Air Serbia to “adapt and evolve” to overcome Covid crisis
Air Serbia has said it is optimistic and hopeful it will overcome upcoming challenges by adapting and evolving its business. The carrier’s CEO, Duncan Naysmith, noted, “Since the gradual restoration of air traffic in May last year, we have monitored all changes in travel restrictions on a daily basis and adapted our network accordingly. We are re-establishing flights to all destinations where possible and are increasing frequencies in accordance to demand. Our strategic planning, flexible and agile approach, as well as quick adaption to changes in the market, have yielded results. During the previous year, we have managed to accomplish a good passenger load factor on a large number of routes. Not only have we recommenced and reinforced flights to many existing destinations, we have even introduced new ones during the most challenging period for our industry. At our home base, Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport, we have significantly increased our market share, transporting more than half of all passengers in January”.
Air Serbia recently removed eleven routes previously planned to operate this coming summer, although some may be reintroduced if circumstances permit. Furthermore, the airline has reduced its fleet over the past year, with its Boeing jets recently retired. On the other hand, it added a new destination to its network last week and plans to substitute its existing Airbus A330-200 jet with another of the same type, reinforcing its commitment to its sole long haul route. “Now, exactly a year after the changes that shook even the largest giants in the global aviation industry, we will continue to adapt, evolve and ensure we are agile to market demands and customer needs. We have proven that we can deal with challenges and turn them into opportunities. That gives us the right to be optimistic and have faith that we will successfully adapt and overcome everything ahead of us”, Mr Naysmith noted.
As part of its plan to better adapt to new market conditions, Air Serbia’s General Manager for Commercial and Strategy, Jiri Marek, said the airline is seeking new commercial partnerships. “We recently renewed our codeshare agreement with Etihad and basically we are maintaining connectivity via the main, let’s say, Etihad gateways in Europe. Being a smaller regional player, any codeshare agreement is important to us because it gives us access to a more global network and also gives us extra feed for our regional network. So, we are maintaining strong cooperation with Etihad. The codeshare has been expanded but, of course, there will most likely be less demand since the nonstop Etihad flights are, let’s say, currently suspended. We are developing other codeshare partnerships to cover that part of the world. Last year, during the pandemic, we signed the codeshare partnership with Turkish Airlines, we fly daily to Istanbul and we have wide access to their network. We will further be expanding that codeshare cooperation as well. Basically, we are open to working with any airline partner that is helping us add additional feed to our network to enlarge our footprint”.
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