Air Serbia shelves planned Sochi route

Air Serbia has cancelled plans to launch flights between Belgrade and Sochi amid the ongoing war in Ukraine and a volatile economic climate in Russia. Ticket sales for the route have been discontinued. The flights, which were originally part of the company's line-up of thirteen new destinations for this summer, were due to be inaugurated on June 2 and run twice per week. The airline was relying on transfer passengers to fill seats on the route, particularly targeting onward connections to Berlin, Vienna, Zurich, Dusseldorf, London, Ljubljana, Milan, Paris, Prague, Podgorica, Rome, Tivat, Venice and Zagreb. Air Serbia scheduled its Sochi flights in late January, well before the outbreak of the war in Ukraine.

This summer, Air Serbia is maintaining eight weekly flights to Moscow and three weekly services to St Petersburg. Its seasonal operations to Krasnodar and Rostov on Don have not resumed after the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency, Rosaviatsiya, extended a flight ban across eleven airports in central and southern Russia for the sixth time. The ban has been implemented due to safety concerns in the area following the outbreak of war in Ukraine. Currently in force until early tomorrow morning, the ban is expected to be extended further. Air Serbia has scheduled its preliminary service resumption to Krasnodar for May 1 and to Rostov for June 15, however, this is subject to change.

Air Serbia is continuing to be targeted for maintaining operations to Russia. Yesterday evening, the airline's sales office in downtown Belgrade was evacuated following a hoax bomb threat. Similarly, Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport was evacuated yesterday after an anonymous e-mail warned of a bomb, forcing several incoming flights to divert and others to be cancelled. Its website has also been hit by hackers. Air Serbia's operations to Russia have been the target of over a dozen threats over the past month, with the e-mails becoming more sinister, now including death threats against the company's staff. All of the tip-offs have so far proven to be false, with the e-mails being sent from Ukraine and Poland. 

Despite the suspension of its planned Sochi flights, Air Serbia will go ahead with the launch of twelve new routes. The carrier's CEO, Jiri Marek noted, “New destinations that will be available from June onwards are Amman, Bologna, Bari, Hanover, Lyon, Nuremberg, Palma, Salzburg and Trieste. As an introduction to the exciting summer ahead, we are starting the expansion of our network with beautiful Valencia on April 21”. The carrier is also due to start operations from Belgrade to Rijeka, Niš to Athens, as well as from Kraljevo to Tivat in June.

EX-YU Aviation News

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