Air Serbia terminates Geneva service, plans Zurich growth
Air Serbia has discontinued flights between Belgrade and Geneva, just under seven months since launching operations on the route. The two-weekly service was recently downgraded into a seasonal summer operation and was due to run until the end of October but has now been terminated a month in advance. All ticket sales have been discontinued and it is unclear whether the Serbian carrier will resume flights next summer, with no tickets currently available for purchase. The Serbian carrier had planned to introduce flights to Switzerland’s second largest city in March 2020 but was forced to delay the launch for a year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Air Serbia faced direct competition on the route from easyJet. The low cost airline will maintain three weekly rotations between the two cities this coming winter season, increasing to six weekly from November 29. The route was the subject of intense competition in 2013 when Etihad Regional, easyJet and Swiss all launched the service, however, in the end, only the budget airline prevailed. Air Serbia planned to add Geneva to its network as early as March 2018 but cancelled those less than a month after putting tickets on sale. Serbian citizens and residents who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 are permitted entry into Switzerland without restrictions, if inoculated with one of the jabs recognised by the World Health Organisation.
On the other hand, Air Serbia plans to increase its operations between Belgrade and Zurich this winter season, with flights to be maintained fifteen times per week, outstripping its summer frequencies. Services will run three times per day on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, double daily on Mondays and Thursdays, and once per day the rest of the week. As a result, Zurich will become Air Serbia’s busiest route in terms of available capacity this coming winter season with 86.100 seats on sale, and the second busiest in terms of frequencies with 606 flights currently scheduled (return service included) between October 31 and March 26.
At this point, Air Serbia has scheduled operations to 38 destinations for the coming winter season. After upgrading its service to St Petersburg and Rostov-on-Don from seasonal to year-round flights, it will serve 36 cities from Belgrade, and one each from Niš and Kraljevo.
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