Air Serbia grows number of female captains

NEWS FLASH

Air Serbia has increased its number of female flight deck crew to nine after 32-year-old Vanja Marčeta became the first female captain on Air Serbia's ATR fleet and also the first female pilot to hold this post within the Serbian national airline. Ms Marčeta began her career at Air Serbia in 2016 as a first officer on Boeing 737-300 aircraft. Since 2022, she has served as the first officer in the ATR fleet, and on July 9, 2024 she attained the position of captain on the ATR fleet. Captain Marčeta performed her first flight in her new role yesterday between Belgrade and Budapest.

Vanja Marčeta

After completing months of training Neetu Rakić, who previously flew Airbus A320 aircraft, recently gained the rank of captain on the wide-body A330-200 jet. This makes Ms Rakić the first female captain on Air Serbia’s long-haul operations.

Neetu Rakić

Meanwhile Vesna Aleksić, who joined Air Serbia in late 2016 and was the first woman to hold the position of captain on the A319 and A320 has become the first female Airbus fleet manager and captain-instructor for line training. In addition to Vanja, Neetu, and Vesna, Air Serbia's flight crew includes six other women, while the cabin crew numbers over 300 women.

Out of the total number of employees, women make up as much as 50.69% at Serbia’s national carrier. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) is implementing its "25 by 2025" project aimed at achieving women representation of 25% in senior management positions in commercial aviation. Air Serbia already has over 48% of management positions in the company filled by women.