Air Serbia completes Croatia expansion

Air Serbia will today introduce its sixth destination in Croatia, marking the resumption of flights between Belgrade and Zadar after 28 years. It follows on from the resumption of services to Rijeka earlier this month. As a result, the carrier will now serve Zagreb and Rijeka on a year-round basis, and maintain seasonal services to Dubrovnik, Split, Pula and Zadar. "We are proud to be able to help bring closer the people and economies of the two countries. We are confident that the flights will enhance travel options and will further contribute to the development of bilateral trade and tourism. Our intention is to further develop year-round inbound tourism, by offering our guests all of these destinations in Croatia", the carrier said.

Air Serbia is offering over 165.000 seats between Belgrade and its Croatian destinations this summer season. Apart from introducing flights to Zadar and Rijeka, the airline has also increased frequencies to both Zagreb and Dubrovnik this summer. Air Serbia now operates eleven weekly flights to the Croatian capital and daily services to Dubrovnik, both up by one weekly service on last year. The carrier has also increased capacity to Split by maintaining all of its six weekly flights with the jet-engine Airbus A319 aircraft. Recently, Brač Airport also expressed interest in services from Belgrade. "Over the past few years we have held a number of talks with Air Serbia with the aim of establishing nonstop flights to Belgrade. The short length of the runway, which has been extended, was one of the obstacles but no longer poses a problem to our cooperation", Brač Airport's General Manager, Tonči Peović, said. He added that the airline could maintain up to three weekly seasonal flights from the Serbian capital with an ATR72 aircraft. Serbian tour operators have also requested for Air Serbia to introduce services to the Croatian island.

On the other hand, Croatia Airlines has decreased its seasonal offering from Split to Belgrade with the carrier maintaining two weekly services instead of three. It has put 5.800 seats on sale between the two cities this summer. "Belgrade has been regularly evaluated on behalf of our network planning department, however, in our analysis, the new routes introduced over the past three years have all shown greater demand, which is why they have been given priority over the Belgrade route", the carrier said. Croatia Airlines introduced two weekly services to Belgrade in 2012, which were increased to three weekly in 2014. This year, the carrier will maintain flights to the Serbian capital until September 23.