Serbia seeks Shanghai, Beijing or Guangzhou flights
The Serbian President, Aleksandar Vučić, has held talks with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, during which he expressed the need for nonstop flights between Belgrade and China to be established. Mr Vučić said a service between the Serbian capital and either Shanghai, Beijing or Guangzhou is necessary due to strong demand and asked China’s leader to look into the matter. “President Xi said he is taking considerable notice of the request. When he says something like that, you can expect for his words to be put into action within a short period of time”, Mr Vućić said. He added the flights could be operated by either Air Serbia or a Chinese carrier.
Belgrade Airport’s top unserved route in both 2019 and 2020 based on OAG data was Shanghai, followed by Beijing. A total of 145.248 passengers travelled between the two countries in 2019 (excluding Hong Kong and Taiwan). Of those, 62.518 flew to or from Shanghai, or around 43% of all China travellers. It was followed by Beijing with 52.123 passengers and Guangzhou with 14.087 travellers. Belgrade was the eleventh busiest unserved route from Shanghai and the seventh busiest European market without flights to China's largest city. Most of the traffic flow between China and Serbia over the past few years has originated from Shanghai. In 2019, Moscow Sheremetyevo was the top connecting airport for travellers between Serbia and China with 69.456 opting to transfer via the Russian capital. It was followed by Doha and Abu Dhabi.
Top five busiest China - Serbia citypairs in 2019
The Serbian capital was briefly served by Hainan Airlines from Beijing in 2017 with a stop in Prague, however, flights were suspended a year later due to low demand. In May of last year, Mr Vučić, noted, “Serbia is very popular in China due to its friendly relations and we are considering for Air Serbia to launch flights to the country in the coming period, with assistance from China. We are in discussions”. Travel between Serbia and China plummeted in 2020 due to the global health emergency. Travel in and out of the Asian country remains tightly regulated due to Covid-19.
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