Serbia invites low cost airlines

Will Belgrade be seeing pink anytime soon?

Ryanair, Wizz Air and easyJet , Europe’s leading low cost airlines have been invited to Belgrade by the Serbian Civil Aviation Directorate. The Directorate will present to them the structure of Serbia’s travel industry and the advantages of doing business in Serbia. The presentations will be headed by the director of Serbia’s Civil Aviation Directorate, Nebojša Starčević (a former Jat Airways CEO). “We want to show that things in Serbia are changing”, a spokeswomen from the Directorate was quoted by local media. Last year, answering to questions posed by a Belgrade newspaper, a Ryanair spokesperson said that “the airline has no immediate plans to begin services to Serbia”. None of the 3 aforementioned airlines have responded to the Directorate’s invitation.

Drawn in by the new open sky agreement and a European Union decision to allow Serbian citizens to travel visa free from December 19, airlines from Romania, Hungary, Slovenia and Croatia are set to begin flying from Belgrade in the next 6 months. Romania's TAROM will commence flights between Bucharest and Belgrade on December 7. Croatia Airlines and Slovenia's Adria Airways are due to begin flights to Belgrade next year. The Adria Airways service from Ljubljana to Belgrade is planned from March 1, while flights from Zagreb are expected to commence on May 1. Hungary’s Malev is set to begin flights to Belgrade in mid December.