Air Serbia yesterday announced the launch of its second new route during the coronavirus pandemic, following the launch of its Oslo service in July 2020. Flights to Geneva, which are scheduled to commence as early as March 1, were initially to launch as part of the carrier’s 2020 summer expansion, which also included cities such as Amman, Rostov-on-Don, Florence, Lviv, and Chisinau, but was shelved due to the global health emergency. The announcement yesterday came just days after easyJet temporarily suspended its Geneva – Belgrade service until March 5, although the resumption date is subject to change. Similarly, Air Serbia’s decision to start services to Oslo also came after Norwegian Air Shuttle temporarily dropped its operations on the route.
Air Serbia’s General Manager for Commercial and Strategy, Jiri Marek, said the new services are part of the carrier’s strategy to respond quickly to changing market conditions. “We are carefully monitoring all the changes in travel restrictions and demand, trying to act quickly and seize all the opportunities that open up on the market. In July, we already launched a new destination - Oslo, which proved to be an excellent business decision as the Norwegian capital is currently one of Air Serbia’s top five destinations. Additionally, establishing a codeshare partnership with Turkish Airlines resulted in the introduction of daily flights to Istanbul, which have an excellent passenger load factor, exceeding 80%”, Mr Marek said.
Prior to the pandemic, Air Serbia planned to serve Geneva three times per week but has now opted for a two weekly split schedule, to allow for better connections via Belgrade. The route was the subject of intense competition in 2013 when Etihad Regional, easyJet and Swiss all launched the service, however, in the end, only the budget airline prevailed. Air Serbia’s predecessor, JAT, last served Geneva in 1985, from Ljubljana. Air Serbia planned to introduce Geneva to its network back in March 2018 but cancelled those less than a month later. Entry into Switzerland for the majority of Serbian citizens is currently not permitted.
Good news from Air Serbia!
ReplyDeleteOnce again they showed how quickly they react on market changes.
Hope more similiar news will follow.
"In July, we already launched a new destination - Oslo, which proved to be an excellent business decision as the Norwegian capital is currently one of Air Serbia’s top five destinations."
ReplyDeleteInteresting. Did not expect that Oslo would perform so well.
Is there a chance some other routes from the ones they planned in 2020 will launch?
ReplyDeleteThis was a major hole in their network. I am sure it will do extremely well with transfers as well. JU seems to be doing really well in Tirana these days, ATR was upgraded to B733 today!
DeleteExcept for maybe Rostov in Russia if Russia opens up, I don't see the rest launching this year.
DeleteThere was one comment yesterday showing that Cairo is back in JU reservation system although we had here information it will be cancelled.
DeleteAnd it is really true. In July Air Serbia will be flying 2x weekly BEG-CAI
I'm talking about routes that were planned to launch last year.
DeleteI think that any new route not flown at this moment should be mentioned here as in these difficult times each one needs to be counted.
Delete09:08
DeleteTirana će raditi još bolje. Od juče građani Albanije mogu u Srbiju samo sa ličnom kartom i obrnuto.
Can you write in English? I would like to be able to understand. It is an English language site after all.
DeleteAlbania Serbia friends I love it!
DeleteMore connections between the two countries.
Good news considering almost everyone else is shrinking their network.
ReplyDeleteWhy did they cancel GVA launch in 2018?
ReplyDeleteBack then they thought easyjet would suspend the flights because they hadn't put tickets on sale past a certain point. Then easy said it was a technical glitch on their website and a week later tickets were on sale and Air Serbia decided not to compete.
DeleteI think this time again they are hopeful Easyjet will end this route. They probably expect them not to launch flights in March and to push back the resumption date and eventually cancel it.
DeleteI think they are mistaken again if they think easy will give up that easily.
DeleteYes but this time around easyJet is in a much worse situation, they almost went bankrupt a few months ago.
DeleteGood luck but it will be tough to compete against Easy jet.
ReplyDeleteWhat are the fares like? Are they competitive against easy?
DeleteJU's split schedule works in their favor. easyJet flies in the middle of the day.
DeleteeasyJet is starts from €34 one way. Before covid they were not that cheap, rarely under €190.
DeleteWow that's cheap. What about Air Serbia? What are their fares like?
DeleteWould love to get night flights to Istanbul, they would be great for connections.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't Turkish have an evening flight from BEG?
DeleteYes, leaves at 20.20 and arrives to IST at 23.55.
DeleteJU needs a BEG departure at 00.30.
When things get back to normal, JU should definitely open more routes to Turkey.
DeleteGood for P2P and Connecting potential, probably a way to tell DY not to come/stay...
ReplyDeleteI think the only airline that count on connecting traffic is Air Serbia. And they seem to be counting on it.
DeleteThe only one?
DeleteReally interesting.
Between them and easyjet I meant.
DeleteIt is obvious LCC in the most cases do not offer connectionting flights
DeleteYes but DY offers connections. You can fly to Oslo with them via ARN as well.
DeleteBut connections are not a key part of DYs business, so they price them very high. They just add the fares together for BEG-ARN and ARN-OSL. Same if you are continuing on one of their domestic flights beyond OSL; also fare+fare.
DeleteThat's how all airlines do it, they link fares from various sectors and join them on a single ticket. DY is the same.
DeleteNot correct. By legacy airlines their connecting ticket is much cheaper than the sum of 2 single tickets.
DeleteWith LCC it is 1+1.
No one said tickets, he said fares.
DeleteCongrats on the proactive approach.
ReplyDeleteI think this is something like 4th attempt to launch GVA.
ReplyDeleteAs far as I remember first one was at the time when Swissair and Etihad Regional opened GVA-BEG, second one was the story with easyJet and the third one in 2020 stopped by pandemic.
I hope this one will be finally successful.
With Wizz Air not bringing back LYS this is great news. Competition is always good and it will keep pressure on easyJet not to increase prices too much like they did in the past.
ReplyDeleteIt will also put less pressure on Basel and Zurich as people will have more options now.
I am curious to see what easyJet does in Basel. They seem to be very aggressive compared to Wizz Air over there.
Well that was a quick reaction to easy.
ReplyDeleteI think all these direct flights not just by JU but by others (like Luxair) will mostly impact LH Group airlines in Belgrade. I am curious to see what they do and how they respond.
ReplyDeleteI really don't see how this is going to be profitable for them. I realize they introduced this as a reaction to Easy but is it really wise to loose so much money over one route?
ReplyDeleteWell as you see, OSL was introduced under the same principle and it is now one of their most successful routes.
DeleteBecause markets are not static, they can grow once you add more seats to them. Air Serbia, unlike easyJet, can offer transfer via BEG like they do elsewhere.
DeleteDo you think places like Tirana do so well because of O&D?
Zurich has performed very well for them throughout this crisis. I assume Geneva will do well too.
ReplyDeleteYou are all much too optimistic .
DeleteHis argument is based on actual facts, yours on wishful thinking though last Anon
DeleteFinally some positive news
ReplyDeleteGood news for JU but particularly for people who need to travel.
ReplyDeleteGood luck. Hope there is more good news soon.
ReplyDeleteThe positive thing in all this is that Air Serbia is reacting very quickly to these changing conditions on the market which is very important in circumstances like these.
ReplyDelete+1
Deleteit shows that JU is not sleeping despite all the challenges.
DeleteThey have been very proactive in the last two years or so in responding to market conditions and competition.
DeleteTrue. This is something I noticed from them from around the time Adria went belly up.
DeleteGood to see slowly some positive developments.
ReplyDeleteGood to see some growth but it's a drop in the ocean.
ReplyDeleteIt's a start :)
DeleteHopefully they get more transfers from these Geneva flights for their regional routes.
ReplyDeleteIt's a gasto heavy route which is not served from most ex-Yu capitals. I'm sure they will.
DeleteAS was not profitable w/out Covid crisis ,now loss is huge for all airlines so opening flights does not mean profit
ReplyDeleteJust because an airline was not profitable does not mean every route it operated was loss making. Aviation 101.
DeleteLove this.
ReplyDeleteI think under the circumstances they are doing relatively well. They are serving almost 30 destinations from BEG with decent frequencies.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteWhere is this demand coming from since tourists are still not allowed into Switzerland? Could it be purely diaspora?
ReplyDeletePurely diaspora. There is also pent up demand. Many couldn't visit last summer so they are going now since restrictions are less stringent.
DeleteThey have been pretty proactive and flexible with adding flights and frequencies if there is demand which is good.
ReplyDeleteWith lots and lots of government money, it is no surprise they can be flexible.
DeleteYou gotta spend money to make money. That was the case with LO and BT yet look at them today.
DeleteThere are some companies who get the money and do nothing except using it for pure survival and salary payments to its employees.
DeleteIzgleda su bukvalno shvatili predsednika "Dobili ste 100 mil. od države i sad morate da budete najbolji u regionu"
ReplyDeleteAir Serbia je i do sada bila najbolja u regionu.
DeleteNow if they would only do something about their fleet.
ReplyDeleteThey retired two B733 and replaced them with A319. They are already doing something about it.
DeleteATR are a pressing issue in my oppinion
Delete*ATRs
DeleteIf the EU lifted the entry ban and some countries reopened their borders, we would see a lot more flights and frequencies even in this situation.
ReplyDeleteNo doubt. But the situation in the EU is so bad at the moment with the virus, maybe it's better that the borders stay closed for some time.
DeleteWell the vaccine can make Serbs immune. Today over 30.000 people were vaccinated against covid which is great.
DeleteGood to see they are taking some concrete action in their recovery.
ReplyDeleteIt will be a long way to recovery.
DeleteAt least they started.
DeleteThe show must go on.
ReplyDeleteeasyJet seems pretty happy about BEG and they have been expanding over the years their presence here. I wonder if as a reaction to this they might introduce ORY or LGW flights.
ReplyDeleteThey have been relatively successful. In 2019 they were even hinting of a base in BEG.
DeleteThat would have been interesting. Two LCCs with base plus national carrier.
DeleteWonder if we might see some other new routes.
ReplyDeleteOnly if some competitor goes bankrupt or decides to suspend their route to Belgrade :D
DeleteNice to read some positive news.
ReplyDeleteMaybe they should launch Budapest?
ReplyDeleteI think it would be better if they launched Munich.
DeleteI doubt they could compete against LH.
DeleteLH does not fly MUC-BEG at the moment
DeleteThey should launch NUE. MUC has FMM as an indirect competitor.
DeleteI am positively surprised Oslo is performing so well. Who would have thought.
ReplyDeleteI wonder which route is performing best for them now with all these restrictions still in place
ReplyDeleteAccording to Air Serbia, Zurich and New York
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2021/01/air-serbia-boosts-zurich-operations.html
ZRH, JFK, IST.
DeleteWhat matters is that a total collapse of air traffic was avoided by Air Serbia and now we even see some modest growth.
ReplyDeleteI agree it could be much worse but their traffic is still down more than 60% compared to last year.
Delete2019.
DeleteThis is good as it shows that JU is not sleeping despite all the challenges.
ReplyDeleteEasyJet will not allow Air Serbia to succeed on this route. Once they're back on it in March, they will reduce fares so low that JU will hemoredge cash to such an extent that they will likely exit.
ReplyDelete