Air Serbia to grow operations across former Yugoslavia

Air Serbia plans to significantly increase its presence across the former Yugoslavia this coming summer season when compared to last year with additional frequencies, equipment upgrades and a new route. So far, the airline has increased its capacity to the former Yugoslav markets for the upcoming summer by 24% when compared to last year, although it is yet to finalise its summer schedule. As previously reported, the carrier will commence three weekly operations between Belgrade and Mostar, making it its seventeenth destination within the former Yugoslavia. Flights will launch on April 22 with Embraer aircraft. Tickets are to go on sale in the coming weeks.

On the Croatian market, in addition to increasing frequencies to Zagreb, the Serbian carrier is bringing forward the resumption of its seasonal Pula flights this summer to May 16, three weeks ahead of last year. Services to Dubrovnik will resume two weeks ahead, on May 2, with the airline to initially maintain four weekly rotations, up from two last year, growing to daily from June onwards, an increase from five weekly in June 2023 and six weekly from July 2023 onwards. At this point, the airline plans to operate 38 weekly flights from Belgrade to Croatia during the peak of the summer season.

On the Montenegrin market, Air Serbia will maintain the same number of frequencies as last year, however, it plans to upgauge equipment on its Podgorica service. From June 6 until September 7, the airline has not scheduled any of its flights to the Montenegrin capital with the seventy-seat ATR72-600 turboprop aircraft. Instead, it plans to exclusively utilise Airbus, Boeing, and Embraer jets on the route for a three-month period, resulting in a 21% increase in capacity, or an additional 12.000 seats.

In Macedonia, the airline will resume its seasonal flights to Ohrid on June 1. Last year, flights commenced on June 19. Furthermore, both frequencies and capacity will be increased to Skopje. The airline will operate thirteen weekly rotations to the Macedonian capital in April and May, up from eleven weekly last year, after which services will be increased to double daily from June until the end of the summer season, matching last year’s frequencies, with exception to September and October 2023 when the airline operated twelve and eleven weekly services respectively. The carrier also plans to start deploying its Embraer E195 aircraft on select flights to Skopje from June 1 until September 28.

Commenting recently on its operations within the former Yugoslavia the carrier said, “For us, the region is extremely important. Our strategy is that we would like to cover the majority of destinations in the region. We will continue to add frequencies to all the ex-Yugoslav countries since they also provide us with passenger flow for connecting flights, especially for our long-haul operations”.

Further frequency and equipment changes are expected.