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 the details are quite interesting, as flagged by EX-YU Aviation News.
In this post:
Air Serbia will operate fleet of four 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. The expectation is that Air Serbia is picking up former Etihad A330-200s, featuring 262 seats, including 22 business class seats and 240 economy seats. Etihad retired its entire A330 fleet in recent years, and many of these planes have started flying for other airlines.
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? The airline intends to add flights to Guangzhou (CAN) and Shanghai (PVG). While flights aren’t on sale yet, the plan is to offer 2x weekly frequencies in each market.
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
- In the past there had been talk of Air Serbia flying to Toronto or even in Miami, but that appears to no longer be in the cards, at least in the near future
- 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 doubling its long haul fleet, as the airline plans to acquire two additional Airbus A330s in the coming months. These will be former Etihad A330s, featuring a fairly comfortable layout. The airline currently flies to Chicago, New York, and Tianjin, and wants to add service to Guangzhou and Shanghai, as well as increasing service to New York. I’m curious to see how this evolves.
What do you make of Air Serbia acquiring two more Airbus A330s?
Why does Air Serbia fly to Tianjin instead of Beijing?
Air Serbia also has code sharing with Qatar Airways.
Qatar human rights violations.
I thought Miami is done deal, probably within one year.
It is. Flights likely starting around the beginning of the winter season.
Yes, all this by busting their own duty time limitations mostly due to huge departure delays especially from Belgrade. Their flight feck crew rostering is a chaos, totally distesoecting contracted rioster patterns. Flying NAT-HLA whith inoprative TCAS & changing eindshield on BEG during short turnaround time shorter than the minimum drying time of the compound. That is the eay they do. Maybe cowboys follow the rules more.
EXPO2027 is the likely answer to most of those questions!
Although Serbia is not in the EU, they did adopt pro-Ukraine (but not anti-Russia) policies.
The demand to/from Russia certainly seems to have helped them, and the recent big airport expansion should allow them to increase their capacity significantly (5-10X perhaps?).
In general their onboard experience is very basic, but the service is friendly.
Air Serbia tend to maintain a price premium on many routes where they have a monopoly. Prices came down significantly when BA added service to BEG. They tend to price more favorably for locals than those...
The demand to/from Russia certainly seems to have helped them, and the recent big airport expansion should allow them to increase their capacity significantly (5-10X perhaps?).
In general their onboard experience is very basic, but the service is friendly.
Air Serbia tend to maintain a price premium on many routes where they have a monopoly. Prices came down significantly when BA added service to BEG. They tend to price more favorably for locals than those visiting Serbia, which is sort of the opposite of a typical fortress hub carrier, so in many ways it feels like they're trying to create more opportunities for Serbia.
Given the significant number of people from both Russian and Ukraine that have moved there since the war started, Belgrade and Serbia seem to be riding the wave of significant capital flowing in, not that different than say Phoenix or Austin riding the wave of people leaving CA and NY during covid.
Moscow is close enough to Belgrade to not really warrant a longhaul aircraft. It makes sense for them to focus their flights on the world's two largest economies.
Tianjin is like overflow Beijing for airlines that can't get slots at Beijing (or of they can't get the timing that works for them).
Logistically, that would've made sense back when Capital airport was alone and bursting at the seams.
Now that Daxing airport is open, and traffic overall to the BJS area is way down, capacity at both airports is wide open.
Only thing stopping them then would be regulatory.
I read an article recently published at The Next Miami, which had a quote from a Miami Airport employee at a press conference stating that service on Air Serbia and Air India to MIA is currently in the works and that they are talking out the details for the service. This statement by the Miami Airport employee was made quite recently, so I assume that Air Serbia still has plans to offer service to Miami....
I read an article recently published at The Next Miami, which had a quote from a Miami Airport employee at a press conference stating that service on Air Serbia and Air India to MIA is currently in the works and that they are talking out the details for the service. This statement by the Miami Airport employee was made quite recently, so I assume that Air Serbia still has plans to offer service to Miami. Perhaps it will only be in the winter or something, or it might launch in the summer of 2025. But Air Serbia does have spare aircraft to operate to MIA. I'd assume a 2-3x weekly service.
I've heard that Air Serbia is only flying to TSN because they couldn't get slots or approval to Beijing(PEK or PKX) so they had to settle for TSN instead.
Correct. In addition to that, Hainan flies PEK-BEG directly.
I think service to Russia is more for helping Russian citizens circumvent not being able to travel directly anymore to European countries especially those who have dual nationality - Belgrade is more on the way so is a good connecting point for this. Russians don't need anymore one stop options eastwards, and certainly compared to the competition including the ME3 and Turkish airlines who still fly to Russia, Air Serbia would have a tough time...
I think service to Russia is more for helping Russian citizens circumvent not being able to travel directly anymore to European countries especially those who have dual nationality - Belgrade is more on the way so is a good connecting point for this. Russians don't need anymore one stop options eastwards, and certainly compared to the competition including the ME3 and Turkish airlines who still fly to Russia, Air Serbia would have a tough time competing on product and price.
@Ben: Need to correct your post, Air Serbia IS flying Belgrade BEG - Tianjin TSN as of yesterday!
once a week, every Thursday till 26.September.
JU984 BEG-TSN 2:45pm - 6:25am following day.
@ STEFFL -- Whoops, good catch, thanks!