Air Serbia plans to increase its passenger numbers by approximately 6% in 2025 compared to last year, which would result in the airline carrying over 4.7 million passengers. Speaking to public broadcaster “RTS”, Air Serbia’s General Manager for Commercial and Strategy, Boško Rupić, said, “During the upcoming summer we will be expanding both our fleet and network of destinations but also increasing operations on existing services. This year we are looking at similar growth to the one we had in 2024 when compared to 2023. So that is the percentage increase we are targeting for 2025”. The airline handled 4.44 million travellers in 2024, representing an increase of 6% on the previous year.
During the 2025 summer season, Air Serbia plans to launch new services from Belgrade to Florence, Alghero and Mykonos. It had also intended to introduce operations to Ibiza but has so far been unable to secure favourable slots. Furthermore, the airline has filed an increase in weekly frequencies on flights to Athens, Vienna, Barcelona, Brussels, Larnaca, Madrid, Pula, Stuttgart and Valencia during the peak summer months when compared to last year. However, changes still remain possible at this stage. Services to Guangzhou and Nice, which were launched last September, will be maintained throughout the entire summer, while operations to Shanghai, inaugurated last month, will be featured in the carrier’s summer timetable for the first time.
Air Serbia recently set a 24-hour booking record after launching its biggest promotional ticket sale last week encompassing over seventy destinations. The promotion, which ran from last Monday until Sunday, was applicable for travel until the end of the summer season in late October. “During the first day of the promo sale [February 3] we registered a new record in daily bookings with 43.447 bookings in a single day, which was a big surprise for us. Our daily booking average varies between 13.000 and 14.000, so we have achieved a good result”, Mr Rupić said. For the duration of the week, the carrier sold 168.000 tickets, up 81.1% on its record set in February 2024. The most sought after destinations during the promotional sales period were Larnaca, Barcelona, Paris, Istanbul and Zurich.
wow 168,000 tickets sold in a week!
ReplyDeleteQuite impressive for an airline Air Serbia's size.
DeleteBravo JU 🇷🇸🤯
DeleteWell done Air Serbia! Sensational performance of relatively small company. One of things that Serbs should be proud of Novak and Air Serbia.
ReplyDeleteIt's great to see Air Serbia growing steadily
ReplyDeleteΑ 6% increase in passengers is disappointing considering:
ReplyDeletethe record demand for travel,
the expected increase in narrow body fleet with more E-jets coming,
increase in wet leases
and doubling of the long-haul fleet.
These estimates are always conservative on purpose.
DeleteEstimates back in the beginning of last year proved to be optimistic though.
DeleteI think it would be great if they utilize the A330s for some busy short haul destinations during the height of the Summer.
DeleteTIV, IST, AYT, ATH, CDG, LHR could really benefit from the extra capacity some days of the week.
@Anon 09:11
DeleteI could also see them fly to FCO, SVO, AMS, LCA.
@9.08. They were off by 100,000 passengers
Delete
DeleteAnonymous 09:17
Weren't they supposed to be conservative estimates that will be surpassed by reality?
what makes you thing that this year they will actually overperform.
Especially with the southern Russia situation.
W6 issues should have given JU an opening to seriously increase its market share in BEG and the region. But they seem unwilling to take advantage of the situation.
And their finances did just fine. Even without your input.
DeleteAnon 09:11
Delete+1
@09:14
DeleteBCN too (selfish reason 😁)
@09:31
DeleteBCN and MAD could definitely fil an A330 during July and August!
Problem is that A330s (barring the neo variants) aren't designed for short-haul travel, so the stress on the wheels from frequent takepffs and landings drives up maintenence costs quite a bit
Delete^^^
DeleteThere are a lot of airlines in Europe and elsewhere that are using A330ceos for short haul flying during their downtime from their intercontinental routes.
@09:46
DeleteJU will not use those A330's for the next 20 years or so. They said it will be one spare at the time. Hence, they are already on some short hauls like ZRH. So why not use it ona 2,5-4h flights in July and August for say BCN, MAD, LIS.
Anonymous 10:06 I agree.
DeleteWell Mareks statement was published here recently where he said they will use one A330 as spare, as well as for ad hoc charters and high demand short haul routes. So I think we will see the A330 on a more common basis on intra-Europe flights this summer.
DeleteAir Serbia wil have about 37 planes operating JU flights this summer, including wet leases. There is no need to use A330 for short hauls barring major multiple mechanical issues with other jets.
Delete@13:45
DeleteDemand to fill one daily widebody rotation to BCN or MAD in July, August is there. So why not if there is a spare A330 at the tarmac for a 7-8 block hours rotation.
Add another narrowbody jet frequency instead.
DeleteI don't think they have any spare capacity to add flights. At this point we have to hope Wizz Air will boost BEG as I doubt JU will surprise us with anything. They will stick to their moderate growth and that's about it. I just hope they keep on adding E95s.
DeleteThis winter their E90 have become regular to Lisbon and Porto which shows how desperately they needed this kind of a plane for these thinner markets.
Of course they had a record, return ticket to Copenhagen for instance, without baggage was 80 eur. The same or similar was for a number of destinations.
ReplyDeleteWas just waiting for someone to complain that the tickets were too cheap lol.
Deletewell they will certainly be expensive during the summer now, especially with flights partially filled up already.
Delete^ There were black out periods for the promo sale during high summer season.
DeleteI don't know if they also blocked some flights with decent loads. I bought a BEG-ATH for this month. The noon flight was 19.800 RSD while the night flight was 5.000 with a promo sticker. I guess the Bulgarian Air E90 already has good loads so the promo didn't apply there.
DeleteCongrats
ReplyDeleteEvery airline from Europe and beyond seems to rushing back to TLV.
ReplyDeleteDemand for travel from Israelis is sky-high now that things seem to be normalizing.
JU should really make a strong return to that market and aim for connections as well. TK is completely absent and BEG is ideally located to get transfer traffic from TLV to Europe and the US.
Just my2cents
I agree completely. Neither TK or PG are flying to TLV and they used to carry huge amounts of transfers from it. ASL could really position itself nicely there.
Delete+1
DeleteThe promotional sale results are incredible. It just shows how much demand there is
ReplyDeleteDemand for cheap tickets.
Delete^Makes sense doesn't it?
DeleteEvery year, Air Serbia keeps growing, and that’s great for everyone. More connections from Belgrade make traveling easier and more convenient.
ReplyDeleteAgree. Who would have thought there would be flights to over 100 destinations from BEG just 2-3 years ago.
DeleteWow the part of the sale is so weird to read, the sale itself was nothing special except 3-5 destinations which are not doubled by turkish carriers or Wizz.
ReplyDeleteIt was 70 destinations. What are you talking about?
DeleteWere long haul destinations part of the sale too?
Delete^^^
DeleteNo they were not.
True, they never have sale for those.
DeleteChina routes were on sales as well, even in summer..You could purchase round trip to CAN or PVG for 450 euros, and in mid of summer, 25. july departure, was 500 euros..that's amazing pric
Delete^ This prices are fantastic!
DeleteThey must really struggle to fil seats on the China routes if they are selling them for such price which I assume includes the taxes and feets.
*that is fees, not feets!
Delete^ you believe every nonsense you read and are somehow hoping they are empty. How sad.
Delete@19:40
DeleteFlights to Guangzhou were full this winter, off course when they have promotion they are gonna put few seats on sale, they are not gonna sell entire flight for that low fare..Besides, China Southern had a sale from Belgrade when opening new route, you could have bought round for entire southeast Asia for 530 euros, Japan 450..so Air Serbia sale was good, but not "that" fantastic
@19:42
You wanna say that 450 euros ticket was nonsense? Everyone who has internet could see those prices till this morning..so don't be.....
Larnaca seems to be very popular in JU's network. It is always also in those monthly reports with passenger numbers as busiest routes. What is the make up of passengers on this route? Transfers? P2P? Diaspora? I mean Wizz Air flies there too.
ReplyDeleteCyprus has great weather most of the year, it has a strong economy, a sizeable Serbian diaspora and Russians too who use JU to travel to Russia.
DeleteLots of people go there on holiday.
DeleteNot just that, Air Serbia carries a lot of transfers. They continued flying to LCA even when the island was under strict lockdown during covid. They remained committed to the market and it's paying off now.
DeleteCyprus is a favorite among Russians. So it certainly helped boost the route too.
DeleteA lot of Russians have left the island.
DeleteMost Russians in Cyprus have EU passports so they continue to live freely.
DeleteI fly on this route very often and from what I could see Russians never make up more than 15% of total passengers. There are more of them on the 10.20 flight because connections are limited. On the way back there are very few of them and it's most a mix of locals and transfers to Western Europe.
Deletep.s. even many Russians with EU passports have left because they had to move their business elsewhere. Many moved to Dubai.
And most Russians do not fly to LCA via BEG since this is a quite expensive variant. They rather fly through Yerevan.
DeleteNot really, there aren't that many flights from LCA to EVN, I think Wizz Air flies this route twice per week.
DeleteAccording to Flightradar there are 14 departures per week from LCA to EVN.
DeleteW6 flies once or twice a day and FlyOne Armenia are flying 4 days a week.
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/airports/lca/routes
My bad, when I checked it in late 2024 they had two weekly flights (Wizz Air).
DeleteCyprus did it's best to attract IT specialists, especially from Russia. They needed to replace all those who left.
Good result.
ReplyDeleteAn important factor that often gets overlooked is that Air Serbia has reduced costs by 25% on pre-Covid period. That is significant and important for achieving real profitability.
ReplyDeleteI would love if they released some more stats from sale for us avgeeks. For example, it would be interesting to know when did most people book tickets. I personally know a lot of people that bought tickets for the long weekend this week and some for Easter.
ReplyDeleteBookings for Easter would be strong for sure.
DeleteCongratulations to Air Serbia on another record-breaking achievement
ReplyDelete'The most sought after destinations during the promotional sales period were Larnaca, Barcelona, Paris, Istanbul and Zurich. '
ReplyDeleteLarnaca <3
I would love to see JU operate some days to these places with an A330!
DeleteAt least they barely send the A319 on the daytime flights, that's a start. I think they should grow a pair and just schedule LCA as triple daily.
DeleteJU could really uses some A321. They could increase capacity on high demand routes without havi8ng to worry were they gonna find enough pilots to operate enough flights with A319s to satisfy it.
DeleteIf they can't get the A321 at least they should add more A320s. Serbian market has matured enough and with people having more disposable income they can travel more than before.
DeleteThen again, adding more E95s means they can upgrade some regional ATR routes. I hope down the road they will replace the ATR to Prague with at least the E90.
Nice pic. Uncommon to see A330 in BEG with stairs!
ReplyDeleteAnd even more uncommon to be on B platform.
DeleteI believe this is YU-ARC and that it was taken during before departure or after landing from that Tokyo charter it did.
DeleteInteresting thanks
DeleteNice! that's 166,000 seats filled until October 25 just based on a one week sale!
ReplyDelete* 168,000
DeleteI'm surprised that with so little marketing for this sale (they announced it just the day before it started) there was so much interest. On the 3rd of February I had to go to the Air Serbia sales office in Belgrade to make a change to my ticket. I went to their Bulevar office and it was packed. I walked straight out since there was such a big line. Then I thought I would go to their ticket office in Galerija Shopping mall since I figured it would be empty. But there were many people there too. Only later did I realize it was because of this ticket sale.
ReplyDeleteOn another note on 1 February they introduced a 5 euros ticket issuing fee. But I think this is only for tickets bought at the sales office or through the call center.
Still waiting on Air Serbia to launch Manchester
ReplyDeleteAlso, CAI, TLV, NRT and especially MUC.
DeleteMUC is verboten for JU.
DeleteThat's like saying MUC-BEG is forbidden for Wizz; or NUE-BEG is forbidden for Lufthansa. All three airlines serving that area are focused on different airports for a reason.
DeleteI think slots at MUC might be a problem. JU would be arriving at a rather busy time so they might not get the times they want. Also, with Lufthansa going triple daily from S25 it wouldn't be an easy fight to win.
DeleteThey should work on increasing LIS flights!
ReplyDeleteThey applied for more slots for 2025 summer but didn't get them.
DeleteNo they did not. They requested just 2 more slots for the entire 2025 summer season comparing to 2024.
DeleteHow come all other airlines are able to get slots to fly to LIS but JU was unable to?
DeleteOU didn’t
DeleteMany didn't. Go to Lisbon slot coordination, see for yourself.
Delete@11.41 do you even know how slots work? Airlines usually request slots they want. Air Serbia needs particular slots so they can connect onto their wave of departures from/to Belgrade. I'm always stunned at the number of anonymous experts on this site who are angry about slots, plane deliveries, finances and absolutely everything yet they would probably bankrupt an imaginary airline on airline tycoon in 24 hours.
DeleteI actually think there is enough O&D demand to fill LIS outside their waves. I think a bigger problem is lack of planes since they are all flying at that time. Routes such as LIS or LCA in summer is where the A321 would come in handy.
DeleteI looked at some fares to LIS for June and they are already around €360 return. I think in two months all of these flights will be sold out.
It seems to me that JU is doing good optimization throughout winters lately. February came to me as a good showcase. In Feb 2024 I had 2 round trips to LHR which was fully packed. I thought that were incindents. Last week, Feb 2025, the same was the case to FCO, fully packed again, both legs.
ReplyDeleteFinancially wise, fleet wise, HR wise - makes sense.
My 2 cents
From what I noticed they lowered their fares in winter. Seems like they finally realized it's better to earn less than to have an empty seat on their flights.
DeleteFlew Belgrade-Barcelona last night. Plane was PACKED to the last seat. I predicted it would be since when I went to reserve a seat mid through last week half the plane already had selected seats which is unusual. Lots of Spaniards on the flight but also Serbs, Russians, Arabs. GetJet plane with Spanish crew. Also watch out for your valuables at Barcelona Airport T2. Criminals stealing bags from people in front of terminal. Several people from the flight got their hand bags stolen while catching taxi.
ReplyDeleteImagine the meltdown people would have here if there were organized gangs snatching peoples bags in front of terminals at ex-Yu airports. Or there were rats running inside the airports near the gates like in Frankfurt.
DeleteOr if there were mice in the lounges, such as at FRA or AMS... 😅
DeleteI was in BCN a few months ago and the roof was leaking. Naturally when this happens in BEG it's the end of the world. Mind you, the rain wasn't even that strong.
DeleteYou don't need gangs for bag snitching when you have illegal taxis. It would be too much to have both.
DeleteNo one forces you to get into an illegal taxi. If you are dumb enough to accept a ride from someone that approaches you and then walk a kilometre with them to the side of the road outside of of the official taxi stand and airport parking them you really should be ripped off. On the other hand illegal taxis in Ljubljana are just in front of the airport exit.
DeleteTaxi drivers at Belgrade Airport in official taxi line are ripping off foreign-speaking passengers during evening and night hours by claiming credit card terminals are not working so they only accept cash. They are asking several times more than taxi meter would show, for example 70eur to the city centre. Airport does not seem to enforce action against them in the night hours.
DeleteOrganised gangs stealinf bags in barcelona are not local people. So it could happen in Serbia too in the future..
Delete^ oh my apologies then. I forgot that the police in Barcelona does not fight crime if it is foreigners stealing. Yet it does not happen at airports in Serbia. It happens in developed EU Spain.
DeleteNo wonder that interest for tickets was huge. Many leisure destinations were dirty cheap, even cheaper than some regional cities like BNX, SJJ etc.
ReplyDeleteSeems like the airline wanted some cash fast.
DeleteThey have a promo sale every February. But don't let facts stand in your way.
DeleteI wish them best luck.
ReplyDeleteThey are the only airline Belgrade airport is getting growth from.
Poor attempt at misinformation. Number of airlines are increasing BEG, either with frequencies or capacity - KLM, Lufthansa, Aegean Airlines, LOT, Nouvelair, TAROM, SkyExpress. China Southern will be new for most of summer compared to last year and Transavia comes as new carrier.
DeleteThis little growth will not compensate for the huge Wizzair decrease.
DeleteFacts are facts.
It actually did compensate for Wizz loss in 2024. Facts are destroying you. Based on what Anon at 17:37 already mentioned, BEG will have higher growth in 2025 than in 2024.
DeleteIdemo dalje...
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteGood luck.
ReplyDelete