Lost luggage, delays, queues. What you risk if you fly with Air Serbia this summer

Thousands of suitcases piled up, endless lines at passport control, delays in departing flights. Belgrade's Nikola Tesla Airport, hub of flag carrier Air Serbia, is experiencing a tremendously difficult summer, due to a boom in traffic in recent weeks and a severe shortage of personnel

Italian passengers are among the most 'affected', on a European level, by this situation, since Air Serbia flies from Belgrade to as many as nine cities in our country: Bari, Bologna, Catania, Florence, Milan, Naples, Palermo, Rome and Venice, in some cases with more than one daily frequency. And the Italian market is for the Serbian carrier the second largest in Europe after Germany.

The website viewfromthewing.com reports that there are those who, desperate, called the police to report the theft of their luggage, after days of vain waiting, who even flew back to Belgrade to fetch their suitcase.

On Reddit, dozens shared their stories, and hundreds of people joined, in less than a week, a Facebook group made up of travelers who had arrived in or transited Belgrade and never saw their belongings again.

Овако јутрос изгледа пријем пртљага на Аеродрому Никола Тесла!
Стотине изгубљених кофера са свих могућих летова протекле недеље.
Срамота и криминал! pic.twitter.com/yefoseXknQ

- Ивица (@IvicaIvanM) June 25, 2023

The problem has reached the government level, as the Minister of Transport, Goran Vesic, has harshly reminded the group that operates the country's main airport, namely the giant Vinci, to fulfill its commitments. A steering committee consisting of the minister himself, the Serbian airport and commercial aviation authorities. As well as representatives of the Vinci group has been meeting for days now every morning at 8 a.m. trying to put a limit to the inconveniences suffered by passengers.

Vinci, for its part, is in the process of hiring a hundred more staff, while the government has opened a call for applications to find two more handling operators to be employed at Nikola Tesla alongside the only one who has been in charge of baggage handling so far. And it has increased the number of passport control gates. "They (Vinci, ed.) knew that Air Serbia was adding 22 new routes to its network this summer, thus increasing 40% operations. Just as they knew that flydubai would triple its operations, that Wizz Air would double it, and that Turkish Airlines would grow by 80% to Belgrade. In short, they knew it was going to be an extremely busy summer and they didn't gear up," the minister explained.

Belgrade Airport handled 5,611,000 passengers in 2022, an increase of 70.8% over 2021. In the first five months of this year, there were 2,542,000 passengers, or 58% more than in the same month of 2022. And in May alone nearly 650,000 passengers passed through Tesla.

• airmageddon