Air Serbia unveils first set of new routes for next summer

Air Serbia has announced the first set of its planned new routes for the 2023 summer season with the addition of four cities in Italy. The carrier will add Catania, Florence, Palermo and Naples to its network in Italy, complementing Bari, Bologna, Milan, Rome and Venice. Furthermore, the carrier will increase frequencies to the Italian capital, as well as Milan and Bologna next year. The four new Italian routes will be served twice per week with the Airbus A320-family aircraft. It will mark the first time Belgrade has been linked to the four through a scheduled air service. The new additions are in line with the carrier’s strategy to add new summer leisure destinations to its network, which have seen growing demand from Serbia.

Flights are set to commence in mid April 2023. The carrier initially planned to launch flights to Florence during the 2020 summer season, however, the service was scrapped as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. On the other hand, Air Serbia has previously operated charters to Catania, Palermo and Naples. In addition, flights to Rome will be increased to twelve weekly rotations next summer, Milan will run daily, while Bologna, launched earlier this year, will operate four times per week. The carrier has so far not scheduled flights to Trieste which were introduced this summer.

Air Serbia Italy expansion, summer 2023

Italy is one of Belgrade Airport’s biggest markets, with Serbia and Italy seeing strong point-to-point traffic. The two countries have wide-ranging economic ties with 1.789 Italian companies actively operating in Serbia and employing over 26.000 people. Among them are Fiat, the Benetton Group and Ferrero, to name a few. Furthermore, the Serbian diaspora in Italy is estimated at 70.000, more than 55% of which live in the country’s north. Air Serbia has also managed to capture a notable number of transfer passengers to Italy. The recent bankruptcy of Romanian carrier Blue Air, which boasted an extensive network of destinations in Italy, has also presented an opportunity for Air Serbia to expand its operations. 

Today’s announcement is the first in a series of new routes to be unveiled in the coming days. Speaking at the CAPA Aviation Summit in Gibraltar yesterday, the carrier’s CEO, Jiri Marek, said, “The first batch of new routes will be coming on Friday and every three days we will announce a new batch of routes so that by mid-December we will have them all on sale for next summer. These new routes are driven mostly by connectivity and leisure, and they are mostly in Europe”.

EX-YU Aviation News

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