ERA CONFERENCE IN BELGRADE AIR SERBIA FRONT AND CENTRE The Serbian National Airline and the City of Belgrade hosted the 2026 European Regions Airline Association conference on 11 th and 12 th March M embers of the ERA (European Regions Airline Association) gathered at Belgrade’s Crown Plaza Hotel for a two-day conference of sessions on the topic “Support to Regional Development”. The conference’s opening address was delivered by Siniša Mali, Serbia’s First Deputy PM and Minister of Finance, while Air Serbia CEO Jiri Marek was among the speakers in a session dedicated to airlines. ERA President Jesper Rungholm announced that he was very pleased that the conference was being held in Belgrade and thanked Air Serbia for its help organising the event. In his address, Siniša Mali noted that ERA member airlines transport more than 52 million passengers annually, performing more than 1,030,000 flights and covering more than 3,350 routes. As he stated, Air Serbia today flies to more than 100 destinations with a fleet of 30 planes, while its record for the number of passengers has broken that of its predecessor JAT, which operated in a country that was then home to 22 million people. He also said that investments of around 700 million euros confirmed that the Serbian state found a good concessionaire for Nikola Tesla Airport. CEO Marek reminded journalists that Air Serbia will this year launch flights to seven new destinations: Santorini, Baku, Toronto, Alicante, Seville, Tenerife and Tromsø. He also noted that Air Serbia is opening another new scheduled route - to the Croatian island of Brač. The Air Serbia CEO added that the Serbian airline had so far evacuated a large number of stranded citizens from the war-torn Middle East, which hadn’t been an easy undertaking.
“It wasn’t easy. We tried to predict as much as possible what might happen, so that we would be ready to react in all situations. In the end, we were all happy that we brought our citizens back home,” he added. Stating that Air Serbia is open to cooperation with all interested partners, Marek highlighted the fact that the Serbian capital has become a regional hub of air traffic. “Belgrade has become the centre of gravity of the region; it is the regional hub. The airport continues to develop with infrastructural improvements, while additional expansion has begun with the addition of new gates for the needs of Expo 2027,” said the Air Serbia boss. He spoke about the assembling of a fleet that will be ready for Air Serbia‘s future, partnerships with Airbus, ATR and Embraer, and how the airline has
developed into one of the most dynamic and fastest-growing regional airlines in Europe, with the support of aircraft manufacturers. Air Serbia took advantage of the ERA conference in Belgrade to present its CSR projects, in the part of the conference dedicated to the support and impact of regional airlines on communities and local economies. Speaking in a panel debate, Bojana Knežević presented the Air Serbia campaign “My first flight - A journey to remember”, as well as the recycling of pilot and cabin crew uniforms. Ivana Ignjatov and Kristina Živković, respectively representing humanitarian organisations SOS Children’s Village and Child‘s Heart, expressed their gratitude for Air Serbia’s role in strengthening their activities. Their products were also on sale at the ERA conference in Belgrade.
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