It has been fascinating to watch the evolution of Air Serbia. The airline was founded in its current form in 2013, as a joint venture between the government of Serbia (51% stake) and Etihad Airways (49% stake). As Etihad evolved its strategy, it progressively decreased its stake in the Serbian national carrier, and as of 2023, Etihad fully cut ties with Air Serbia.
Serbia’s government has remained invested in the airline, and has continued to grow Air Serbia. The airline is expected to double its long haul fleet in 2024, and then double it once again in the coming years (or quadruple it, compared to current numbers), as flagged by EX-YU Aviation News.
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Air Serbia will operate several more Airbus A330s
In the coming months, Air Serbia is planning on increasing its Airbus A330 fleet from two to four jets, doubling the carrier’s long haul capacity. Both airline executives and government officials have confirmed the plans, and have announced that the airline intends to add these two additional A330s to its fleet.
These aircraft should join Air Serbia’s fleet in July 2024 and September 2024, and they’ll then need to undergo some work before entering service. Air Serbia is picking up former Etihad A330-200s, featuring 262 seats, including 22 business class seats and 240 economy seats. Specifically, Air Serbia is picking up a pair of 10-year-old Airbus A330s that initially had the registration codes A6-EYT and A6-EYU.
Etihad retired its entire A330 fleet in recent years, and many of these planes have started flying for other airlines.
Even beyond that, Air Serbia’s five year plan calls for the airline to increase its A330 fleet all the way up to eight aircraft, so that’s quite an impressive expansion. Of course we’ll see if that plan sticks, since there are lots of factors that can impact a carrier’s expansion plans.
For some context on Air Serbia’s current Airbus A330 fleet:
- In April 2021, the airline took delivery of an A330-200 with the registration code YU-ARB; this aircraft first started flying in 2008 for Aeroflot
- In November 2022, the airline took delivery of an A330-200 with the registration code YU-ARC; this aircraft first started flying for South African Airways in 2011
Prior to that, from 2016 until 2021, Air Serbia flew a different Airbus A330-200 with the registration code YU-ARA, which first started flying for Jet Airways in 2007. This aircraft was leased through Etihad, given that at the time, Etihad had a stake in both Air Serbia and Jet Airways.
The reason the airline swapped one aircraft for another was because it could get more favorable lease terms on those planes. You can read my review of Air Serbia’s business class here.
The fact that Air Serbia is now picking up two more former Etihad A330s is a coincidence, and has nothing to do with the past relationship between the companies. After all, these planes have different owners now.
How Air Serbia will expand long haul flights
It seems that Air Serbia is exclusively focused on the United States and China when it comes to long haul service. Currently the airline flies to:
- Chicago (ORD) — 2x weekly in winter, 3x weekly in summer
- New York (JFK) — 3x weekly in winter, 7x weekly in summer
- Tianjin (TSN) — 2x weekly in winter, 1x weekly in summer
So, what are Air Serbia’s plans with the additional Airbus A330s? Most immediately, the airline intends to add flights to Guangzhou (CAN) and Shanghai (PVG). The Guangzhou route is expected to launch in September 2024, with 2x weekly frequencies, while we don’t yet have an exact date for the Shanghai route.
Furthermore, Air Serbia has also revealed that it plans to launch flights to Miami (MIA) as of 2025, and that seems to be the carrier’s next destination in the United States.
Beyond adding new destinations, Air Serbia hopes to offer more than daily service to New York in summer, and also wants to have enough spare aircraft to be able to perform unscheduled maintenance without the operation totally falling apart.
A few thoughts on how Air Serbia is evolving:
- It’s nice to see the airline seemingly succeeding on its New York route, to the point that more than daily frequencies are planned in summer; then again, filling planes across the Atlantic in summer is quite easy
- Since Air Serbia isn’t in the European Union, the airline is uniquely positioned to offer flights to and from Russia, so I’m surprised that’s not being exploited more in terms of the network (since there’s no need to fly from Russia to China via Serbia)
- Air Serbia’s China service is interesting, and seems to largely be about cargo demand, plus the two countries having a mutual visa free travel agreement (Serbia is one of the few countries in Europe that doesn’t require visas for Chinese nationals)
- Does anyone fully understand Air Serbia’s China service? Is it about cargo, about close business ties, or just about serving actual passenger demand? Because if you have the option to fly basically anywhere in the world, it’s surprising that Tianjin would be your first destination after New York…
I’d be fascinated to know how Air Serbia is truly doing financially. Because the airline is government owned, we don’t have a true sense of the company’s financials. Is Air Serbia actually making money, or is the carrier’s growth more about expanding the economy in Serbia?
Bottom line
Air Serbia is greatly expanding its long haul fleet. The airline plans to acquire two additional Airbus A330s in the coming months, which will be former Etihad A330s. Then in the next five years, Air Serbia plans to acquire four more A330s.
The airline currently flies to Chicago, New York, and Tianjin, and will soon add service to Guangzhou and Shanghai, before expanding to Miami in 2025, plus adding more seasonal flights to New York. I’m curious to see how this plan evolves.
What do you make of Air Serbia acquiring more Airbus A330s?
TSN is not far from Beijing and it may have been cheaper for them to choose it than Beijing. In addition it may depend what they were offered. CAN is not surprising because many international flights fly there.
"Serbia is one of the few countries in Europe that doesn’t require visas for Chinese nationals" - This is not true anymore. I think you should research a recent initiative that China as with a number...
TSN is not far from Beijing and it may have been cheaper for them to choose it than Beijing. In addition it may depend what they were offered. CAN is not surprising because many international flights fly there.
"Serbia is one of the few countries in Europe that doesn’t require visas for Chinese nationals" - This is not true anymore. I think you should research a recent initiative that China as with a number of countries for visa free access. It depends on the agreement. It may be two weeks or a month. It may be one direction or both. Then there is also the 144 hour visa on arrival in China.
I’ve been using the TSN flight for nonrev purposes. Business and Economy go out full almost everyweek, there has been an open seat in either direction in over two months.
The reason why Air Serbia is doing exceptionally well in the New York market is the open air travel relations between Serbia and Russia. Many Russian communities in New York area travel for VFR during summer. Aeroflot and earlier Transaero and Delta used to serve New York. Now, Türkiye is restricting Russia-bound itineraries a bit. So it’s either via Uzbekistan (a good option for Siberia-bound pax) or Serbia (great for Russia-Europe bound pax).
Side note: Airbus just announced additional delays on deliveries. This hamstrings the growth plans of many. In the case of AA, the XLR is slated to replace the transcon T-Birds and to keep certain long-haul destinations on a year-round schedule (where wide-bodies were only justified in high season). Prior delays had pushed the likely full deployment of XLRs to mid-2025. With these newly announced delays, it might well be the end of 2025 or into 2026.
The official explanation is that Air Serbia chose Tianjin because of restrictions on other destination airports during the pandemic, and that although it planned to transition to Beijing that the Tianjin route ended up being successful as it was.
You missed discussing whether award seats are available and if so how