NEWS FLASH
Air Serbia added seven new short-haul routes to its network over the past week in addition to its new long-haul service to Chicago. On May 15, the carrier introduced flights between Belgrade and Hamburg, which it last served in 2019. It will compete directly against Wizz Air on the route. Hamburg becomes the airline’s tenth destination in Germany.
Later that same day, the carrier inaugurated scheduled flights between Belgrade and Cairo, which were last served by the airline prior to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020. This summer, Air Serbia also maintains regular charter flights from Belgrade to Hurghada, Sharm el Sheikh and Mersa Matruh, as well as from Niš to Hurghada.
On May 18, the Serbian flag carrier introduced flights to Gothenburg. The route was last served by Air Serbia’s predecessor Jat Airways in 2013. The Serbian carrier will compete directly against Wizz Air between the two cities. Gothenburg becomes Air Serbia’s second destination in Sweden after Stockholm.
That same day, Air Serbia inaugurated services between Belgrade and Cologne. The carrier already served the German city from Niš. Cologne Airport’s CEO, Thilo Schmid, said, "We are very pleased that Air Serbia is now adding another exciting destination to our flight plan with Belgrade. There are options to connect from Belgrade to the wider Air Serbia network. These include long haul destinations such as New York and Tianjin, as well as metropolises such as Florence, Tel Aviv and Bucharest, but also regional destinations like Podgorica and Tivat in Montenegro".
On May 19 and May 20, Air Serbia added two seasonal destinations in Italy by launching flights to Naples and Florence. The airline now serves eight cities in Italy with Palermo to become the ninth next month.
Air Serbia added Marseille to its network on May 20, becoming its third destination in France. “We are thrilled to welcome Air Serbia at Marseille Provence Airport. The national carrier will operate two weekly flights between Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport and Marseille Provence, connecting the Serbian community directly to their home-country and bringing additional connectivity to the Balkans and more”, Laurent Dubosc, Marseille Airport’s Network Development Business Manager, said.
Comments
Especially the purser.
I would appreciate if anyone can share any information about this destination, thanks!
if air serbia wanted to compete with Wizz and stay profitable it would get the A319 NEO at least or preferably use Embraer jets. Smaller so don't need as many passengers to be profitable. and more efficient and cheaper to operate means cheaper tickets
Buring taxpayers cash like there's no tomorrow.
Dates are 24.7. and return 26.7.
Successful businesses have huge demand for their shares or bonds. Air Serbia is not a viable business, since it cannot obtain capital in the capital markets but only through political shenanigans.
New routes by Air Serbia are making some people very very nervous. Aleni na aparatima. Wait but there's more! Look at new routes being launched by Air Serbia in the next couple ot weeks:
Belgrade Heraklion
Belgrade - Krakow
Belgrade - Ohrid
Belgrade - Varna
Belgrade - Rhodes
Belgrade - Corfu
Belgrade - Chania
Belgrade - Palermo
They are Wizzier then Wizz in several routes, if they lost on one, who cares.
Getting A319NEO is something you may try to sell to other, less smart airlines. JU knows 319neo has no almost orders and is a dead end. They are getting A321 to compete against Wizz.
also as someone who's home is 100km closer to NIS than to belgrade there would be even more people that would fly but they choose not to because it too inconvenient to travel to belgrade.
A319 neo is dead end to bigger airlines. who need more capacity so they go to for A321. but for serbia its a good size. just need more efficient plane.
and just because Air Serbia is in better position than Croatia Airlines doesn't mean that should just accept it. always lots of ways to improve and get better.
the A319 is large and inefficient on the skinny routes with low demand such as these new routes launched, like London. its always half full when i travel. plus tickets are expensive
however for routes with more demand, such as Vienna or Lisbon where there is demand. it would be better to serve the route from NIS also since there is demand.
here's an example. Wizz air and ryan air fly every day from Nis to vienna. they use large A320 and A321. This shows there is a lot of demand from the south of serbia. its not just people from Belgrade and Novi Sad that are travelling.
Also don't forget that BEG no longer just attracts local passengers, now we have those from the region as well especially from the Romanian Banat. TSR is pretty much dead, BEG has run them over. Just look at each airport's Italian network this summer. BEG has close to 80 weekly flights while TSR has 13.
INI-HHN does really, really well. CGN not so much. How about we first succeed with existing gasto routes before dreaming of Lisbon. There are going to be a lot more charters out of INI this summer, that's a step in the right direction.
In the next phase INI should lobby to get flights to Berlin and Paris.
It could look as flws:
5 A330 NEO
10 A220-100
12 A220-300
10 A320 NEO
03 A321 NEO
Which plane did they use for the NIS - ZURICH route that they couldn't fill?
LOL. First thing you should learn is not to rely just on personal experience and draw conclusions from small sample set. Then you should research more and realize Air Serbia asked to increase LHR weekly slot pairs to 14 but was denied. They wouldn't ask for it if they didn't have a plan to fill those seats.
I really hope that the new ones get over time more and more frequencies and become year round .
Especially the Sicilian ones .
Good that they added both so that you will be able to fly four times a week there minimum (Palermo,Catania).
From Novi Pazar to INI is about 100km more than to BEG.
You simply can't put so much focus on INI and it can't expand at the same pace as Belgrade. Not only is the region poorer but it has a much smaller catchment area. Nisavski okrug is home to 354.000 people while the average salary was 68.390 RSD.
Compare that to Novi Beograd which has a population of 209.000 and where the average salary is 123.914 RSD.
Municipalities around INI are poorer and are experiencing negative population growth. The same can't be said about BEG.
It makes sense for BEG to be booming while INI experiences slower growth. Just look at the average salary over the past few years.
Nisavski okrug
2020: 54.674
2021: 60.386
2022: 68.390
Belgrade
2020: 74.311
2021: 82.132
2022: 94.808
If we look at GDP per capita last year then you can see why demand varies so much.
Belgrade: 1.233.000 RSD
Nisavski: 584.000 RSD
That said, Nis has been experiencing growth and that is why we are seeing more and more flights being added. This summer they should have the best ever charter season, that's already something we should celebrate.
Even BEG-INI is starting to see healthier loads. There are very few flights will less than 15 passengers per flight.
It also doesn't help that INI has SOF and SKP fighting for the same passengers. This is Nis' main problem, not Belgrade.
Would be interesting to know if they still do so.
Today they cancelled the flight for a second time in a row ..
The one flight cancelled before that was due to Italian airport handling strike on 19 May. Air Serbia also said in a statement the flight to Catania was cancelled because of it. "Due to the strike of airport staff in Italy, announced for tomorrow (Friday, 19 May 2023), Air Serbia will be forced to cancel its flights between Belgrade and Rome, JU532 and JU533, while its flights between Belgrade and Catania JU538 and JU539, planned for that day will be postponed for Saturday, 20 May."
A320NEO vs A320 fuel consumption is about 10-15% better on a typical 1.5-2h flights.
Air Serbia CEO did not exlude NEOs if they make financial sense.
but that's why i said they should have a E70 for at least one weekly flight to the routes with interest, the people that travel to Belgrade for the flights. likes paris, munich/berlin, vienna. its not much but its a start and rest of the time serve Belgrade.
also of course be happy for the increased charter flights, but try to find year round growth.
and the population decline you mentioned could actually help it. because the Serbians that emigrate are from that region they would like to fly home to closer airport. and yes skopje and sofia are close, but that means those demographics can also fly from NIS if timed well and the cheaper to run jets are used, since Skopje centre is 2.5-3 hours from NIS airport. on days and times not served by Wizz.
@20.44 so they wanted double slots, they were denied but didn't try using an A320 then? thats strange, if they thought they could fill two a319's every day why not a single A320 then?
That is why JU can only serve routes out of INI that have the potential to fill an A319. HHN, IST and TIV in summer have shown us that there is potential. We will see how CGN will perform now that they offer it from BEG.
INI-BER should be the next one in my opinion followed by INI-BVA. Both of these could be served by JU with the A319. There is enough demand for a 2 weekly flight.
As the standard of living improves, so will the offer out of Nis.
Wizz Air offers low prices and profits on its investments from the large cash flow rather than from flying.
How Air Serbia thinks it can fill large planes to destinations like Gothenburg is a mystery.