VINCI has delivered capacity and traffic growth, Menzies has taken control of critical ground operations, and Air Serbia is carrying both the commercial upside and the reputational risk.
At Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla Airport, passengers see a single terminal and expect a single standard of service. Operationally, however, their journey is divided among several organisations. VINCI Airports controls the airport concession and infrastructure. Menzies Aviation handles much of the passenger, ramp and baggage operation. Air Serbia designs the dominant flight schedule and remains accountable to its customers. Border control, security and air-traffic functions add further layers of responsibility. The central question is therefore not simply whether Belgrade Airport is performing at a European level, but whether these organisations operate as one coherent airport system.
The answer is divided. On traffic growth, network development, infrastructure and commercial positioning, Belgrade is performing above the European average. On baggage reliability, punctuality, passenger queues, assistance for people with reduced mobility and complaint resolution, the publicly available information is too limited to demonstrate comparable performance. There is no convincing evidence of a general operational collapse. There is equally no sufficiently detailed public dashboard proving that the airport, VINCI and Menzies are consistently delivering the service standards expected from a leading European regional hub.
The traffic numbers are difficult to dispute. Belgrade Airport handled a record 8.91mn passengers in 2025, an increase of 6.5 per cent, and recorded roughly 89,500 commercial flights. During the first half of 2026, passenger numbers rose another 7.2 per cent to 4.2mn, while the number of commercial movements increased by 3.9 per cent. By comparison, passenger traffic across European airports grew by about 2.6 per cent during the same six-month period, while airports in Belgrade’s medium-sized category expanded by approximately 3.7 per cent. Belgrade is therefore growing at almost twice the rate of its immediate European peer group. The summer 2026 schedule offers 118 direct destinations, including six long-haul routes and the restored Belgrade–Toronto service.
This is the strongest evidence in VINCI’s favour. The French group took over under a 25-year concession signed in 2018, backed by an investment plan of more than €730mn. By March 2026, the airport said that more than €360mn had been invested, in addition to the €501mn paid when management was transferred. Since the beginning of the concession, passenger traffic has increased by almost 60 per cent, while annual aircraft movements have risen by approximately 36 per cent. The concession’s long-term target is to raise annual capacity towards 15mn passengers.
The physical transformation is substantial. VINCI has expanded the terminal by around 40,000 square metres, added 12 gates, increased aircraft stands from 27 to 38, raised the number of check-in desks from 61 to 90, expanded passport-control capacity and delivered a new 3.5km runway alongside the first deep reconstruction of the main runway in more than six decades. Commercial space has grown towards 9,000 square metres, new parking and access infrastructure has been constructed, and a further extension on the terminal’s C side is adding three gates, three air bridges and four aircraft positions. Carbon emissions have been reduced by a reported 23 per cent since 2019, recycling has reached 70 per cent, and the airport holds Level 3 Airport Carbon Accreditation.
Judged as a conventional infrastructure concession, this is a credible performance. VINCI has expanded the asset, increased its capacity, developed commercial revenue opportunities and supported traffic growth considerably faster than the European market. Belgrade is no longer constrained by the same terminal and airfield limitations that defined the airport before the concession. The investment has also helped Air Serbia turn Belgrade into a connecting hub rather than merely an origin-and-destination airport serving the Serbian capital.
The passenger-experience record is not uniformly negative either. Based on surveys conducted during 2023, Belgrade was recognised through the Airports Council International Airport Service Quality programme as the best European airport in the 5mn–15mn passenger category. It also received awards for dedicated staff, cleanliness and the overall enjoyment of the airport experience. The ASQ programme uses surveys completed by passengers at airports and covers more than 30 parts of the journey, so the results cannot simply be dismissed as an operator’s marketing claim.
Those awards, however, describe passenger sentiment during 2023. They do not establish operational performance during the much busier summer periods of 2025 and 2026, after annual traffic moved close to 9mn passengers and the handling model was reorganised. Customer-experience surveys are also different from hard operational measurements. An airport can be considered clean, comfortable and pleasant while still experiencing problems with baggage delivery, turnaround times or disruption management.
Menzies entered this structure because Air Serbia had already discovered the cost of weak ground handling. When announcing their cooperation in October 2023, both companies acknowledged that Air Serbia’s rapid expansion during that year had been accompanied by ground-handling difficulties. Air Serbia’s chief executive apologised to affected passengers, while Menzies was appointed to provide passenger and ramp services from February 2024 and expected to handle more than 22,000 aircraft turns during the first year. Belgrade Airport subsequently transferred a broader range of handling activities to Menzies, including baggage, ramp operations, de-icing, passenger services, assistance for travellers with reduced mobility and cargo functions.
The arrival of Menzies should not itself be interpreted as evidence that Belgrade is operating below European standards. Third-party ground handling is standard across the European aviation market. EU policy has for decades encouraged competition in passenger handling, baggage, ramp and related services, while new European rules are introducing more direct safety and management-system requirements for ground-handling organisations. A large international specialist can bring training systems, technology, equipment-procurement leverage and experience from multiple airports.
Yet the transfer changed the corporate structure faster than it changed the underlying human resources. Existing airport handling employees were offered transfers to Menzies, meaning that much of the workforce remained while management, contracts and accountability changed. That is not necessarily a weakness, because experienced local employees are valuable. But it means that the Menzies name alone could not immediately eliminate staffing shortages, outdated work practices, equipment constraints or the operational consequences of Air Serbia’s increasingly concentrated flight schedule.
Menzies’ Belgrade performance cannot be independently rated from the information currently disclosed. The public material does not provide Belgrade-specific figures for mishandled baggage per 1,000 passengers, first- and last-bag delivery times, the percentage of aircraft turned around within schedule, staffing levels by shift, equipment availability, absence rates, delays attributable to ground handling or response times for passengers requiring special assistance. Without those measurements, it is impossible to demonstrate that Menzies is performing at the level of the best European handlers. It is also impossible to conclude fairly, from individual incidents alone, that it is systematically performing below that level.
The claim that user complaints are increasing requires a similar distinction between perception and measured evidence. The latest complete official figures from Serbia’s Civil Aviation Directorate do not show an increase in formal passenger complaints. The regulator processed 566 complaints in 2025, fewer than in 2024 despite significant growth in passenger and flight numbers. Of these, 471 cases, or 83 per cent, concerned long delays, cancellations or denied boarding. During the year, 2,401 people contacted the directorate, but many communications were outside its jurisdiction, represented follow-up correspondence or first had to be submitted to an airline.
This data does not mean that dissatisfaction with Belgrade Airport has declined. The figures cover Serbia’s aviation system rather than Belgrade Airport alone, and they primarily concern legally defined passenger-rights cases. They are not a complete record of complaints about queues, baggage damage, terminal maintenance, staff conduct, toilets, air conditioning, passenger information or assistance services. A traveller writing to the airport, Air Serbia or Menzies — or posting on social media — may never appear in the directorate’s statistics. The correct interpretation is therefore that an increase in formal complaints has not been demonstrated, while concerns about the passenger experience have become more visible.
Several incidents have reinforced that perception. In May 2025, a failure involving the checked-baggage security-screening system prevented some bags from being loaded, forcing Air Serbia to apologise and organise subsequent delivery. In May 2026, a wastewater leak affected the baggage-reclaim area, after which the airport said the fault had been repaired and promised stronger preventive maintenance. In July, the opposition party Serbia Centre called for answers from VINCI, Menzies and the authorities over alleged staffing shortages, baggage-unloading equipment problems, delays and inadequate equipment for passengers with reduced mobility. The party’s statements were allegations and questions rather than verified operational findings, but they gained attention partly because detailed performance data was unavailable to confirm or rebut them.
None of these events proves that Belgrade Airport is structurally below European standards. Large European airports experience baggage-system failures, maintenance problems, weather disruption and staffing shortages. EUROCONTROL’s 2025 network report recorded European departure punctuality of only 70.1 per cent, with arrival punctuality at 75.4 per cent. Turnaround and ground-handling delays remained part of the European disruption picture. The relevant comparison is therefore not between Belgrade and an imaginary airport where nothing goes wrong. It is between the frequency, duration and management of problems at Belgrade and those at comparable airports.
Belgrade does not publish enough information to make that comparison. There is no regularly available airport-wide figure for departures within 15 minutes of schedule, no published breakdown of delays by airline, handler, airport infrastructure, air-traffic control or weather, and no monthly baggage-performance report. That lack of transparency is the weakest part of the VINCI–Menzies model. It allows isolated failures to dominate the public narrative and makes it difficult for passengers, regulators and commercial partners to determine whether the system is improving.
Air Serbia occupies a particularly complicated position. It is the airport’s anchor airline, network architect and largest source of passengers. In 2025, the carrier transported 4.57mn passengers, generated revenue of €719.5mn and reported pre-tax profit of €45.3mn. Its load factor rose by 2.4 percentage points to 77.3 per cent, while its network reached 103 scheduled and charter destinations. Comparing its passenger total with Belgrade Airport’s 8.91mn passengers indicates that Air Serbia accounts for roughly half of the airport’s traffic, although the two reporting systems are not perfectly interchangeable.
Expansion continued in 2026. Air Serbia carried 2,062,488 passengers during the first half, almost 57,000 more than a year earlier, while operating 23,225 flights, an increase of more than 1,000. The network expansion has included Toronto, Baku, Munich, Alicante, Santorini and other destinations, strengthening Belgrade’s role as a bridge between south-east Europe, western Europe and selected long-haul markets.
This makes Air Serbia commercially stronger but operationally more exposed. A hub schedule concentrates arrivals and departures into waves so that passengers can make connections. That supports higher aircraft utilisation and network connectivity, but it also creates intense peaks for baggage teams, buses, gates, passenger-transfer facilities and border-control points. A shortage of staff or equipment during a quiet part of the day may be manageable. The same shortage during a connecting wave can delay several flights, separate transfer passengers from their baggage and transmit disruption across the network.
Air Serbia cannot treat ground handling as somebody else’s reputational problem. Passengers purchase an Air Serbia ticket and generally hold the airline responsible when a bag does not arrive, a connection is missed or information is inadequate. Menzies may operate the baggage belt and VINCI may own the relevant system, but the passenger relationship remains primarily with the airline. Air Serbia therefore functions as the airport system’s shock absorber: it receives much of the commercial benefit from Belgrade’s growth, while absorbing a disproportionate share of customer anger when the wider system fails.
This also gives Air Serbia leverage. As Menzies’ largest local customer and VINCI’s dominant airline partner, it can demand stronger contractual performance requirements, investment in handling equipment, sufficient summer staffing and transparent root-cause reporting. Its financial results suggest that the airline now has a greater ability to fund resilience rather than pursuing capacity growth alone. The strategic risk is that additional routes and frequencies may increase revenue while simultaneously weakening punctuality and customer loyalty when the supporting ground operation grows more slowly than the timetable.
VINCI’s position is different. Its concession performance is strongest where results can be physically counted: passengers, gates, terminal space, aircraft stands, runways, parking capacity and commercial areas. These are important achievements and compare favourably with airport development elsewhere in south-east Europe. But a concessionaire is not merely a landlord. It is the integrator of the airport ecosystem. VINCI’s responsibilities extend beyond building facilities to ensuring that the handler, airlines, maintenance contractors and public authorities can operate within them as one reliable system.
The appropriate judgment is therefore more nuanced than declaring Belgrade either European or non-European. VINCI is already performing at a European level in traffic development, capital investment and physical capacity. Its position is weaker in public operational transparency and the visible integration of service providers. Menzies cannot yet be credibly classified as either above or below European standards, because the airport-specific data needed for such an assessment is not disclosed. The incidents and allegations justify scrutiny, but they do not replace a measurable performance record. Air Serbia is commercially the strongest part of the system, with growing revenue, profitability and network reach, although its dependence on the performance of VINCI and Menzies creates an increasingly material operational and reputational risk.
A serious EU-level assessment would require a monthly public dashboard showing departure punctuality, first- and last-bag delivery, mishandled baggage per 1,000 passengers, peak passenger-processing times, assistance response times, complaints per 10,000 travellers and the proportion resolved within agreed deadlines. Delay causes should be attributed clearly among the airline, handler, airport, weather, border-control and air-traffic functions. The purpose would not be to claim that every problem had disappeared, but to show whether the system was improving and who was responsible when it was not.
Belgrade Airport has moved beyond the stage where a new terminal façade or another passenger record is enough to establish success. By traffic growth, connectivity and concrete investment, it is already operating on a European scale. By disclosure, accountability and the ability to demonstrate consistent service performance across VINCI, Menzies and Air Serbia, it remains in transition. The airport’s next competitive advantage will come less from adding another gate than from making the organisations behind that gate operate — and report their performance — as one airport.
