retention. I honestly hope that next year they won't grow by more than 10%.
DeleteNow it's time to develop markets they already serve, build client loyalty and to ensure their employees are satisfied and that they are not using them as 'проточни бојлер' until something better comes along.
JU is extremely important for Serbia so it needs to set up foundation upon which it will build all future progress.
@11,01
DeleteThere is demand for something larger than A319, but not A320. JU and Wizz are not the same business models. JU needs frequencies and not capacity where as Wizz works with capacity to lower their costs and isn't so focused on frequencies. Bringing in more A320's is alot simpler than bringing in the A321 due to their crew already having type ratings for the aircraft, where as the A321 would require additional training. Considering the amount of new crew joining the airline lately, I doubt they'd have the capacity to train hundreds of crew for the A321. Up until recently even the A320 was overkill, but lately the results have been fantastic, with this winter showing massive improvements in the reduction of seasonality.
Lets also not forget to mention that if an A321 were to go AOG it would be an operational nightmare trying to accommodate pax, especially the pax difference between the A320 and A321 at best (~50 pax each sector), to the A319 is even worse (~80 pax per sector).
And you think they don't have problem with A320 switch to A319? A few days ago that happened and 30 people were in overbooking. So what would change with A321? Nothing. They would just sell more tickets and make more money. For ASL they dont care about passengers so ...
DeleteToday there are indeed a couple of serious delays especially the one to Tanjin with 6 and a half hours delay! Athens was late last night and so are Hanover and Salzburg.
DeleteIf such delays are allowed now before the peak season, it will be a big problem for JU.
@11,51
DeleteAbsolutely, 20-30 pax is less than 50-80. Same same. Difference between the A319 and A321 is only larger than a fully loaded ATR. No biggie. Why inconvenience up to 30 pax in the event of AOG when you could inconvenience 80.
A320 has 174 seats, A321 has 210 seats. That's not a difference of 80 seats.
DeleteA319 is 144 seats, A320 is 174, A321 is 216 seats. Difference between A319 and A321 is 72 seats or one ATR76.
DeletePeople on here seems to live in lala land. They obviously do not travel much or have a clear pic how much delays happen daily at most airlines. I have not yet departed from MUC, FRA AMS, ATH and BCN on time, and I have not flown JU from those airport and let me tell you over 60% of those flights depart late . Not to mention North America where delays are real bad. Those delays are expected and soo many factors are involved that airline might not be able to control. Safety should be their priority and I see JU doing well when comes to that. Aircraft often require additional maintenance going from winter to summer season.
DeleteHuh? Compare other airlines with JU and you will see who is in lala land Anon 12.47
Deleteanon 12.43
Deleteand how much is a difference between 320 and 321
Difference btw 320 and 321 operating coast is really minimal . That’s why 321 is in such a high demand jet. Expect to pay way more for leasing coast.
DeleteAnon 12.47
DeleteThing is that foreign airlines operating in and out of Belgrade seem to be more or less on time. This is what is hurting JU and that is why they need to fix these issues ASAP.
There is no reason AT ALL why Air Serbia shouldn't get 1-2 A321 for Zurich, Moscow, Barcelona and charter destinations in summer (instead of sending 9 planes and crews to Antalya).
DeleteCrew commonality?
C'mon, it isn't 747 or IL-96 we're talking about. If they could do it for A330 they can do it for A321.
@JATBEGMEL youre talking out of your ass regarding the additional training for the 321. All pilots are already type rated for the 321 by having the 320 type rating, and the cabin crew needs a one day online differences training. That's all.
DeleteThat's a nice upgrade for passengers. I remember they used A330 last year too around the Easter and May Day holidays.
ReplyDeleteSo finally YU-ARC is coming back.
ReplyDeleteI guess it'll be busy to Moscow.
YU-ARB arrived 12 hours late from JFK. They had problem with one of the engines.
ReplyDeleteNot surprising. It's the only aircraft in their fleet, working non-stop.
DeleteKinda funny how YU-ARA never broke down and JFK operated without problems but now they have problems with JFK once a month. Something is not ok guys. This needs to be handled better. TSR is delayed from 12.00 to 18.00.
DeleteDid it have different engines?
DeleteFrom what I've heard YU-ARB was in better condition than YU-ARA.
YU-ARA had GE6 engines.
DeleteYU-ARB/ARC have Rolls-Royce.
Let's hope that they do proper maintenance and checks. You can't cut corners and try to save money on flight safety.
DeleteHe is talking non sense . It does not happen every month it happened 2x in the 2022/2023 winter season.
DeleteDelays all over the schedule today again, seems like they lack planes and that the a330 upgrade is seemingly for the lack of bigger plnes. (why not wet lease a321 over the summer for charters and busier routes?)
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteJust because Air Serbia planning is not a strong point. Mind you as an example that they loaded the second flight to Moscow just about a month ago i.e two weeks prior to the start of SS. And for JU fans info it is not Rosaviatsiya who did not issue the permit but JU incapability to plan properly.
DeleteJesus Christus, Easter seasonality, not JU falling apart. I will stop reading this blog with so many haters and people who know nothing about aviation but always have an opinion and a very strong opinion.
ReplyDeleteSo why not give an argument in stead of just bashing others? And no this is because of fleet. On Sunday they canceled afternoon Zurich and sent 332 in evening. Nothing to do with easter seasonality.
DeleteWhy not just read the news and avoid the comments?
Delete@anonymous 15:32
DeleteThis isn't an airport and you are not an aircraft.
So you don't need to announce your departure.
Just laughed out loud :)
DeleteHahahahahahahaha, same here 😃
DeleteWow. People here are so passionate. Some very bitter. Manners people, manners. JU is not perfect and we all know it, but it is getting better and better, every day.
ReplyDeleteThey had several big delays today, With the full summer timetable, it will be probably an operational disaster. Nevertheless, he who dares wins, so let’s see whether they will survive the summer and came out like a bigger and stronger airline 💪
ReplyDeleteIt's only April and the situation today was dire. They were missing one A330, one Airbus and two ATRs. Lots of fairly serious delays today. It's a serious disruption to their hub model.
DeleteFor the 1000th time they are not missing an A330. It is on D check. D checks last a month and a half. It comes back in 10 days. No delays and it was planned that way from the start.
DeleteYU-APA
DeleteYU-APD
YU-APH
YU-APS
YU-ALY
YU-ARC
APH and ARC are on regular schedules and they are supposed to end in the next 7 days.
DeleteIf Air Serbia is a bad airline, i wonder what people here would think of the chronic delays and cancelled flights in the US. There are days when ten or twenty percent of the planes in the US are not flying because of cancellations. And nobody is complaining like people do here. It's commonplace.
ReplyDeleteYou could be a great politician!
DeleteAhahah ... yeah right, no one complaines in USA when they're flights is delayed.
DeleteA319/320/321 for cabin crew the difference training can be easily done online or on recurrent training in the classroom (because the door type are the same) and by programming a few hours with a bunch of crews on a real aircraft or in the cabin simulator. So it’s not such a big deal, you don’t have to train the entire amount of crews at the same time. I fly different variants so it can be done.
ReplyDeleteFor the pilots just some additional training simulator.
By the way it goes they will have a big meltdown during the summer, hope they have deep pockets to rent spare planes.
I just commented above that it's a one day online training for the cabin crew (and the doors 2&3 aren't the same but it doesn't matter). Also, there's no sim for the pilots, the 320 type rating literally includes the whole family. I can fly the 318 or the 321 without additional training.
Delete