Air Canada considering Belgrade service
Air Canada has expressed interest in introducing flights between Toronto and Belgrade. According to the “Aviatica” portal, the Canadian carrier said, “We are still reviewing our network schedule for certain destinations, including Belgrade. We are looking into it at this moment”. It comes a week after Air Canada scheduled seasonal flights between Toronto and Zagreb starting next June. Just last month, the Canadian Ambassador to Serbia, Giles Norman, said bureaucratic conditions for the launch of flights between Belgrade and Toronto have been met and that it is now up to the carriers to decide whether they will launch the transatlantic service.
Air Serbia has been interested in commencing operations to Canada for several years and has previously held talks with Toronto Pearson Airport. “The introduction of a direct flight between Canada and Serbia would be highly welcomed by the large Serbian and regional diaspora in Canada, as well as by businesses from both countries as it would encourage the further expansion of growing economic ties between the two nations”, Mr Norman said. He added, “Certainly, in the Southern Ontario area around Toronto there is a large Serbian diaspora. We don’t have exact figures, but it is over 100.000 people. So, it is very vibrant and economically active. It would be a good route. The diaspora is very active, and flights would facilitate the commercial and people-to-people ties between our two countries”.
Canada is one of Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport’s largest unserved markets, with 61.232 indirect passengers traveling between the two on a single ticket in the pre-pandemic 2019, based on OAG data. Flights between Belgrade and Toronto were the busiest citypair between the two countries. In 2019, Toronto was Belgrade Airport’s third busiest unserved route after Shanghai and Beijing, as well as the busiest in North America. Overall, there were 40.856 passengers travelling between the two cities. The majority of travellers flew in combination with Air Canada and Air Serbia, with passengers shuttled by the latter to several European points such as London Heathrow, Amsterdam and Zurich and then continued their journey with Canada’s national carrier. They were followed by LOT Polish Airlines, Lufthansa and Air France. The single most used feeder airport to and from Toronto was Warsaw with around 19% of passengers traveling on the route with LOT Polish Airlines through its hub.
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