"Jat Airways" celebrated 80th birthday

National air transportation company "Jat Airways" has celebrated 80 years of existence and 80th birthday of the establishment of civil air transportation in Serbia in the Belgrade National Theater.

"Jat Airways" is the heir of the Company for Air Transportation "Aeroput", which was founded on June 17, 1927, as the 10th company in Europe and the 21st in the world.

In February 1928, the first domestic air line Belgrade-Zagreb was introduced. Between the two wars, in addition to numerous lines inside the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, "Aeroput" was flying to Vienna, Thessalonica, Sofia, Prague, Budapest and Tirana.

After the World War II, on April 1, 1947, "Jugoslovenski aerotransport", present "Jat Airways", was formed. In the second half of the 1980’s, this airliner had fleet of 33 airplanes that operated on more than 300 regular lines and transported nearly 5m passengers a year, which placed this company among the 12 largest companies in Europe and the 30 largest in the world.

"Jugoslovenski aerotransport" changed its name into "Jat Airways" on August 8, 2003. The fleet of the national air transportation company currently has 12 airplanes, eight “boeing 737" and four ATR-72 airplanes, which transport passengers to more than 30 destinations in 26 countries of Europe, Near East and north Africa.

For the first time after 16 years of losses, Serbian airliner ended last year with the positive financial result and profit of 3.8m EUR, with the increase in number of transported passengers by 17%, to more than 1.2m.