Air Serbia may revive its maintenance and ground handling divisions.

Air Serbia (JU, Belgrade) plans to restore its own maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) division, as well as new catering and ground handling services, as tensions have arisen with third-party service providers in recent years, CEO Jiri Marek told the Rynek Lotniczy website during an interview.

The relationship between Air Serbia and its main MRO supplier, the Polish company JAT Tehnika, has been strained this year due to bottlenecks, which has forced the airline to send some of its aircraft to Istanbul for maintenance. It is reported that Belgrade is negotiating with Turkish Airlines and its MRO division, Turkish Technic, about the possibility of opening a joint MRO center in the capital of Serbia.

“We are considering various options,” he stated to Rynek Lotniczy. “If we want to have full control over the implementation of planned operations and not rely on unreliable service providers, then yes, this is one of the solutions. We want to create an MRO hangar at the airport as part of a joint venture with a partner specializing in aircraft maintenance.”

He explained: "Before the pandemic, outsourcing was a normal practice in the industry. It was part of the transformation. Airlines moved away from companies that provided catering, maintenance, and technical servicing for aircraft.

He added that Air Serbia is also "considering the resumption of its catering business. We are not satisfied with the product from the company we have been contracted with for two years, and they are our only supplier. We are also thinking about creating our own cargo handling service."

According to reports, Air Serbia transferred its ground handling service to the Belgrade airport operator in November 2017 in an effort to improve profitability. Under the leadership of its then shareholder Etihad Airways, a period of deep restructuring followed, aimed at increasing the company's efficiency and effectiveness.