The Serbian national airline is set to begin direct flights to New York from Belgrade next week
Serbian national airline Air Serbia will begin direct flights from Belgrade to New York and thus become the only airlines in the former Yugoslavia and beyond to open an intercontinental route, as reported by Poslovni Dnevnik on June 18, 2016.
This will make the Nikola Telsa airport in Belgrade the only one in the region with a direct connection to an airport in the United States.
Air Serbia and the Belgrade airport will confirm their regional leader status with the New York route. This position came after a Serbian government strategic partnership in 2013 with mighty Etihad Airlines from the United Arab Emirates, for the takeover of failing Yugoslav Air Transport (JAT).
Etihad thus became co-owner with 48% of the company that changed its name to Air Serbia. The Serbian government took on 160 million Euro of JAT’s debt, made a commitment to invest in the company, with the Belgrade airport, owned mostly by the state, dismissing millions in debt by Air Serbia. Etihad made apromise to renew the fleet of Air Serbia and secure a loan of 40 million USD. In such conditions Air Serbia compared to JAT experienced a large growth in passengers and income Thereby overtaking the Croatian national airlines Croatia Airlines, the regional leader until 2013.
Croatia Airlines, owned by the state, was in a restructuring process according to EU regulations and had to ground one airplane and reduce the number of routes. As such, Air Serbia carried 2.55 million passengers in the last year, while Croatia Airlines had 1.84 million. How the arrival of Etihad influenced the air superiority in the region is seen in passenger data from 2012 between JAT and CA. That year JAT had 1.2 million passengers and CA 1.9 million. Since then Air Serbia has grown, while CA recorded an 8% reduction.
