Commercial airports across the former Yugoslavia handled a combined total of 2.030.878 passengers during the first month of the year. Belgrade and Pristina managed to rank within Europe’s top 100 busiest, taking 65th and 92nd place, respectively. Compared to the same month last year, Belgrade maintained the same position, while Pristina was one below.
In January, Belgrade Airport ranked just behind Marseille, Catania and Sofia but ahead of Malta, Bristol and Fuerteventura. Pristina was preceded by Katowice, Nantes and Bordeaux but in front of Funchal, Gothenburg and Vilnius. Zagreb positioned itself as the 101st busiest, behind Wroclaw, Luxembourg and Faro but ahead of Newcastle, Pisa and Trondheim. Skopje took 105th place, improving its rank by thirteen positions on the back of strong growth. It was ahead of the likes of Stavanger, Verona and Hanover.
Passenger performance by airport, January 2026
Five airports across the former Yugoslavia saw their passenger numbers decline in January compared to last year. The largest among them, and the only capital city airport, is Podgorica, which handled 84.121 travellers, down 1.1%. This is despite capacity levels above last year’s levels. The decline was primarily the result of Turkish Airlines, which had 32 fewer operations this January compared to last. Podgorica Airport, which saw its overall passenger figures decline in 2025, is on course for a record 2026 as Wizz Air prepares to station two aircraft in the city and launch seventeen new routes this year. Tivat Airport also saw fewer passengers, handling 16.202 travellers, down 4.5% on the back of a 6.5% decline in capacity. The main culprit was Air Montenegro, which reduced its Istanbul flights.
European rank of select regional airports by passenger numbers
Istanbul’s main gateway was Europe’s busiest airport during the first month of the year with 6.869.667 passengers, while London Heathrow was second with 6.463.625 travellers. The pair saw growth of 6.4% and 2.2% on 2025 respectively. They were followed by Madrid which overtook Paris Charles de Gaulle with 5.372.803 and 5.367.308 passengers respectively, then Amsterdam with 4.365.420 travellers, Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen with 4.191.530, Frankfurt with 4.132.165, Barcelona with 3.801.522, Rome Fiumicino with 3.277.626, and Munich with 2.680.544 passengers. Out of Europe’s top ten busiest, three are still below their pre-pandemic 2019 records. They include Amsterdam (-12.8%), Frankfurt (-11.2%) and Munich (-13.4%).
No wonder Podgorica opened its doors to Wizz Air. Very lacklustre results over the past year continuing in January.
ReplyDeleteOnce Wizz Air bases two aircraft in Podgorica with seventeen new routes, we will see a completely different ranking.
DeleteWho would imagine that Skoplje can run the race with Zagreb. Imagine what are they going to do if Ryanair ever decides to fly from Skoplje.
DeleteMassive growth for Skopje
ReplyDelete+1
Delete@9:01 how does this compare with january 2024? Don't get me wrong, am not rooting against SKP as I used it myself very often, but what were numbers before engine problem for WIZZ?
Delete229,817 in January 2024.
Delete@09:30 January 2025 was a bad month for Skopje, engine problems were still ongoing but growth remains massive
DeleteCompared to 2024 it's still a great growth. Well done Skopje!
Delete^ rather well done Wizzair
Delete@11.09 yes but no. you need pax and Wizzair found them there
Delete@11:25 you also need a company willing to commit to such a market, which Wizz clearly are. Well done wizz.
DeleteWell done Wizz and Skopje!
DeleteSKP come close to ZAG just 20k difference, great to see this huge growth in Macedonia!!
ReplyDeleteWhat is the main factor for this? Zagreb is a capital of an European union country and very attractive destination for inbound tourism, compared to the gasto traffic in Skopje
DeleteIt is not, as you may conclude
DeleteZAG is easily reachable by car , bus and train from many EU countries as is Slovenia.
Delete09:08 u compare size and population of Croatia with a sea , with a size and population of Macedonia witnout a sea ? Well done , good comparison. U obviously cannot accept SKP massive growth and becoming serious player in the region
Delete09:34 I'm Macedonian as well, I'm not against anyone, and I'm not seeing this as a game where someone needs to win and someone needs to lose, I'm just discussing.
DeleteSince, as you know ZAG has flights to Dubai, Doha, long haul flights and many more legacy airlines, and a strong inbound tourism, I opened a discussion to see what someone else thinks.
And I'm of course rooting for SKP but we are still far from a "serious player in the region", although the connectivity is improving
09:46 I didnt also said anything bad, I just write SKP coming close to ZAG by the numbers provided here. Very simple comment
Delete09:34 Yes, the sea is a huge factor for driving growth in January!
Delete@09:34 "becoming serious player in the region" Its not actually a competition mate, rather after decades of poor mobility North Macedonia is finally opening up to increased travel as people have more money and a large proportion of the population have links elsewhere in Europe.
Delete@9.08 sorry but Zagreb being an "attractive destnation" is very disputable. It cannot compete with croatian coastal towns nor other central european capitals.
DeleteIt is attractive for us from the ex-ottoman part of ex-Yugoslavia.
@11:29 Zagreb is a very pretty city by all measures, of course it is an "attractive destination" which can of course compare well with other central European capitals. Even Skopje with its (how to put it politely) less than traditional beauty is a place that is an "attractive destination" for a broad range of European tourists, which is shown by the healthy increase in inbound tourism that N.M has had in the past couple of years. Comparing Zagreb with the coastal towns is a bit silly, but if one had to chose where to go in early spring the capital holds up well against sleepier coastal towns. Just my 2 cents.
Deletethe one is prettier the other more interesting
DeleteAs a very frequent visitor to both i would say they are both pretty (in their very different ways) and both interesting (in their very different ways). Comparing then two is totally stupid btw.
DeletePristina continues to quietly grow year after year.
ReplyDeleteYeah, but at much slower pace. Besides Podogrica, it is the capital city airport with the slowest growth.
DeletePer capita, I thinks it's quite good.
DeleteSkopje is much further from points of interest than Zagreb is. In order to reach i.e. Germany from Skopje, you need to fly; from Zagreb you can easily drive.
DeleteAlso Skopje is a very well located city. Very useful for accessing a large trans-border region.
DeleteI think you guys confused the comments thread.
DeleteJanuary is always a tricky month to analyse because traffic is very seasonal in the Balkans.
ReplyDeleteIt will be interesting to see how much Skopje can grow further.
ReplyDeleteWill grow alot especially in the summer , this year would be record one
DeleteTrieste still ahead of Ljubljana despite Ljubljana's strong growth.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone know if Ryanair or someone else is growing in Trieste this year? If not, we could see Ljubljana overtake it again.
DeleteThey are launching just one new route (to Tirana) at the end of March. And Aeroitalia begins Salerno in May. Other than that no new routes. Not sure if Ryanair is increasing frequencies though.
DeleteLjubljana should overtake them again then.
DeleteNot to mention financial results, Trieste is definetly in red numbers or maybe on 0, while LJU has profit
DeleteWhys that?
DeleteTrieste Airport gave subsidies to Ryanair, Ljubljana didn't. LCC passengers in general also spend less at the airport when compared to legacy carrier travellers, which hurts their bottom line
DeleteLCC passengers in general spend less? Backed up by evidence or complete and utter made up rubbish. You clearly have never seen Swedish and British passengers in a duty free in Spain before climbing aboard their Ryanair flights north.
DeleteThere are very few opportunities to spend money at Trieste Airport. During some winter months, they even close the upper bar.
DeleteGreat to see numbers for all airports. Thank you
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteWow the growth in Skopje is insane!
ReplyDeleteMassive growth for this year
Delete2 million passengers across 22 airports is terrible
ReplyDeleteEven worse when you think it is 1.4m across 21 airport:)
DeleteBetter if you consider it's 2 million over like 8
DeleteOr 1.5m over 4 airports
DeleteFantastic start for Croatian airports.
ReplyDeleteIndeed
DeletePretty impressive to see VIE at number 20 in Europe.
ReplyDeleteFor SKP, it would be interesting to know how much has capacity increased. It would give us an idea how Wizz's expansion is unfolding.
ReplyDeleteJanuary 2025 handled 220k , January 2026 270k , it means solid growth if we know January fog issue, diverted and cancelled flights are very common during that month
Deleteyou have montly articles about it
DeleteTivat still struggling
ReplyDeleteTivat and Ohrid had the same numbers and the first one is on the sea....
DeleteSKP and OHD growth is massive, OHD desevers more year round routes...... after the renovation this year should be very succesfully
ReplyDeleteSKP has 520.000+ seats on sale for the month of August so far.
ReplyDeleteAnd overall in all 2026, 3.5 million available seats , plus there are not counted Freebird charters as well summer charters
DeleteAnd overall in all 2026, 3.5 million available seats , plus there are not counted Freebird charters as well summer charters
DeleteIt is always amazing to see how SPU is so low during a large part of the year, but 2nd for the summer (high) season, what a massive difference.
ReplyDeleteYes. Extremely seasonal.
Deletebut Split had it best ever january, wondering where that growth came from
DeleteSKP 2025 January 220k
ReplyDeleteSKP 2026 January 270k
SJJ 2025 January 116k
SJJ 2026 January 121k
Good to know the growth
SKP 2025 January 220k
ReplyDeleteSKP 2026 January 270k
SJJ 2025 January 116k
SJJ 2026 January 121k
Good to know the growth
you should rather concentrate on SPU now, and not looking behind
DeleteBravo Fraport!
ReplyDeleteBravo Tuzla
ReplyDeleteLjubljana with 20% growth but still less than 90k passengers…
ReplyDeletewhat happened in Nis though?
ReplyDeleteWhat fueled big growth in Niš?
ReplyDeleteBased on scheduled capacity published in December, the load factor is as follows:
ReplyDeleteBEG 75%
PRN 93%
ZAG 70%
SKP 76%
SJJ 68%
LJU 74%
TGD 70%
haha was just looking into the same
Deleteits clear that there are stil some PRN charter flights that are "under the radar"
Many PRN flights run as charters, no airport I think has a 93% LF
Delete