Air Serbia and Croatia Airlines are among Europe’s top sixty largest carriers this summer season based on available seat capacity, which is considered a key industry metric. During the 2025 summer season, Air Serbia is the continent’s 49th largest airline, while Croatia Airlines takes 58th position. The Serbian carrier ranks just behind airBaltic, Icelandair and Air Dolomiti, but ahead of the likes of Discover Airlines, Nordwind Airlines and TUIfly. On the other hand, its Croatian counterpart positioned itself behind Aeroitalia, Utair and Luxair but ahead of Air Corsica, TAROM and KM Malta Airlines. If non-European carriers are taken into consideration as well, the Middle East’s Big Three - Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways - all have more capacity on the European market than the two national carriers from the former Yugoslavia, while the likes of Flydubai, China Southern Airlines, Saudia, Royal Air Maroc and Nouvelair are ahead of Croatia Airlines.
Since the pandemic, Air Serbia has pursued aggressive fleet and network expansion, which has resulted in the airline lifting its summer capacity by 55.5% on 2019. Compared to six years ago, the Serbian carrier has an additional 1.3 million seats on the market. By contrast, Croatia Airlines has maintained a more conservative growth trajectory. This summer it will surpass its capacity levels from 2019 by 6.3% with an additional 132.000 seats. Speaking at the CAPA Airline Leader Summit in Athens last week, Air Serbia’s CEO, Jiri Marek, said, “We took the risk. One was with strategy, the other with internal resources. We used Covid as an opportunity to grow and insourced eighteen aircraft in the last three years and launched forty destinations. We also did not go down the path of hiring a consultancy firm for a post-Covid strategy but upgraded the next generation of our managers to the senior level to start making decisions”.
This summer, Ryanair remains the continent’s largest airline with over 142.2 million seats. It is followed by easyJet, Turkish Airlines, Lufthansa, Wizz Air, British Airways, Air France, Pegasus Airlines, Aeroflot, Vueling and KLM. Emirates is the continent’s largest foreign carrier this summer with over 14.1 million seats on the market. It is followed by United Airlines, Delta, Qatar Airways, American Airlines and Air Canada. Air Montenegro is among Europe’s smallest airlines, just behind the likes of Tus Airways, Animawings and Danish Air Transport.
Are there even more than 50 scheduled airlines in eu?
ReplyDeleteOf course
DeleteOf course. Would be good to read article
DeleteIs there any place we could see this list?
DeleteI could only find this for 2024:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_airlines_in_Europe
Many thanks for any info.
Not bad at all. Eye catching to me is that TAROM has fallen so far behind.
ReplyDeleteIt's sad what TAROM has become.
DeleteWhat happened to them?
DeleteGovernment mismanagement.
DeleteIt is a state owned airline and it is fully managed by the state.
DeleteIt is also in an EU country so it is much more difficult to hide losses and give subsidies.
Difficult to get subsidies? They got €190 million in state aid in 2021.
DeleteWhen privatisation of SOEs is talked about, airlines like TAROM are often pointed at. It was for years a nest of corruption and nepotism and, when they joined EU, the inefficient airline was suddenly required to compete with European legacy carriers and then LCCs on an even playing field. It's a question of how long they'll survive at this point
DeleteAnimawings will probably become the national carrier by 2028
Delete@Anonymous 09:20
DeleteThat was because of COVID and almost all airlines in Europe received it.
it was an exception.
But you probably know that already.
The airline did not return its 190 million to the government, unlike other airlines in Europe (minus Croatia Airlines).
DeleteMost airlines returned part of the total special assistance they received, not 100% of it.
DeleteRyanair went to the EU court complaining about it but lost the trial and this special assistance was deemed legal.
At the end of the day they burned through 190 million and the airline is still shrinking and corrupt. Don't know why you feel the need to defend that.
DeleteNobody is defending them, just stating facts.
DeleteOn the other hand you seem to be defending the model of state managed airlines in 2025 in the open skies business environment. Why is that?
I am? I'm the one that said they are a state owned corrupt dinasour that has burned money. You got upset.
DeleteThey are upset, bc AS doing well, state company with profit and minor help of state.
Delete^^^ LOL!
DeleteYes, Alaska Airlines is doing well. Even merged Hawaiian lately, and going long-haul to Europe
DeleteEmirates with over 14 million seats to Europe is crazy.
ReplyDeleteA380 ops and lots of frequencies and destinations.
DeleteInteresting contrast in strategy
ReplyDeleteWhen I remember correctly JAT was back in end of the 1980s, Top 30 or 35 worldwide
ReplyDeletehttps://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg26ntH-8Fyvmufy6SjL5ntYxEVOdY1VBkmvcq3YKvfq5fF6D9mzUEQ2UbF4eoFWblfVvGf2GbutLw37crsN-ajwpi5FbNwcMD5WMKfjwOpgL3Vnc0ILIkeIanJvEVKbsTTRz06dMAxIudD/s1600/10257737_667679396613746_3777173959074570299_n.jpg
Deleteand that was by passengers carried :) by capacity they would have been even higher.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteReal JAT was number 10 in Europe and number 30 in the World. When JAT oprated 36 aircraft, Emirates operated 8.
DeleteOU smaller than Luxair!! Considering Croatia is one of the most visited countries in Europe in summer, that is not good.
ReplyDeleteThey have been overtaken by nearly every mid-sized European airline.
DeleteFlydubai and Saudia outrank them too. And that's just their European flights.
DeleteStill waiting for real reform...
DeleteThey’ve had decades to grow and still don’t capitalize on their full potential.
DeleteCroatia Airlines still has potential. With the A220 fleet coming in maybe they’ll finally start growing and become more competitive.
DeleteThe fact that even Nouvelair beat Croatia Airlines in European capacity tells you everything about missed opportunities
DeleteCroatia is not even close to “most.visited countries in Europe “. Even non coastal Hungary and Austria have more tourists than Croatia. Not to compare to Spain, Italy, France, Turkey, Portugal, Britain…
DeleteThey have excellent new fleet for new loses.
DeleteJust small correction 11.09: excellent (leased) new fleet for much bigger new losses
DeleteBravo Hrvatska!
ReplyDelete15 mil tourists yearly, 4 mil diaspora, central position, and OU smaller than Luxair. Bravo? Are you for real?
DeleteWow JU is getting close to Air Baltic. That is pretty impressive considering Air Baltics fleet and network size.
ReplyDeleteI believe last summer Air Serbia even had more passengers on some months during the year than Air Baltic.
DeleteYes it did
DeleteJU could overtake them next year.
DeleteSeriously know?
DeleteAir Baltic had 8.3 million passengers last year.
AirBaltic does a lot of ACMI flying, unlike Air Serbia.
DeleteYes, Air Baltic, contrary to any logic counted passengers it flew as an ACMI for Lufthansa and Swiss which is complete nonsense. No airline counts passengers they flew on behalf of other airlines while wet leasing their planes to them. But they were trying to make their results look better which was just a facade as we saw with the replacement of the management and their finances this year.
DeleteIt is really nuts for them to include passenger numbers from Lufthansa and Swiss in their results and present it as if they were Air Baltic passengers.
DeleteAfaik they didn't do that but sure
DeleteWell they did. Read what they said it is not so difficult
Deletehttps://company.airbaltic.com/en/newsroom?press=2025/airbaltic-sets-new-passenger-record-with-8-3-million-travelers-in-2024
"In 2024, AirBaltic carried a record-breaking 8.3 million passengers, marking a significant increase from the 7 million passengers carried in 2023. This translates to a 18% growth in passenger numbers, including those from the airline's ACMI-out operations"
Total passengers (including ACMI-out)*** 8 300 000
***Scheduled and charter airBaltic passengers and flights within the airline’s network combined with the performed wet-lease (ACMI-out) flights
airBaltic’s scheduled passenger numbers reached an all-time high in 2024, with a total of 5 200 000 passengers carried across all its bases – Riga, Tallinn, Vilnius, Tampere and, seasonally, Gran Canaria.
So they had 5.2 million, not 8.3
And this year they will be lucky if they have 5 million.
DeleteSo again this year Air Baltic will have more passengers than JU.
DeleteYes, the person in the comment above said it is possible for JU to overtake them next year (2026). Then you claimed they had 8 million passengers.
DeleteAir Serbia deserves credit for taking steps when many others pulled back.
ReplyDeleteNice to see a carrier from the Balkans making its way into Europe’s top 50.
ReplyDeleteMust be more specific , western balkans is correct . There is Aegean which is way above Air Serbia and Croatia airlines .
DeleteI'm pretty sure Sky Express is also larger but Greece is not considered a Balkan country exactly other than geographically.
Deleteanon 1026 bt you? hahahhaha What a plonker
DeletePlus Croatia is not "western balkans". Ex-yu non-EU countries plus Albania are considered western Balkans
DeleteNah we are central Balkan.
DeleteI would rather say we are true and pure Balkan
DeleteIt’s crazy how Emirates and other Gulf carriers outpace many European airlines in seat capacity.
ReplyDeleteTheir European footprint is huge.
DeleteI'm more surprised by Etihad actually.
DeleteZagreb could be a far stronger hub for Southeast Europe. It’s a shame Croatia Airlines isn’t leading the charge.
ReplyDeleteIt should have happened minimum a decade ago. But OU must feed LH because Ivan Mišetić was paid for that, and he is part of Mafia organization that is very successfuly ruining and emptying Croatia for long time already
DeleteI guess as Easyjet doesnt have many routes from Belgrade that I am surprised Easyjet is number 2 but guess thats a perception thing as I dont see them come up as an option when travelling from other airports in the region. Can only see Air Serbia as they increase their fleet going up and hopefully Easyjet decide finally to maybe try some more routes from this region, although I know they do a lot to Croatia.
ReplyDeletePresence in Croatia is also limited just to the coast and summer season. No flights in winter and no flights at all from Zagreb.
DeleteYeah, easyjet is incredibly strong in the British leisure market. They have bases in basically every British city and fly on high density routes to Spain, Italy and Portugal
DeleteLet reflect on eg Icelandair!
ReplyDeleteBetter than JU or OU?
The whole country with a population of Novi Sad, minimum diaspora, and lets call it limited amount of tourist attractions and reasonable position on the way to North America has better results…
Who faired better here?
(asking for a friend)
Well I wouldn't say Iceland does not have tourism. It is extremely popular in the US. In fact they had 2.3 million toruists last year. Also, it is an island so for most journeys outside the country you need to take a plane.
DeleteThose comparisons are useless but funny. Who would have thought 50 years ago that airline from small fishing village in the Middle East desert would have more capacity in Europe than any other airline? Who faired better here, EK or DL, AA and UA?
DeleteHonestly, I was expecting both to be ranked higher.
ReplyDeleteIt will be interesting to see where both are at in 2025/26 winter.
ReplyDeleteMuch deeper and much lower, especially OU
DeleteI truly want every carrier in the region to succeed, but I just can't get around to celebrating being the top 60 in any field.
ReplyDeleteEspecially bearing in mind "communist" JAT was no 10 in Europe. Only really really big carriers from mostly big, even huge countries ahead:
DeleteBritish, Air France, KLM, Lufthansa, SAS, Aeroflot, Swissair, Iberia and Alitalia. Followed by JAT. So proud being part of that successful story 1986-1991.
PIR
Market was not deregulated in many ways. Europe was divided, people from eastern counties couldn't travel, LCCs didn't exist, infrastructure with smaller airports didn't exist or was unused, GDP pp was much lower, Yu was a single, larger country etc, global travel was tiny compared to today, aircraft are more capable and cheaper to obtain and operate. Economic sanctions designed to kill Jat are just the cherry on top.Simple, common sense explanation why being number 49 now and growing 55% since 2019 is actually not bad at all.
Delete