Air Serbia will proceed to depend on wet-leased plane throughout the 2025/26 winter season whereas additionally increasing its dry-leased fleet, making this the airline’s largest winter schedule thus far. Below wet-lease agreements, associate carriers present plane, crew, upkeep, and insurance coverage on behalf of Air Serbia.
This winter, the Serbian service plans to wet-lease 4 Embraer E190s from Bulgaria Air, doubling the quantity in comparison with final winter and matching the preparations in place over the summer season. In response to present schedule filings, Bulgaria Air’s plane will most ceaselessly function on routes from Belgrade to Frankfurt, with 154 flights deliberate between late October and late March. Different key locations embody Athens (99 providers), Zurich (91), Copenhagen (88) and Thessaloniki (75). These allocations stay topic to vary as airways alter capability throughout the season.
The Serbian service additionally plans to deploy two Airbus A320 plane operated by Lithuania’s GetJet Airways from November, matching the variety of models wet-leased from the service throughout the earlier winter. Through the 2025/26 season, GetJet-operated plane have been most scheduled on flights from Belgrade to Paris, with 133 rotations deliberate, adopted by Amsterdam (83), Oslo (46) and Larnaca (45). Each of Air Serbia’s wet-lease companions have recruited domestically primarily based crew, ensuing within the presence of Serbian-speaking workers on a lot of their flights.
Commenting on the airline’s wet-lease technique, Air Serbia’s CEO, Jiri Marek, informed EX-YU Aviation Information earlier this summer season, “Our wet-lease technique helps us bridge the hole by avoiding long-term commitments when plane costs are excessive. As soon as we discover the fitting alternatives, we are able to progressively part out wet-leased capability. One difficulty that’s typically neglected is the influence of our getting old fleet. Whereas the V2500 engines are usually wonderful, over the previous two years they’ve been more and more affected by what are often known as AD notes. This creates durations the place a number of engines have been within the store at identical time which requires backups with utilisation of spare engines to assist operations. He added, Ideally, we intention to pay attention our heavy upkeep throughout the winter season. That manner, we are able to keep away from main disruptions throughout peak months. Apparently, as a result of moist leases are normally in demand throughout summer season, we’ve been capable of negotiate beneficial offers by additionally providing winter operations as a part of the association. This technique permits us to take care of continuity at decrease value”.
As beforehand reported, the Serbian service is ready to take supply of two dry-leased Embraer E195s throughout the winter and additional broaden its fleet with three extra A320s by the beginning of subsequent summer season. In response to the present schedule, which remains to be topic to adjustment because the winter season approaches, Air Serbia plans to supply 2.11 million seats on scheduled providers between October 26 and March 28, representing a 9.2% enhance on the earlier winter. The variety of deliberate operations can be set to rise by 12%, reaching 18.755 flights.
