Tivat Airport was one of the most affected last year in the former Yugoslavia as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. It lost access to its busiest market - Russia - which generates over half of its total passengers, while services to its second biggest market - Serbia - were suspended for five months. Compulsory PCR tests for Serbian nationals for the majority of the year also discouraged peak summer travel. In total, Tivat Airport handled just 189.815 passengers in 2020, a decrease of 86.1%. It shed 1.177.467 travellers compared to the year before. Despite a five-month service suspension, Air Serbia was Tivat’s second largest airline in terms of the number of operated flights and third largest in terms of capacity last year. It handled just 4.666 transfer passengers on the service in 2020, down from 26.986 the year before.

During 2019, Moscow was Air Serbia’s busiest feeder route on flights to and from Tivat. This is despite 631.561 passengers travelling on nonstop services between the Russian capital and the coastal airport that year. Out of the top five busiest routes from Tivat in 2019, four were in Russia (Moscow Domodedovo, Moscow Vnukovo, Moscow Sheremetyevo and St Petersburg), while Belgrade was the only non-Russian city. Following Moscow, Air Serbia’s busiest feeder routes were London, Zurich and New York City. Interestingly, a total of 362 passengers from Skopje, 310 from Ljubljana and 272 from Zagreb transferred via Belgrade to reach Tivat. There were also three passengers who flew from the Cayman Islands in combination with Air Serbia and its interline partners to reach the Montenegrin coastal city. Air Serbia also saw good feed from routes it does not serve, such as Manchester, from which passengers arrived in combination with the Serbian flag carrier.

In 2020, Air Serbia’s transfer traffic to and from Tivat declined significantly. Covid-19 saw Air Serbia exit the coastal city for five months, while Montenegro’s strict and constantly changing entry rules for various nationalities also considerably dampened demand. During last year, London was the busiest feeder route, followed by Istanbul, New York and Paris. The majority of Air Serbia’s transfer traffic came during the first quarter of the year, prior to the global pandemic.

This summer season, Air Serbia plans to operate a total of 940 flights to Tivat (return service included). Out of those 882 are to/from Belgrade and the remaining 58 to/from Niš. In total, 95.220 seats have been put on sale for the duration of the summer season. The airline will almost evenly split operations to Tivat between the ATR72 turboprops and the Airbus A320-family jets. The ATRs will be deployed on 51.5% of all flights, while the A320-family aircraft will be utilised on 48.5% of services. Unlike previous years, Air Serbia no longer faces competition from Montenegro Airlines on flights between Tivat and Belgrade. The following graphs are based on existing schedules which are likely to change due to the evolving epidemiological situation across Europe and the world.