Italian national airline to launch Belgrade flights in 2022
Italy’s new national carrier, currently known as ITA, plans to commence services between Rome and Belgrade next year. According to the Associated Press, flights to the Serbian capital will be launched next August. At this point it will be the only city from the former Yugoslavia to be introduced in 2022. ITA will officially replace Alitalia as Italy’s flag carrier from October 15. The company is vying to purchase its predecessor’s brand name. Alitalia discontinued services to Belgrade in March 2020 at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. In the former Yugoslavia it also operated year-round flights to Podgorica and seasonal operations to Dubrovnik and Split.
Belgrade - Rome - Belgrade passenger traffic
| Year | PAX |
|---|---|
| 2017 | 161.012 |
| 2018 | 157.273 |
| 2019 | 153.726 |
ITA will be introducing new routes throughout next year. In addition to Belgrade, next August will see the launch of flights to Algieri, Amsterdam, Athens and Barcelona. Italy is one of Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport’s biggest markets. Based on OAG data, in the pre-pandemic 2019, 55.487 passengers flew indirectly between the two, even though the Serbian capital boasted flights to Rome, Milan and Venice at the time, while Niš offered services to Rome, Bergamo and Bologna. The coronavirus pandemic decimated travel between the two nations, with Italy banning the entry of almost all Serbian citizens and residents for a year. Strict rules prohibited passengers from even transferring to a third country within 24 hours of entering Italy and flights from Serbia were also banned. However, with travel restrictions eased, Air Serbia has restored operations from Belgrade to Rome and Milan.
A number of unserved cities in Italy saw healthy indirect traffic from Belgrade in the pre-pandemic era. In 2019, Bologna had the most passengers from the Serbian capital. It was followed by the border town of Trieste, as well as Catania. In the years leading up to the pandemic, Serbian tour operators began organising leisure flights to the Italian coast. In 2019, 15.000 passengers used Air Serbia’s charter flights to Italy. Furthermore, the Serbian diaspora in Italy is estimated at 70.000, more than 55% of which live in the country’s north.
Busiest unserved routes between Italy and Belgrade in 2019
Air Serbia planned to introduce flights between Belgrade and Florence in the summer of 2020. However, Covid-19 forced the carrier to cancel them. Both the Serbian and Italian national carriers had a wide-ranging mutual codeshare partnership in place, which will come to an end on October 14. “Italy represents an extremely important market for us, and our goal is to provide continued and strong connections between Belgrade and Italy, as well as other destinations in Air Serbia’s network”, Air Serbia said. It added, “We have established a solid presence in the Italian market and will continue to work with our tourism and trade partners to make our Italian network a success”.
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