Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport is set to record its sixth consecutive year of long-haul network growth in 2027, with Air Serbia to introduce flights to Miami. Since 2022, the airport has gained nonstop services to Beijing, Chicago, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Toronto, all of which ranked among Belgrade’s ten busiest unserved long-haul destinations prior to their launch. With Miami, currently the busiest unserved US destination by passenger demand, due to be added next May, the most sought-after long-haul destinations from the Serbian capital will include Los Angeles, Sydney, Melbourne, Bangkok and Boston.
Nearly 20.000 passengers travelled between Belgrade and Miami on connecting, single-ticket itineraries in 2025, making Miami the Serbian capital’s busiest unserved US market. The figure represents point-to-point demand between the two cities, while Air Serbia will also seek to attract passengers from across its regional network. More than 120.000 passengers travelled indirectly between Miami and the wider market encompassing the Balkans and Greece, much of which falls within Air Serbia’s catchment area.
Miami is also a major hub for American Airlines, with Air Serbia to offer single-ticket itineraries with the carrier to onward destinations. South Florida’s tourism and cruise industries could provide an additional source of demand, alongside passengers visiting friends and relatives and business travellers.
Belgrade Airport's long-haul network evolution
Belgrade Airport offers incentives for the launch of new long-haul services, including discounts on passenger service charges for both departing and transfer passengers over a three-year period. New long-haul routes also benefit from a full discount on landing fees in their first year, followed by reductions of 70% in the second year and 50% in the third. To attract new long-haul carriers, the airport provides an additional one euro per departing passenger, plus a further two euros per passenger if the service is maintained throughout the winter season.
Bangkok next
ReplyDeleteLos Angeles should be the next destination. There is a sizeable Serbian community in California and the connections from the Balkans could make the route viable, especially during summer.
DeleteI think you are getting a little carried away with yourself on that one.
DeleteI think eventually Ethiopian could start Addis Ababa - Belgrade - Los Angeles with a strong JU codeshare.
DeleteI also think it's possible. Especially since they can use a B737 MAX rather than some widebody
DeleteA 737Max from Belgrade to Los Angeles ;) are you quite sure.
DeleteI was referring to Ethiopian from Addis
DeleteY'all have lost the plot
DeleteThe Addis fan always pops up.
DeleteYou were saying the same about Cluj and here we are.
DeleteBangkok will be next
ReplyDeleteTokyo is next, no secrets about that. Maybe some long haul leisure. Than line in China, probably Beijing and than Seoul.
Deletetrust me bro.
Delete* then, not than.
DeleteBut I think Seoul is next.
^ Based upon what evidence?
DeleteSeoul, Tokyo, Bangkok, Beijing, Singapore, Delhi, Mumbai would all come one way or another in the future.
DeleteI wonder which one of these is the most successful in terms of yields and profitability.
ReplyDeleteI believe JFK.
DeleteMiami makes much more sense than some people are giving it credit for. It is not just about the Serbian diaspora in Florida. There is the cruise market, tourism, regional connections and onward traffic with American Airlines.
ReplyDeleteWould be interesting to know how many passengers travelling between Belgrade and Miami currently fly via Istanbul, Frankfurt, Zurich or other hubs.
DeleteYour question is self answering mate. All of them considering there aren't direct fights yet.
Deletei meant how many individually and which one has the most transfers for this route.
DeleteI think Istanbul is often used. Last year I flew to Miami with Condor via Frankfurt. I purchased a ticket on Condor, which offered the Belgrade-Frankfurt sector on Air Serbia and my luggage was checked through to Miami in Belgrade.
DeleteI would add that ATH is one of the largest unserved routes out of MIA sitting at roughly 66.000 pax. The new morning and evening flights JU introduced this summer sets a good base for excellent connectivity to their TATL network with room for further growth now that the new rotations are there.
DeleteTBH even Vienna lacks flights to Miami, so the route is sound. Everyone can see that.
DeleteWill they have enough aircraft for MIA without changing frequencies to CAN? Will the current fleet be enough?
DeleteFor the current schedules, they are missing 1 A330. Chinese routes would have to have drastic reorganisation to fit MIA with 4 aircraft.
Delete@09:20
BUD and VIE have roughly the same demand. 58 and 57 PDEW respectively. It probably wouldn't be easy to get much transit from them, especially VIE to due it being an OS (LHG) base. If they can get 10% of that number, you're looking at 5 pax which isn't much.
Interesting that Bangkok ranks so highly.
ReplyDeleteThis is amazing result.
ReplyDeleteWell done Air Serbia!
Indeed. But its also China Southern.
DeleteHainan too
DeleteHopefully new planes to reach into new destinations. A332 is good for now but they will need to find a replacement soon and same goes for their narrow body fleet which I hope next year in 2027 we will finally have an answer as to how the fleet will look.
ReplyDeleteThey will have to at one point. The A332 is something of a relic of the aviation world. A wonderful aircraft, one of the most beautiful but for intercontinental flying its heading towards the retro zone. JU have, however, been really clever in their moves re fleet so I have confidence they'll manage that future transition well when the time comes.
DeleteFor the long haul fleet it should be between A330neo, A350, and for the narrow they should get the A320neos and to fill the gap between the ATR either A220s or E195e2
DeleteAny how will they pay for, operate and fill the premium cabins of A350s pray tell?
DeleteMaybe if some A330-800 become available on the market with good deal. But it's a long shot, because too few is produced so far. A339 is far too large for JU
DeleteOf A338, I believe there are only 7 in existence.
Delete@12:30
DeleteA339 doesn't necessarily have to be too large for JU. There are configurations where there is a smallish difference in seat capacity vs the A332 (Air Mauritius for example). The extra capacity could be a motivation to look into premium economy.
A330 is still ok for TATL ops, the A332 and A333 combined are the most used aircraft types for TATL traffic. It'll be several more years before that drastically changes.
Importantly for Miami route, incoming government explicitly said yesterday they will not introduce sanctions on Russia. That will be a big source market for MIA.
ReplyDeleteExactly.
DeleteAnd it is a very clever move. If Serbia impose sanctions to Russia it will cause nothing but huge damage only to its own economy without any impact on Russia.
So Air Serbia continue to fly to Russia.
Bravo Air Serbia 🇷🇸🇷🇸🇷🇸
ReplyDeleteBangkok and Boston are next in line, in my opinion. JU doesn't have aircraft that can reach LAX nor Australia.
ReplyDeleteI doubt LAX or Australia could make any money for them, even if they had the planes.
DeleteBoston i cannot for the life of me imagine it wouldn't be profitable. Bangkok - perhaps. Australia of course not. I think growth in long haul will likely be from airlines other than JU going forward.
DeleteAustralia is least likely because they have competition from Gulf carriers.
DeleteI agree that Australia should not be taken in consideration, but I was quite surprised seeing that Finnair introduced HEL-BKK-MEL.
DeleteIt was introduced because it's a deal with Qantas. Until then Finnair wet leased its plane to Qantas operating the same route. Now they operate it under their own code.
DeleteOh and I should add that Finnair's route development manager is from Australia :)
Delete😊
DeleteWhat an expert you are! What is the ground for your false theory? LAX is just 1000km more than MIA.
DeleteIts 1,536 km further. But yes, the original comment is incorrect. JU could send A332s to LAX but its highly unlikely to in the near future.
DeleteNo, it's not.
DeleteIt is "just" 1500km further.
Ok bro.
DeleteHow did people reason that Australia wouldn't be profitable? Australia has huge demand not only from the ex-yu to Australia but also eastern Europe to Australia and Australians to Europe. They're is such poor direct flight connectivity between Australia and Europe. Providing more options for people to travel would be very lucrative. But of course this would depend on JU getting the aircraft that can fly the route. Their current A330 can't do it
Delete'They're is such poor direct flight connectivity between Australia and Europe.'
DeleteThat is not a correct statement for one.
How did people reason that Australia wouldn't be profitable?
Because even airlines such as BA have struggled with making OZ work. You need premium cabins full.
'Their current A330 can't do it'
They can do it, with stop. JU - nor any airline in Europe save Turkish - could make non-stop flights to OZ work even when the A350–1000ULR is full up an running.
Australia for an airline like JU is a non-starter even in the medium term.
Depending of ME3 fate. If they collapse, race will begin. Finnair already pulled the plug
Delete'Finnair already pulled the plug' - what does this mean? Finnair are operating a route on behalf of Qantas between Melbourne and Bangkok, an extension of their existing Helsinki to Bangkok flights. You should read up on things.
Delete@11:16
DeleteFull aircraft doesn't mean profit necessarily.
You have markets with significantly higher demand and yield in Europe that isn't served direct. Add to that the fact that JU has probably amongst the smallest if not the smallest business class capacity on a widebody in Europe. For JU, it just makes more sense to route better on 1 stop connections with a partner airline for example via BKK with TG or QF.
@12:44
DeleteAre you implying there are no tickets on sale from HEL to MEL? Or what are trying to spin?
MIA will definitely hurt LH LX TK and KL
ReplyDeleteHardly. Drop in the ocean so to speak.
DeleteNot if to grow to 3-4 weekly.
DeleteThey are unlikely to 'hurt' from that though.
DeleteFrom BEG, you're probably looking at around 20-25 PDEW being divided up by several airlines. It's practically the value of a statistical error on their loads for those airlines.
DeleteLAX is simply too far and I am sure they won't go after it.
ReplyDeleteMaybe we can expect BKK as seasonal next winter. It depends also how the situation in Iran will be developing.
Also LAX is relatively competitive, there are like a dozen of European airlines flying there.
DeleteQuite an even spread in the west and east.
ReplyDeleteForeign policy in a map :)
DeleteNot foreign policy but top unserved destinations and unmet demand on a map. Most of those destinations were top (or near the top) unserved long-haul destinations from Belgrade before they were launched. Balance of frequencies and carriers on China routes may have been result of political influence, but unserved demand figures are not, esp on North American side. Facts quickly melt conspiracy theories posted here.
DeleteYou must be fun at parties...
DeleteYou always say that when I use facts to dismantle toxic posts.
Delete"toxic post" take a chill pill bro.
DeleteCan an A330 reach LAX?
ReplyDeleteYes it can. But for sure not profitably.
DeleteYes, it would have to carry more fuel. It's unprofitable for planes to carry more fuel in its tank, by some "experts".
DeleteSome 'expects' think such a long routing on a relatively fuel inefficient aircraft would prove financially advantageous and competitive in the cut-throat world of flying to the West Coast.
DeleteSome experts in Air Serbia thinks it's profitable to fly 12 hour flight to MIA on such inefficient plane, but some "experts" from comments thinks it's unprofitable to fly 13,5 hours flight to LAX on the same one. LOL, this is hilarious!
Delete@10:24 we assume you are an 'expert' yourself? hilarious stuff indeed.
DeleteExpert that thinks it's unprofitable to fly to LAX with models that they have now happens to be CEO of Air Serbia
DeleteDoes the CEO of Air Serbia want to fly to LAX?
Delete@Branko
DeleteSource for that info? He told you? Because there's no such statement on internet so far. Or you made that up also?
It was roughly a year or so ago that Marek made that statement.
DeleteThe A332 could make it to LAX, the question is if it's efficient (profitable) for them to do so. At some point you're carrying fuel for the fuel needed to reach LA while reducing cargo capacity. If you don't have the higher fares (premium pax) to justify doing this then there is no point.
It is quite natural to charge LAX tickets more than JFK or ORD, at least 10 or 20%. I don't see a problem about that
DeleteMiami will depend heavily on regional feed.
ReplyDeleteDoubt that. You didnt read the text. Very strong point to point demand.
DeleteThe article doesn't mention strong point to point and neither does the 20.000 indirect pax figure given in the article. That works out to be around 54 pax per day. It isn't realistic to expect JU to take 100% of that demand. Transit traffic will play a vital part in keeping that route viable.
DeleteBoston would be a logical next step in North America. It would require fewer resources than Los Angeles and could attract passengers from across the region.
ReplyDeleteIncreasing frequencies to Chicago and Toronto are a next step. If one wants to compete with the big boys over the Atlantic. I don't see JU doing much more expansion in the US tbh.
DeleteAgree that BOS is a next logical step in USA .
DeleteA lot of exyu + bg + gr people, from which most come to Eu more frequently than people on west
I am surprised how quickly Belgrade's long-haul network has developed
ReplyDeleteI thought BEG has Tokyo and Seoul on their busiest unserved destinations. Are they in top 10?
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting if American Airlines would launch LAX BEG
ReplyDeleteIt would be wonderful, but impossible. AA don't even fly to Paris on their own metal from LAX. Only London. So its not going to occur.
DeleteI really wander why some people are surprised by Bangkok being so high on unserved destinations? Haven`t you heard how many Thai visa has been issued just in Embassy of Thailand in Athens last year. And I`m sure you know many people around you talking their vacation in Thailand.. At least in Belgrade its so common that someone says that was, or is going to Thailand on vacation, almost like vacation in Turkey ( ok. Greece is always gonna be N` 1)...I would like to hear exact reasons from skeptics why they think this route wouldn`t work, `cause so far I see only comments like- no, wouldn`t work, but without any explanation. On the other hand, we saw many explanations why this route could work very well as seasonal winter route, including myself who gave a eligible observations for this route.
ReplyDeleteJust five short years ago, this Belgrade long-hail route map would have been a dream even for most hardcore fans of BEG airport. Kudos to BEG and JU for making this dream come true! There is no end in sight, with more destinations being talked about and expected in the next year or two. Belgrade is now undisputed regional mini-hub. Congrats!
ReplyDelete+1 🇷🇸
Delete