Air Serbia is to undergo a change of leadership at the beginning of next year, with commercial and strategy director Jiri Marek taking over as chief executive. He will succeed Duncan Naysmith who was appointed four years ago after Dane Kondic stepped down. Naysmith has resigned for “personal reasons”, says Air Serbia, adding that he will move to another airline to take up a new post. Marek will formally become the Serbian flag-carrier’s head on 1 January. Air Serbia credits Naysmith with having achieved a “successful transformation” of the airline, and for leading it through the pandemic-driven air transport crisis. The situation has “unfortunately slowed” the carrier’s development but it insists it is “rapidly recovering”, with the aim of returning to pre-crisis levels by 2023. Marek spearheaded the airline’s network expansion and commercial evolution, it says. Air Serbia adds that it carried 2.8m passengers in 2019 and had been recording “double-digit growth” in the first two months of 2020, before the onset of the pandemic.<br/>
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UAE’s Etihad Airways and China’s Zhengzhou Xinzheng International Airport aim to jointly create an ‘Air Silk Road’ between Henan Province and Abu Dhabi, as well as expanding CGO airport into an air freight hub in the region. Etihad Airways also plans to operate freighter operations between Zhengzhou and Abu Dhabi in 2022 subject to regulatory approvals. Etihad Airways and Henan Province Airport Group, the parent company of CGO, an important domestic aviation hub and the gateway to the central region of China, thus will establish a strategic partnership to strengthen aviation ties between the UAE and China. This follows the signing of a virtual Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) during the virtual ‘Zhengzhou Week’ event hosted by Expo 2020 Dubai China Pavilion starting from December 27, 2021. The MoU contains plans for Etihad’s potential operation of regular cargo services between Abu Dhabi International Airport (AUH) and CGO to create the ‘Air Silk Road’ between Henan Province and the emirate of Abu Dhabi. The MoU also covers scope of cooperation between the two parties to build the CGO airport into an air freight hub in the region, and to diversify product sales and cargo distribution channels at Zhengzhou Xinzheng International Airport.<br/>