Choosing new types of aircraft to be included into an air company's fleet is a complex and serious task for every airline. The success of the airline - and even the question of its survival - may depend on these decisions. As a result, it would be interesting to take a look at the past and see how the first domestic air carrier Aeroput and its successor, Yugoslav Airlines, coped with these important issues in the previous decades. Starting with the passenger aircraft "Potez 29" 29 with only five passenger seats, that Aeroput purchased in France in 1927, and leading up to the ATR-72 aircraft introduced to the JAT fleet in 1990, both companies used for their scheduled flights 19 different types of passenger aircraft, manufactured by sixteen well-known world manufacturers. Only two aircraft (to date, in the year 1935) were manufactured by the local airline industry.

In the beginning Aeroput flew only over lowlands, and aircraft with one engine were used. When the routes were extended over the high Dinara mountain ranges in 1933, the company had to introduce aircraft with two and three engines into its fleet, offering a safer flight, larger number of seats and the possibility to carry larger loads.

The expansion of the international routes and the number of passengers made it possible for Aeroput to acquire in 1937 from the USA the most modern aircraft of the time with a metal construction, the Lokid Elektra 10, thus ranking the company among the more successful air carriers in Europe.

Post-war air traffic was renewed with the re-construed military transporters Daglas DC-3 and Junkers JU-52. They had been the only type of aircraft in JAT's fleet until 1954 when modern types of aircraft, Convair 340 and 440, were purchased with speeds of over 500km/h, pressurized cabins and other conveniences for passengers. These aircraft enabled JAT to introduce new intercontinental flights and to enter the tough international competition of European air carriers.

By the end of the fifties, the first long-haul aircraft with four DC-6B, engines were introduced making it possible for JAT to arrange charter flights to all continents and thereby announce its presence in intercontinental traffic.

The jet era started with the French "sky beauty", Caravelle SE-210, , introduced into the JAT fleet in 1963, only a few years after the introduction of the first aircraft of this type in the French company Air France.

In the early seventies, the acquision of the aircraft Daglas DC-9, Boing 707, and Boing 727, with three engines followed, and in 1978 the first wide-body DC-10, aircraft was introduced to cover the already announced flights to Australia and North America. And finally, in 1985 JAT became the first European company to introduce the medium-haul aircraft of the new generation, Boing 737-300, which even today represents the basic aircraft on Euro-Mediterranean flights.

The youngest member of the JAT fleet, the ATR-72, landed at Belgrade Airport in 1990.