Air Serbia will mark two years since launching services to Chicago, its second destination in the country, in just over two weeks while its ten-year anniversary of serving the US will come in 2026. Based on data provided to EX-YU Aviation News by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the Chicago Department of Aviation, the Serbian flag carrier handled a combined total of 124.939 passengers on its US services in 2024. Air Serbia handled 81.615 passengers on its New York route, and a further 43.324 travellers on its Chicago service, with the latter operating its first full calendar year in 2024.
Both routes saw a relatively equal number of passengers on both the outbound and inbound service, with flights from Belgrade to New York accounting for 42.326 passengers, while inbound operations saw the remaining 39.289 travellers. Air Serbia is increasing its frequencies to New York this year on select months. During the 2025 summer season it is offering 91.605 seats between the two cities, up 15.1% on the same period last year. This is the result of the airline increasing frequencies on the route outside of the peak summer travel period with five weekly rotations in May, daily in September and five weekly in October, up from four, six and three weekly respectively.
The carrier’s Chicago service welcomed 22.477 passengers departing Belgrade and the remaining 20.847 originating from the Windy City. During the 2025 summer season, the airline will have the same amount of capacity on the route as last year, standing at 39.658 seats. During the previous winter season, Air Serbia reduced frequencies on the Chicago service to one weekly for a select period, which the airline is likely to replicate during the 2025/26 winter. Speaking to EX-YU Aviation News recently, Air Serbia’s CEO, Jiri Marek said, “It was a good decision that we went to one weekly. Over the winter, we managed to increase our load factor to over 80% on the Chicago route, which is good because we channelled the demand during that one day of the week. If we hadn’t reduced it, the alternative was to have it seasonal. We trialled a one weekly service the previous winter, which was a very good decision. It is clear we will keep the route year-round and during the next winter it will also most likely be once per week”.
Hopefully, Miami will be next
ReplyDeleteAnd people said it wouldn't last a year...
ReplyDeleteLike Marek said, it almost didn't
DeleteYes, New Yor has been ongoing for 10 years.
Delete@9.03 and yet they made it work.
DeleteYes, absolutely, I'm happy that they made it work, I'm just saying that the initial worries were not unjustified, and showed up. Happy for them that they solved it, but to say that the route isn't a challenging one is missguided too
DeleteIt took them a few years to make New York work. I'm guessing the same will be the case to ORD.
DeleteAccepting losses for 5 years is what small airlines with limited network reach have to endure in order to have a transatlantic network.
Delete@anon 09:19 Accepting losses for 5 years for a state owned airline , yes ! But for a private one definetely not !
Delete+1
DeleteLoad factors over 80% in winter are pretty solid for a smaller airline. Smart move to consolidate frequencies instead of cutting the route.
DeleteIf you are flying once in every 10 days you could probably get an 85% load factor.
DeleteIf you fly once every two weeks you'll get over 90%.
If you fly every day, you have 35% LF and go bankrupt
DeleteOnce per week is pretty far from daily.
DeleteI wonder if they are starting to think about ordering some 330-900s. Marek said that brand new aircraft order will come after having 40 planes in their fleet, which is happening soon. But most likely the order will be for the E295s
ReplyDelete2030 - replacing all of the 330--200 with 330-900 would be a good step
Deletethat would be nice
DeleteIf JU wishes to get a new A330-900 by 2030 it should better start planning for it soon.
DeleteDelivery delays by Airbus and Boeing on their long-haul aircraft families are long.
One or other "supply chain constraint" always pops up and ruins their delivery plans.
Does wet leases count in those 40 planes ? If not , then they have a long way !
DeleteThey need a whole lot more flight crews to turn these wet leases to dry ones.
DeleteThey first need to retain the crews they already have. Pilots are in very high demand right now and the airline's management needs to accept this reality and treat them accordingly.
DeleteI'd rather see A350 joining JU's fleet instead of A330neo
DeleteI wish BEG will become a real hub as WAW. Hope Air Serbia will lease/buy some A350 and serve JFK, ORD, LAX, MIA, DFW, YYZ, DEL, PVG, PEK, CAN, HKG, BKK, SIN, HND/NRT, ICN, RUH, JED, NBO, ADD, GIG, HAV
DeleteOh my god!
DeleteAnd I remember some said here that JU does not increase JFK this summer.
ReplyDelete"During the 2025 summer season it is offering 91.605 seats between the two cities, up 15.1% on the same period last year."
And Marek's words below: " This is the result of the airline increasing frequencies on the route outside of the peak summer travel period."...So they didn't increase frequency, just the period of time of higher frequencies
DeleteDo you hear yourself and the text you quoted? Yes, they did increase frequencies.
DeleteI can't get why the ORD route struggles so much.
ReplyDeleteNot enough Middle East connections for this route.
DeleteIt can support much higher frequencies that it currently does.
"Struggles so much is completely" out of context. They obviously do well there in summer. The route is highly seasonal. When they launched New York first, people were screaming how it is a mistake and it should be Chicago. Obviously they made the right decision.
Delete^ people here often over dramatize things so it is no surprise.
DeleteThis is why they are so cautious with Toronto. It's probably more seasonal than Chicago.
DeleteNormal airlines do not wait for 5 years until a route becomes profitable.
DeleteThey are proactive in promoting and feeding with connections a long haul route.
But some get upset if they read something other than Bravo, Keeps winning and all this nonsense about their favorite carrier.
If things calm down in the Middle East, open IKA (and EVN, separately) so they can explore LAX over MIA. The A332 has the range and there’s stronger local VFR demand. It’ll also provide an alternative to Australia.
DeleteToronto probably has even bigger demand for connections to the Middle East, Greece and the rest of the Balkans.
DeleteIf somehow JU was able to launch it after it has reestablished its ME network it would be much more successful than ORD.
@Anon 09:12
DeleteEverybody else has already returned to TLV and quite a few to BEY. From CAI they never left.
These are the important markets for getting travelers to connect to your north American network.
If JU can offer timely connections to and from these 3 markets (plus ATH of course) three days a week it will be very successful in both YYZ, YUL, ORD, MIA and LAX.
Just my2cents
@Anonymous 09:17
Delete+1
Also TK is not allowed to grow any further in Canada so that would greatly help ASL with offering connections east and south of BEG without discounting ticket prices too much.
To be fair they report to have a load factor over 80% but that is with the frequencies they currently have.
DeleteIf JU want to increase frequency and have passenger numbers like they have in new York they need to really improve their regional network to feed it. And time it so that it feeds Chicago flights. Their flights to Bosnia for example are really not enough to feed Chicago. Same story for Bulgaria
Slav.Man +100
DeleteIf you walked around the Chicago Loop in February while ice cold wet winds are tearing through your bones, you would understand. To many people, Chicago is a miserable city in the winter, which also lasts a LONG time. Of course, there are still some people who will want to fly, but a LOT of the demand vanishes for Chicago in the winter.
DeleteIt already great to keep ORD year around route. 2 months 1 pw is not that bad, comparing to turning to seasonal
DeleteThey should make all the arriving flights connecting to their middle east network...TLV could ba an important secondary market for the US flights
ReplyDeleteWhat Middle East network? They don't fly anywhere in the Middle East.
DeleteYet
Delete@09:07 that would be the logical thing to do.
DeleteHow can Air Serbia compete for Middle East traffic with Turkish Airlines and Gulf airlines?
DeleteEvery other airline in Europe does. Check TLV airlines:
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Gurion_Airport#Airlines_and_destinations
Any questions about YYZ?
ReplyDeleteA month ago it was reported that the airline is considering seasonal YYZ flights.
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2025/03/air-serbia-considering-seasonal-toronto.html
I would like to send big greetings to Buzin uhljeb who pretend to be independent reader and who keeps spitting on me and saying it's good that OU does not have long-haul and even better to have single type A220 fleet (bright and shiny LOL). Pozdrav iz Rijeke.
ReplyDeleteSorry pozdrav iz Rijeke, you certainly are right in many comments (not in all), but you definitely should address your issues to Croatia Airlines directly. This site is not meant for this. I'm honestly often annoyed by your attitude and comments and I think that admin should stop this.
Delete@Mario
DeleteFully agree.
Pozdrav iz Rijeke
DeleteNot having long haul is totally fine. You can be profitable without long haul same as you can be money losing with long haul.blets be objective; regional market for long haul flights is really weak.
OU is loss making without long haul.
DeleteTrue. One of the worst performing flag carriers in Europe. Both financially and passenger wise with lowest load factor on the continent.
DeleteIt's also loss making without A380 in fleet. That doesn't mean getting A380 in fleet is going to change anything.
DeleteIt's also loss making without A380 in fleet. That doesn't mean getting A380 in fleet is going to change anything.
DeleteSo all the more reason for OU not to get in to long haul flying.
DeleteNot him again…
DeleteArticle about JU... somehow still finds a way to make it about Croatia
DeleteArticle is about long-haul. The site is ex-yu. Croatia is/was part of ex-yu. All of you who don't like what I write, simply skip it. All of you who think I should be silent, I don't intent to, because there are also those who think I should write. And the parallel here is very clear: if Serbia can have (profitable) long-haul, why Croatia shouldn't, considering approximately same size of diaspora, and 10 times more higher yield tourists from distant markets in Croatia? I will definitely not address the issue to OU because they don't care about it, they care about their pay checks and benefits only. And I will definitely not write on museums or animals protection blog, but on regional aviation blog. You like it or not. Cheers. PIR
DeleteWell there are few problems; with don't know how profitable JUs long haul is and we don't know how much did it cost to state to establish it.
Delete^ don't worry, most experts here will tell you it is not profitable, everything is bad, network of 85 destinations is bad and so on. They have no insight into anything at the airline but they know..
DeleteAnd the other experts will tell you long haul is perfect without any insight in numbers. Right?
DeleteThanks. I believe these are the first numbers for Chicago.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteWhat is the frequency on ORD route this summer?
ReplyDelete3 weekly the entire summer.
DeleteNo, 3 weekly during peek period mid-June until mid-September. Outside of those is 2 weekly.
DeleteOne reading some posts here would think that AirSerbia fly's 21 flight per day to Russia as it generates that much of demand for all connectied flights. Well, unfortunately, they fly only 4 times a day to Russia and they cannot increase it externally, so the connection potential is purity much achieved. This means they have to make sure Miami and any other route will survive the days russian carriers can fly again.
DeleteI think they should speed up MIA, while there are still no direct fights from USA to Russia. TK is booming on this route
ReplyDeleteOne reading some posts here would think that AirSerbia fly's 21 flight per day to Russia as it generates that much of demand for all connectied flights. Well, unfortunately, they fly only 4 times a day to Russia and they cannot increase it externally, so the connection potential is purity much achieved. This means they have to make sure Miami and any other route will survive the days russian carriers can fly again.
DeleteIt’s impressive that they managed over 124,000 passengers last year. I remember when they launched JFK flights. Time really flies.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteIt’s good that they‘re very careful about winter performance of the long haul routes, however something has to be done because 2 weekly to JFK and 1 weekly to ORD is just not competitive and sufficient. This should be only a temporary solution and not copy pasting it to the next season.
ReplyDeleteAs the commentators stated, they’re missing a lot of transfer passengers from the Middle East region. They have the biggest network and capacity ever, so it is not logical to me that you are not returning at least to CAI. The more Eastern destinations, the better performance in long haul.
A 2 and 1 weekly transatlantic route is loss making.
DeleteI hope they make enough money during the summer season to make up for that.
^They should have phoned you to give them advice.
DeleteNo need to be rude, it’s true that they make all profit during the summer and cutting costs in the winter.
DeleteJFK is soon hitting 10 year anniversary and it is still struggling with winter frequencies. It would be nice to introduce third weekly flight to JFK during the entire winter.
They are looking after finances. They are not going to introduce something because it's nice but if it makes them money. You don't know their financial performance on the route so I don't know how you think you can comment whether they are making money in winter or not.
DeletePlease stop spreading ignorance. All big European flag carriers are reporting losses during Q1 and then redeem them during rest of the year. That's because they are keeping frequencies with poor LF, just to stay reliable market players. JU doesn't have this commodity for now, until become medium or big carrier. If they keep up the good work in 5 or 10 years maybe they will.
DeleteJFK is selling 3 weekly for the next winter season, with 4th flight available during holidays.
DeleteGood performance overall, but I wonder if the New York service could reach more than daily someday as they hinted.
ReplyDeleteI think demand is falling. Economy in USA and Canada is not doing too well, so it's hard to expect any more increases. But we can still hope for next year
DeleteThey should work harder to stimulate off-season demand.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteAir Serbia still needs better connections in the U.S. beyond New York and Chicago. Partnering with JetBlue isn’t enough.
ReplyDeleteThe US3 weren't interested on any meaningful cooperation with JU so B6 was the only one left.
DeleteBut they are useless in ORD.
You make it sound as if B6 is some insignificant regional airline. The tone some of you have is crazy.
DeleteIn Chicago they are of zero use to JU.
DeleteNo point arguing with reality.
Why does everybody keep forgetting the interline with AA? So yes, one of the US3 is interested and you can book good connections with them on JU's website.
DeleteBecause it is not in their interest to mention interline with AA.
DeleteHas anyone looked what short of prices you get for AA interlines on JU's webpage? 😂
DeleteSure.
DeleteFor example BEG-MIA-BEG with JU+AA starting from 873 EUR.
More than acceptable.
Wonder if they’ll eventually try something like Los Angeles
ReplyDeleteMaking money by being uncompetitive during the winter on the most important long haul destination?
ReplyDeleteImagine how many potential passengers they can’t catch because of low frequencies. There’s also a handful of people going from ORD to BEG with one stop during winter simply because not everyone can wait for JU‘s one weekly flight.
If I'm not mistaken, multiple flights ORD-BEG in June are already* sold out with the rest nearly sold out and very high prices, and that's when it increases to 3 p/w, I believe that it can increase to at least 4-5 this summer especially to attract transfers and locals? I don't understand the low frequency, and why JFK isn't at 7+.
ReplyDeleteChicago must be performing really well in summer because route has half of JFK numbers but there are much less flights. And keep in mind 2024 was the route's first full year of ops. So ORD numbers are much higher than I thought they would be.
ReplyDeleteThey are already sold out on many dates this summer. Same case last year. A seasonal diaspora heavy route.
DeleteIs Miami more likely to be seasonal or year-round?
ReplyDeleteIt will be year round. YYZ seasonal
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2025/03/air-serbia-considering-seasonal-toronto.html
Speaking of long haul flights, is there any news regarding YU-ARC? When it should return from service?
ReplyDeleteRomania's HiSky already has more frequency to New York than Air Serbia. They don't have some things Air Serbia has: decades of brand recognition, JU's network feed/partnerships and nine years of JFK route experience. Romania a country with higher GDP pp and EU member than Serbia (ZAG has those advantages but no USA flights). What could Air Serbia learn from them to improve JFK route?
ReplyDeleteRomania has a population of 20 million and no visa requrments to enter US. You also fabricated that they have more frequencies. Their peak frequencies are 5 weekly.
DeleteAt this moment, HiSky Europe has more frequency to JFK than Air Serbia.
DeleteNo toursit visa requirement implies outbound tourist component from Bucharest has significance for the success of this nonstop service vs existing one-stop options. Does it really?
It certainly does as this airline is used almost exclusively for P2P travel. And it is not just tourists. You can go for a business trip without a visa requirement. You are comparing a market of 20 million people to Serbia, that is an EU and NATO member state. Oh and btw "According to the 2023 American Community Survey, 425,738 Americans indicated Romanian as their first or second ancestry". " As of 2023, there were slightly more than 181,000 American citizens who identified as having Serb ancestry."
DeleteComparing apples and oranges. Must be a graduate of the ZAMA aviation academy.
Romania is a much wealthier country than Serbia and a member of the E.U.
DeleteThey are very different markets.
"Comparing apples and oranges. Must be a graduate of the ZAMA aviation academy."
DeleteLOOOL
Also HiSky serves only JFK, and anyone whose destination is ORD will have to make a lay over. So it would be fare to compare it's frequencies to Air Serbia JFK + ORD.
DeleteBravo Air Serbia 🇷🇸🇷🇸🇷🇸
ReplyDeleteIdemo dalje...
ReplyDeleteTek kad najave Majami, do tada nema ništa...
Delete