Air Serbia And Turkish Airlines Further Strengthen Cooperation, Possible Joint Venture Opportunity Explored

Air Serbia, the national airline of the Republic of Serbia, and Turkish Airlines, the national airline of Türkiye, announced an additional enhancement of their commercial cooperation with a new Memorandum of Understanding, officially signed in Doha during 78th IATA Annual General Meeting in the presence of the two companies’ CEOs - Bilal Ekşi and Jiří Marek.

Turkish Airlines and Air Serbia will further explore the ways of deeper commercial cooperation, possibly leading to Joint Venture, which will enable the two companies to offer more competitive and more affordable flights between Türkiye and Serbia, improve the quality of services currently offered, as well as expand the offer and benefits for all passengers.

As a part of this expansion of cooperation, starting from July, Air Serbia will introduce additional flights on the Belgrade-Istanbul route, growing into 10 flights per week between Belgrade and Istanbul, while Turkish Airlines will allocate wide-body aircraft to this route twice a week. Within the scope of agreed MoU, both parties will negotiate to boost existing cooperation in terms of codeshare, cargo and Frequent Flyer Program (FFP) while developing cooperation alternatives on passenger lounges in their networks.

“We are pleased to further strengthen our good relations and cooperation with Turkish Airlines. It is our great pleasure to announce that Air Serbia and Turkish Airlines will continue to look for new commercial opportunities for creating efficient and mutually beneficial relationships, while considering the option of joining forces to achieve better connectivity and offer for our customers through possible Joint Venture on the services between Serbia and Türkiye. In this way, we are contributing to the further improvement of relations between our two states, in the interest of users and communities in both countries,” stated Jiří Marek, CEO of Air Serbia.

Commenting on this MoU Bilal Ekşi, CEO of Turkish Airlines said; "When we consider the global network today, we see how important partnership development in the global aviation industry. Increasing the bilateral relations between our countries and improving the cooperation through our networks are essential for us especially after the pandemic. In this regard, we are delighted to sign this MoU with Air Serbia to explore enhanced cooperation opportunities and negotiate further to expand our existing partnership now. We would like to thank Mr. Jiří Marek and his team on this occasion for their continuous support on our common works which will further contribute to the improvement of the relations between our airlines, countries and communities."

During their cooperation so far, the two companies have adopted and upgraded multiple times code-share agreements for flights to destinations within the networks of Air Serbia and Turkish Airlines. Joint flights offer quick and practical connections for passengers travelling out of Istanbul, the biggest city in Türkiye and an important air traffic hub in the region, to Belgrade and onward, as well as for passengers travelling from the Serbian capital to Istanbul and onward. In addition to that, Air Serbia added its JU code to flights of AnadoluJet, a subsidiary of Turkish Airlines, between Turkish capital Ankara and Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. At the same time, Turkish Airlines added its TK code to Air Serbia flights between Niš and Istanbul, as well as between Kraljevo and Istanbul, thus offering passengers access to the global network of Turkish Airlines on the aforementioned flights.

Find more information about the activities of the Serbian national airline on the Air Serbia Media Centre.