Under the open sky

More flights to Serbia

The Secretary General of the Association of European Airlines , Ulrich Schulte-Strathaus, met with the Serb minister for Infrastructure on January 15 to discuss the outcomes of the liberalisation of Serbia’s aviation policy. "In the past weeks, the Serbian Government implemented a number of measures designed to facilitate travel; these include a visa waiver programme for EU citizens, coined the ‘White Schengen’, and a unilateral suspension of traffic right restrictions between Serbia and EU countries. In the first month since the implementation of these measures, traffic has soared between Serbia and EU countries by 20%, despite the general economic downturn", the AEA informed. Mr Schulte-Strathaus also met the Serbian Transport minister, Mr. Mrkonjić, thanking him on behalf of the AEA for this market oriented policy, which he credited the minister for having initiated. “This is good news for the consumer, the industry and the economic perspectives of this region”, The AEA Secretary General said. “It requires political courage to liberalise markets in times of economic turmoil, I must say, we are impressed by the action taken by the minister to promote competition in our sector”.

Schulte-Strathaus said the entire region would stand to benefit from this market oriented approach and welcomed a conference, to be hosted by the Serbian Government at the end of February entitled “Open Sky over the territory of Serbia after the abolition of the visa regime“. Mr Schulte-Strathaus also met with the CEO of Jat Airways, Mr. Radovanović . “Jat Airways is one of the longest serving members of our association”, he said. “With this policy, Jat Airways positions itself in a region with high potential for sustainable growth. We look forward to a close cooperation with Jat Airways on how the interests of the consumers in this region can be best secured”.

The following airlines have recently commenced or announced plans of beginning new flights to Serbian airports:

Airline	Destination	Frequency	Start date
TAROM	Bucharest	3 p/w	07.12.2009
MALEV	Budapest	7 p/w (11 p/w from April 2010)	14.12.2009
Wind Jet	Forli (from Niš)	1 p/w	26.12.2009
Aegean Airlines	Athens	7 p/w	01.01.2010
Niki	Vienna	7 p/w	01.02.2010
Montenegro Airlines	Podgorica (from Niš)	2 p/w	February 2010
Adria Airways	Ljubljana	6 p/w	01.03.2010
airBaltic	Riga	4 p/w	05.05.2010