Pošta Srbije flags Air Serbia for Far East flights

Air Serbia (JU, Belgrade) is set to launch flights to unspecified destinations in the Far East in 2022, according to PoštaSrbije, Serbia’s national postal operator.

In a press release announcing a new partnership between the Serbian and North Macedonian postal services, Pošta Sribije’s acting director, Zoran Djordjevic, said the flag carrier was planning to begin the services to the Far East “soon”. While he did not name any specific destinations, he said the airline would play a pivotal role in PoštaSrbije’s strategy of becoming the “regional centre of logistics and postal services”.

Air Serbia currently operates a single widebody aircraft, an A330-200, which it deploys on the Belgrade-New York JFK route. And while it does not operate any services to Asia, including short- and medium-haul flights to the Middle East, it has been touting eastward expansion for a while. In May, on taking delivery of the new A330-200, which replaced another unit of the same type, Chief Executive Duncan Naysmith said the airline was interested in entering China, as well as adding more destinations in North America. The airline currently has a Special Prorate Agreement (SPA) with Hainan Airlines for flights between Europe and China. There are, however, no direct scheduled flights between Belgrade and China or any other destination in the Far East.

In June, Serbia’s President Aleksander Vučić had a phone conversation with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping. After the talk, Vučić said one of the topics discussed was the establishment of direct flights between Belgrade and Beijing, Guangzhou, or Shanghai Pudong.