New Niš service

Niš

Serbia’s Jat Airways is considering commencing scheduled services between Serbia’s third largest city, Niš, located in Eastern Serbia and Vienna. The new service could commence during mid summer after Jat Airways successfully completed talks with the management of Niš Constantine the Great Airport. However, the new service will only go ahead if Jat is able to make an agreement with Austrian Airlines. Jat is hoping for the service to Vienna from Niš to be a code share flight with Austrian Airlines operated by a Jat ATR72. The new service would substitute one of Jat’s flights to Vienna from Belgrade. In 2007, Jat started service from Niš to Vienna after the airline was criticised for not paying enough attention to Serbia’s second international airport. However, the service was cancelled after two weeks with a total of 5 tickets sold from Niš and 2 tickets sold from Vienna. Jat operates 2 weekly flights from Niš to Zurich using the Boeing B737-300. Negotiations with Austrian Airlines will commence next week and if successful new flight could begin in mid June.

Meanwhile Jat’s director for commercial operations, Vladimir Ognjenović, said that Jat is preparing to commence services to Dubrovnik next summer. He stated that Jat insisted to operate the successful seasonal Pula service throughout the year however the Croatian Aviation Board rejected to issue Jat a renewed license. He also stated that Jat wanted to commence this year’s service on March 29, however once again because the Croatian Aviation Board was late in issuing a new license it will have to wait until April 23 to commence the 4 weekly service from Belgrade.