Air Serbia schedules Europe-wide network growth over winter

Air Serbia has scheduled notable frequency growth across its European network for the upcoming winter season. The carrier is set to increase the number of flights from Belgrade to Ljubljana, Skopje, Zagreb, Tirana, Skopje, Bucharest, Sofia, Larnaca, Barcelona, Vienna, Paris, Athens, Podgorica and Tivat. A number of destinations will now have the same number of frequencies or exceed the number of flights which were operated for part of the 2019/20 winter season, in the lead-up to the coronavirus pandemic. Furthermore, almost all of the routes the company launched this summer season have been extended into the winter months.

The 2022/23 winter season begins on October 30 and runs until March 25 of next year. Apart from the traditional frequency growth over the New Year and Christmas holidays, which are implemented from mid-December until mid-January, Air Serbia will increase its flights from the start of the season. Services from Belgrade to Ljubljana have been scheduled twice per day, up from the planned twelve weekly service. Operations to Zagreb will be maintained eleven times per week, up from the planned eight weekly rotations and an increase on the pre-pandemic ten weekly flights. Tirana will run twelve times per week, an increase from the planned eleven and the pre-pandemic ten weekly flights. Bucharest will grow to nine weekly rotations from the planned eight weekly service and the pre-Covid seven weekly flights. Passengers will have the opportunity to choose from nine weekly flights between the Serbian capital and Sofia, an increase on the planned four weekly rotations and the pre-pandemic daily service. A total of eleven weekly flights will operate to Skopje, up from eight weekly in 2019/20.

Elsewhere, Air Serbia will double its operations to Larnaca from the planned three, to six weekly flights. In the lead-up to the Covid pandemic, services were maintained just twice per week. Similarly, flights to Barcelona will grow from the pre-pandemic two weekly rotations to four weekly. Services to both Vienna and Paris will return to pre-crisis levels with a double daily service and twelve weekly flights respectively. Athens-bound passengers can choose from ten weekly flights this winter, up from daily prior to the global health emergency. Services to the Montenegrin capital of Podgorica will run twenty times per week, up from nineteen, while flights to Tivat will operate thirteen weekly, an increase from the pre-Covid daily rotation.

Other destinations that will match their pre-pandemic frequencies or exceed the initially planned number of flights for this winter include Berlin, Prague, Rome and Sarajevo. Services to St Petersburg have been extended for the entire winter season, rather than just a two-week holiday service.. As previously reported, flights to New York will run between three and five times per week during the upcoming winter season, up from between two and four.

Air Serbia has extended operations into the winter for almost all of the new routes it launched out of Belgrade this summer. They include Valencia, Lyon, Bologna, Hanover, Nuremberg, Salzburg and Sochi. On the other hand, Trieste, Bari and Palma will not run during the winter, although the latter two were announced as seasonal routes. Flights to Salzburg will see a notable increase in capacity, with the two weekly service to operate with the Airbus A319 aircraft, instead of the ATR72 turboprop as was the case over the summer. Air Serbia is set to make several more changes to its upcoming winter network, as well as schedule its new service to China, in the coming weeks.

EX-YU Aviation News will publish detailed 2022/23 winter season network modifications for all of the national carriers from the former Yugoslavia this October, in the lead-up to the start of the winter season.