Air Serbia plans product upgrade, rules out boutique model
Air Serbia has said it plans to improve its on board product and service in the coming period but has ruled out a return to its boutique business strategy, employed from 2013 until 2017. Speaking at the Asia Connect Digital Air Travel conference in Belgrade last week, Air Serbia’s CEO, Jiri Marek, said, “It is natural that once you become profitable, the next step is to see how you can improve your product. We are doing that as well. We prefer to do it without publicising it too much. Our strategy is not to make some revolution and become a boutique airline, which was the wrong strategy at the beginning. Every day we will try to be better than the day before and improve step by step”.
Commenting on its planned product improvements, Mr Marek said, “Recently we reintroduced some [complimentary] refreshments on flights that are two-and-a half hours and above. We are not happy with that yet because of supply chain limitations and in Belgrade you only have one [catering] provider, which is going through its own transformation. We need to improve the product more but at least we started. We are now reintroducing amenity kits in business class on long haul flights, we are opening a new retail shop, which will be very innovative in terms of digitalisation and use of holograms and many other things”.
Earlier this year, Mr Marek announced plans for the airline to introduce content streaming on board. The technology will initially be tested on an ATR and narrow-body Airbus aircraft for three months, to monitor how important it is for passengers to have access to music, videos and games. Based on the outcome of that test, the intention is to roll out streaming on the entire single-aisle fleet, depending on customer feedback and satisfaction. Furthermore, Air Serbia is looking to standardise its long-haul cabin product across its two Airbus A330-200 aircraft and has expressed interest in a new seat being developed by ATR, which would enable the introduction of business class on its turboprop fleet. “This kind of change is very significant and currently you must wait six to eight months only for engineering. We are in close contact with Airbus and other providers and are working on a concept. We would like to do it as soon as we get all the approvals and assurances that it can be done”, Mr Marek previously said. He added, “Finding secondary market seats which correspond to your aircraft type is now almost impossible. This was possible during Covid, when there were many grounded aircraft, but not anymore. On the other hand, getting new seats that are available on the market, raises the issue of compatibility with the IFE which is currently on board”.
In addition to on board improvements, the airline has said it also plans to leave the Etihad Guest frequent flyer program in the near future. “The frequent flyer program is the last piece we are still cooperating on with Etihad. We have explored the option of joining Turkish Airlines’ Miles & Smiles, as well as Air France - KLM’s Flying Blue program. We still have those options on the table, and they would still be happy if we joined, but currently, with our aggressive growth and passenger numbers, we are going in the direction of introducing our own program soon”, Mr Marek noted. Air Serbia’s Head of Ecommerce, Srdjan Prokić, added, “The Etihad loyalty program is attractive for our passengers because they can reach destinations that are beyond our network. It is true that we are improving our cooperation with Turkish every day. Their Miles & Smiles program is very attractive and I’m sure it would be very valuable for our passengers. The Etihad Guest program is designed for a completely different market. To reach the next tier you must travel twenty times per year which is a lot for the Serbian market. In that sense, we are considering developing something on our own. We are still in the early days, we are scanning the technology market, the vendor market and thinking about the business model, which is the hard part since questions like are we going to partner up with a bank, which one, which retailers and so on, come up. It is a very complex project, so we will probably develop something in the mid-term in the next year or two”.
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