The Serbian government has taken a new decision on the issue of “Announcing flight routes in the public interest”, which covers two connections from Morava Airport in Kraljevo. As a result, from December 1, 2019, the state will subsidize three weekly year-round flights from Kraljevo to Vienna, as well as a seasonal three-week flight to Greece’s second largest city, Thessaloniki, which is scheduled to start on March 10, 2020. Both routes are to be maintained at least until the beginning of 2022. A public call to select an operator is expected to be launched in the coming weeks. According to the government, routes on which government subsidies can be granted are either routes of no commercial interest that carry fewer than 100,000 passengers per year or routes that are not adequately served by other modes of transport.
Morava Airport in Kraljevo, located in central Serbia, was officially opened at the end of June. At the time, the General Director of Operating Airports of Serbia, Mihajlo Zdravković, said: “We have already had discussions with several airlines and I have to say that there is interest. This shows in the fact that we have rented commercial space to Realistically we can see from it Expect the first commercial flights from Morava Airport to open in winter. These will be regional flights operated by smaller planes. We would also be pleased if they started next summer that the airport serves a catchment area of around one million people as well as the business potential of the region and the growing tourism “.
The Serbian government has also started procedures for the construction of a second runway at Morava Airport, which is scheduled to begin in 2020. “We will provide funding for this project in the next financial year. In addition to the introduction of scheduled flights, it is important for Morava Airport to become a cargo operations center supported by the construction of the Morava Corridor,” said the Serbian Minister for Construction, transport and infrastructure, Zorana Mihajlović, recently. The planned corridor is a 110-kilometer-long motorway worth 800 million euros, which is to be built by the US-Turkish consortium Bechtel-ENKA and which will run near the airport. Construction is scheduled to begin next year.
In early 2019, the Serbian government declared twelve routes of public interest from the country’s second largest airport in Niš. The subsidy contract worth five million euros per year was awarded to the only interested applicant – Air Serbia. Adria Airways, now dissolved, later filed a complaint against the airline with the relevant European institutions, claiming that the subsidies constituted illegal state aid granted by the Serbian government to its national airline.
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