My first flight with Air Serbia – a trip to remember

On International Family Day, the Serbian national carrier, in partnership with the SOS Children’s Villages Serbia Foundation, organised a project entitled “My first flight with Air Serbia – trip to remember”, within which children from low-income families gained the opportunity to experience flying on an aircraft for the first time. This morning, 25 little girls and boys involved in the Strengthening Families programme flew together with their parents or guardians from Niš to Belgrade on an Airbus A319. After landing at Nikola Tesla Airport, the “big little passengers” had the opportunity to tour Air Serbia’s Flight Operations building and hangar, learning more about the world of aviation.

“It was our pleasure to welcome the children from the Niš area and their families. The first flight on an aircraft is a memory that stays forever, and we are more than happy we enabled them to experience it. With this meeting, we also wanted to inspire and encourage them to have big dreams. If we encouraged at least some of them to join Air Serbia’s team in the future and fly every day, we believe that we sent the most important message – that the sky is not the limit, but only the beginning,” said Milan Malović, Chief Operations Officer at Air Serbia.

“The families we support face numerous challenges, and one of them is the lack of financial means and possibilities to afford the basic necessities for themselves and their children, as well as other things that are considered normal, such as vacations, field trips, and flying on an aircraft. That is why we happily accepted Air Serbia’s initiative, and we are convinced that the children and their parents or guardians will remember this flight fondly. Support for families can take many forms, and one of them is new experiences. In this way, we boost their trust in themselves and their abilities, a better future and a feeling that someone sees them and wants to help them, that they are not alone. We are convinced that this is only the beginning of a beautiful partnership between our organisation and Air Serbia, to the benefit of all our organisation supports,” said Vesna Mraković, National Director of SOS Children’s Villages Serbia.

This organisation has been helping children, the young, and families through various programmes for twenty years already, and one of them is the Strengthening Families programme, the goal of which is to support biological families in crisis, prevention the relocation of children into alternative care by strengthening parental capacities and integration of families in the local community. In the 11 years of the programme, support was provided to 3,800 children and young people, and over 1,600 families in nine Serbian cities. Last year, the programme supported 509 families and 2,185 of its members – 1,265 children and 920 adults. The most important result of the Strengthening Families programme is that 99.41% of the children involved stayed in their families.