Air Serbia has said it plans to improve its on board product and service in the coming period but has ruled out a return to its boutique business strategy, employed from 2013 until 2017. Speaking at the Asia Connect Digital Air Travel conference in Belgrade last week, Air Serbia’s CEO, Jiri Marek, said, “It is natural that once you become profitable, the next step is to see how you can improve your product. We are doing that as well. We prefer to do it without publicising it too much. Our strategy is not to make some revolution and become a boutique airline, which was the wrong strategy at the beginning. Every day we will try to be better than the day before and improve step by step”.
Commenting on its planned product improvements, Mr Marek said, “Recently we reintroduced some [complimentary] refreshments on flights that are two-and-a half hours and above. We are not happy with that yet because of supply chain limitations and in Belgrade you only have one [catering] provider, which is going through its own transformation. We need to improve the product more but at least we started. We are now reintroducing amenity kits in business class on long haul flights, we are opening a new retail shop, which will be very innovative in terms of digitalisation and use of holograms and many other things”.
Earlier this year, Mr Marek announced plans for the airline to introduce content streaming on board. The technology will initially be tested on an ATR and narrow-body Airbus aircraft for three months, to monitor how important it is for passengers to have access to music, videos and games. Based on the outcome of that test, the intention is to roll out streaming on the entire single-aisle fleet, depending on customer feedback and satisfaction. Furthermore, Air Serbia is looking to standardise its long-haul cabin product across its two Airbus A330-200 aircraft and has expressed interest in a new seat being developed by ATR, which would enable the introduction of business class on its turboprop fleet. “This kind of change is very significant and currently you must wait six to eight months only for engineering. We are in close contact with Airbus and other providers and are working on a concept. We would like to do it as soon as we get all the approvals and assurances that it can be done”, Mr Marek previously said. He added, “Finding secondary market seats which correspond to your aircraft type is now almost impossible. This was possible during Covid, when there were many grounded aircraft, but not anymore. On the other hand, getting new seats that are available on the market, raises the issue of compatibility with the IFE which is currently on board”.
In addition to on board improvements, the airline has said it also plans to leave the Etihad Guest frequent flyer program in the near future. “The frequent flyer program is the last piece we are still cooperating on with Etihad. We have explored the option of joining Turkish Airlines’ Miles & Smiles, as well as Air France - KLM’s Flying Blue program. We still have those options on the table, and they would still be happy if we joined, but currently, with our aggressive growth and passenger numbers, we are going in the direction of introducing our own program soon”, Mr Marek noted. Air Serbia’s Head of Ecommerce, Srdjan Prokić, added, “The Etihad loyalty program is attractive for our passengers because they can reach destinations that are beyond our network. It is true that we are improving our cooperation with Turkish every day. Their Miles & Smiles program is very attractive and I’m sure it would be very valuable for our passengers. The Etihad Guest program is designed for a completely different market. To reach the next tier you must travel twenty times per year which is a lot for the Serbian market. In that sense, we are considering developing something on our own. We are still in the early days, we are scanning the technology market, the vendor market and thinking about the business model, which is the hard part since questions like are we going to partner up with a bank, which one, which retailers and so on, come up. It is a very complex project, so we will probably develop something in the mid-term in the next year or two”.
So they will actually get brand new seats for business and economy on the A330 and not second hand one?
ReplyDeleteYes
DeleteAir Serbia needs new IFE with new seats
DeleteThey will probably get a third configuration before anything happens on that front...
Delete^ yes it is highly likely that the third A330 has a third product.
DeleteFingers crossed fourth A330 will get brand new business class seats and new IFE.
DeleteThey should focus on standardizing seats and IFE across the fleet.
DeleteProduct consistency is important.
I have a bad feeling they will introduce 3-3-3 layout in economy on the A330.
DeleteThat would be horrible!
DeleteWe are not the size of Filipinos and Malaysians.
Is there any European airline with 3-3-3 configuration on A330/340s?
I don't think so.
There are some, but no legacy carriers as far as I know. They are LCC or leisure/charter, french, british, german....
DeleteUIA used to have 2-4-2 on their B767s.
DeleteAir Transat uses 3-3-3 configuration from Canada to Europe. It is somewhat uncomfortable, especially for 'bigger' people. The aisle is very narrow, so much so that you cannot roll your carry-on normally, you have to push it sideways. Very awkward.
DeleteDense A330-200 3-3-3 layout might be one way to increase capacity on restrictive 2 weekly bilateral route.
DeleteGoing with larger A330-300 is another way but Marek went on a record denying Air Serbia interest in A330-300.
Third option is to skip to next generation A330-900 or Dreamliner 787-9 but that seems to be too expensive for Air Serbia at this point.
Good. They really need to pay more attention to their onboard product.
ReplyDeleteThe first step should be to hire a few people in order to clean and maintain their cabins on regular basis. As they look now is below expectation!
DeleteUnfortunately, this is true… Papa Delta few days ago, the carpet is in a very bad shape, lot of dirty spots, ruins the whole impression.
DeleteOn the other side, the small sandwich is really tasty and they have small branded water. The design of the box and sandwich cover could be much better, but it’s a step up and the taste is really good.
With them introducing more and more long haul routes they are going to have to become more competitive so need to offer a good product so people choose them over other airlines, especially on flights towards the east.
ReplyDeleteNice to see they want to improve their product.
ReplyDeleteGood move JU.
ReplyDeleteCompletely agree that Etihad Guest is not relevant for the Serbian market. Interesting that they are thinking about joining Flying Blue.
ReplyDeleteFor me it is strange they need so long to introduce their own FF program.
DeleteThe same sentence we hear today "that they are still on the beginning of that job" we heard last year from Marek. It means they have not done anything about it ever since.
Flying Blue is a fantastic program, we are using it in our company. It's extremely business and customer friendly. They are also very fast at replying.
DeleteComplete opposite from Miles&More.
Anon 09.09
DeleteBecause introducing your own loyalty program costs a lot of money. You need to hire a high quality IT company to do the job and only once they make it then they have to test it for at least two months. The bill would be in the millions. I don't think JU is ready to pay such a sum of money which is why they keep on postponing it. Much easier to just join someone else's and get it over with.
I agree with you Nemjee, but in that case they should not have mentioned it.
DeleteUnfortunately this CEO tends to make certain statements which are more his thinking than actual business plans. I wish they would slow down with growth and actually focus on their product (both soft and hard) and on making their employees happier.
DeleteI was at BEG last night and it's developing quite nicely. Now they have a decent hub so they should profit from that and consolidate their operations. Serbian market is performing quite strongly and their competition is making the most from it. They are not backing down. JU needs to work on building customer loyalty.
Unlike Nemjee I hope they don't slow down growth but have better execution doing it.
DeleteNemjee, what is the story of the Catering Company at BEG? I heard they fired lots of Serbians and hired cheaper staff from Nepal. Apparentely there was also a problem with pension money which should have been paid to the Serbian employees.
DeleteI hope they will improve Business Class incl design of Menucard and ensure that each passenger in the back gets a free bottle of water. And whatever is buy on board should be tasty and nutrious
DeleteJU can not slow down for simple reason that Capitalist model is based on ever expanding of capital. Once you stop expanding you are declining. Its a race in hamster wheel.
DeleteHiring cheaper labourers is obvious consequences of economic model that everyone operates.
From my experience FlyingBlue has one of the worst mile redemption plans. This is true whether you try to book through Delta, Air France, or KLM. In some instances one needs 190k miles for a flight from USA to Belgrade in business class ONE WAY. And trust me, I spend many hours researching different airlines and routes for any given flight. European flights could be found for less miles, but it is not worth spending miles on the economy class on such short flights.
DeleteAirline credit card with a major bank in Serbia would be a good way to boost profits.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteLong overdue.
DeleteThey need to have a loyalty program first in order to connect it with the card.
DeleteAIK Banka would be great if they were serious about it. I know its a lot smaller than all the other banks in serbia but it is the only serbian bank.
DeleteWith all the acquisitions they have carried out recently (a month ago they agreed to buy the newly merged Eurobank Direktna), they are already a formidable force.
DeleteI truly hope new program (whichever it is) will bring again the possibility for Silver members to enter their lounge.
ReplyDeleteIt was possible at the beginning, but in 2017 they cancelled it (at the time they had to introduce some cost cutting measures). Now it is time this possibility to be reintroduced.
Not sure on flying blue but either Turkish or their own. However if they develop their own that is a lot of work as you would need to make it attractive and have ability to spend mile not just on the airline but brands in Serbia and the region. Great though finally something is happening. I think personally utilising Turkish loyalty program makes sense especially as they fly more to the US as they will capture star alliance members I am hoping if the agreement is right. Also works agains the competition of
ReplyDeleteLufthansa as it’s a strange one. It’s really difficult to get loyalty miles if you have the Turkish loyalty programme on Lufthansa owned airlines.
I tried to look which FQTV to have for Star Alliance and realized that LH/OS/LX/SN award little to 0 miles and status miles to most classes that are available at the time of booking. Which basically means useless. On the other hand Flying Blue has system of XP (experience points) that you get it whenever you fly with Skyteam member and depends on the flight lenght (domestic, EU1, EU2...) Tarom for example gives double points on their domestic flights (4 instead of 2XP).
DeleteLH/OS/SN/LX award little to no miles to TK or A3 members. I forgot to clarify.
DeleteI have Air Canada Aeroplan and I used it many times for very close to free flights on Air Canada, Lufthansa, LOT, Austrian and Swiss. I will try my luck with TK this coming summer whem I plan to visit Belgrade as well if the automatic booking system considers them for YVR aoutbound traffic. My credit card with TD Bank also generates a lot of points.
DeleteI’d rather see them go with Miles&Smiles. Lufhansa and Swiss have good miles redemption options especially on a long haul flights. Etihad was excellent for frequent fliers when it came to mile’s redemption. I’ve used them to book many USA to Serbia flights on Air Serbia. I am very sad to see them go.
DeleteZa početak da naprave izuzetak i uvedu lanč paket na letovima za Tursku i Grčku zbog konkurencije Turkišu i Aegenu. Baš kao što su počeli da šalju A320 avione na linijama gde leti i Wiz.
ReplyDeleteAny idea if they will return wifi. At least on A330s?
ReplyDeleteThey won't. It was published here a two months ago that Marek said they don't plan to introduce Wifi and that it was used by only 6% of passengers when they had it.
DeleteThanks for that. That's a shame but I can't argue if it had such low usage.
DeleteVery few airlines flying transatlantic currently do not offer wifi.
DeleteI have had a JU flight, operated by Dan Air.
ReplyDeleteCrew was anything near the expectations of Air Serbia. The purser was uninterested, nowhere to be seen, young lady looked like she had onjob training (literally the purser explained her in Romanian how to open the doors when we landed) and two guys that were very nice and did almost all the job. However the bigger problem for me was that the passingers were a bit shocked to learn onboard that the flight is not operated by JU, that the Serbian language is not spoken onboard. It was quite a mess in a way, some thought that they were not on the right flight and so on (especially older people). If only that was communicated to them beforehand e.g. during the boarding. Boarding it self looked really strange. Boarding agent did not perform it well, I believe she did not stick to the procedures, did not let priority passengers first (people with children, older people, status passengers). This is something also to be standardized.
As of Flying Blue, that is the most amazing program in Europe and beyond. Etihad Guest is useless in Europe, it is all so nice when you look at the website, but practically there is only 1 airline (JU) in Europe that gives you status miles and where you can enjoy status benefits. With Flying Blue, the members will be getting benefits on basically two major airlines in EU, Air Europa (still) and Tarom, in EU + a big network of international airlines. Turkish Airlines - well LH, OS and others do not award much miles to Miles and Smiles, so if you want to get a status, you basically have to fly Turkish only. Getting miles is OK, but what really drives loyalty are the flights toward reaching status. I really hope they decide in favour of Flying Blue.
+ to add that with Flying Blue, passengers will be getting benefits on all JU to SkyTeam connecting flights thru AMS and CDG. That would be really good too for passengers, but also it would better position JU vs KL/AF future expansions.
DeleteThat is a very poor flying experience!
DeleteThe airline is doing a very bad job at managing its growth plans.
Not sure EI Niš will be able to produce noise cancelling headphones to satisfy local Serbian product requirement
ReplyDeleteAerodrom Ketering must be in absolute shambles if Marek makes such a public statement.
ReplyDeleteIt is more than obvious it is. Very bad decision by former management to close down Air Serbia Catering and transfer premises and all equipment to Aerodrom Ketering.
Delete^ That was the result of the collapse of the boutique model and them trying to cut costs every way they could.
DeleteBEG needs at least one more catering company to offer Aerodrom Ketering competition .
DeleteThe weird thing is that apparently Aerodrom Ketering is using the licence of Air Serbia Catering (according to the unions). Possibly a way to find a solution.
DeleteWho would need business class on the ATR72?
ReplyDeleteI think it has people in mind who are transferring onto Air Serbia's long haul flights which have proper business class. It allows them to sell tickets at a premium compared to what they do now. But the seat that ATR is developing can be transformed by crew from economy to business seat and vice versa so it does not really impact on loads.
DeleteThe seat is a good idea but delayed by ATR. It won't be happening any time soon.
DeleteWhy would anyone announce not returning to boutique model or any other previously abandoned model? No one asked for return of it so no reason to explicitly mention it.
ReplyDeleteWell they were talking about service and product upgrades so I don't see why not to mention it.
DeleteNo need to complain about everything.
I see what you mean. Someone probably asked if dedicated business class seats are coming back to narrowbody fleet? No that's not happening.
DeleteHe probably wanted to make sure people understand that the product upgrades won't be at the level of the New Wings of Europe concept but more basic.
DeleteDid CEO talk about new routes? Last year they evaluated Toronto vs Chicago and Chicago won. This year they announced evaluation of Toronto vs Miami. Toronto seems to be most evaluated destination ever. Any updates?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2023/05/air-serbia-secures-shanghai-traffic.html
DeleteBoth Beijing and Shanghai passed evaluation long time ago and were waiting for paperwork. Toronto on the other hand is officially still being evaluated by Air Serbia.
DeleteIt's good to see Air Serbia thinking of ways to maximise profits
ReplyDeleteNice! Good luck Air Serbia
ReplyDeleteI hope they update the inflight entertainment too.
ReplyDeleteYes they could really upgrade their package. By the looks of it they have the cheapest one.
DeleteDesigning and getting a new seat for both business and economy is a huge investment. Hope they make the right selection with the passenger in mind.
ReplyDeleteI just hope they won't have 3-3-3 configuration in A330s.
DeleteGood to see they are looking into new FFP. Wouldn't it be easiest just to use the TK one?
ReplyDeleteIt is much more valuable to have your own, especially if you have strong passenger growth like JU.
DeleteDok ne smisle novi neka uvedu "let vise" kao sto je imao Jat Airways :)
DeleteAs a minimum recognition they could introduce a reward ticket for FF passengers as JAT used to have. That would not cost much and would at least provide some sort of incentive to fly JU.
DeleteJAT didn't have FF pax reward ticket. Concerning Jat Airways, they did, but I would rather see Air Serbia not doing anything even remotely related or resembling the times of Jat Airways
DeleteActually JAT in the 90s introduced that frequent flyer program, so yes JAT did have it :)
DeleteMaybe it was still called JAT formally, but what used to be real Yugoslav Airlines JAT, ceased to exist in 1991, with disintegration of Yugoslavia. If FF program with reward tickets was introduced in 1990 or 1991, I apologize for forgetting it, but I believe it happened later, and real JAT, flag carrier of SFRJ didn't have it.
DeleteIt's not about noise cancelling headphones, and you know it. Your attempt to be funny has failed spectacularly
ReplyDeleteFinally returning amenity kits to business class. I hope PJs will follow.
ReplyDeleteBed padding and turndown service would be a nice addition too. Doesn't cost much, makes a huge difference.
DeleteI think they used to have both one upon a time.
DeleteThey will really need to up their game in business class for premium passengers. Flew Hainan from Beijing to Belgrade the other day. Seats are superior to JU in every way, catering was amazing with so many choices, entertainment was much better than on Air Serbia (not the best but better than JU). Samsonite amenity kits, blankets, duvet, large pillow with covers, pajamas, slippers and the price is the same as Air Serbia from Tianjin!
ReplyDeleteJudging by a trip report from a few weeks ago, it is definitely miles ahead of what Air Serbia offers
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2023/04/trip-report-hainan-airlines-beijing.html
Not that I'm defending JU but Hainan Airlines is considered one of the better airlines in the world.
DeleteWell this is their competition so they have to address it.
DeleteAir Serbia and Hainan Airlines will become codeshare partners
DeleteWhat happened with their flight to Cairo that was announced to start today ?
ReplyDeleteWhat do you mean what happened to their flight? It launches tonight. Departure time is 23:15.
DeleteThank you !
DeleteThat boutique model might not have been profitable but it was great for passengers. Still remember on my evening economy flight Belgrade-Brussels in summer 2014. Pillow on each seat, got a printed menu with two hot meals to choose from brought out on a tray with salad and desert in glass china and with metal cutlery.
ReplyDeleteThat was before Hogan managed to burn billions.
DeleteThat was one of the goals, to show passengers that Air Serbia was not jat. They turned the page in terms of service and distanced themselves from the old brand and bad reputation. It got the job done but was unprofitable and had to be replaced.
DeleteExactly. Nothing says Qatar like Giorgio Armani and Abu Dhabi like Etihad's Acqua Di Parma.
ReplyDeleteThat's highly unlikely. The lounge is quite crowded as it is, and Priority Pass/Lounge Key represent additional income, whereas access for own elites is just an expense.
ReplyDeleteYes, Catering doing own transformation rulling out almost all domestic workers, hiring people from far east...
ReplyDeleteThe catering company has been down in the dumps long before they replaced the workers.
DeleteI wonder if AF withdrawal and stagnation of KL in BEG will impact these plans. CDG and AMS still perform well but joint venture with TK and increase in IST connectivity from BEG is beyond the other two and make M&M program way more attractive to BEG passengers.
ReplyDeleteKLM is not stagnating. It has more flights to BEG than last year.
ReplyDelete