Air Serbia rules out airline alliance membership
Air Serbia has ruled out its membership in one of the major airline alliances - Star, Oneworld or Skyteam - for the time being, noting it would be disadvantaged as a smaller carrier. “As a small airline, you contribute more to an alliance than you receive in return and your options are limited. At the moment, we can work with whoever we want, wherever we see benefits. For example, we have very close cooperation with Air France [Skyteam] on the one hand, and recently we have been building very close cooperation with Turkish Airlines [Star Alliance] - they are in different alliances. Therefore, we currently have no plans to become a member of any alliance”, the carrier’s CEO, Jiri Marek, told “Aero Telegraph”.
Mr Marek believes that the airline will have more benefits from nurturing its existing codeshare partnerships. ”We believe that our hub in Belgrade and our regional network is a great advantage to offer to codeshare partners”, Mr Marek said. The carrier currently has codeshare agreements with a number of airlines, including Air France, Air China, Aegean Airlines, Aeroflot, Air Europa, airBaltic, Bulgaria Air, Finnair, KLM, Turkish Airlines, TAROM and ITA Airways. The airline is also in the final stages of concluding a codeshare partnership with a carrier from the United States, details of which are expected to be revealed by the end of the year. Air Serbia was previously part of an informal Etihad Partners alliance, which has unravelled over the past few years as most of its members, which were partially owned by Etihad Airways, have gone bankrupt. The Serbian carrier remains Etihad’s only equity partner with the Emirati airline holding an 18% stake in its counterpart, although cooperation between the two has been significantly reduced.
Air Serbia’s CEO believes the airline can remain independent of the major alliances but noted the company could work more closely with some of them. “I firmly believe that in the medium-term we can be profitable independent of any alliance. For long-term sustainability, however, there could be certain advantages in working more closely with one of the larger groups as you can deal better with the volatility of the markets. But that's not something we're considering right now. First, we want to expand our existing partnerships. For example, we are working on a joint venture with Turkish Airlines, which is still at a very early stage”, Mr Marek concluded.
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