Hungary's Malev, Austria's FlyNiki, Montenegro Airlines To Lauch Flights to Serbia

“It makes no difference for passengers that the granted licences are temporary,” CAD spokesman Katarina Andric-Milosavljevic told SeeNews.

FlyNiki will start flying on February 1, 2010, on the Belgrade-Vienna-Belgrade route six times a week.

“Malev will likely fly twice a day on the Belgrade-Budapest-Belgrade route but it is unclear yet when the airline will launch the flights,” Andric-Milosavljevic said.

Montenegro Airlines will fly twice a week on the Podgorica-Nis-Zurich route. Nis is a town in southern Serbia and Podgorica is Montenegro’s capital.

Serbia will grant licences to all airlines from the European Union seeking to open routes to any of the Balkan state's airports, local broadcaster b92 (www.b92.net) quoted CAD's director Nebojsa Starcevic as saying on Tuesday.

Serbia is also inclined to apply the Open Skies criteria to airlines worldwide, Starcevic said in the b92 article. Serbia and Austria have a bilateral agreement allowing only Serbia’s flag carrier JAT Airways and Austrian Airlines to fly between the two countries. On the other hand, Austria and Serbia have signed an Open Skies agreement, so CAD has decided to issue temporary licences to avoid breaching both agreements, Starcevic said.

The government in Belgrade  signed an agreement with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) allowing JAT and five UAE airlines to service routes in both directions earlier this month. The agreement will permit the Emirates airline to launch flights to about 100 destinations from Belgrade.

Italian low-cost airline Wind Jet and its Swedish peer MCA Airlines are slated to launch flights to Nis in December this year, b92 reported earlier.

Serbia’s tourism revenue, currently at some $1.0 billion (665.5 million euro) a year, will rise by at least a half when low-cost air carriers start flying in following the liberalisation of the visa regime with the EU expected to take effect next January, the head of Serbia’s national tourism board, Radisav Stankovic, has said.

($=0.6655 euro)