Serbia and Turkey Settle Row over Charter Flights
BalkanTravellers.com
“The air travel administration in Turkey approved Jat Airways’ series of charter flights for the Turkish coast.,” media advisor in the Civil Air Travel Directorate, Katarina Andric-Milosavljevic, told BETA recently.
Andric-Milosavljevic said that the negotiations had lasted nine hours before an agreement that was acceptable to both sides was reached and that the Serbian side took care of the passengers from Serbia who have already planned flights to Turkey.
In May, Turkey put a ban on charter flights from Serbia, which were expected to carry nearly 200,000 tourists to the Turkish coast over the summer season.
The Serbian carrier Jat Airways asked for a total of 300 charter flights this summer to Antalya, Dalaman and Bodrum, but at the same time turned down two private Turkish air companies requesting some six flights per week from Nis and Belgrade.
The row did not affect regular flights and, during the time of the ban, Jat Airways managed to transport tourists to Turkey on such flights. As the summer season took off, however, the company faced the possibility of having to put them on buses, making the trip last between 16 and 24 hours instead of the two by air.
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