Report: Air Serbia “highly profitable” thanks to its flights to Russia

Flights to Russia are one of the reasons for the high profitability of Air Serbia, the regional aviation portal Zamaaero reports.

Despite its EU membership candidacy, Serbia has not adopted the EU’s sanctions against Russia. Notably, Air Serbia not only continues to operate flights to Russia, but has expanded them, while EU countries have halted their flights to Russia.

“Along with Turkish, Air Serbia is the only European company that has flights to Russia. This summer, it had as many as 31 flights per week to Russia, including 20 to Moscow, seven to St.Petersburg, and two each to Kazan and Sochi,” the portal stated. It is added that those flights, which bring a lot of money to the company, maybe 80 million euros per year, have many connections for passengers to Montenegro, the European Union, Switzerland, Norway, Great Britain and the USA, where Russian companies cannot fly.

According to the portal, while Croatia Airlines recorded a loss of 18.2 million euros in 2022, a minus of almost 20 million euros in 2024, and in 2023 it was positive by a minimum of two million euros only thanks to the sale of the Airbus A319 and A320, Air Serbia had a profit of 21.5 million euros in 2022, 40.6 million euros in 2023 and a profit of 2024 41.5 million euros.

“The company also makes money on numerous flights to Cyprus, where Turkish Airlines cannot fly, so Turkish passengers fly via Belgrade. Likewise, on numerous flights to Montenegro (in the peak season, as many as 59 weekly flights or an average of 8.4 per day) which have quite high prices. Here the company makes serious money, above all because on those flights there are a number of passengers from Russia who have real estate in Montenegro,” Zamaaero said.

It was also pointed out that Air Serbia has a huge number of charter lines, while there are few other charter companies in Serbia.

“The company has a number of flights for the Government of Serbia (political delegations, natural disasters, repatriation flights…), and sports organizations financed by the Government of Serbia, where no savings is made and no one asks how much it costs,” the portal writes.

It was also stated that Air Serbia has very low expenses for employee salaries, and pays low fuel prices, among the lowest in Europe, thanks to the agreement between NIS and the State of Serbia. Also, the company has very cheap airport taxes compared to other companies that fly to Belgrade, and compared to most European companies that pay more at their home airports.

“The company receives huge money from PSO (state subsidies for the establishment and maintenance of airlines that are not commercially profitable, but are of public interest), far more than other companies in Europe, and far more than Croatia Airlines. In addition, this PSO is non-transparent and is not run according to the strict rules of the European Union (where the company must justify every cent and can only charge five percent of the profit), so it is very possible that here the company ‘saves’ considerable funds, and that PSO actually serves building the company’s financial situation,” writes the Zamaaero portal.

Before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Air Serbia operated 7–8 weekly direct flights from Belgrade (BEG) to Moscow Sheremetyevo (SVO).

Since March 2022, due to surging demand from Russians seeking connections to Europe (as EU carriers halted services and closed airspace to Russian planes), Air Serbia nearly doubled frequencies to 15 weekly flights to Moscow. This represented a ~90% capacity increase, with the airline deploying larger Airbus A330-200 widebodies on some rotations to accommodate more passengers.

Air Serbia also resumed or started services to other Russian cities, including St. Petersburg, relaunched in 2022 with up to 6 weekly flights by 2024, Sochi, launched in June 2022 with 2 weekly flights and Kazan, with 2 weekly flights added.

These changes positioned Belgrade as a key “loophole” hub for Russians traveling onward to EU destinations like Cyprus, France, Italy, and Switzerland.

By summer 2024, Air Serbia was operating ~19 weekly flights to Russia across four cities (Moscow: ~15–19 weekly; St. Petersburg: 6 weekly; Kazan and Sochi: 2 weekly each), a net increase over pre-2022 levels when it served only Moscow and St. Petersburg with fewer frequencies. This growth continued into 2025.

With additional reporting by g.g.

Caption: Corporative communication by Air Serbia on X @airserbia