Long-haul route development can take years to materialize, with much behind-the-scenes work going on. Naturally, those not party to those discussions have no access. Instead, they must rely on the official announcement or being drip-fed snippets of information. This is one such occasion.
Is Air Serbia coming to Miami?
While nothing has been confirmed yet, Air Serbia is supposedly in “advanced talks” about starting service between Belgrade and Miami. And if Marko Djurić, Serbia’s Ambassador to the United States, is to be believed, the launch of the 5,475-mile (8,811 km) route appears quite likely.
A political-driven development, or…?
The view that it could be added “fairly quickly” depends on adding a third A330-200 in two months, which is a tall ask. Then, it must really have three to six months of lead-in time to drive awareness and sales.
Miami before Toronto?
Examining booking data for the 12 months to November 2023 indicates that Miami-Belgrade only had about 12,000 roundtrip point-to-point passengers (33 daily). Most people would be Serbian-Americans.
That is a tiny number of passengers for a potential new long route. However, it would benefit from the inevitably low frequency, and a new non-stop Miami service would inevitably see the P2P market grow strongly. In contrast, Toronto had over 40,000+ passengers (110+ daily).
If Miami materializes, its schedule will surely be based on targeting transit passengers over the carrier’s well-coordinated hub. If the Balkans and Greece are considered, the market is over 120,000 passengers (329 daily), most of whom flew you guessed it – with Turkish Airlines.
Depending on the timings, Air Serbia could also target Miami-Tel Aviv passengers (200,000+) and, as Serbia is not in the EU, even those bound to and from Moscow (26,000+).
Source: Simple Flying
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