After ten long years, JAT will resume regular service to North America!

Starting July 11th, JAT Yugoslav Airlines will operate direct flights between Belgrade Airport (BEG) and Toronto's Pearson International Airport (YYZ). Tickets are now available on the Amadeus online flight reservation system.

Flight JU561 will depart YYZ at 21:30, and will arrive in BEG at 12:40 the following day. The flight duration is 9 hours and 10 minutes. For now the flights will be operated on the DC10. From July 11th to Sept 5th, return tickets will cost 1.340 CAD. After Sept 5th, return tickets will cost 1.070 CAD. Business class tickets cost an additional 250 CAD.

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Photo © Martin Steiner

It's good to see them doing intercontinental flights after all these years in hiatus. I hope they do expand to the U.S. and hopefully come to JFK.

Belgrade here I come!

Seriously, this is awesome!

 

This is great finally a direct flight to Belgrade and an additional 250 for J is great!!JU101 any idea if Jat will be hiring f/a's eny time soon??

This is indeed great news! Hopefully they won't have many problems and be too delayed. They don't exactly have a great record for on-time performance, especially to North America. I mean, if there is something wrong with the DC-10 they don't have a replacement.... I'm probably going to go to Pearson to "welcome" JAT. I guess they will be using Terminal 3? What is the best place to spot from?

By the way, didn't they want to do Tuesday and Thursday service? I wonder what happened to change that.....

Oh yeah, one more thing, is this going to be the only regular DC-10 at Pearson? Anyone else fly them in?

I'd say that if it turns out, and it should, that JAT indeed has a market in Canada, they will either buy or lease 767-200 or even an Airbus 300; it is brave to start serving North America with only one plane in long haul fleet - what happens if something breaks down, and they cannot fly for a few days or so?
Anyway, good luck and all the best!

Ok, but what time that aircraft will arrive at YYZ? I think they going to start flying from Belgrade not from YYZ.

JU560 Leaves BEG at 16:15 and arrives in YYZ at 20:15

JU561 Leaves YYZ at 21:30 and arrives in BEG at 12:40

Flight Departing Arriving - Stops
- Aircraft Duration Seats available
1st Biz Eco

Yugoslav Airlines
JU 560 Beograd (BEG), Belgrade, Yugoslavia 16:15
Pearson Int'l (YYZ), Toronto, ON, Canada 20:15
Non-stop
D1C 10h00min N/A Yes

This is from www.amadeus.net
departing date July 14th.

Wait -- just an hour and 15 minute turnaround time? No wonder they've had reliability problems.

I remember when I was growing up Air Canada had 767 service to Belgrade.

Then I guess it will be shootable if they arrive at 8pm.
I'm planing to spend all day shooting at YYZ on July 20th. Hopefully weather will be nice.

Let me ask you this. Can you still pull two step ladder to the fence near Boeing building?

Rafal

Air Canada had 767 service to Belgrade? Are you sure? I thought they only had code-shares with JAT on YYZ-ZAG flights. I never thought any AC equipment actually went to BEG.

Are any Canadian airlines planning to start flying to BEG. Air Transat maybe? Maybe even Air Canada? I suspect this will be a very popular route and it will fill JAT's DC-10, especially since they have no competiton.

Air Canada had service to Zagreb not Belgrade.

Flug,
The airline has decreased its workforce (mainly retirement) by 1.200, though in return they have been introducing younger flight attendants, pilots, and other related staff for all operations.

JAT,
I still dont know to what terminal they will be flying into, however i hope to have this information soon. I dont know about their ontime performance for transatlantic routes, since they havent had any scheduled ones since 1992. In any event, the airline is regularly on time for its flights elsewhere. For now JAT is only catering to the market in Belgrade and Toronto area, so transit passengers are not expected for anywhere other than in Serbia and Montenegro.

The director of commercial operations, Novica Vulic, stated a few months ago that its their intention to first sample the market and see if the line could be operated with profitability. He stated that it is a risk opening transatlantic routes, and said that JAT would need two wide-body aircraft if and when flights would be operated to Toronto, New York, and Chicago at desired frequency.

I could still remember those childhood days of boarding the JAT DC10s from YMX, enroute for Belgrade. And vice versa  

What I find slightly odd is that there hasn't been a press release about the BEG-YYZ service. I looked through all the latest Yugo newspapers and nothing yet. It's sort of ironic, it used to be that whenever they even mention North American service "Politika" and "Glas Javnosti" would have lengthy articles about it, yet now, when they actually did something, there is no mention of it.

There is a possibility for connections. Consider that there is no direct YYZ service to Sofia, Skopje and Banja Luka (and obviously Podgorica and Tivat). There is a Thursday BEG-Sofia flight although it leaves at 20:30 so it would be quite a lengthy wait. The same goes for Skopje (leaves BEG at 21:10) and Banja Luka (leaves BEG at 20:15) although for Podgorica there is a convenient connection (leaves BEG at 14:10) and also for Tivat (leaves BEG at 16:10). If the Sofia, Skopje and Banja Luka flights were a bit earlier it would amount to very nice connections, I'm sure there would be customers for them. Connections to the middle east would also be an idea, JAT has quite a few middle eastern destinations that aren't served directly from YYZ. In my opinion, the right price and a little advertising would lure these connecting customers.

Also, I just made this observation, judging by their current schedule their ATR-72 fleet is stretched to the limit!

Good to hear that JAT is back in business with the Belgrade-Toronto run.

Smart move for JAT in a Canadian market that still lacks any direct flights to South Eastern Europe.

I wish them well.

Cheers

Not sure what your definition of SE Europe is, but OA flies ATH-YUL/YYZ. TS flies YYZ-ATH. Alitalia, Austrian, Malev....all fly to Canada as well.

It's not that complicated Yyz717:

Italy(Alitalia)-Western Europe
Austria(Austrian), Hungary(Malev)-Central Europe
Greece(Olympic)-South Europe
Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Macedonia,Albania, Moldova, Ukraine-South Eastern Europe

Cheers

Well, it's arbitrary.

Since you label Serbia as SE Europe, since Greece is SSE of Serbia, then Greece is also in SE Europe.

Not sure I would call the Ukraine technically a "European" country. The people may appear European but it's all 3rd-world conditions. Muslim Turkey is arguably more European than the Ukraine in many ways.

Besides, Air Ukraine has flown to YYZ for years.

 

JAT,
In the medium to long term, JAT are in a favorable position to eventually liberate much of the traffic between North America and Southeast Europe. Other than the Serbian market, they should certainly look at establishing themselves for Sofia (Bulgaria), Skopje (Macedonia), and Sarajevo (Bosnia). Even without direct flights, i know of several Bulgarians that flew to Belgrade, and then rented a car for their trip to Bulgaria. The combined population of these countries totals to nearly 30 million.

I personally think the idea of Belgrade becoming a transit center for flights between the Middle East and North America is a lost cause. If Olympic Airways, Malev and Tarom were not able to ascertain their desired positions in that market, it is unlikely that JAT would be able to do otherwise. Besides, our market is very interesting and should eventually be large enough to administer services comparable to the golden years of Yugoslav aviation.

Connector4you,

I would consider Southeast Europe to be composed of the following nations: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia & Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria, and Romania.

I would, on the other hand, consider Ukraine and Moldova as part of Eastern Europe. Greece is commonly associated with Southern Europe, while everyone in our area tend to agree that Turkey is part of Asia. Just because the Southeastern tip of the Balkan peninsula belongs to Turkey should not qualify them as being part of Europe!

As a Slovenian I have to ask  

Any discount for former brothers? 

dcy.

Good news to see JAT moving on, I totally agree that a replacement for the DC10 is overdue. I am sure the big guys in JAT realize this..

I also have a JAT brochure which dates back in 1990, and they were going to replace the DC10 with 4 M11's, for obvious reasons this did not go ahead.

Anyway should the situation in former Yugoslavia not have happened in the first place and JAT did purchase the M11, they probably would have been considering now to replace the M11.

Anyway to sum it up, good on them..

Dcy,
Good question. Well we could consider eachother as cousins!

Travel,
You acknowledged a really good point. I realise that had JAT taken delivery of the MD11 years back, they would have been in the same position, and of course with even less money.

I must disagree with the point a colleage made earlier, stating that JAT should consider replacing the DC10 with either an A300 or the B767-200. Both planes are quite unpopular, especially the A300. I think the ideal size for JAT is something like the B767-300, though even those planes have been in productions for years now, and i would hate for them to take delivery of an aircraft that is bound to be replaced by newer models. Actually this is the same idea behind the MD11 vs DC10 that Travel pointed out.

In any case, the YU-AMB barely even flew for the last ten years, when you consider that most wide-bodies spend more time in the air than on the ground. Resultantly, i think that they will not rush the replacement of a plane that has mainly flown between 1980 and 1992.

Personally and of course depending on JAT's finance. I think the B777-200 or B767-400 or the A340-300 is the better choice.

The A300 or 762's are slowly loosing their popularity and besides they are now old models..

Hey Hey Neil Easy on the Ukraine bashing, it's hardly third world....

Isn't the Ukraine a nuclear power ?

Not anymore, they are the first country in history to go from being in the top three to completely dismantling their entire Nuclear arsenal.

My very first flight was with JAT on a DC-10 back in 1987.

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Photo © Brian J. Gore

Then with a connecting flight on a DC-9

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Photo © Frank Schaefer

I miss this old color scheme, I wish them well back in the North America market, I just hope to see them again at JFK.


CB777

Other than Northwest Airlines, are there any other regular or charter companies that operate transatlantic flights with the DC10?

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Photo © Nicolas Kersting

Ya Neil, isn't calling Ukraine 3rd world being generous?

Ok ok, just kidding.  

Easy their fishboy...Dont get me started on your little sliver of spanish beach-front/        

Does anybody know how much fuel DC10 needs to fly from BEG to YYZ? That's somewhere around 4500 miles.
I'm just trying to figure how many passengers approximately they need to break even...

JAT's DC-10 is configired for 271 passangers, so I think around 160 passengers (about 60%) should break them even? I really don't think it will be a problem filling the aircraft, considering this flight is very much anticipated by the Serbian community in Toronto, it is the middle of the travelling season and the tickets are priced quite resonably, considering its a direct flight.

Now, a question; where would the best place to spot this plane be? They are I'm sure going to use Terminal 3... Is there any way of knowing now what runway will be used?

Not unless you can predict the weather for the rest of the summer.....

Yeah, I figured.  

Whats really stage, as our colleague JAT has pointed out, the Serbian media and the JAT Press Center have yet to publicly announce the news. I would have assumed the total opposite, since anytime there was word about starting to North America, the media would be known to publish lengthy articles on the subject.

BTW, i found out that Air Bosna will other than opening its flight to Belgrade, also open the following routes:
Belgrade - Sarajevo - Dubrovnik
Belgrade - Banja Luka - Ljubljana

There is no comment from Air Bosna regarding their originally announced flights to New York. However, i do have a portion of an interview for a national Belgrade newspaper, given by a director at Air Bosna:

"In United States and Canada live about half a million Bosnian migrants who up to now fly through western Europe. When JAT opens over the Atlantic, we expect that the majority of Bosnian migrants, will find its more efficient to travel through Belgrade; and then to Sarajevo with Air Bosna,

We will arrive at Belgrade earlier, before every JAT flight to Canada, so that passengers will be provided the necessary time to trasfer to the DC10. Cooperation does not only have to relate to America, but also on other routes where which could be interesting for Bosnia, from which we could together, with JAT, share profits and cost" - said Radislav Milanovic.