JAT Yugoslav Airlines

If you stood at the fence in Frankfurt, Munich or Stuttgart in the 1970s and 1980s, you know them: DC-9s and Boeing 727s with YU registrations and a red egg logo on the tail, flying several times a day to Belgrade, Zagreb or the Adriatic. JAT was Yugoslavia’s national airline, one of Europe’s larger airlines and, for many guest-worker families, the link to home. Here you’ll learn how JAT grew big, which aircraft it flew, what the sanctions of the 1990s did and why the codes live on today at Air Serbia.

JAT at a glance

JAT was Yugoslavia’s state airline, headquartered and hubbed in Belgrade, at today’s Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport. The abbreviation stands for Jugoslovenski Aerotransport. Internationally the airline operated as Yugoslav Airlines, later as JAT Yugoslav Airlines. Flight operations under the new name began in April 1947; the roots, however, go back to Aeroput, founded in 1927, which had to cease operations during the Second World War.

From modest beginnings with converted DC-3s and Junkers Ju 52s, a network across five continents grew in four decades. According to Air Serbia, JAT flew to 61 destinations in 1987, carried more than five million passengers and operated 36 aircraft. That made JAT one of the larger airlines in Europe. Then came the breakup of Yugoslavia, war and sanctions – and the airline shrank to a fraction.

The story does not end with a bankruptcy as at Malév or Adria Airways, but with a fresh start: In 2003 JAT became Jat Airways, in 2013 Etihad Airways came in, and the airline flew from then on as Air Serbia.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code JU: appeared before flight numbers, on tickets and departure boards. According to the English-language Wikipedia, JAT introduced flight numbers in 1953.
• ICAO code JAT: identifier in the air traffic control flight plan.
• Callsign JAT: this is how the crews identified themselves on the radio.

What matters for your logbook: The IATA code JU lives on at Air Serbia. A photo with the flight number JU is therefore not automatically a JAT photo. Date, livery and fuselage titles are decisive. How IATA and ICAO codes relate is explained in the article on IATA and ICAO codes.

History: from Aeroput to Air Serbia

Restart after the war (1947–1962)

In April 1947 the first aircraft took off under the name Yugoslav Airlines. The basic equipment included a few C-47s converted to DC-3s and some Junkers Ju 52s. The first routes led from Belgrade via Zagreb to Ljubljana and from Zagreb to Sarajevo; internationally it went via Prague to Warsaw. In the 1950s Convair CV-340 and CV-440s followed, along with the Ilyushin Il-14, and at the end of the 1950s the four-engine Douglas DC-6B. JAT thus bought from both the West and the East – a mirror of Yugoslavia’s non-aligned policy.

The jet age begins (1963–1977)

In 1963 the first Sud Aviation Caravelle landed in Belgrade. With it the jet age began in Yugoslavia, and in the following years the last DC-3s and Convairs disappeared. In 1969 the first DC-9 joined the fleet, shortly followed by the first Boeing 707. In the mid-1970s came the Boeing 727-200, which together with the DC-9 became the backbone of European services.

How confident JAT was at the time is shown by a flight in November 1974: A Boeing 707 flew once around the world, via Beirut, Bombay, Singapore, Tokyo, Honolulu, Los Angeles and London, among others. In 1971 JAT also joined the Association of European Airlines (AEA).

Long-haul and the peak (1978–1990)

In 1978 the McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30 brought the first widebody aircraft. With it JAT flew directly to North America, Asia and Australia – destinations included New York, Chicago and Sydney. These routes in particular lived on the large Yugoslav diaspora.

In 1985 came the step that wrote JAT into type history: JAT bought the Boeing 737-300 as the first airline in Europe. According to the English-language Wikipedia, the first aircraft reached Belgrade in August 1985 with the registration YU-AND. At the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo JAT was also the official carrier. In 1987 the airline reached its peak with 61 destinations and over five million passengers; according to Air Serbia it ranked tenth in Europe at the time.

War and sanctions (1991–2000)

With the breakup of Yugoslavia the foundation fell away. In December 1991 Germany – at that time JAT’s largest European market – suspended air traffic with Yugoslavia, with Italy following in January 1992. In May 1992 JAT flew to New York for the last time, shortly after which the US imposed an air traffic embargo. On May 20, 1992, UN sanctions against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia followed.

That ended international services for the time being. According to Air Serbia, JAT even set up bus lines to Budapest and Timișoara in June 1992 so that travelers could still reach an airport abroad at all. From 1994 individual international flights resumed, but the sanctions were only lifted in 2000. Many aircraft sat on the ground in these years – a gap the airline never fully closed.

Jat Airways (2003–2013)

In 2003, after 56 years, Yugoslav Airlines became Jat Airways – fitting the end of the state of Yugoslavia. The fleet now consisted mainly of the aging 737-300s and ATR 72 turboprops; the DC-9, 727 and DC-10 left by the mid-2000s. At times leased Boeing 737-400s supplemented the fleet. In 2006, according to Air Serbia, Jat Airways posted a positive financial year for the first time in 15 years, and in 2008 flights to Croatia returned after a 17-year break.

The transition to Air Serbia (2013)

On August 1, 2013, the Serbian government and Etihad Airways agreed the reorganization: Etihad took 49 percent and management, while the state kept the majority. On October 26, 2013, operations under the name Jat Airways ended, and the first Air Serbia flight went to Abu Dhabi. How the Gulf airlines used such stakes is covered under Emirates, Qatar Airways, Etihad. A similar Etihad project, by the way, was Darwin Airline, which at times flew as Etihad Regional.

The fleet through time

JAT is interesting for spotters mainly because of its variety of types: Western piston aircraft, a French Caravelle, American jets with rear-mounted engines and, in the end, turboprops from Toulouse.

Type	Period at JAT	Use	Spotter note
Douglas DC-3/C-47, Junkers Ju 52	1947 to the 1950s	Domestic and first international routes	Only on very old photos
Convair CV-340/440, Il-14, DC-6B	1950s to 1970s	Domestic and Europe	Mix of East and West
Sud Aviation Caravelle	from 1963 to the mid-1970s	Europe	Yugoslavia’s first jet
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32	1969 to the mid-2000s	Europe, domestic	The workhorse with rear engines
Boeing 707	from 1969/70 into the 1980s	Long-haul, charter	Round-the-world flight 1974
Boeing 727-200	mid-1970s to mid-2000s	Europe, medium haul	Three-engine jet with a T-tail
McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30	from 1978 to the mid-2000s	Long-haul	First widebody aircraft
Boeing 737-300	from 1985	Europe	First operator in Europe, partly silver
ATR 42 and ATR 72	from the late 1980s	Domestic, regional routes	In the end the remaining fleet with the 737-300

The period data comes from Air Serbia’s company history and the English-language Wikipedia’s fleet overview; exact numbers vary by source and cutoff date and are therefore deliberately omitted here.

DC-9 and 727: the classic JAT fleet

When you think of JAT, you probably think of the DC-9 and the Boeing 727. Both types have rear-mounted engines and a T-tail – you can still easily tell them apart: The DC-9 has two engines, the 727 three, with the middle one’s air intake above the fuselage directly in front of the tail. The DC-9 was built by Douglas and later McDonnell Douglas, while the 727 came from Boeing.

737-300: JAT’s place in type history

The 737-300 was the first version of the so-called Classic generation with large CFM56 engines. That JAT of all airlines ordered it first in Europe makes the early YU examples sought-after subjects. How to tell the Classic from the older 737-200 and the later Next Generation is shown in the guide Telling Boeing 737 Original, Classic, NG and MAX apart.

ATR: the turboprop for domestic routes

For short routes JAT used turboprops from ATR – first the ATR 42, from the early 1990s the ATR 72-200, later also the ATR 72-500. Together with the 737-300s they survived until the transition to Air Serbia.

How to recognize JAT

The most important feature is the registration with YU-. It was Yugoslavia’s prefix and is still used by Serbia today – so a YU registration alone does not prove a JAT photo. Together with livery and date of the photo, however, a clear picture emerges. How registrations are structured is explained in Understanding aircraft registrations.

The livery changed several times:

• Until the early 1990s: white fuselage, “Yugoslav Airlines” titles and a red, egg-shaped logo with the white letters “JAT” on the tail.
• From 1985: the first 737-300s arrived with a shiny silver fuselage.
• From 1994: a white livery whose tail logo showed a stylized Yugoslav flag with two wings.
• From 2003: large “Jat Airways” titles and three dots in blue, red and blue on the tail; at times the aircraft flew almost completely white.

The transition years in particular produce hybrid forms – such as aircraft with new titles but the old tail, or leased aircraft with no logo at all. How to classify such variants is shown in Recognizing hybrid and mixed liveries. You’ll find more on name and design changes under When airlines change their look.

JAT in Germany and in the network

Germany was a key market for JAT. According to the English-language Wikipedia, it was the airline’s largest European market in 1991. Many people from Yugoslavia worked in Germany, and JAT jets were a familiar sight at airports such as Frankfurt, Munich and Stuttgart. Add holiday flights to the Yugoslav coast, for example to Dubrovnik.

Within Yugoslavia, JAT connected Belgrade with Zagreb, Ljubljana, Sarajevo and the coastal airports. After the country broke apart, these domestic routes became international connections – and the regional rivals became national airlines of their own, such as Croatia Airlines and later Montenegro Airlines.

JAT among the Eastern Bloc and Balkan airlines

Yugoslavia was not a member of the Warsaw Pact, and the fleet shows it: While Interflug, Balkan Bulgarian Airlines or ČSA flew mainly Soviet types for a long time, JAT bought almost only Western jets from the 1960s on. Romania’s TAROM, which also belongs to the generation of southeastern Europe’s state airlines, is worth a look too. If you want to identify historic types in old photos reliably, you’ll find help under Recognizing vintage aircraft.

Common mix-ups

• Equating JAT and Air Serbia – both use JU and YU registrations, but Air Serbia has only existed since October 2013.
• Taking Jat Airways for a different airline – it is the same company, just under a new name from 2003.
• Taking Inex-Adria for a JAT subsidiary – today’s Adria Airways was a company of its own from Ljubljana.
• Attributing every YU registration to JAT – Serbia still uses the prefix today, and other operators flew with YU too.
• Mixing up the DC-9 and 727 – the DC-9 has two, the 727 three engines at the rear.
• Looking for Europe’s first 737-300 at a Western European airline – according to Air Serbia, JAT was the first buyer in Europe in 1985.

Conclusion

For decades JAT was Yugoslavia’s flying figurehead. The airline brought the first jet to the country in 1963, flew the DC-10 as far as Australia and was the first European customer for the 737-300 in 1985. War, breakup and sanctions cost it almost all of its international business from 1992. It kept flying as Jat Airways, until it became Air Serbia in 2013 with Etihad as a partner. For spotters what remains is an airline with classic types, a striking egg logo and YU registrations – and a history that is easy to trace in old photos.