fleet renewal programme is also be - ing implemented in this context, wi- thin the scope of which we’ve grou - nded our former Boeing fleet, which comprised older aircraft, and are now replacing our older ATR aircraft with newer ones. After a break of 32 years, the route to Chicago is again being la - unched. What are your further plans? - Our transoceanic projects we - re planned and started long befo- re the pandemic. Since the launch of flights to New York in 2016, after six years of traffic and around 400,000 transported passengers, that route has matured and become profitable. That’s why we decided not only to increase the frequency of flights to New York during the winter season, thereby reducing the route’s prono - unced seasonality, but also to en - ter into the further expansion of our long-haul traffic. We decided to la - unch a balanced approach both ea- stwards and westwards. However, the possibilities for eastward expansion currently rema - in limited due to the pandemic? - Yes, in that context, one route will be established to China- to Tia- njin, along with the possibility to la - ter establish special flights to Beijing and Shanghai, once market restricti - ons are lifted. When it comes to we - stward expansion, as of April next year we will further strengthen our traffic to the U.S. with the establi - shing of direct flights to Chicago. Alongside this, we will work to furt - her deepen and strengthen our re- gional network, in order for us to ensure good connectivity with our transoceanic traffic. Likewise, we wi - ll continue expanding our network of destinations predominantly to tourist destinations, which this year proved to be a bull’s eye shot. Can we expect some exotic de - stination? - We’re currently planning to add ten new destinations in 2023. At the same time, we’ve also started considering long-haul flights to cer - tain exotic destinations. We’re loo - king both eastwards and westwards in this regard.
Iako se većina avio-kompanija trenutno muči sa nedostatkom ljudstva, Er Srbija ima resurse da se prilagodi svim promenama Even though most airlines are currently plagued by staff shortages, Air Serbia has the human resources to adapt to any changes
- I would express that slightly di - fferently. We don’t want to return to pre-pandemic levels; we want to overtake them, and to do so in 2023 by the latest. We’ve already achieved that in some segments. For example, we will have approximately 30 per cent more charter flights this year than we had in 2019. What’s more, we already surpassed the 2019 levels in the charter flight sector during the last summer season. This is all evi - dence that people want to travel and that there’s strong demand for tou- rist destinations, and that motivated us to introduce more than ten new destinations this summer. This is first and foremost about flights to popu - lar tourist markets, such as Spain and Italy, and results have exceeded our expectations for those destinations. Do you have any figures on the extent to which the aviation indu - stry is being hit by ecological de - mands; how much it has to reduce CO 2 emissions and what else needs to be done? - In terms of environmental pro - tection, the aviation industry has already done a lot, but that is not mentioned much, or sufficiently pro - moted. The amount of carbon dioxi- de emitted by the aviation industry is incomparably less than other me - ans of transportation, as well as cer - tain other human activities. Nume - rous industry initiatives and activities are focused on the environment and sustainability, such as the IATA’s Fly Net Zero initiative to achieve net zero carbon among airlines by 2050 . Air Serbia is part of all those efforts. Our
- I joined Air Serbia in June 2019, with the aim of stimulating the growth of the company and tran - sforming the commercial strategy it had previously pursued. We mana - ged to achieve that relatively quickly, thanks primarily to the very high-qu - ality team that I inherited. People only required a little new energy and encouragement to succeed in achie- ving the planned results. Testifying to this is the fact that we ended that ye - ar with a record 2.81 million passen - gers, which continued during the first months of 2020, when we recorded double-digit growth. Then came the pandemic, but you managed to remain optimistic… - Yes, everything had seemingly ground to a halt, but I retained my optimism. Despite our aircraft being grounded for commercial passenger flights during the first three mont - hs of the pandemic, Air Serbia quic - kly found its own role and purpose. We made all our resources available to the state, in the public interest, so we could help the Government of Serbia in the struggle against the pandemic. We thus organised a large number of repatriation and evacuati - on flights, bringing more than 10,000 of our citizens back to Serbia, but al - so returning foreign citizens to the - ir home countries. Alongside this, we transported essential medical equi - pment, and later also vaccines, and thereby also contributed in this way to the struggle against Covid-19. How realistic is it that you will achieve the airline’s 2019 operatio - nal levels by 2023?
Air Serbia » Er Srbija | 15
Made with FlippingBook interactive PDF creator