Air Serbia is set to go ahead with its service between Belgrade and Sochi after discontinuing ticket sales last month in the wake of the Ukraine conflict. The service will now launch ten days later than planned on June 12th, with flights available twice a week.

Ticket sales for Belgrade-Sochi resume

After initially scrapping its planned service between Belgrade and Sochi, Air Serbia will reinstate the route after all. The carrier is now selling fares again for the twice-weekly service, with some minor changes made to the schedule.

Belgrade (BEG) to Sochi (AER) flights will now launch on June 12th rather than the initial June 2nd date. Outbound flights have been moved to Fridays and Sundays instead of the earlier Thursday-Saturday schedule, while inbound flights will be on Mondays and Saturdays.

The full schedule (all local times) is as follows:

• Flight JU678 (Fri and Sun): Departs Belgrade at 23:50, arrives in Sochi at 03:20(+1).
• Flight JU679 (Mon and Sat): Departs Sochi at 04:10, arrives in Belgrade at 05:55.

Speaking in January, Air Serbia said,

"The planned commencement of flights to Sochi is the result of the significance of the Russian market for Air Serbia and the fact that this tourist destination is underserved with direct international flights. Thanks to the extremely successful performance of the Krasnodar and Rostov on Don routes, we have positioned ourselves as one of the airlines with the largest market share between Russia and the Balkans."

Air Serbia will deploy its Airbus A319 fleet on this route.

Timings target European connections

This route's late-night/early-morning timings are structured around connections from Sochi, including Berlin, Vienna, Zurich, Düsseldorf, London, Milan, Paris, and Rome.

Air Serbia is primarily relying on transit passengers to make this route a success. The airline announced the route in January and began selling tickets before removing Sochi from its website in early April.

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Significant summer expansion

Air Serbia will now launch 12 new destinations this summer after reinstating Sochi, including Belgrade to Trieste, Lyon, Hanover, Bari, Bologna, Nuremberg, Salzburg, Palma and Rijeka, as well as Niš to Athens and Kraljevo to Tivat.

Air Serbia CEO Jiri Marek said,

"New destinations that will be available from June onwards are Bologna, Bari, Hanover, Lyon, Nuremberg, Palma, Salzburg and Trieste. As an introduction to the exciting summer ahead, we are starting the expansion of our network with beautiful Valencia on April 21st."

The airline had also scheduled flights to Jordan in June but shelved plans to link Belgrade with Amman a month ago.

Air Serbia will welcome its 10th Airbus A319 aircraft into its fleet this month. Simple Flying explored Air Serbia's fleet expansion plans in more detail last month.

Will you be flying between Belgrade and Sochi with Air Serbia this summer? Do you have any journeys with the airline coming up? Let us know your plans in the comments.