Last year was marked by new records in Serbian commercial air traffic. There were also two key changes at the largest domestic airport – Air Serbia opted for a partnership with the handling company Menzies Aviation, and Serbia was awarded EXPO 2027.
Part of today’s presentation by the President of Serbia on plans for organizing this event may contain the biggest news for “Nikola Tesla” – after the post-COVID “revenge travel” phenomenon, Serbia will likely experience the largest historical increase in commercial air traffic in history during the EXPO year.
As the most read and influential domestic aviation media in Serbian, Tango Six will dedicate special attention to the impact of the EXPO event on air traffic in the coming period. Thus, the fourth Southeast European Aviation Summit (SEAS) will partly focus on discussions about the readiness of the domestic civil aviation system for the largest targeted arrival of air passengers in its history.
SEAS will take place on March 19th and 20th at Sava Centar.
Capacity, investments?
Press releases at the end of last year by the two most important domestic institutions in aviation contained the term “record result.” In 2023, Air Serbia transported a total of 4.19 million passengers, which is the third-best result in the history of this company. The national airline operated more than 45,000 flights, which is 44% more than in 2022.
“Nikola Tesla” Airport served nearly 8 million passengers (7.95 million, to be precise), representing an increase of 42% compared to the previous year and 29% compared to 2019. A total of 83,300 flights were conducted at Tesla, 27% more than the previous year and 18% more than in 2019.
Niš “Constantine the Great” served 448,312 passengers, which is a 15% increase compared to the previous year.
Whether this is exclusively a result of leveling after the pandemic and the consequent greatest tragedy in the history of global air traffic will be known at the end of this year. Already now, we can conclude that the announcements of domestic leaders that, by the end of Vinci’s concession, “Tesla” will reach a figure of 15 million more passengers, do not seem so unrealistic.
