Air Serbia maintains plans to add A321 jets and mid-age aircraft
Air Serbia welcomed the seventh ATR72-600 aircraft over the weekend (pictured below), with plans to introduce a further three units, as the carrier maintains its strategy to further grow its fleet with mid-age aircraft, including the Airbus A321 jet. “We based our fleet strategy on options available on the market, which allowed us to capitalise on several good deals. We decided not to order new generation aircraft. New technology aircraft are immature, many airlines are struggling with grounded planes for various reasons. I don't think Air Serbia is a carrier that should experiment with new types of aircraft. As the technology matures, then we will evaluate the available options”, the carrier’s CEO, Jiri Marek, said.
Earlier this year, Air Serbia noted it was looking to potentially add two A321 aircraft to its fleet. Mr Marek, said at the time “We are currently looking to add two A321 aircraft, which could potentially join our fleet this summer”. Although the jets have not joined the fleet so far, the airline still has plans to introduce them. “The way forward for Air Serbia is to increase its fleet of ATR72-600 turboprops. We have Airbus A320-family aircraft and we intend to acquire more jets of this type. These will be several-year-old A320s and A321s. The smallest Airbuses in our fleet (A319) will be gradually phased out. We will also receive another wide-body A330-200”, Mr Marek noted.
The CEO reaffirmed the airline has no plans to order new aircraft for the time being. “We are very pleased with the approach we have adopted. Recently, wet-leased narrow-body Embraers have joined our fleet. We'll see how these planes perform. If it turns out that they perfectly fill the gap between ATRs and Airbuses, we will keep them. We have no appetite to order new planes. We see no benefits from this, fixed costs are too high, and if we look at long delivery times, it turns out that the profitability of such an investment is low”, Mr Marek said. He added, “The decision to choose an aircraft that forms the backbone of the fleet is a complex one. Therefore, we will continue our development based on aircraft from the French manufacturer. The development of technology means a transition from CEO aircraft to NEO. This is a natural step. If we look at the scale of the operation, we see that the range of the Airbus A220 is too long for Air Serbia. Operations with such an aircraft would not be profitable for us”.
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