Air Serbia and Banca Intesa are preparing a joint Visa card, and a new retail space has opened at Belgrade Airport
Air Serbia has announced a new step in expanding its loyalty program and additional services for passengers: the Serbian national airline and Banca Intesa signed a Letter of Intent on May 21, 2026, launching cooperation on issuing a joint Visa payment card. According to Air Serbia’s announcement, the card will be intended for users of the company’s future loyalty program and should connect everyday payments with travel benefits. A day earlier, on May 20, 2026, the company also announced the opening of a new retail space in the Duty Free zone of Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport, developed in cooperation with the global travel retailer Avolta. The two announcements show that Air Serbia is trying to simultaneously develop digital and physical touchpoints with passengers, from banking benefits and points to the sale of branded products at the airport.
A card connected to the new loyalty program
According to Air Serbia’s statement, the Letter of Intent with Banca Intesa marks the beginning of work on a co-brand card that will be part of the national airline’s new loyalty program. The company states that the program’s goal is to offer more personal benefits, a wider range of rewards and the possibility of collecting points beyond flying itself. In this way, Air Serbia is moving closer to a model already used by many international airlines, in which loyalty program members gain value not only by purchasing airline tickets, but also through everyday card transactions, the use of partner services and spending at points of sale.
In the same announcement, Air Serbia stated that the new loyalty program is being developed with the intention of setting new standards in rewarding passengers. The company’s CEO Jiří Marek said, according to the statement, that the partnership with Banca Intesa is a strategic step in the effort to offer passengers high-quality service at every stage of travel. Marek emphasized that the card should connect everyday financial activities and the world of travel, with discounts, benefits and an expansion of reward opportunities. According to him, the company wants more than 4.5 million passengers a year to feel that their loyalty is recognized and rewarded.
Banca Intesa, which operates in Serbia as part of one of the most important banking groups on the market, emphasized in the statement that future Visa debit and credit cards will be available to the bank’s existing and future clients. Banca Intesa CEO Darko Popović said, according to Air Serbia’s announcement, that the bank serves 1.5 million clients and that it will enable users of the new cards to access Air Serbia’s loyalty program with additional premium benefits. Popović stated that points will be collected through purchases at a large number of points of sale in Serbia, which should give every transaction additional value for passengers.
What the card could mean for passengers
The announced card has not yet been commercially presented in all details, so details such as fee levels, exact point-earning rates, the list of partners, conditions for achieving status or the launch date for issuance have not currently been officially confirmed. However, Air Serbia has announced the key direction of the product: users should be able to collect points even when they are not traveling, which is an important difference compared with classic frequent flyer programs that traditionally relied primarily on the number of flights or spending related to airline tickets. Such a model can increase the frequency of contact between the airline and users, because the relationship with the company continues beyond the flight booking itself.
According to Air Serbia’s statement, the initiative builds on the already established cooperation with Visa. In June 2025, Visa announced a strategic partnership with Air Serbia for the development of the first co-brand card that will be part of the Serbian national airline’s loyalty program. In that announcement, Visa stated that the goal was to combine the security of digital payments with travel benefits and additional value for users. By including Banca Intesa as the card issuer, the project now gains a banking partner that should enable the operational implementation of the product on the Serbian market.
For Air Serbia, such a program is important also because of a broader trend in the aviation industry. The loyalty programs of major airlines in many countries have become a significant source of revenue, data on customer habits and commercial partnerships. Although Air Serbia has not published financial projections for its program, the announced possibility of collecting points through everyday purchases shows that the company wants to develop a broader ecosystem of services, and not only reward flying. For users, this could mean faster point collection, personalized offers and benefits related to travel, but the concrete value will depend on the program rules that still need to be published.
Air Serbia after a record year
The announcement comes after a period of strong growth for Air Serbia. According to the company’s announcement of December 30, 2025, Air Serbia surpassed on December 28, 2025, the former JAT record from 1987 of 4,531,000 passengers carried and recorded the highest traffic in the company’s history. Air Serbia linked that result to the continuous expansion of its destination network, increased flight frequencies and improvements in service quality. The same announcement stated that the company is working on personalizing the passenger experience and introducing its own loyalty program that will enable members to receive additional benefits and collect points even when they are not flying.
According to the data published by the company for 2025, growth was not limited to just one season. In December 2025, Air Serbia announced that by the middle of the month it had carried more than 4.4 million passengers and that forecasts pointed to a record year. The company emphasized that the result was particularly important because the former JAT achieved its record in a significantly larger market environment. In that context, the loyalty program and co-brand card can be viewed as part of an attempt to turn passenger growth into a longer-term relationship with users, especially in circumstances in which airlines compete not only on price, but also on additional services, flexibility and user experience.
Air Serbia has also announced further network expansion for 2026. According to the company’s announcement from December 2025, six new routes are planned for launch in 2026, including Santorini, Baku, Toronto, Seville, Tenerife and Tromsø, along with increased frequencies on almost 20 existing routes. If the plans are implemented as announced, the new loyalty program could gain wider application precisely at the moment when the destination network is expanding to new European and intercontinental markets. This is important because the value of loyalty programs for users usually grows with the availability of a larger number of routes, partners and ways to redeem points.
A new retail space in the Duty Free zone
In addition to the banking partnership, Air Serbia announced that on May 20, 2026, it officially opened a new retail space in the Duty Free zone of Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport. According to the company’s announcement, the space is conceived as a carefully designed retail point with products that connect Air Serbia’s aviation identity, Serbian tradition and a souvenir assortment intended for passengers in international traffic. The space, the company states, is visually designed as a contemporary interpretation of an aircraft tail, using Air Serbia’s recognizable corporate colors, blue lighting, a rotating logo and floor graphics.
In the new space, according to Air Serbia’s statement, products from the company’s existing retail offer are available, as well as specially developed items intended specifically for the airport Duty Free zone. Among the listed products are T-shirts, travel pillows, bags, toiletry bags and decorative souvenirs, including a snow globe with an Air Serbia aircraft motif. Also on offer are products made in cooperation with Etno mreža, an organization known publicly for promoting traditional handicrafts and local design. Air Serbia described the initiative as a way for passengers from Serbia to take with them a product that combines the company’s modern vision with the tradition for which the country is recognizable.
The retail space was developed in cooperation with Avolta, a global company specializing in travel retail and hospitality. In January 2024, Avolta announced that it had won a new seven-year concession agreement for Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport, covering the management of ten duty free shops, including hybrid elements of retail and hospitality. According to Avolta’s announcement, the total area of the new shops exceeds 3,500 square meters, and the project is conceived as a significant expansion of the commercial offer at Belgrade Airport. That background explains why the new Air Serbia space fits into the broader process of modernizing airport retail in Belgrade.
Retail as part of the passenger experience
The opening of the retail space in the Duty Free zone is not only a matter of selling souvenirs. For airlines and airports, retail is an increasingly important part of the overall passenger experience, especially in international terminals where passengers have time between security checks and boarding. In its announcement, Air Serbia states that the journey begins before takeoff, thereby suggesting that it wants to use the physical space at the airport to strengthen the brand and emotional connection with passengers. Similar to the loyalty program, such an approach expands the company’s relationship with the user beyond the flight itself.
Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport states on its official website that after passport control passengers can use the main duty free shop with a selection of goods and luxury products. In that environment, Air Serbia’s branded space has a dual function: on the one hand, it offers additional commercial content, and on the other, it serves as a showcase for the national airline at its main hub. For passengers departing from Belgrade or transferring there, such a space can become part of the perception of the company and the country it comes from.
Air Serbia had already previously been developing retail and ancillary services. In April 2026, the company announced that it had expanded Duty Free sales to all flights longer than an hour and a half, thereby continuing to broaden its offer beyond the basic transport service. The new airport space builds on the same direction, but in a physical terminal environment. In combination with the announced co-brand card, the company is now developing several parallel channels through which a passenger can make contact with the brand: during ticket purchase, on the flight, in the terminal, in a banking application or during everyday payments.
The broader significance of the announced projects
Air Serbia’s announcements come at a time when airlines in the region are trying to retain passengers through loyalty programs, additional services and a broader network of partnerships. The very fact that Air Serbia has announced a program in which points can also be collected outside travel shows that the company wants to increase the value of its relationship with users throughout the whole year, and not only during the travel season. For the bank, such a product can be a way to attract clients who travel often or want a card with concrete travel benefits. For Visa, the project fits into the broader trend of connecting digital payments with user rewards and personalized services.
Still, the actual effect of the partnership will depend on conditions that have not yet been published. For users, the key questions will be how many points will be earned per transaction, where they will be able to redeem them, whether the card will include discounts on tickets, baggage, priority services or access to special offers, and what the costs of using the card will be. It will also be important whether the new loyalty program will replace existing forms of cooperation with other programs or whether there will be a transition period. Air Serbia has so far confirmed the strategic direction, but not the full commercial rulebook.
For now, it is certain that Air Serbia is investing simultaneously in two types of user experience: digital-financial, through the card and future loyalty program, and physical-retail, through the new space at Belgrade Airport. Both projects are connected by the same idea: to maintain contact with the passenger before and after the flight. In an industry in which ticket prices, route availability and operational reliability remain decisive, additional benefits can become an important element of differentiation. Whether the new Visa card and Duty Free concept will have a long-term commercial effect will become clearer after the company publishes the concrete terms of the program and after it becomes evident how passengers accept the new offer.
Sources:
- Air Serbia – statement on the partnership with Banca Intesa and the announced co-brand Visa card (link)
- Air Serbia – statement on the opening of the new retail space in the Duty Free zone of Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport (link)
- Visa – announcement on the strategic partnership with Air Serbia for the development of the co-brand card and loyalty program (link)
- Air Serbia – announcement on the record number of passengers carried and plans to develop the loyalty program (link)
- Avolta – announcement on the seven-year concession and development of the duty free offer at Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport (link)
- Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport – official overview of shops and the duty free offer in the terminal (link)