Air Serbia resumes flights to MENA region

Air Serbia (JU, Belgrade) has scheduled the resumption of its flights to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region starting with Israel at the end of March, followed by Egypt and Lebanon in June. The ch-aviation schedules module reveals that 2x weekly flights to Tel Aviv Ben Gurion will resume on March 29 using A319-100s. Flight JU816 will take off on Mondays and JU 810 on Fridays. However, as things stand, Israel has closed Tel Aviv for all but cargo and emergency international flights until January 31 in the wake of new stringent lock-down restrictions to contain the spread of new variants of COVID-19 as the country embarks on a rapid vaccination campaign, the fastest in the world per capita. Meanwhile, Air Serbia’s flight JU876 to Cairo Int’l is scheduled to resume on June 4, starting with one weekly rotation on Fridays, adding a second weekly return flight on Sundays on June 6, and increasing to 3x weekly by October 31. Air Cairo (SM, Cairo Int’l) has maintained weekly services between the two countries since June 2020 with scheduled Saturday flights between Hurghada and Belgrade, using the airline’s A320-200s. Lastly, flight JU826 will return to Beirut on June 9 operating 3x weekly on Wednesday, Fridays, and Sundays. A fourth seasonal summer service will be added on Sunday, June 21, operating until September 15, when the schedule returns to 3x weekly rotations. Air Serbia suspended operations to Beirut just weeks before the global COVID-19 lockdown in March 2020 citing Lebanon’s deteriorating financial situation. At the time it said the route suspension would be temporary and the service would resume in June 2020. Beirut was served up to seven times per week during the summer of 2019. The airline operates a mixed owned and leased fleet of twenty-one aircraft, according to ch-aviation fleets advanced module. These include eleven A319-100s, one A320-200, one A330-200, three ATR72-200s, two ATR72-500s, and three B737-300s.