Swiss plans Serbia market growth

Swiss International Air Lines plans to boost its operations to Serbia next year, with the carrier noting that the country remains one of its "largest markets". The Swiss national airline will add an extra seven weekly flights between Zurich and Belgrade during the 2019 summer season for a total of three daily services. "We’ll be flying three times a day. Belgrade is one of the largest markets and thus very important to us. That said, it is our aim to offer attractive connections to and from this market. The passenger mix consists of a growing part of business travellers but remains an important leisure route too", a Swiss spokesperson told EX-YU Aviation News.

According to the "Aviatica" portal, Swiss is also considering adding extra frequencies between Zurich and Niš, although the carrier itself noted that, "For the time being we are not planning any frequency increase on the Zurich - Niš - Zurich route". The service is currently maintained three times per week in summer and twice weekly during the winter. “We focus on our customer’s needs from and to Switzerland. Our growth is based on our market analysis that identified a great demand for Serbia. The market is very interesting for Swiss, as there is a big community from Serbia living in Switzerland. Therefore, there is a high demand for flights”, the airline said previously .

Swiss faces stiff competition on its flights to Belgrade from Air Serbia, which has also been growing its services to Zurich over the past year. The Serbian carrier has been maintaining seventeen weekly flights between Belgrade and Switzerland's largest city this summer, up from fourteen weekly last year, and will keep its summer frequencies over the upcoming winter season. During the holiday travel period, between mid-December and mid-January, Air Serbia will be operating up to twenty weekly rotations between the two cities. The airline intended on launching two weekly services between Belgrade and Geneva this year but later shelved such plans. Switzerland is one of Serbia's largest travel markets. In addition to the two flag carriers, both Wizz Air and easyJet maintain flights between the two countries.