The Serbian Civil Aviation Directorate and the Civil Aviation Administration of China have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to remove air traffic restrictions between the two countries. The agreement aims to remove limitations on frequencies and capacities in the aviation sector between the two and promote a commercial partnership between Air Serbia and Hainan Airlines, which plan to ink a codeshare agreement. “With the Memorandum of Understanding, the two countries have agreed to liberalise air traffic rights. This refers in particular to relaxed provisions on codesharing arrangements”, the Serbian Civil Aviation Directorate said. The singing ceremony was attended by Air Serbia’s CEO Jiri Marek, representatives from Hainan Airlines, as well as government officials.
The Serbian Minister for Construction, Transport and Infrastructure, Goran Vesić, noted, “In essence, this Memorandum means there is a free sky agreement between China and Serbia. In the coming period, we expect an increase in the number of flights to China, in addition to the existing two routes that we have, operated by a Chinese carrier twice per week and Air Serbia once per week”. Hainan Airlines has already requested slots at Belgrade Airport for an additional weekly rotation between Beijing and Belgrade, for a total of three, from Thursday July 6. On the other hand, Air Serbia recently secured permits to launch flights from Belgrade to Shanghai.
Air Serbia’s CEO, Jiri Marek, recently said, “The next wave of expansion for us is China. Tianjin proved to be profitable from day one and it has high load factors, so we are continuing to operate to Tianjin. Recently, we secured traffic rights to Shanghai but in China you must go step by step. Once you have traffic rights, you must go for the slots and so on. Therefore, this is only one step closer to Shanghai being the potential next destination. We are also looking at Guangzhou, Chengdu and some other opportunities as well”. Based on indirect traffic volumes during the pre-pandemic 2019, Shanghai was the busiest Chinese route out of Belgrade, while the Serbian capital was the Chinese city’s eleventh busiest unserved destination in the world and seventh in Europe. After Shanghai and Beijing, Belgrade had the most traffic in China to Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Xiamen, Nanjing, Chongqing and Qingdao.
Is there a possibility for a second Chinese airline to add flights to Belgrade?
ReplyDeleteYes there is
DeleteWho would be most likely? Air China?
DeleteAir China expressed interest in flying to BEG just before Covid.
DeleteAir China, Hainan Airlines and China Eastern Airlines were in talks over Belgrade route in 2017. In the end Hainan agreed on the terms and started flights.
DeleteThis will be one of if not the most important things for Air Serbia
ReplyDeleteUnlimited opportunities, easy money and almost no competition.
Now they need to strengthen their local network for tourists
Regarding competition, you never know. Currently Chinese carrier has more flights and capacity than Air Serbia and the added bonus of being recognisable on the Chinese market.
DeleteA free skies agreement is about as far from "no competition" as it gets
DeleteFantastic news
ReplyDeleteJU needs more wide bodies and it needs them fast
ReplyDeleteThey should have got them on time. Now it is late. Even Qantas is wetleasing Finnair A330s for period of 6 years!
DeleteShould add that above deal was just signed
DeleteYes Qantas has taken them but they are also comparable to their A330 fit out. AY doesn’t need them since they can’t fly around Russia. Australia is desperate for the capacity as we’re still below pre covid figures. Plus immediate region is mostly in demand.
DeleteLet's see how big the codeshare between JU and HU will be
ReplyDeleteShanghai flights are long overdue
ReplyDeleteShanghai has big potential
DeleteShanghai not only offers excellent transfer opportunities to other important Chinese domestic destinations, it also serves as a hub for people travelling to Japan, South Korea, other countries in Southeast Asia, and to Australia or New Zealand.
DeleteShanghai is much more logical route to BEG than PEK.
Deletetourists? Interesting to see the huge demand!
ReplyDeleteNothing new, though.
DeleteI bet that our EU friends will step in with some BS regulation if JU starts taking a lot of western transfer passengers to China.
ReplyDeleteNothing even happened after JU keeping up flights to Russia, so why should there be a problem with China? Nonsense
Deleteat anon 10:29 the EU want Serbia to stop flights to Russia. they wanted them stopped immediately and they still can come up with some new regulation to make JU stop. Same way it forced Serbia to stop visa free travel for Indians and Tunisians etc.
DeleteIf EU wanted JU to stop flying to Russia, they would've been already stopped. No doubt about that.
DeleteWe can see that these sanctions are nowhere comparable to let's say sanctions towards SRJ, which it was completely cut-off from the rest of the world.
EU needs backdoor to Russia and JU is perfectly fitting into this.
It's not true that "Nothing even happened after JU keeping up flights to Russia". They pressured Serbia to not allow additional flights and they organized bomb threats.
DeleteEgipćani i Tunižani koji su dolazili ovde da bi preskakali Madjarsku granicu. Daj molim te da postanemo država logor za sve koji oće da preskaču u EU. Koliko vidim još uvek imamo letove za Kazan Mosluv itd
DeleteAir Serbia may have found themselves a niche to make a lot of money. Most of the other European airlines aren’t focused on China and also seem not interested in getting back to pre Covid levels, so Air Serbia could really benefit out of this, especially if it adds a number of destinations not just the obvious ones. Think the other one Air Serbia could benefit from but there is competition is to think about a similar agreement to India.
ReplyDeleteThe India one could work especially if they linked it with the flights to Chicago and NY now in place and with Toronto to come. Could be a very nice money stream for Air Serbia
Deletea south american route and one in africa (Johannesburg) is also is also needed to connect the ex-yu/ balkan nations.
DeleteToronto is NOT coming.
Delete@Slav.Man Addis Ababa much better than Johannesburg, but it's way too early for that
DeleteThere is also lot of people traveling to Hong Kong and then transferring to mainland China. Many of the travelers to Shenzhen & Guangzhou were using this route because you can transfer directly from HK airport by car, train or ferry. I hope it will ne considered
ReplyDeleteHong Kong is near Philippines also.
DeleteMany of them are here in Italy as well.
I would prefer JU focus on USA/Canada and leave China to one of their Interline partners.
ReplyDeleteWhy exactly when it is making money for them?
DeleteThey should focus on markets where the most money can be made. Currently that seems to be China.
DeleteI'd rather get Chinese carriers to launch flights so that we have access to their domestic and Asian network.
DeleteYou will be able to do that with new Air Serbia-Hainan codeshare.
DeleteAir Serbia has a huge potential here, because it also serves some of the other top unserved European routes from Shanghai, and little bit advertising in China, and there you go:
ReplyDeleteAny idea what Air Serbia's Shanghai schedule will look like?
ReplyDeleteAnd how many frequencies they will launch
DeleteJU really need to increase Tianjin. 1x weekly is a joke.
ReplyDeleteAgree!
DeleteThey need more A330s to do that
DeleteIt's not primarily about the number of planes but the restrictive framework under which the are forced to operate in China. Hopefully the new agreement will liberalise that.
DeleteCongratulations
ReplyDeleteShanghai could work with very good loads twice per week year round.
ReplyDeleteWould be nice to see more Chinese airlines back in Belgrade.
ReplyDeleteOn paper it looks like a good opportunity for JU, however, I am not sure are Chinese willing to fly with foreign carriers or they prefer to fly with local carriers where staff can speak Chinese? Any thoughts?
ReplyDeleteChinese tourists will fly on whoever offers them the cheapest ticket. There are a lot of foreign carriers in China meaning they don't care anymore who they fly with.
DeleteAir Serbia plans to employ at least one Mandarin-speaking stewardess on each flight to and from China. I believe the menus are also translated and adjusted to the local cuisine.
DeleteSo what Chinese airline would make most sense on flights to Belgrade besides Hainan?
ReplyDeleteAir China.
DeleteChina Eastern?
DeleteLike I wrote above. Air China, Hainan Airlines and China Eastern Airlines were in talks over Belgrade route in 2017. In the end Hainan agreed on the terms and started flights.
Deletethis is really good news
ReplyDeleteShanghai and Beijing I get, but how come this demand from Guangzhou?
ReplyDeleteGuangzhou is part of the most-populous built-up metropolitan area in mainland China and the largest port city in the world.
DeleteGuangzhou is the native name of Canton which is the capital of the Cantonese .
DeleteAlso Guangzhou and Hongkong are practically one big city connected via Shenzhen .
Out of curiosity: how many Chinese are currently working on the Chinese contracts for construction of roads and rail in Serbia?
ReplyDeleteGood news to have more opportunities from Belgrade.
ReplyDeleteIdeal Air Serbia long haul schedule
ReplyDeleteBEG - TSN - BEG 2x p/w
BEG - PVG - BEG 2x p/w
BEG - CAN - BEG 1x p/w
BEG - YYZ - BEG 2x p/w
BEG - ORD - BEG 3x p/w
BEG - MIA - BEG 2x p/w
BEG - JFK - BEG 4x-7x p/w
BEG - SIN - BEG 2x p/w
With this ideal Air Serbia long haul schedule how many A-330-200 is optimal to sustain this long haul destinations?
DeleteIt s nice to have several dest but we need to consider costs too. With 1 or 2 weekly flights u either hve lots of hotel costs or crew needs to domestic transfer.
DeleteI d rather see during Summer
2 TSN
3 PVG
4 ORD
7 JFK
3 BOM or DEL
and remaining widebody capacity to be used for SVO IST BCN ZRH and eventually TLV.
TLV with good connex to JFK flts
JU needs also to work on year over widebody usage. The less dest, the more u can work on those, to improve connectivity during Winter months
DeleteCome on Belgrade, we can do it!
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteSo we will have two airlines flying to Beijing in the future? Air Serbia and Hainan?
ReplyDeleteWe don't know yet will JU opt for PEK or leave it to Hainan.
DeleteI think they will keep Tianjin and let Hainan use PEK. We will see.
DeleteJU needs to expand China quickly and use the current opportunities of being basically the only airline able to fly over Russia, cutting down on travel time compared to other European airlines and making themselves more competitive.
ReplyDeleteAir Serbia’s blessing is that Aeroflot can no longer fly to BEG. They were the main transfer airline for Chinese passengers
DeleteJU doesn't use Russian airspace for their flights to China.
DeleteJU isnt allowed to Russian airspace because otherwise it will get sanctioned .
DeleteNot true.
DeleteJU is allowed to fly in Russian airspace, but not all their planes.
YU-ARB is not allowed, but YU-ARC is.
YU-ARC is but for Tianjin they haven't once entered Russian airspace as the other routing they use is pretty much the same time wise.
DeleteGood move. Belgrade – Shanghai can be sustained based on just P2P pax. With a big transfer network to support it, these will be even more successful.
ReplyDeleteTrue
DeleteWaiting for “where is Toronto” comment... :D
ReplyDeleteAnd Where is Lagos?
DeleteIs Air Serbia looking at other markets in Asia too?
ReplyDeleteFrom the insider - NOT really...
DeleteThere is demand and thinking about Tokyo, Singapore, Manila and Seoul bit there is so much demand for China that they could easily fill 10 A330s daily to fly to China. Scheduling and ACMI departments are under big pressure to secure more aircrafts as "wallet is open to do whatever you want" but there are no A330s on the market.
In one moment they were SO CLOSE to sign agreement for 2 A350s but Government (for whatever reason) said no...
For reason of money or why?
DeleteSo they're also looking at A350?
DeleteMaybe introducing 777 wouldn't be such a bad idea.
A350s!?! Why didn't the government agree, if true?
DeleteWhy the government had to agree if the airline selected it as a suitable model?
DeleteA350 is roughly the size of A333/772.
China Southern Airlines would be an ideal airline to start flying, particular with their huge network out of Guangzhou hub, let alone the amount of people in the catchment area some 100m people
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteThese are all good developments. Very happy with the expansion of Belgrade Airport's long haul network.
ReplyDeleteIf Air Serbia goes for profit and financial reason Shanghai without any doubt should be first choice .
ReplyDeleteIf they go for Beijing first than it is for politics over economics .
They got permits for Shanghai so they are obviously going for Shanghai.
DeleteBtw I don't really know what politics has got to do with it. Hainan will be flying 3 weekly from Beijing in 2 months and it was just behind Shanghai in terms of indirect passenger numbers before flights started.
DeleteSa ovim novim otvaranjem ASL bi se jos vise pozicionirao i napravio jos veci uspeh ne treba da se iznenadimo ako dodju uskoro i A350 koji bi odlicno izgledali u ASL semi posto za takav avion postoje odlicni uslovi posto je LF izuzetan na svim sirokotrupnim linijama.
ReplyDeleteINN-NS
Excellent news. Especially since getting permits for China is a long and difficult process.
ReplyDelete