Air Serbia has marked its first year of operations between Belgrade and Chicago, carrying over 40.000 passengers during the twelve-month period. Furthermore, it uplifted almost 750 tons of cargo on the route. Since launching the service on May 17, 2023, the airline operated a total of 123 flights to the Windy City. Chicago is Air Serbia’s second destination in North America, after New York City. Jointly, over 100.000 passengers flew between Serbia and the United States on Air Serbia flights in 2023. The airline inaugurated Chicago last May, seven years after operations to the Big Apple commenced. It confirmed the addition of its third destination on the continent, to Miami, from next year. Air Serbia runs three weekly flights to Chicago over the summer, and two weekly during the winter months.
Commenting on its first year of operations to Chicago, Air Serbia’s Vice President Americas, George Petković, said, “The establishment of a nonstop service between Belgrade and Chicago was a very important step in the development and improvement of our company's services. After a hiatus of more than three decades, we were able to delight passengers and enable them to easily reach their loved ones living in the wider Balkan region. The large number of passengers carried speaks volumes about the necessity of the nonstop route between Belgrade and Chicago. Furthermore, it has contributed to better cultural and economic exchange between Serbia and North America. We are confident that demand for these flights will only increase in the years to come, and we will do everything in our power to adequately meet it”.
In 2023, Air Serbia also saw figures grow on its flagship New York operation based on data provided to EX-YU Aviation News by the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics. The carrier welcomed a total of 87.723 passengers on the route, representing an increase of 18.2% on the previous year, or an additional 13.527 travellers. The result was achieved despite the launch of the Chicago service and increased competition from other European carriers, which have ramped up flights in the aftermath of the pandemic and US entry restrictions. The Bureau has still not begun collecting data for Air Serbia’s Chicago service. Last year, the Serbian carrier inked a wide-ranging codeshare agreement with jetBlue. It now codeshares on twenty destinations operated by its US counterpart out of New York JFK.
Good numbers
ReplyDeleteWonder if they will grow ORD next winter when they have two more A330s
ReplyDeleteRemember when those two arrive, current two will go for refurbishment so they will probably be out of service for a long period.
DeleteFor sure. At least 4 a week.
DeleteI think they will start off by increasing flights to 3 weekly during Christmas/New Year and probably go 4p/w next summer.
DeleteAlso keep in mind they've confirmed that some of the capacity is going towards Guangzhou, Shanghai, Miami and additional New York rotations
DeleteThe maintance and refurbishment will be in february...
DeleteBravo Air Serbia 🇷🇸🇷🇸🇷🇸
ReplyDeleteVery good result for JFK flights in 2023!
ReplyDeleteWould be interesting to see if the codeshare with jetBlue attributed to that growth.
DeleteNice but both planes need urgent refurbishment.
ReplyDeleteEspecially YU-ARC.
Delete+1
DeleteI flew YU-ARC last week and it was great . No need to rush. Much better then LH A350 which I flown in February. Terrible condition and no legroom.JU food was delicious compare to lufthansa.
DeleteLol sure
Delete@15:24
DeleteSMFH
Food on AirSerbia flights is usually better than on Lufthansa. We flight five to six times per year between Serbia and the US. So I would say we have some experience. As to AirSerbia - planes are dated, so they need to fix the cabin. Food is usually good. There were some misses, but usually better than Lufthansa. Anyway quality of service in Economy class would not be a reason why one would choose to flight with Lufthansa.
DeleteAir Serbia needs to grow in the US. They should add Los Angeles, Columbus, Portland and Boston
ReplyDeleteSeriously?
DeleteLAX is unrealistic with the current equipment.. Need range for that. (During covid load was never full)
DeleteBOS would only work if they can get enough transfer passengers.
Columbus and Portland would be unrealistic at this time.
Only Toronto and L.A. make sense. But if we had A350 for L.A. and maybe Tokyo.
DeleteJU should definitely get the A350. It's time.
DeleteI think Washington is higher on a unserved destination list than Boston ans Portland, but far below LA and Toronto
DeleteSome of us do not understand that AIR SERBIA is opening new routes after serious research! And at moment most demanded lines are SHA and CAN! Over 150 milions Chinese people will travel to another countries this and next year! SHA is Belgrade's bisiest unserved route with potential higher than any other destination! So, JU will do same as any serious company would - go to busiest unserved routes! Simple! Understood?
DeleteHey 15:29, hold your horses down. It's only a forum for God's sake. Take it easy, go water some flowers or something to calm down. 🤦
DeleteA350-900 for Air Serbia was discussed before. Mighty plane but keep in mind it has slightly more capacity than A330-900 and that one is too big for most Air Serbia routes. It costs more, has remarkable payload/range and would do BEG-LAX without breaking a sweat. LOT keeps sending smallest Dreamliner to LAX so how can Air Serbia justify sending much larger A359?
DeleteThere were around 100.000 people from Bosnia in St Louis Missouri , once.
DeleteYou can check data from St Louis Airport or maybe they use O’Hare.
Columbus? Lol I mean if you said Cleveland which was once a thing from Belgrade and has a strong ex Yu population than ok but Columbus?
DeleteIf someone told me we would have nonstop flights from BEG to MIA, I would have told them they're dreaming.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteSix tons of cargo on avg. at ORD flights, not bad at all.
ReplyDeleteNice cargo result on ORD flughts.
ReplyDelete*flights
DeleteCongrats to Air Serbia
ReplyDeleteCongratulations Air Serbia!! 🇷🇸✈️
ReplyDeleteFail to understand why they are not looking into Buenos Aires instead of US. There is a large Balkan diaspora there and they can connect the rest of the nearby cities.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteLatin america has large South slavic and west slavic diaspora but they're not well connected with the countries anymore. Yes Argentina has the Croats and serbs but they the o es that left around ww2. Brazil has huge number of Polish but again they're very distant to modern Poland even more so than the 3rd generation US polish etc. I think it was published on this blog about long haul demand. South Africa has more demand to Serbia and balkans than Argentina or Brazil
DeleteHaha JU flying to South America because of "Balkan diapora"?
DeleteMaybe Air Congo should fly to Atlanta or Compton because they also have a large diaspora there.
well I think it not bad idea. More and more people especially diaspora will be using those routes, mostly because of bad economic situation in South America and better possibilities in our region in the future
DeleteBuenos Aires is too far from BEG, maybe even outside the range of A332.
DeleteI have been in SA and there actually is a considerably serbian diaspora there. I would say in the same range as mayby norway here in europe. Not like Austria or germany but in similar size as the serbian diaspora in Norway. If thats enough for direct flights between our countries is a different question, mayby with other diasporas around serbia its doable
Delete2 weekly Belgrade-Buenos Aires could work well and schedule adapted for connecting flights. Another missed opportunity for JU.
DeleteVia Anchorage to Honolulu.
DeleteSouth America has no direct connection to eastern Europe let alone the Balkans. so if JU and BEG really do want to be a hub in the region it would be great to establish a connection and flights. for economic, political, cultural improvement. especially since the world is moving more and more away from a western hegemonic controlled world.
DeleteI don't think the diaspora would play too much of a role in it. unless their is a political push to improve the diaspora community and their sense of connection to their homeland. since i don't think the south American diaspora care so much
* there
DeleteWell done
ReplyDeleteAir Serbia has a vice president in US, because of only two routes? OMG, typically Balkan mentality
ReplyDeleteGeorge Petkovic is vice president for Americas since 2016.
Delete@11.26 Actually you are displaying typical Balkan mentality of commenting on things you know absolutely nothing about. The person is a representative of Air Serbia in the US. It is the only market where they have their own representative rather than a GSA (you probably don't know what that is but you can google). It shows how important this market is for them and why it is profitable today.
DeleteI noticed that as well. It doesn’t say he’s just a rep—fair enough. But it implies there’s also a president and probably other people who require presiding over. It does seem like overkill.
DeleteThen you shouldn't comment on things you don't know. The president is the CEO of Air Serbia and the Vice President is the person based in New York. You are all experts.
DeleteIt is amazing to the lengths people go to post negativity whenever there is something.related to JU.
DeleteJAT flew to Cleveland for this reason. Other JAT destinations other JFK and ORD were Detroit, Los Angeles, Toronto and Montreal (Mirabel). I think Pittsburgh and SFO also saw scheduled charter service.
DeleteKoliko je neozbiljno kad sanjaris o nekakvoj "dijaspori" i onda mislis da ce ti ta "dijaspora" biti kljucna za otvaranje nove linije?!?! Smejurija!
ReplyDeletePa kad bi JU uvodila linije sanjajuci i "dijaspori" propala bi jos odavno! Svaka ozbiljna kompanija pravi ozbiljne analize i one ukljucuju najfrekventnije linije koje nisu direktne, povezanost sa aerodromima u regiji, procenu transfernih putnika.
I analize su jasne - SHA pa CAN! Nema tamo dijaspore, ali ima najvise putnika koji lete iz Beograda trenutno i presedaju. Posle toga moze se igrati sa destinacijama koje bi zimi popunile slobodne kapacitete aviona. I tacka! Kome to nije jasno - on nije u materiji i moze da sanjari koliko mu volja...
Izgleda da ti nisi "u materiji". Er Srbija je vec najavila PVG po dolasku 3&4 A330.
DeleteYesterday Vucic spoke to Georgia PM and announce possibility of Tbilisi route. Same was last year with Baku, but still no progress
ReplyDeleteTbilisi and Baku make less sense for BEG beccause we have direct flights to Russsia.
DeleteExxactlyy.
DeleteI have noticed absence of DoT numbers for Air Serbia to ORD. Can't comment without exact numbers but looks like cargo did good based on Air Serbia announcement. Worth noting those 123 flights are return flights, so 246 flights there and back.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure where JU analysis comes from to say that PVG and CAN have more demand than say LAX or YYZ. Is it based solely on a single PNR with BEG as a destination? What about folks who catch a low cost carrier in the US or Canada like Southwest, JetBlue, Westjet or Spirit and then buy another ticket in say JFK or ORD to BEG, are they excluded from JU’s supposed analysis? As a 100% state owned carrier, I think JU should really make it easier for Serbian citizens to reach their homeland as part of an implied public service obligation whilst obvioysly still making money. I don’t believe there are many Serbian citizens in TSN, PVG or CAN who are desperate to fly to BEG to see family. These are all tourists and based on experience from TSN, very low yield. The cargo lift seems to be the main reason to have these flights. If so, why not acquire a freighter?
ReplyDeletethere are many Serbians living and working in south China, especially Shenzen and Guangzhou region..obviously you don't know
DeleteMore than in LAX or YYZ? You have got to be kidding!
DeleteNeed direct flights out of Detroit, big Macedonian and Southern Serbian population there
ReplyDeleteGood numbers?
ReplyDeleteWith data from this article, load factor on ORD route is 60-65%.
That's not good, not terrible either,, but definitely not good...