Busy times for Skopje
Macedonia’s two international airports, Skopje and Ohrid, have so far this year reported growth of over 20%. In March, the two airports combined welcomed 57.596 passengers, an increase of 24% compared to the same month last year, despite the loss of both ČSA Czech Airlines and Malev Hungarian Airlines. During the first few months of the year, most passengers departing Skopje Alexander the Great Airport were heading to either Zurich (26%) or Istanbul (14.3%). So far this year the airports have seen an average passenger increase of 23.5%.“Following the modernisation and concession of Macedonia’s airports, there has been continual passenger growth. Last year Macedonia’s airports handled 834.273 passengers, which represents an increase of 15% on the year before”, the Ministry of Transport and Communication said in a statement. The airports have also seen an increase in flights despite the loss of the above mentioned big players.
Skopje Airport handled the most passengers in its history in 2000 when it welcomed 1.020.000 passengers through its doors. Ohrid Airport saw its best year in 1999 with just over 80.000 passengers. This year it should surpass its record in the lake side town. During the 2012 summer season, Macedonia won’t see too many new airlines on the market. Jetairfly will begin seasonal flights from Brussels to both Skopje and Ohrid in May and Jat Airways will resume its seasonal service to Ohrid. On the other hand, Kon Tiki Sky, the controversial new start up airline, which has promised to launch numerous destinations from Macedonia’s capital, hasn’t been issued a license.
Off topic : Belgrade Airport increased AP tax to 17.49EUR instead of 16.50EUR. Morons!
ReplyDeleteCorrection: 17.19EUR, sorry.
DeleteIt's mistake:
Deletehttp://www.aviokarta.net/vesti/1079-poskupljenje-taksi-je-greska-u-rezervacionom-sistemu/
"Sa aerodroma poručuju da greška nema nikakve veze sa njima, rezervacioni sistemi su inostrani i aerodrom nema direktan pristup, već sve izmene vezane za razne podatke i cene vrše ovlašćene službe u Srbiji"
DeleteThey 'forgot' to mention that those 'ovlascene sluzbe u Srbiji' is LH which is sending a form to IATA for tax changes (before Lufthansa, that was JU).
And if that's "just a mistake" - how come everything appeared on FQNTAX screen on AMADEUS GDS, not to mention such change reflects every single GDS as well.
Someone f*** up, obviously.
Great to see this in Macedonia and maybe they will show the way to the rest of the Ex Yu on this basis.
ReplyDeleteIt does go to show that governments need to take a step back when it comes to running a countries important infrastructure. Here we have a private company whose main goal really is to turn a profit, the bigger the better. The results are there for all to see.
I just hope and pray that the days of delays and postponements of development at Zagreb are behind us and can only wonder where the airport would be today in terms of pax numbers if private investment was allowed to happened sooner.
Congrats for Skopje :-). If Pgs doesnt come here soon i will use you too. Regards from BEG.
ReplyDeleteCongrats to SKP!!
ReplyDeleteFor all those, especially on this blog, who suspected about the success and the size of the airport this is the best crystal proof!!
New airport building, boosting pax numbers or not, 6 months later SKP has the highest pax growth in the whole ex yu region leaving other players far behind in terms of growth..
Well actually does it really have anything to do with a new building? Airplanes are coming cuz of profit not cuz they wanna land on a new fancy airport. i mean zagreb has a matchbox terminal and two milion passengers.
DeleteImpressive growth numbers, hope more will come now with the start to the summer season.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the comments about SKP being the example to the rest of the ex-YU, come on, its abit exagerated. ZAG and SKP had practically the same growth in pax percentage with 11% in 2011, which in ZAG meant an increase of 400.000 pax and in SKP 40.000. Show us a growth of half a million pax and we can start talking. But what is true is that SKP have modern facilities which lack in most exYU airports.
News from Macedonia are always the most boring and dull.
ReplyDeleteFinally someone said it right - who cares about the fancy building, that's not what brings airlines and passengers but prices and taxes. The more money invested to the building, higher become the taxes and the passengers might even decline (think future of Zagreb in that way). Better you stay in the match-box.
No one mentioned fancy building even though decent facilities is a huge plus when in a competitive environment but private investment in this case a concession has helped improve pax numbers greatly and will do the same in Zagreb as well as other parts of the ex Yu.
DeleteTupko, Tupko,
DeleteScared of Zagreb.
This is exactly what will happen. New LDZA going to 3 Mil at first and then to design capacity 5 Mil pax. This is inevitable.
Investment of 205 million euro for new modern terminal building with 44000 square meters useful space, increased length of the runway to 11000ft with displaced threshold and modern navigation systems, certified quality airport stuff, working procedures and management starts to pays off with good growth and positive future.Lets hope that Turkish will start to fly this summer once a week from Istamul Ataturk(also Tav/Turkish owned airport) via Skopje Alexander the Great(Tav/Turkish concession airport) to New York-JFK with Airbus A330-200 with 248 seats capacity.And also to reestablish the old summer route(one flight in 14 days) from 1988/1989 which was operated by Boeing 707-3 and by "city of Belgrade"-DC 10-30 JAT planes(this time by Turkish A330)from Ohrid St Paul the Apostle airport direct flight to Toronto Pearson airport.
ReplyDeleteI lol'd.
DeleteTupolev 160 - News from Macedonia is most dull and boring.
ReplyDeleteYour comment is dull and boring.
The only reason I read this blog is to obtain news from Macedonia.
Reading the same old thing about JAT is infact boring for some which leads me to my point, that overall this blog caters to everyone from the EX EU region and it's most interesting to read articles other than the regular articles on ZAG and BEG.