Air Serbia handled 372.638 passengers last month, marking its busiest May since launching operations under its new brand name in 2013. The figure represents a strong increase of 11% on the same month last year, despite just a 4% increase in the number of operated flights, which totalled 3.869. The airline’s busiest routes in May were Zurich, Paris, Milan, Amsterdam, and Frankfurt in Western Europe, as well as Podgorica and Tivat in the region. The busiest routes in the broader Euro Mediterranean zone were Istanbul, Athens, and Larnaca. As a result, the Serbian carrier last week decided to schedule an increase in frequencies to the Cypriot city from August until October, which will now be maintained thirteen times per week, up from the initially planned twelve weekly rotations.
During the January - May period, Air Serbia handled just under 1.5 million passengers. Commenting on the result, the carrier’s General Manager for Commercial and Strategy, Boško Rupić, said, “Since the start of the year, we have carried close to 1.5 million passengers on flights to European and global destinations in our network. After a very successful April, we continued with the same pace in May, when we carried over 300.000 passengers and operated over 3.000 flights for the second month in a row. The results achieved further motivate us to continue working on improving our services to provide our passengers with an even better experience”.
The Serbian airline anticipates breaking JAT Yugoslav Airlines’ annual passenger record set in 1987, when it handled 4.531.000 travellers, either this year or in 2025. During the first five months of 2024, destinations in its network with the most capacity were Podgorica, Istanbul, Zurich, Paris, Tivat, Athens and Moscow. The biggest year-on-year increase in available capacity was recorded on flights to Madrid, Thessaloniki, Oslo, Frankfurt, and Barcelona. Air Serbia is expected to have a dynamic remainder of the year. It is due to take delivery of its final ATR72-600 aircraft, two Embraer E195s, and a wet-leased E190 jet. Later in the year, the carrier is due to take delivery of two Airbus A330-200 aircraft.
Bravo Air Serbia 🇷🇸🇷🇸🇷🇸
ReplyDeleteWell done JU!
ReplyDeleteAnd when I remember some predicted JU will fail this year...
„Experts”.
DeleteThey ‘predict’ the doom and gloom, downfall, etc of JU every month.
DeleteYes, it is always something. I remember how some wrote that no one will fly JU because they keep flying to Russia. Then the expert predicted no one will fly with JU this summer because they had delays last summer. Then that no one will fly with them because of Marathon incident etc.
Delete+1
DeleteLike I wrote some months ago, Air Serbia will be saved by the fact that the Serbian market is doing remarkably well. Demand will remain strong and we can see that from the fact that they had 11% more passengers with 4% more flights.
ReplyDeleteVery good result overall and let's hope they invest these funds to sort out some fundamental problems they have, like the pilot shortage.
+1
DeleteAny idea what the load factor was?
ReplyDeleteSeems to be much better than last year considering the growth in passengers vs growth in flights.
DeleteWill be interesting to see BEG numbers for May. Unfortunately at this point Wizz Air seems to be the main problem. Even the little increase they announced won't be enough to compensate for the cuts they made.
DeleteI expect BEG will also have a good May. Remember, we have Eastern and May day back to back in May which generated a lot more demand for travel from Serbia than previous years. So I expect other airlines also benefited.
Delete^ I don't see that other airlines could have done much with it. JU flies to all the holiday destinations people go to.
DeleteJust because JU flies to these destinations doesn't mean no one takes a connecting flight. I flew to LCA on OS last month because JU wanted 70,000 RSD for a fare without luggage. Austrian on the other hand was €342.
DeleteThere is a reason why Lufthansa rarely sends the CRJ to BEG.
I believe BEG airport passenger traffic for May will be around 720.000 to 730.000
DeleteThe figures above include May unless someone corrects me. It says January to May not January to April
Delete@09:49 its too much 10% or more above
Delete@09:06 LF72.84%
DeleteWeren't people predicting gloom and doom for them this year?
ReplyDeleteYes, especially certain self proclaimed aviation experts.
DeleteInteresting that Athens and Larnaca are among their busiest routes
ReplyDeleteWhy? Both are holiday destinations.
DeleteSkiatos was full to the seat on 04.06.
DeleteCDG finally got third rotation on certain days. That route could have even more frequencies, it's always busy.
ReplyDeleteI'm hearing global demand for CDG is very flat this summer which is crazy considering the Olympics. CDG won't even reach 2019 capacity levels.
DeleteI think it has to do with them going crazy with accommodation which is why they are struggling to fill capacity. I am not surprised, many and especially Europeans are not doing that well. Germany just published their April data and their economy is still under-performing.
DeleteGlobal demand for CDG is flat because Olympic Games travellers simply replaced regular tourists rather than coming on top. I don't blame them, since a 3* hotel in Paris during the Olympics costs 500€/night and upwards. People that are not coming specifically for the Games are simply going to other destinations instead.
DeleteWhen they open 2 new long haul routes by the end of the year, I think that will be a game changer when it comes to passenger numbers. 5 long haul routes is a big deal, at least in our region.
ReplyDeleteThat and it will be accompanied by regional expansion. So even more growth in passenger numbers.
Delete3 weekly flights to change isn’t going to make much of a difference. Real passenger number growth comes from the a320 family which during the 48 roundtrip to TSN can do 12 rotations within Europe.
DeleteVery good result
ReplyDeleteQuestion is can they surpass that JAT number this year?
ReplyDeleteYes
DeleteHow will they do that? If they handled only 1.5 million passengers in 5 months, then assuming numbers per month are the same on average for the rest of the year, then they will only have 3.6 million. Don't forget JAT in 1987 was a very different beast operating internationally from multiple hubs at LJU, ZAG and BEG plus a very strong domestic network which is now fragmented. Imagine JU, OU, YM and old JP together then you can roughly compare the network and airline size.
Delete^ So you are predicting they will have half a million fewer passengers this year than last year even though they have passenger growth for the first five months of this year compared to last?
DeleteIt is not a predicton, 1.5 million divided by 5 is 300,000 per month. 300,000 per month for 12 months is 3.6 million. It is mathematical extrapolation.
DeleteIt is really silly to calculate passenger numbers that way because they obviously do not have the same passenger numbers each quarter. Which is further proved by the fact that by that calculation they would have 500,000 passengers less than last year which is complete nonsense.
DeleteIt is wrong to estimate the results based on H1 as H2 is always much, much stronger.
DeleteJanuary and May were busy (Christmas and Easter) but Feb, March and April were not. Realistically, they have 3 more busy months June, July and August and then the traffic drops off again in September, October, November and first half of December. Foreign carriers are also also adding more capacity than JU is adding so results will speak for themselves by the end of August.
DeleteEvery single month this year they recorded passenger growth. So you are wrong.
DeleteBut they have not added capacity with only 4% added. This will hurt growth. 4% on top of last year's figure is 4.35 million. JU in 1987 had far more capacity with 4 DC-10s, 4 707s, 9 727s, 8 737-300s and 9 DC-9s and lot more tourist traffic to the Adriatic coast.
Delete1987 was also the 1987 Zagreb Univerzijada. By 1988 it dropped again.
DeleteJU in 1986. had 8 727s and 9 737s
DeleteAnon 10.10
DeletePlease don't use your math please because it's totally wrong. I will try to help you, last year there was less passengers than this year and they finished year with đuch more passengers than your math is showing. So please don't be just hater, try to use your head.....
YU-AKD 727-2H9 crashed in February 1988 not 1987
Delete@10.40. Don't hate me, hate JU for not adding enough planes.
Delete@10.38 - YU-ANV and YU-ANW were delivered in March 1988
Delete10:10. Hihihhihohohohahaha
DeleteYour math smells like aNALiticar’s. How hard is to presume that summer months have double pax number than winter’s ? For you guys, February and August are tottally the same, flatline. Maybe with OU, but not with normal airline
YU-AKA crashed unfortunately. YU-AKD was Tito’ no. 2 aircraft and later flew for Aviogenex until retirement in 2005. I was happy to fly with it in its last charters season.
Delete@13.33. Thanks. Sorry yes you right TC-AKD = YU-AKA, which was reregistered for flying for Talia when it crashed in Ercan.
Delete@Anon 10:10
DeleteHaha are you nuts?
This is how little Pera imagines aviation..
Dude, july or august by itself will be near 70 to 80% of whole 1st quarter.
How much market share does JU have in Belgrade
ReplyDelete50-55%
DeleteImpressive
DeleteNot really, on some months it went down as low as 45%. Depends when they cut their network and by how much.
DeleteGreat news. They should have more than 4.5 million this year.
ReplyDeleteI think they can definitely break JAT's passenger record this year.
DeleteIs 5 million possible this year?
Delete@9.47 No chance this year
DeleteI wonder if JU cooperated with them? The German tour operator I mean.
DeleteFrom what I heard they did. I don't expect JU to be affected though.
DeleteThese are the main carriers which are affected:
1. Condor
2. SunExpress
3. Corendon Airlines
4. SmartLynx Airlines
5. Marabu
I highly doubt German tour operator is selling any packages with JU.
DeleteThey are for tourists going to Serbia from Germany. No need to be immediately negative towards Serbia, Serbs and their national carrier Air Serbia.
DeleteIt is interesting that Moscow never makes it to most busy list although they have 19 flights per week and most of them are full.
ReplyDeleteJU avoids mentioning it because it creates bad press and they had issues with lunatics last 2 years sending threats because of it.
DeleteIt is without doubt one of the busiest routes in their network.
DeleteNot one of the busiest, but certainly the busiest and most profitable route at the moment.
DeleteWonder how their other Russia routes are performing
DeleteSVO absolutely full to the last seat. They are even selling up to 12 business seats and full and booked months in advance, but mostly on 319 as they have lack of 320. Mind you wetleased planes cannot operate into Russian airspace.
DeleteLED also really good, always full.
KZN around 75-85%
AER around 85-90%.
When you look at the number of aircraft that have come this year and that are coming soon, that's pretty impressive.
ReplyDeleteIt should translate to growth
DeleteWell the ATRs are being used as back up for this winter so the fleet growth won't translate into passenger growth until the winter.
DeleteYes but Embraers are also coming next month.
DeleteSurprisingly high growth
ReplyDeleteWhat was the financial performance like?
ReplyDeleteThey release annual financial performance, and in recent years half yearly financial performance.
DeleteThey are making more money but apparently not enough to afford all the things they need. Not talking about big items like A350 but small items like YYZ fees. One step at a time.
DeleteCalculate how much the fees would add up for over a year of flying.
DeleteWith service limited to twice weekly and if they start only seasonally, those fees are nothing compared to lease of lighlty used A350.
DeleteThey can afford the fees in YYZ, that isn't the problem, they get thrown onto the passengers through various fares, taxes and fees associated with the ticket. YYZ simply is disinterested in attracting new carriers, while being expensive at the same time. Operations are made more difficult with various inefficiencies at YYZ, staffing shortages and slot restrictions. Canada is infamous for offering crappy bilaterals and make it difficult for expanding them. YYZ could easily do 3-4 pw in peak summer months but that isn't possible under current bilaterals. 2 pw probably isn't enough for them to accumulate enough profit over the summer season to cover for the slower winter season, especially without any subsidies which I believe YYZ doesn't offer. Looking further down, complimenting YYZ ops with a second Canadian destination (YUL) couldn't happen with current bilaterals, the scenario we see with ORD complimenting JFK.
DeleteI don’t believe there are too many Serbian people in Montreal. I am not sure about other ex Yu republics. When JAT was operating until 1992, I believe they required by the Canadian government to do a stop in Montreal Mirabel (YUL was still Canadian domestic and US transborder) because they were still encouraging foreign airlines to fly there. I also recall JU was exploring YVR.
DeleteAir Serbia doesn't need to to accumulate enough profit over the summer season to cover for the slower winter season if they don't fly during the winter. Swiss started ZRH-YYZ this year even though Air Canada was the only airline operating the route for a very long time, so it can be done. At least Air Serbia does not have competition right now. They missed the opportunity to launch when YYZ was not crowded in the past couple of years. Now it's so busy that even Star Alliance partners like LOT, Turkish and TAP have to use bus-only Infield Terminal. Air Serbia should have launched YYZ ahead of ORD.
DeleteI agree. And they should have also launched ORD ahead of JFK, but they wanted the prestige of flying to New York. ORD has grown so much faster than JFK which took many more years to show results. They also think they can re-route Canadian Serbs through the US, which is crazy. Those folks would rather fly through a Western European airport and that’s why AMS-BEG has shown so much growth. KLM and LH are making a killing on the YYZ-BEG market.
Delete@01:00
DeleteJU doesn't have issues with aircraft utilisation in the summer, winter is the problem. They specifically mentioned that they don't want summer seasonal long haul routes. YYZ summer seasonal would only make a not ideal situation worse.
Canada and Switzerland have an open skies policy. LX and AC are also Star Alliance partners. Of course for LX it'll be easier to launch Canadian flights as AC get something from it as well. JU isn't a Star Alliance member, nor does Serbia have an open skies policy with Canada. LX have 30 widebodies in 3 variants, JU 2. Business, tourism and trade between Canada and Switzerland is significantly higher compared between Canada and Serbia. Switzerland is also Canada's 3rd most important source foreign direct investment. Despite all the positive things going for LX to launch YYZ, they only did so now at 5 pw becoming the 10th route to North America, which says alot.
@01:09
Many airlines start their US ops with JFK. The airport always had the most frequencies even during the days of the former Yugoslavia. JFK was always going to the first choice when restarting US ops, nothing about prestige. The prestige factor is only the fact in forcing them to restart when they did. Also, JU had changed alot between launching JFK and the time when ORD relaunched, especially since 2019. Practically double the routes, increased frequencies all over their network, larger fleet, cheaper A330 leases. ORD also compliments JFK with their US ops offering tens of cities across the US with 10 pw flights via 2 US hubs with 2 US partners.
When the old JAT looked to restart flights in the noughties, ORD was always going to be the first choice. I flew regularly on BEG-JFK route when it was launched and in the early days this route heavily relied on transfers with the destination for most being NYC with announcements being made in Serbian, English and Albanian as the Serbian community in Belgrade is and was not that large when compared to the US Midwest. JFK also did not provide convenient connections to the rest of the US unlike EWR as most flights from NYC to the US Midwest leave from LGA not JFK. So if they wanted New York, EWR would have been the better option.
DeleteThis isn't true. In 2002, JAT intended to return to YYZ using their remaining DC10, sold tickets and never launched the route. First transatlantic flights to actually operate from BEG since the break up of ex YU were the 2 pw Uzbekistan Airways flights from Tashkent via BEG to JFK in codeshare with JAT back in 2003, which ended in 2005 when they swapped the BEG stop for Riga. In this agreement with HY, JAT had 95 seats plus Serbian cabin crew. Skyservice followed in June 2004 with summer charters from YYZ via DUB to BEG on the B757 which ran for 2 summers.
DeleteOn Jat Airways metal, they planned on leasing 2 B767's in 2006 for 3 pw JFK starting 15th May 2006 and 2 pw YYZ starting 1st June 2006. ORD and YUL were to follow with the arrival of the 2nd B767, while a couple DXB flights were to move from the B737 to the B767.
In both cases, JFK was first to launch.
Since JU relaunched JFK alot has changed. Comparing the launch of JFK to ORD simply isn't the same due to these changes.
I would love to see the separate figures for their Nis and Kraljevo ops.
ReplyDeleteWhy?
DeleteJust because.
DeleteJust to see how many passengers they have in each city.
DeleteFor Kraljevo you have results each month published here. That's how much passengers Air Serbia had as they are the only airline there
DeleteHow many passengers did they have for all of last year?
ReplyDelete4.190.000 passengers for 2023
DeleteThank you
DeleteAnd what was JAT's best result ever?
DeleteIt is written in the article.
Delete4.5 million was their record
DeleteRead article
DeleteAs per article, "The Serbian airline anticipates breaking JAT Yugoslav Airlines’ annual passenger record set in 1987, when it handled 4.531.000"
DeleteNice to see small boost for LCA. How many weekly flights in total with Wizz? I think Cypriot airlines really missed a chance here.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Cyprus Airways could have easily started 2-3 weekly flights.
DeleteWizz Air is also increasing BEG-LCA from 3 to 4 weekly starting August.
DeleteSo in total 17 weekly flights.
DeleteThere is definitely room for a third player.
DeleteSo far it hasn't shown that BEG has room for third player on any route.
Deletethird player next to JU and Wizz?? Only if they fly for free?? Also they fly with a220, much smaller plane than that of JU and Wizz, so the tickets would be pricier naturally
DeleteExcellent result and much better than I elected l expected
ReplyDeleteCould we see over 400 000 passengers in June?
ReplyDeleteYes, I think so
DeleteYet all their staff is miserable. They're growing too fast and will fall down fast. Not hating, just facts.
ReplyDeleteAki, ti li si?
DeleteOne that's miserable is an "analyst" who can't stand Air Serbia growing again in 2024 after stellar growth last year. Not hatin', just facts.
Delete@22.25, you do realise that once your load factor reaches 100%, you cannot grow further. Not hating, just a fact.
Delete@01:32, wrong, just than you can open more and more frequency or bigger airplane type....please stay away from such conclusions.
DeleteAnd where are they are going to acquire such mythical planes and launch additional routes and frequencies in the next 3 months? Which bigger plane type? Are they going to get more widebodies to fly European routes within the next 3 months? And they are going to put people on flights which are not on sale. Seriously.
Delete>where are they are going to acquire such mythical planes
DeleteIt says in the last two sentences of the news article. Fascinating. So many comments from people who didn't even read the article. Zero respect for your opinion.
This is great. Now they just have to improve their service quaility a bit
ReplyDeleteAgree. In terms of crew I think most of them are really nice. In terms of service, I think it is also generally OK. What they have to improve is long haul product. In business it is essential. In economy they just need to fix some of the seats and screens that are not working.
DeleteActually, with very minimal capacity growth we can conclude that this year is much better for JU passenger wise than last year. And keep in mind they are operating fewer routes than in S23.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteIf AMS is so popular from BEG, why dont they launch it from INI?
ReplyDeleteSlot restrictions.
DeleteMaybe its time to consolidate all existing routes, work on improving customer service, product standards, flight experience/comfort, so that these current achievements can be maintained over the long course.Bouitque airline
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly what they have been doing the past 18 months. Improved Y class service on short haul, improvements to both short and long haul business class service, a new and expanded lounge soon to open, extension of lounge operation times, new frequent flyer program by the end of the year, testing phase for the introduction of wireless inflight entertainment to personal devices for their short haul fleet has recently completed, new payment machines to enhance their buy on board service which also soon will be refreshed, better deals with wet lease providers to include business class service. Following 2 years of massive destination growth, only 1 route launch for this summer with focus on increased frequencies. Introduction of ERJ have allowed them to expand capacity and frequencies to current destinations more efficiently. There have been alot of articles on this the past 18 months on this site you obviously have missed.
DeleteMate!
DeleteEvery man and his dog can make claims about anything. What the hell are you waffling about? I mostly fly Qatar, and they are great, but to be honest I prefer Qantas because though not as refined, they make you feel more at home and relaxed. You can have the best cabin and dining experience available, but if the staff are arrogant turds, then screw that!!!
Should Open a Route to Toronto Canada.... There are nearly 250,000 Serbs in Southern Ontario
ReplyDeleteZanimljivo je kako "mag avijacije" koji je osnovao svoj portal voli da izvrće činjenice i stalno nešto meri i teši se kako su brojke u zemlji europske unije izvrsne i kako se susjedi sa istoka utrkuju sa njima
ReplyDelete