Air Serbia will add a third Embraer E195 aircraft to its fleet later this month and anticipates the arrival of a fourth unit in January of next year. The carrier plans to operate up to six aircraft from the Brazilian manufacturer during the 2024 summer season, all of which will be wet-leased from Greece’s Marathon Airlines. “It’s not a typical wet-lease, it’s a growing partnership towards a capacity purchase agreement (CPA). At the moment, we’re targeting five to six units for next summer. That depends very much on how Marathon will be able to source aircraft”, Air Serbia’s CEO, Jiri Marek, told “Aviation Week”.
The aim is to replace the 144-seat Airbus A319s, which will be phased out. That will leave a gap between the 72-seat ATR 72-600s and the 180-seat A320s. The E195s seat 118 passengers. As a result, the Embraers are being used in several roles. Mr Marek noted, “We would like to grow frequencies on some of the routes on which we’re using A319s. It’s much better, as a hub-and-spoke airline, to have high frequency rather than more capacity. We’re also using them on some ATR routes that need an upgrade, but which are not mature enough for an A319, such as Prague, and regional routes where we have high demand, such as Montenegro, Romania and Italy. We also use them to Germany, where we have thin routes on which we want more frequency”.
Air Serbia currently has two E195s, plus a single E190 and a single E175. The last of these is a temporary addition until a third E195 arrives this month. Marathon Airlines, as the capacity provider, was recommended to Air Serbia by Embraer. “Marathon is looking for aggressive growth, and so are we. We’re 45% above 2019 figures in terms of passenger numbers. We will carry four million passengers this year, compared to 2.8 million in 2019”, Mr Marek explained. The Embraers are expected to play an important role in the significant frequency growth the airline plans to unveil across its network for the 2024 summer season.
OY-GDA arrived yesterday from Warsaw to Athens.
ReplyDeleteThat plane is the next to join JU fleet.
The fourth one will be OY-GDB
DeleteTrue dat.
DeleteE75 will stay for the whole winter and I feel it will stay even longer.
ReplyDeleteIt leaves when OY-GDA comes
DeleteNo it won't, it will stay until the end of the winter season.
DeleteOk let's wait and see. According to the CEO it will leave.
DeleteIt's an old statement before they made the decision to keep it.
DeleteThe E175 os not scheduled on any flight past November
Delete*is
DeleteIn reality they need the E75 on many routes where the A319 is too big and ATR too slow. Last few days it flew to CGN, FRA, TIV, ATH...
DeleteBut most commonly it goes to FRA. I guess now that they increased flights in winter they can't send the A319.
Maybe bit off topic, but how Wizz Air manages to fly daily A321 to CGN (I ve flown 3 times the route and it was always full)
Delete*How Wizz Air manages daily A321 when Air Serbia can barely do 2 weekly with A319?
DeleteThat is a very good question. Wizz Air seems to have a very strong brand awareness among its customers. They also have a very good pricing policy where fares fluctuate based on demand. An example of that is LCA in summer. For example they would be charging 36.000 RSD one way and then a week before the flight it would drop to 17.000. JU on the other hand would keep its fare high and would hope someone would end up buying it. If not then the seat flies empty.
DeleteWizz has better thinking in my opinion. Better to discount the price rather than to have it empty in the end. I generally don't fly on Wizz Air but I do think this is a wise move as they create an image in the minds of people as the cheapest option out there, similar to Ryanair. Meanwhile once I paid €200 one way to LCA with JU and we were like one hundred on the A319.
+1
DeleteExcellent choice
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to see which destinations they increase
ReplyDeleteThey already started
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2023/11/air-serbia-begins-scheduling-2024.html
DeleteGood transioning aircraft which has a good potential to permanently stay at JU and replace ATRs one day.
ReplyDeleteATR is too important for them. It cannot be replaced.
DeleteThey are adding more ATRs. In Q1 3 ATRs are coming
DeleteATR is a very good plane with very low costs. There is a reason Aegean took them for Olympic Air.
DeleteBecause Greece has to get to all these tiny islands that A320s can't. That's why they need the. JU on the other hand has no issues landing 320s anywhere ATR lands... Except Morava...
DeleteSmall correction, they brought it back into OA's fleet after they removed it. They wanted to standardize their fleet by switching to Q400s.
DeleteUnfortunately flying short hops and making sharp maneuvers around Greek islands was not as easy on the Q400 as it was on the ATR. Eventually they made the decision to reintroduce the ATR into OA's fleet.
Anon 10.00
DeleteBut JU has a lot of destinations that can be easily developed with the ATR. For example developing markets such as BLQ, VCE, KRK, BUD... would prove much more difficult with E90/95/319/320 than it would with the ATR.
We should rather ask ourselves why they have been flying to certain destinations for years yet they failed to position themselves and grow (SOF, OTP, SKG...). They keep on adding frequencies and then they remove them. For example, Sofia struggles to grow beyond daily on the ATR despite it being a relatively large market. This is only the second winter they are trying to operate more than daily flights (9).
For the question of Sofia its a problem that is hard to answere because the serbians that want to travel to Sofia will get the bus or drive if they live closer to the boarder with bulgaria than to belgrade. and soon the fast train they will build. as for the people that want to travel in the opposite direction being from Sofia to Belgrade then i think the high price for the flight is putting people off. since the LCC are so big in Sofia the comparison to JU prices put people off. A one way from BEG - SOF is 132 lev or about 8000 rsd. second is brand awareness. even bulgarians and serbians that would pay the price arent made aware of the flight. JU flights are at the bottom gate at Sofia airport where they stick the 1 or 2 weekly wizz/ ryan air flights and really not well presented.
DeleteFlew with them on the E195 recently and it was great. Love the 2-2 seating over 3-3
ReplyDeleteAnd they have comfy padded seats rather then the slim boards.
DeleteThey will have a really big fleet next year
ReplyDeleteDefinitely around 40 aircraft.
Delete^ with wet leases?
DeleteYup
DeleteBravo Air Serbia 🇷🇸🇷🇸🇷🇸
ReplyDeleteStill do not understand the strategy of phasing out A319. What about the gap between 122 and 180 seaters?
ReplyDeleteSame
DeleteThat's because they will use the 122 aircraft to increase frequencies throughout the network.
DeleteMaybe because they are using the E195 they are opening the opportunity to consider the E2 which has similar capacity to the A319. And the E2 planes don't have long waiting list like the Airbus planes.
DeleteA319 and A320 have similar operating expenses, A320 has more capacity. It's why A320neo and A321neo have sold so well, A319neo not so much.
DeleteThe a319neo looks like it has the similar figures in capacity and range to the bigger a220 version but I'm guessing much worse efficiency that's why no one bought it.
DeleteBut can air serbia still stay profitable if they later take more a320 or a321 like marek wanted?
And bigger planes are for more capacity but less frequency. So it'll be interesting to see how the fleet will look like when it matures in 5 years or so.
How many embraer and how many bigger a320/a321 they can operate
Mislim da gube dosta para jer nemaju biznis klasu na ovim avionima. Zar je toliko teško da stave zavesu?
ReplyDeleteНиједан од wet least зракоплова нема бизнис класу, могуће да немају рерну као и остале неопходне ствари како би се одржао висок ниво услуге у пословној класи Ер Србије.
DeleteYes the issue is that they don't have kitchenettes on many wet leases. Not that service (except for food) is any better in JU business.
DeleteI remember when they started introducing these wet leases they were primarily supposed to stay for the summer so as to operate charter flights. It was later on that they realized that they could actually use them on other routes as well.
DeleteAs Anon 09.58 mentioned, the JU business class product is mediocre at best so they are not losing much by not offering it. It offers very little value for money.
Mislim da im je biznis potreban i na ATR-u. Ako je neko spreman da plati skupu kartu do JFK,ORD,TSN, očekuje da biznisom doleti i do BEG. JU je ove godine imala 40% transfernih putnika a to je ogromna brojka.
DeleteYU-APS doesn't have ovens or dividers so that isn't the issue. Business class is offered on YU-APS. My guess is that the wet lease crew are not familiar with the JU business class service.
DeleteJU's business service on short haul does not need any training beyond a 10-15 page PowerPoint presentation.
Delete4 more months to source another 2 airframes; not impossible but they better hurry up in order to avoid the 2023 disaster they had.
ReplyDelete2 are already sourced. And they say they will have between 5 and 6 and it depends on Marathon.
DeleteOY-GDA is already in Athens so it should arrive soon, OY-GDB is already in maintenance so it should be at JU in December/January at latest. Marathon will also acquire A320s/B737s by summer so my guess is that all the wet leases could be done by Marathon
ReplyDeleteThe CEO says the fourth arrives in January not December.
DeleteOY-GDB will be ready in latter weeks of December, then it's up to them when to take it - my guess is they want it ASAP.
DeleteAccording to some GDA has already been put under Marathons AOC, so it should be with AirSerbia shortly
Delete^ yes it arrives this month. Read the article guys
DeleteWe were reading about GDC being with AirSerbia since October, so aircraft actually being delivered before scheduled ops is a big win
DeleteThe 3rd E95 was originality to enter fleet 9 November, as was written here many weeks ago but it got moved, so it's not early.
DeleteYesterday I was on a flight from Ljubljana to Belgrade - we took off TWO TIMES and diverted to Ljubljana TWO TIMES. Now A320 will come to pick us up at 14:00 today. What an absolute mess
ReplyDeleteSo what do you wanted them to do if the plane has a technical issue? Risk your life or transfer you with bus?
DeleteDon't take off with pax if the aircraft is not fixed? We waited at the airport for a few hours just to get a scare when diverting again.
DeleteAirSerbia has a problem with rushing aircraft into service. A few week a friend of mine had the same experience on SX E195. The aircraft got diverted to Belgrade, got sent to Katowice and on the first flight back into service my friend got diverted to Belgrade again.
Delete@ 10:32
DeleteI actually saw that last night on FR24. You turned back right after crossing Litija.
Was there any actual reason given for the turnarounds, aside from the standard “technical issues”?
Landing gear unsafe position after retraction
DeleteUnderstood. Thank you.
DeleteThe problem with this is that the 319 has more room for cargo. If JU developed their cooperation with Serbian post express then there would be a potential lucrative opportunity for cargo revenue.
ReplyDeleteYou are right. But on the other hand if you fly to X place once daily with A319 and then decide to fly to the same place twice daily with E195 the cargo capacity is the same.
DeleteSo in summer 2024 little less than half of the fleet might be wet leases ?? I wonder if this is good for the airlines reputation to fly with so many white liveries !
ReplyDeleteprobably not good.
Deleteyeah white liveries is most important to people.
Delete