Air Serbia handled 543.282 passengers in July, representing a year-on-year decrease of 0.9%, or 4.727 fewer travellers compared to the same month last year. While the airline achieved a record on its scheduled services, carrying 481.660 passengers, charter flight numbers declined to 61.622. The softer charter performance was anticipated due to uncertainty surrounding the end of the school year in Serbia and the start of the holiday period, both of which were impacted by months of protests in the country that heavily affected the education sector. Additionally, demand for holidays to Turkey weakened due to a sharp rise in accommodation prices.
Based on the number of passengers handled on scheduled services and its capacity on scheduled flights, the carrier’s load factor hovered at around 82% in July, although the airline itself has not released this figure. Air Serbia’s most popular regional destinations in July were Tivat and Podgorica, while Zurich, Paris, Barcelona and Frankfurt came out on top in Western Europe. In the wider Euro-Mediterranean region, the most popular destinations were Larnaca, Istanbul and Athens, while there was also strong demand for flights to New York. During the January - July period, Air Serbia welcomed over 2.5 million passengers on its flights, representing an increase of 5%. Over the seven-month period, the most capacity on scheduled services was available to Moscow, Tivat, Podgorica, Zurich, Paris, Istanbul and Larnaca.
Commenting on the results, Air Serbia’s CEO, Jiri Marek, said, “In the first seven months of the year, we carried over 2.5 million passengers on over 27.000 flights, which is 5% more compared to the same period last year. We are especially pleased that in July, when the volume of traffic has traditionally been the highest, we have exceeded the number of 500.000 passengers carried in a single month for the first time this year. This confirms that demand for our flights is constantly high, as well as that investments in the fleet, destination network and the quality of service have provided visible results”.
Most of charters now are on free sale.
ReplyDelete"Most of charters now are on free sale."
DeleteJust 3 former charter routes and now scheduled services. That is not "most".
Only 3 and new? So how many do you need?
DeleteThe airline has another 15 charter destinations. Maybe for your maths 3 is "most"
DeleteAir Serbia has 11 charter routes, not 15.
DeleteYou are right 3 is "most" out of another 11.
DeleteIt is the modus operandi for many commenting here. Made up "facts" presented in a very agressive way. Below you have someone claiming that OU has 100% load factor on all their flights in summer.
DeleteWhat does it matter whether they were regular or charter? As in all Europe, charter flights are massively decreasing because airlines can sell the remaining seats to individual tourists, the rest is for tour operators.
DeleteIt matters because all Air Serbia charter flights are sold through tour operators. They are not sold by Air Serbia. Air Serbia simply provides the plane to transport the passengers and gets paid in full by the tour operator for 180 passengers per flight, wheather those seats are filled or not.
DeleteTurkey has become expensive because of Russian tourists. For months prices were very expensive. They are coming down now. They probably could not fill the rooms.
ReplyDeleteTurks are trying to take advantage of Egypt geographical position and its proximity of war zone. But they failes
DeleteHurghada is perfectly safe for tourists and much better value. While Turkish hotels are a bit better, the Red Sea beaches are much nicer compared to Antalya region
DeleteThat is absolutely wrong, Turkey sees a sharp decline of Russian tourists this year because Turkish hotel sector has out-priced itself and Russian tourists selected UAE and the Far East instead of Turkey. Turkish inflation is the main culprit hence the high markup that makes tours quite expensive.
DeleteHonestly I don’t know where it didn’t get so expensive. The tourists in Croatia are shocked with the prices. Montenegro is also getting extremely pricey.
DeleteThe inflation is absolutely getting out of control and at this point it seems like a perfect excuse to increase prices even more.
It all started with the pLandemic. Not denying existence of virus but it was deliberately realesed in order to create chaos we are going through. With aim of additional profits for the reachest. And it will get worse. Remember my words and remember me taking the same pLandemic stuff few years ago
DeleteYou 'plandemic' people are really dull. Keep it on topic.
DeleteThe virus might have been deliberately released but it was neither the virus nor the CCP that then went ahead and kept printing money for several years, throwing goodies at middle class and incentivizing not working, lowering interest rates ad nauseam, etc. All of these government actions have obvious inflationary effects. Plus, the prices can only go up if people are willing to pay, and it is not the virus's fault that everyone wants to live like the Kardashians because someone on TikTok told them they must do that
Delete@ Anonymous16:30 please keep your views on this issue for yourself. It's not the place for such silliness.
DeleteWhat's the problem? The comment is spot on. Accommodation prices are increasing because people these days will pay anything just to be able to say they went on a vacation.
DeleteBravo Air Serbia 🇷🇸🇷🇸🇷🇸
ReplyDeleteThey never mention it but I'm sure the Russian routes are where they are getting the most money from.
ReplyDeleteThe Russian routes even made most money before the war and sanctions.
DeleteFor all airlines.
Load factor is quite good
ReplyDeleteI do know much on this, but how 82% is good for July? Isn't July and August supposed to be 95% + to compensate for weaker months?
DeleteWell you are right, you don't know much on this.
DeleteAnon 09:13
Delete+100
He expects 95% load factor on a legacy airline. I really can't...
DeleteThe experts will tell you OU's 60% load is much better.
DeleteIt is time for a renewal in management.
ReplyDeleteThe current tam did all it could, time for some fresh faces and fresh ideas.
You want management renewal because of 0.9% passenger decrease one month? Are you for real?
DeleteDelirium. Not to mention that most people don't actually read the news to see the decline is actually in charter passengers only, with which Air Serbia has nothing to do.
Delete543k passengers in July is still impressive. Looks like Air Serbia's scheduled network is holding strong, but the charter market clearly took a hit.
ReplyDelete61.622 fewer charter passengers in a single month is a huuuuge drop!
ReplyDeleteThe airline had 61.622 passengers on charter flights. Not 61.622 fewer passengers.
DeleteThank you admin. So how much was the drop in charter traffic compared with 2024?
DeleteThe figure was not provided. Neither was there a separate figure from last year in order to compare.
DeleteSo how do we know the fall is on charters?
DeleteThe airline has communicated it had a record number of passengers on scheduled services and a decline on charter flights, which resulted in an overall decline of 0.9%.
DeleteIdemo dalje ..
ReplyDeleteSo with JU weak summer performance where do we see BEG total no. of pax for the year coming at?
ReplyDeleteWill it be able to reach 9 million for the year?
"JU weak summer performance". Some of you are completely ditached from reality.
DeleteCharter numbers should improve in August.
ReplyDeleteUnlikely.
DeleteIt is likely because people that usually travel in early July delayed their holidays by a few weeks.
DeleteI agree it is unlikely August will have a significant rebound.
DeleteYou are talking as if numbers fell 10% lol
DeleteCharter passenger numbers probably did.
DeleteAnd what should they have done about that? Helped Erdogan improve his economy? Sent a cheque to the general public to buy a packaged holiday? Air Serbia has nothing to do with charters. They are just the means of transport in an agreement between the consumer and tour operator. Air Serbia does not have its own tour operator and is not responsible for their sale.
DeleteWe can all agree the financial situation of the general public is not helping JU.
DeleteCharter passenger numbers will without doubt be either stronger or the same as last year in August. I have many friends with families and no one knew when the school year was going to end because schoold were first saying they will be working until middle of July. Some high schools were working until the start of July. So most of my friends moved their holidays to August because they were certain that would be the only sure month that holidays would be on. Mind you they were not very happy to move to August.
Delete@ anon 12:19
Delete+1
I think JU's Januar price-off did a great job to fulfill the scheduled leisure traffic.
Do we have info on the number of flights JU operated?
ReplyDeleteAt one point months of protest had to start having impact on pax numbers.
ReplyDeleteBut it didn't have an impact on passengers ons cheduled flights. That kept growing. It had an impact on numbers of Serbian people travelling for a holiday.
Delete@09:32
DeleteWhy do you find this strange? People are trying to cut spending and foreign holidays is one of the first thing they reduce.
The political situation certainly is not helping.
DeleteNo excuse. They didn't compensate this loss because they cut general traffic and became extremely expensive. LF 82% is just bad for that period of the year. Very bad job of the CEO
ReplyDeleteIf they had 92% load factor you would have written it's bad and they should have 100%. A lot of you don't actually understand the realities of aviation. They are expensive precisely because their loads are high. But you forget they also fly long haul, they fly routes which have one directional demand at certain periods of the year, like Chicago. Austrian's load factors are at around 85%.
DeleteIt should be noted that the article states this load factor is based on scheduled services and does not include charter flights.
DeleteWell, if we take in conunt chaters, the estimation should be 83%.
DeleteBased on what?
DeleteCould this drop in charter pax be due to other carriers eating their lunch? Such as Air Cairo to Egypt?
ReplyDeleteAir Cairo and Noucelair are the only foreign airlines operating charter flights to Belgrade. So no. The reason was provided for the drop.
Delete*nouvelair
DeleteThere is also SkyExpress with two charter services, HER-BEG and RHO-BEG.
DeleteNouvelair obliterated JU this year. They completely took over the market to Tunis. They have several daily departures from BEG, mostly at dawn or really early in the morning.
Delete^ it didn't obliterate anyone. Air Serbia has mostly moved away from the Tunisian market and in the last two years has been growing its charters to Tunisia. This year it has the most charters to Tunisia since 2018. It would be smart not to blurt out nonsense if you don't know anything about it and it would also be smart to learn what a charter is and what is the airline's role in it.
DeleteIt’s not surprising charters to Turkey dropped. Prices there skyrocketed this year. I know several people who changed plans last minute because of costs.
ReplyDeleteBravo for the 2.5 million passengers so far this year! With more investment in fleet and new routes, I can see them hitting 5 million annually in 2026.
ReplyDelete+1
DeletePodgorica and Tivat always rank high, but I’m surprised Larnaca is consistently among the top. Cyprus must be gaining popularity.
ReplyDeleteAren't there something like 20 weekly flights between BEG and LCA now when Wizz is counted too?
DeleteIsn't Cyprus much more expensive place to go on holiday than places like Montenegro, Albania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Egypt etc?
DeleteCyprus tourism is aimed at the more affluent segment of the market.
DeleteIt would be interesting to know how may of those pax are transfers and how many local RS residents.
DeleteCyprus is actually not that expensive at all
Delete@09:43. Russians, Russians..they go there...When war ends, and other airlines start flyinf to Moscow, Air Serbia will be in big problems regarding certain routes, the money-making ones..
DeleteAir Serbia has fewer flights to Russia than before the war.
DeleteWhat???
Delete82% LF alone doesn't mean much.
ReplyDeleteIt's an average so on "vacation routes" like Tivat or Greece it is probably well over 95%.
On some year round more business oriented routes it could be even 70% during the summer season. It's the same for all carriers having a network withconnections compared to LC that sell only point to point.
I don't know any European network carriers that have 70% load factor during summer on any of their routes.
DeleteCroatia Airlines to start with.
DeleteI thought we were being serious!
DeleteCroatia Airlines has almost 💯 load factor during the summer. During the winter the load factor is very low which balances out to be in the low 60%.
Delete^ Really? Did you tell Croatia Airlines that? Because according to their Q3 2024 financial report that is published on their website, their load factor January-September was 65,9%. Must be all those 100% loads. But maybe they published a fake report on their official website and you have the real numbers.
DeleteI am really puzzled about Mr. Marek's constant mentioning and usage of "improved quality of services" , what does he mean exactly? I haven't noticed any major improvements so far, i.e. catering is what it is for 2 years now, if purchasing a beer from Elevate Bar you get it lukewarm, cabins are not well serviced and often not particularly clean, Menzies services is a hit and miss, 30-60 min delays are a usual norm especially starting from the mid day wave out of Belgrade, Pupin and Tesla retro planes are still flying, no WiFi, no F.F. program. So where is the improved quality???
ReplyDeleteSometimes we see only what we wish to see and what best fits our narratives.
Delete@Anonymous 10:11
DeleteThat s exactly what managers do to justify their position.
The situation with delays is better than it was past 2 seasons. The rest is the same, uneventful and dull. But it’s the same with other carriers, the service went down so the prices could be competitive. For the very low profit margins all across the industry…
DeleteThere is no improved quality, it's been the same for a few years now. Marek just needs to make those statements to show to the public he is the right choice for CEO.
DeleteSo we can expect similar numbers for August as well, which might affect the final goal of 4,7 mil passengers per year carried.
ReplyDeleteThe increased winter capacity might compensate the stagnation during summer months, but again, the situation in the country is very unpredictable.
Hopefully this is the year when JU reaches its all time high result since 1987.
It will for sure reach the 1987 result but I agree that both the economic and political situation of the country is depressing travel demand and it will continue to do so.
DeleteIf they succeed to keep the growh in the scheduled traffic, it should be enough for general growth. The charters should be close to the last year in August.
DeleteNews from the kitchen for Belgrade. Expect news from Wizz soon😉😁
ReplyDeleteW6 is on an expansion mode across almost all of Europe this year, could we see them launch some new routes from BEG?
DeleteThey already launched two.
Delete10:55
DeleteAs I told you very soon;)
Yes, they should announce new winter routes ASAP
DeleteI don't think they will announce anything major for BEG
Delete^ that's all that matters
DeleteI just don't see them bringing another plane to BEG so maybe they will increase something or add something new from the summer seasonal capacity.
DeleteJU is very expensive, Wizz and even LH has better pricing
ReplyDeleteAre you joking? Wizz is a lowcost airline.
DeleteA legacy airline offering direct flights is more expensive than an LCC and a connecting flight option. Colour me shocked.
DeleteYes, even OU is cheaper
DeleteBH airlines is the cheapest
DeleteI love flying Lufthansa because of their prices and network
DeleteCan someone please explain , are those numbers of JU from and to BEG , INI and Krajevo ? Does anybody know the numbers just for BEG ? Thanks a lot .
ReplyDeleteThe figures are for the entire network.
DeleteThank you Admin .
DeleteOverall drop of 0.9% is minor and temporary. They will be back with growth in Aug and Sep.
ReplyDeleteHow do you know???
DeleteThey don't. Given the uncertain situation in Serbia politically i don't not think stable growth will be guaranteed for a period.
DeleteDrop is never good, even if it was 0.9%, because in this phase of company growth, development and introduction of new routes, it should be constant increase, 5% min.
DeleteJU increased, travel agencies dropped. How hard is to understand this?
DeleteHow much was the growth in scheduled traffic? 1%? Lol
ReplyDelete