JAT (airline)
defunct Yugoslav airline
Jat Airways (stylized as JatAirways; Serbo-Croatian: Jat ervejz / Јат ервејз) was the national flag carrier and largest airline of Yugoslavia and later Serbia and Montenegro and finally Serbia. Founded in 1927 as Aeroput, the airline ceased operations during World War II. After resuming flights in 1947, the airline was renamed Jugoslovenski Aerotransport (abbreviated JAT, pronounced [jât]; "Yugoslav Air Transport") on 1 April 1947. The airline was renamed again on 8 August 2003. Jat Airways and their predecessors were one of the oldest airlines still in operation. Flight operations were based at Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport, and the airline operated scheduled services to 72 international destinations, outside the areas formerly part of Yugoslavia, as well as charters and wet leases. Jat Airways was owned by the government of Serbia and had 1,250 employees.
On 1 August 2013, the Government of Serbia and Etihad Airways entered into an agreement that reorganized the operations of Jat Airways, and renamed it Air Serbia after the transitional period ended. Certain assets, such as the ATR 72 aircraft, would be transitioned to Air Serbia, while other assets (such as the 737-300s) would remain in JAT Airways branding until retired. The change marked the end of 66 years of the JAT brand.
History
Aeroput
JAT traces its heritage back to 1927 when Aeroput, the first civil airline in Yugoslavia was founded.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “JAT (airline)” as defunct Yugoslav airline. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as defunct Yugoslav airline. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q12428657. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1927, 1947, 2003 and 2013.
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This entry incorporates text from “JAT (airline)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.