Air Serbia, Turkish Airlines and Pegasus Airlines welcomed close to half a million passengers on flights between Belgrade and Istanbul last year, with the route continuing to grow into 2023 as well. The big increase in passenger numbers, up almost 90% on the pre-pandemic 2019, comes as a result of a revised Air Service Agreement between Serbia and Turkey, favouring the flag carriers, and enabling more frequencies, as well as close cooperation between Air Serbia and Turkish Airlines, which has resulted in a wide-ranging codeshare agreement. Furthermore, tourism exchange between the two countries has significantly increased, there is a notable rise in Turkish workers in Serbia, while a larger amount of Russian travellers transferring on the route also generated more traffic. Last year, in addition to Istanbul, charter flights to Antalya saw a significant number of passengers.
Air Serbia and Turkish Airlines handled a total of 380.004 passengers between Belgrade and Istanbul’s main gateway last year. In addition, Pegasus carried a further 81.730 travellers between its Sabiha Gokcen hub and the Serbian capital for a total of 461.734 passengers between the two cities. During 2022, Air Serbia accounted for around 30% of the capacity on the route to Istanbul’s main airport, while Turkish Airlines held 70%. However, this year, Air Serbia holds 43% of total capacity between the two cities. During this year, there are a total of 617.986 seats between the two airports, up 32.7% on 2022 and an increase of 144.6% on 2019.
Belgrade - Turkey passenger performance in 2022
Air Serbia commenced operations from both Niš and Kraljevo to Istanbul’s main airport last year, in addition to flights from Belgrade, while Turkish Airlines’ lower cost unit, AnadoluJet, launched flights from Ankara during the last week of 2021. This year, both expanded their route networks between the two countries, with Air Serbia introducing services from Belgrade to both Ankara and Izmir, while AnadoluJet added its own service from Izmir to Belgrade. Turkish Airlines has been lobbying for the introduction of scheduled year-round flights from Antalya to Belgrade, which generates significant traffic, however, an agreement with Air Serbia will be required first for the service to commence.
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Comments
While JU is not cheap and you end up flying on some random Romanian or Lithuanian plane.
+1000
Hopefull both JU and OU can grow more independently. The long haul routes by JU should help with that when they open those eastern routes themselves. hopefully after 2-3 years they will open more african and latin america also.
Try to have a bit more understanding when reading a comment.
so again. when JU can set up and rely on its own independent MRO and has its on connection to eastern destinations. hopefully starting with Yerevan and Tbilisi then epand to New Dehli etc. That would be great.
Then JU launched TLV where TK is the busiest foreign carrier. Then they went ahead and resumed Cairo where TK-MS offer multiple daily connections.
Air Serbia then expanded in Turkey by adding Ankara and Izmir.
OU on the other hand is afraid to launch Berlin or Dusseldorf as that would anger its German overlord. I won't even speak of long-haul.
When it comes to the LH-OU relationship it's best described as Stockholm syndrome. JU and TK on the other hand have a mutually benefiting relationship which came as a result of growing political ties between the two countries. TK is in no ways limiting JU's growth while LH is restricting what OU can do. Actually this deranged relationship has reached new highs so LH doesn't even have to bother anymore, OU management does everything themselves. Launching OSI-MUC without first securing a LH code-share is a good example of this.
No thank you. Were good like this.
Moldovas government prohibited flying to Russia because these gastarbeiters preferred voting in elections for the pro-russian opposition..
If there ever was discrimination and unfair competition then it has to be in this case!