Aerosvit Cancels Belgrade Link

Ukrainian carrier Aerosvit Airlines is to suspend its flights between Kiev and Belgrade this week, according to sources that specialise in aviation news from the former Yugoslavia (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia). EX-YU Aviation reports that the four times weekly flights will stop from June 9 until the end of the summer schedules, due to “technical reasons”. The carrier had this year boosted flights on the route from three to four per week but the anticipated level of traffic was never reached.

Aerosvit Airlines is the sole operator on the route, carrying around 7,000 O&D passengers in the past year and accounting for 76 per cent of the point-to-point traffic. A further 2,000 O&D passengers are estimated to have flown between the two cities on indirect flights by other operators including Austrian Airlines, Czech Airlines and Lufthansa. Aerosvit had hoped to secure a large amount of transfer traffic on its flights but official data shows that just eleven per cent of its total traffic began or ended their journeys outside of Belgrade and Kiev.