Air Serbia plans to retain its four-member Airbus A330 fleet in the short term, including the aircraft registered YU-ARC, whose lease expires late next year but will be extended. Speaking to EX-YU Aviation news, Air Serbia’s CEO, Jiri Marek, said, “We are in the process of extending the lease because, whatever options we evaluate, extending it remains the most economically viable choice”. He added, “We are currently in discussions with Safran, which has made us an offer to produce the spare interior parts we want to upgrade. We will not undertake a full cabin retrofit, as it is not economically viable and we would not get a return on that investment.”

Commenting further on the decision, Mr Marek said, “When you operate a four-aircraft wide-body fleet, any issue, like the recent damage we experienced [caused by a ground handling vehicle], can very quickly erode your profitability. That was also a factor in our decision to keep the aircraft. We have very favourable lease terms and retaining it gives us the flexibility to use it as a spare opportunistically, like with Toronto. On paper, the business case is there, but the real outcome becomes clear only once you start flying. If it performs well, then you have a proven case to justify looking at additional long-haul aircraft”.

He added that committing to a new wide-body purely to test a market would be financially reckless. “If you need to take a long-haul aircraft to verify whether your business case is solid or not, and you’re locking yourself into an eight-year lease, that’s a very risky decision”, Mr Marek noted. He added, “That is actually why it took us so long to decide on Chicago or any second long-haul destination, because it required a second aircraft”. One of the airline’s four A330s are currently undergoing scheduled maintenance with another to follow next month. “This year we were very lucky we had a spare, because we had two instances of ground vehicles damaging the aircraft all while supply chain challenges continue”, Mr Marek concluded.