Air Serbia transported more than half of Belgrade airport’s passengers in January

Air Serbia increased its market share at the Airport Nikola Tesla Belgrade in January 2021, as it had carried a total of 53.1 percent of passengers who were using the services of the Belgrade airport in the first month of this year.

From just a 38.4 percent share in the market in January 2019, the Serbian national airline has, in just two years, increased its share by almost 15 percentage points, in relation to the total number of passengers carried to and from the Belgrade airport. In January 2020, the market share of Air Serbia at Airport Nikola Tesla Belgrade was 42 percent.

"The recorded result represents an outcome of strategic planning and quick adapting of traffic to all changes in the market. The previous year was marked by the coronavirus pandemic, which led to a significant reduction in air traffic, but Air Serbia, even in such circumstances, managed to achieve good results in terms of load factor on a large number of routes," said Jiri Marek, General Manager, Commercial and Strategy, Air Serbia. He added that the discontinuation of Montenegro Airlines flights did not significantly influence the results of Air Serbia, because that company had only approximately 4 percent of the market share at the Belgrade airport in January 2020. "With its expansive network of direct and code-share destinations, Air Serbia contributes to Belgrade continuing to be the main gateway of the entire region to Europe and the world," Marek said.

During the summer of 2019, Air Serbia introduced 10 new destinations just from Belgrade, which resulted in a double digit growth of the number of passengers, as well as all other indicators, in Q3 and Q4 of that year. The most important expansion in the history of the national airline led to a record-breaking 2.81 million passengers carried in 2019. The growth trend continued in the first months of 2020, so in January and February, the number of passengers carried by Air Serbia was almost 30% greater than in the same months of 2019.

After record-breaking results of Air Serbia in 2019 and strong growth in the number of passengers in January and February of 2020, the coronavirus pandemic led to the biggest crisis in history of the international aviation industry. Since the recommencement of air transport in the middle of May 2020, every day, Air Serbia has been carefully monitoring changes in demand and travel restrictions, adapting its scope of traffic to provide passengers with a continuous and strong air connection to the greatest possible number of destinations in the region and the world.

In June last year, the route to New York was re-established, on which the national airline operated up to 5 flights a week during the summer and fall, with excellent load factors. With a load factor of 67 percent in September, Air Serbia found itself in the first place of Terminal 4 at the JFK International Airport in New York.

In July 2020, the national airline recognized another business opportunity and launched a new route to Oslo, which at this moment represents one of the top five destinations of Air Serbia, together with Zurich, New York, Istanbul and Paris. Thanks to the newly-established code-share cooperation with Turkish Airlines, the national airline started operating daily flights to Istanbul in September, with a passenger load factor of over 80 percent. Thanks to a flexible and agile approach, even in the current, difficult circumstances, Air Serbia was still increasing the frequency on certain routes, so in October, it operated more flights to Zurich than before the pandemic - up to 22 flights a week, or a record of four flights a day on Saturdays and Sundays.

Air Serbia currently operates flights to 26 destinations from Belgrade, and to one from Niš. It further solidified its position as a regional leader by showing readiness to quickly react to all changes in the market environment. Several days before the shutdown of Adria Airways, Air Serbia increased the frequency and capacities of its flights to Ljubljana, while after the discontinuation of Montenegro Airlines' flights in December 2020, it did the same thing for flights to Tivat and Podgorica. Air Serbia is currently the leading airline in terms of flights to Montenegro, and connects this country and the world through Belgrade.