Air Serbia registered its busiest April on record by handling 347.585 passengers, representing an increase of 15% on the same month last year. Although the airline has not published its average cabin occupancy rate for the month, the figure is believed to have hovered close to 80% based on available seat capacity levels. Over the January - April period, the Serbian carrier welcomed 1.136.686 travellers on board its aircraft, up 6% on 2024. Air Serbia is targeting 6% passenger growth this year, which would result in the airline carrying over 4.7 million customers and overtaking the record 4.531.000 uplifted by its predecessor JAT Yugoslav Airlines in 1987. The Serbian carrier handled 4.44 million travellers in 2024, representing an increase of 6% on the previous year.
The busiest regional routes in April were Podgorica, Tivat and Ljubljana, while Paris, Zurich, Barcelona, Frankfurt, Rome, Milan, London, Amsterdam and Vienna had the most passengers in Western Europe. In the wider Euro-Mediterranean region, Istanbul, Athens and Larnaca were the busiest. During the month, Air Serbia offered the most available seats to Moscow, Zurich, Podgorica and Paris, while the largest volume of flights was operated to Podgorica, Tivat, Moscow, Ljubljana and Zurich. During the first four months of the year, the airline took delivery of one Airbus A330-200 aircraft and one Embraer E195 jet. It also commenced service to Shanghai and Florence and scheduled the upcoming launch of flights to Mykonos, Alghero, Tbilisi and Geneva.
Commenting on the results, the carrier’s CEO, Jiri Marek, said, “The results we’ve seen since the beginning of the year, especially in April during the Easter holidays, once again confirm that Air Serbia is successfully responding to growing demand and that we are on the right track to further expand our network and improve our service. We are proud of the work and dedication of the entire team. We are ready for additional flights and new destinations during the summer season, intending to provide an efficient and comfortable connection for even more passengers to key cities in Europe, the Mediterranean, Asia and North America”.
Excellent result
ReplyDeleteImpressive numbers
ReplyDeleteWonder if we will get a month where they have over 500,000 passengers.
DeleteAnyone know how sales are going for the new routes starting next month? Which one is selling the best?
ReplyDeleteInterested in this too. Especially Tbilisi
DeleteAlghero has almost all seats sold to agencies.
DeleteGVA-BEG flights also have good sales judging by their increasing prices.
DeleteGood to hear
Delete@09:40
DeleteIf it is so, than by-by Easy.
Bye bye.
DeleteI'm really hoping Tbilisi does well
DeleteAs long as they keep prices fair and service decent, I’m happy to keep flying with them.
ReplyDeleteIf they really want to be competitive, they need to boost frequency to key European cities.
Delete@09:07
DeleteThere are much more things to improve regarding hard product. But nevertheless results are very good. YoY 15% growth and average LF close to 80% are amazing.
@9.07
DeleteThe incoming Embraers will help with that.
+1
DeleteBravo Air Serbia 🇷🇸🇷🇸🇷🇸
ReplyDeleteThe only decent legacy carrier from ex Yu.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteTHE ONLY legacy carrier in former YU. The other two are joke.
Delete+1
DeleteA 15% increase in April year on year is very good. Clearly the Easter holiday traffic helped, but this shows solid overall demand.
ReplyDeleteDespite the whole crisis and unrest in the country and having less tourist arrivals, it is even more fascinating.
DeleteEaster was in April last year as well. So your post is illogical.
DeleteSo called Catholic Easter when the most diaspora travels to Serbia was last year in March.
DeleteI hope they send an Embarer one fliht daily to Ljubljana from Belgrade and increase the number of flights to 3 per day every day.
ReplyDeleteIt would be better to introduce some night flights to LJU. For example, every day there should be morning and evening flights, and on 4 days third flight should be in the afternoon, and on other 3 days it should be during night.
DeleteThus, there would be 21 weekly flights to LJU.
Air Serbia previously said that they intend to have 4 daily to LJU, which is not impossible in the next couple of years.
We need more night flights all over Europe (where possible)
DeleteNight flights have sense to be introduced to LJU, ZAG, SJJ, BUD, TGD. Those would provide very good feed for morning wave and all would be operated by an ATR.
DeleteAll ATRs should be deployed overnight to maximize transfer options across the network.
DeleteAgree
DeleteNow with 10 ATR's, perhaps 1 or 2 new routes from KVO? I dare to think even of UZC-SKG or UZC-TIV summer flights. Why not give it a try.
DeleteWithout subsidies they won't launch anything new from KVO.
DeleteIt would be great to see more detailed stats luka load factor, revenue per seat kilometer, etc.
ReplyDeleteRevenue seat per kilometer is not published.
DeleteIf they can maintain performance and avoid operational hiccups it will be a good year for them.
ReplyDeleteI agree. So far, so good.
DeleteIdemo dalje...
ReplyDeleteThey will for sure, most likely they will have around 10% growth.
ReplyDeleteSolid!
ReplyDeleteCongrats! Now they should announce new long haul route for winter, hopefully MIA
ReplyDeleteHopefully MIA in winter and YYZ seasonal for next summer.
DeleteFingers crossed.
DeleteBorn in the 90s, I'm curious about JAT Yugoslav Airlines' strong performance in 1987. Specifically, how many destinations JAT served that year and what the passenger numbers were for BEG in the same year?
ReplyDeleteBEG had 3,311,951 passengers in 87. 1987 is consisted the golden year in Yugoslav aviation. That year JU launched Los Angeles, Culcutta...
DeleteFrom a previous article here
DeleteIn 1987, JAT had 7.867 employees, including 509 pilots and 1.128 cabin crew, while over 500 employees worked outside of Yugoslavia of which 350 were foreigners. It will go down as the carrier's most successful year in history during which it not only handled a record number of passengers but also signed a Letter of Intent for the purchase of MD-11 aircraft, took delivery of a new DC-10 and placed an order for its fifth DC-10, leased a further two aircraft of the same type, took delivery of its seventh new Boeing 737-300 and ordered two additional ones, took delivery of two ATR42s and placed an order for three ATR72s, launched scheduled flights to Los Angeles, Calcutta, Beijing, Mostar and Banja Luka, as well as introduced its second cargo-only service to Paris in cooperation with Air France. Furthermore, it signed an agreement with Safran Aircraft Engines (then known as Snecma) to jointly build a test bench for jet engines, opened its new catering facility in Belgrade, a new hotel on Kopaonik mountain and rolled out a new business class product on domestic flights. In 1987, the carrier handled 291.000 travellers on long-haul flights, with a large share of transfer passengers originating primarily from Italy, France and Malta. It closed the year with a positive balance sheet of 36 million US dollars, according to the company's annual report.
Funny how we’re still comparing with 1987 JAT. Different world now but good to see Air Serbia aiming high again.
DeleteEspecially taking into account that JAT was a national carrier of a country of 20 million people.
DeleteWhat was their LF for the last year, I still can’t find it anywhere?
ReplyDeleteIt will be published in their operations report which is usually published in June.
DeleteDoes anyone remember what the lf was for 2023?
Delete74.6%
DeleteIt was written here that based on capacity, the load factor for 2024 should have been around 77%
DeleteWhat is happening with Embraers, when will they start flying? Both ATB and ATC are not flying. ATB again for months, the second time
ReplyDeleteMaintenance delays, nothing new there. Also one Bulgarian E190 has departed to Germany for scheduled maintenance. Let’s hope all of them arrive before June.
DeleteEveryone is praising Embraers but these planes are more out of service than flying. Atb was on service 2 months ago for almost 2 months so why again?
DeleteMy (obviously unofficial) read on this is that some people always need to find negative when good news are published about Air Serbia, so maintenance folks are trying hard to give people like you at least something to complain about.
DeleteI think it is always the same person. Probably some trauma.
Deleteбраво!
ReplyDeleteIt’s nice to see a regional airline competing on a larger scale and maintaining solid load factors
ReplyDeleteGood results, but I’d be curious to see how much of this growth is driven by transit passengers vs. point-to-point demand.
ReplyDeleteTransfer is 35-40%.
DeleteThanks
DeletePolar oposites from yesterdays news
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteNo E jets in the air :(
ReplyDeleteBased on existing scheduling, Embraers are due to fly from May 12. Subject to change.
DeleteThank you!
DeleteFor now, ATB will fly to CPH and LYS on 12/05. ATC is not planned yet (until at least 24/05).
DeleteThis must be one of the longest introductions of a new aircraft type into the fleet in history.
DeleteIntroduction of the type was in October 2024. It flew first revenue service then with YU-ATB registration.
DeleteYes but since October 2024 it has not been in service for about 3 months in total.
DeleteDouble digit growth is back. We didn't see 15% growth in a while. Let's keep it that way.
ReplyDelete+100
DeleteFlew to Rome with them last month. Great crew and smooth flight. But Belgrade Airport still needs better organization at peak times.
ReplyDeleteWhy? Were there big lines at security?
DeleteNice to see Ljubljana among the busiest regional routes.
ReplyDeleteIt's served from Nis too
DeleteIt has both transfer and point to point passengers so no surprise it does well.
DeleteLF is actually quite good for a legacy airline in April.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteI would love to see how their China routes are performing in terms of passenger numbers and load factor. For the US ones we know.
ReplyDeleteDuring the Easter holidays planes where top full..Believe it or not, on Monday 14 th of April, flight from BEG to CAN had 100% occupancy..Not even single business class seat was left 1 week before the flight..
DeleteThat was probably because of May day which is a major 5 day holiday in China
DeleteGreat job overall
Delete@14:06 Well, it was more because of Cristian Easter, because end of week was already Good Thursday and Friday.....I flew on thursday, same route, and also almost 100% full plane..Majority of pax were tourists from Serbia and Europe....For May day flights were indeed full
DeleteThat's good. How was the flight?
DeleteFlight was good...Nothing to complain
DeleteNice to see steady growth. Just wish they had better entertainment options onboard for long-haul flights
ReplyDeleteDefinitely
DeleteI think they are being too conservative with their growth forecast for this year.
ReplyDeleteIt's always good to be more conservative and then have even better results ;)
DeleteExactly
DeleteHope so
ReplyDeleteFRA one of the busiest routes despite LH competition
ReplyDeleteWe need MUC ASAP.
DeleteHere we go again...
DeleteNo, we don’t. LH is OU’s Mutti
DeleteIt will probably be between 8 and 10%
ReplyDelete