Flag carrier Air Serbia said it carried 2.62 million passengers in 2016, up 3%, making a strong contribution to the growth of trade and tourism in Serbia.
The company operated 33,171 services, including 1,213 in the summer months under its charter brand Aviolet, Air Serbia said in a statement on Thursday. Its network capacity, measured in available seat kilometres (ASK), grew 11% to 4.06 billion.
The cargo traffic handled by Air Serbia rose by 31% to 4,913 tonnes, the company added.
The average passenger load factor increased to 72.4% from 70.7%. On-time performance (OTP) at Air Serbia’s hub at Nikola Tesla Airport was 87.3%, up from 86% in 2015. The overall OTP for the whole Air Serbia network came in at 84% in 2016, up from 83.6%.
“The airline achieved major fleet and network milestones and managed to deliver sustainable growth in a tough business environment. The development of Air Serbia is intertwined with the development of Serbia, and was integral to the economic growth recorded last year, the likes of which have never been seen before,” supervisory board chairman Sinisa Mali, who is also mayor of Belgrade, said in the statement.
The growth of Air Serbia’s network capacity was fuelled by the launch of services to New York, Saint Petersburg, Kiev, Hamburg and Ohrid, which widened the airline’s network reach to 44 destinations.
“In 2017 we will continue to focus on the long-term sustainable growth of Air Serbia to ensure we continue to hit on the commercial objective set out by our two shareholders, the Government of the Republic of Serbia and Etihad Airways,” the company’s CEO Dane Kondic said.
Last year, Air Serbia’s fleet grew to 21 aircraft as the airline received its first wide-body aircraft, a 254-seat Airbus A330, deploying it on the transatlantic service to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.
Air Serbia signed codeshare agreements with four airlines in 2016, bringing the total number of codeshare partnerships to 19 airlines and expanding its connectivity to 127 cities.
