Zagreb, Pristina and Sarajevo grow

Main airports in Croatia, Kosovo and Bosnia see October growth

The main airports in Croatia, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina have all seen their passenger numbers improve in October, with Zagreb handling its second-millionth traveller of the year, while Pristina and Sarajevo saw double digit growth.

Zagreb Airport handled 239.147 passengers during the month, an increase of 5.7% compared to October last year. The growth came despite a reduction in the number of operated flights, with 3.394 aircraft movements recorded, down from 3.506 last year, representing a decrease of 3.2%. During October, Croatia's busiest airport registered its second-millionth traveller in 2015, marking the eighth consecutive year it has managed to surpass the two million passenger mark. Overall, during the January - October period, Zagreb Airport welcomed 2.233.141 passengers through its doors, up 6.8% on last year. The growth was fuelled by foreign carriers, with the number of operated flights totalling 34.056 this year, up 4.8% on 2014.

ZAGREB AIRPORT
MonthPAXChange (%)
JAN150.667 11.0
FEB141.833 10.5
MAR185.693 12.3
APR197.726 2.7
MAY235.133 8.0
JUN248.438 1.8
JUL278.438 6.8
AUG284.419 5.5
SEP271.647 8.1
OCT239.147 5.7

Pristina Airport continued its recovery this October by posting double digit growth amounting to 13%. It handled some 125.000 passengers during the month. The airport anticipates that its figures will continue to grow during the winter period with 20% more flights scheduled to operate this season. The airport will handle extra services each day throughout the week, with exception to Mondays, while the weekends see 25% more flights compared to last winter. During the season, Zurich remains the most popular destination, with 21% of all flights departing Pristina heading to the Swiss city. It is followed by Istanbul (both Ataturk and Sabiha Gokcen) which maintain a combined share of 17% of all flights. So far during the year, Pristina has seen its passenger numbers improve some 13%.

Finally, Sarajevo Airport continued its run of good results, recording another month of double digit growth. Bosnia and Herzegovina's busiest airport welcomed 71.255 travellers in October, an increase of 10% compared to the same month last year. Furthermore, it handled 653.507 kilograms of commercial cargo, a jump of 461% compared to 2014. Overall, 692.944 passengers used the airport's services during the first ten months of the year, an increase 11.8% compared to the same period in 2014. Meanwhile, Sarajevo Airport began tender procedures for the upgrade of its baggage handling system by improving its programmable logic controller, or PLC. In addition, the airport recently also opened a tender for the construction of a rapid exit taxiway, which will provide aircraft with the opportunity to vacate the runway at higher speed.

SARAJEVO AIRPORT
MonthPAXChange (%)
JAN43.700 21.0
FEB39.908 12.6
MAR50.273 9.8
APR63.064 11.4
MAY80.143 12.1
JUN74.855 0.2
JUL89.319 19.2
AUG101.307 14.4
SEP79.120 11.2
OCT71.255 10.0

Comments

  1. Anonymous09:06

    Good results but what happened with Zagreb and its number of operated flights? Why the decrease? Croatia Airlines had the same number of flights and there are more foreign airlines operating now than last year.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:22

      I suppose some foreign carriers reduced some flights? I remember KLM being one of them, no?

      Delete
    2. Nope, this has nothing to do with the reductions... KLM has reduced 2 frequencies (down from 7) since October 25th, at the start of the winter timetable.

      This is what I think... the number of reported operations at ZAG include publicly announced flights from the official timetable + general aviation flights. About 90% of ZAG's operations come from the official timetable, and the other 10% from general aviation.

      Realistically, there were no reductions from the official timetable, so the negative trend must have come from the reduced # of flights in general aviation.

      Major changes according to the official timetable:

      (-) October 2015 vs. 2015
      easyJet x3 weekly
      Corendon (charter to Antalya) 2 x weekly

      (+) October 2014 vs. 2015
      ASL (14 x weekly)
      Swiss (7 x weekly)
      FlyDubai (3x weekly)
      (Brusseles 6 x weekly)

      OU has kept the same # of flights...

      Overall, not a great result, but decent. Go Zagreb !

      Delete
    3. sorry, the aboove (-) should say 2014 vs. 2015 :)

      Delete
    4. Anonymous11:15

      Nop, more flights this october, including some new ones (Brussels, Swiss, Air Serbia, flyDubai). Minus is easyJet (3x weekly). Croatia also did not reduce flights.

      It is about general aviation and one charter (Corendon 2x weekly)

      Delete
  2. Anonymous09:10

    ZAG terminal looks like is progressing well on that photo.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Also, I just noticed in this photo that the side of the terminal might have a terrace. That is if it is accessible and not just structural. If so than this could be an outside area for restaurants, cafe or for smoking and a decent external viewing area too.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous11:05

      New pics of Zagreb Airport, fabulous!!!!

      https://www.flickr.com/photos/113068035@N04/

      Delete
  3. Nemjee11:08

    With the mess in Egypt, I am sure even more Europeans will head to Croatia for their summer holidays. It makes you wonder, how will SPU deal with any potential increase in passenger numbers? From what I've read on here the expanded part of the terminal is far from ready.

    What about Dubrovnik? What's their current capacity?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dubrovnik is expanding as we speak.

      For Split, I don't even know if they can offer any more flights on Saturdays where they seem to have arrival and departure every 5 minutes from 6am so I honestly think they can't expand anymore on Saturdays unless people want to fly in overnight. What I think we will see is Friday's, Sundays and maybe even Mondays becoming as busy as Saturdays until the expansion is complete.

      Delete
    2. Nemjee11:23

      Cool, thanks. With increased demand I am sure tour operators won't mind introducing additional flights on those other days. By the way, will they build a taxiway parallel to the runway? It will make the airport so much more efficient, don't why why they haven't done it by now.

      Delete
    3. Main issue with Splits expansion has been land. They really do not have that much space for a taxiway unless they acquire more land and knock some houses down too.
      When you look at split from google earth, you can see the situation they face here.

      https://www.google.com.au/maps/@43.5353836,16.2944914,1187m/data=!3m1!1e3

      Delete
    4. Anonymous13:24

      I think that Zadar will benefit from the overflow at Spit. The distance between Spit and Zadar is 118km. Tour operators can actually go via Zadar and bus people to their resorts, especially the resorts North of Split

      Delete
    5. Nemjee13:27

      Wow... I never knew it was that tight. The worst thing is that even if the airport tried to buy the houses, I am sure the residents would demand exorbitant amounts of money for them. But at the end of the day, both the city and the airport must find a solution because they can't go on like this.
      How about building a completely new airport a bit further away from the city?

      Delete
    6. Anonymous15:43

      Split still have some possible moves to do to make more passengers. They should:

      1. Open airport from 6:00 till 24:00 on all days, and from 5:00 to 1:00 on Saturday and Sunday (as far as I understand even on top season they work from 6:00 till 22:00, it was like that if they did not change lately)

      2. Ban general aviation from 8:00 till 19:00 on Saturday and from 9:00 till 16:00 on Sunday

      3. Ask for Saturday slots even more money than on other days (as far as I understand Saturday slots are now some 400% more expensive than on other dates).

      4. Motivate bigger planes with less money per seat for bigger planes

      5. Motivate companies that have flights at least 3 times per week, and especially those who have 7 flights per week (of course not on same day).

      Delete
    7. Anonymous16:20

      Egypt and Croatia arent direct competitors on the world touristic market. Egypt has tourist peaks in spring and autumn, and major visitors come from Russia and UK and surrounding countries of the two.

      Delete
  4. Дечко Тзар15:07

    OT: Food for thought as we head into next week: last flight of an aircraft with Ex Yu country registration on a regularly scheduled nonstop passenger flight to the USA was JAT DC-10 from Belgrade BEG to New York JFK on May 20 1992, more than 23 years ago.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous15:16

      Did the flight made any money?

      Delete
    2. Anonymous15:30

      It was never supposed to.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous15:41

      Hvala bogu pa ce se vratiti ti letovi ponovo uskoro.
      INN-NS

      Delete
    4. Дечко Тзар15:58

      Did Qantas make any money competing against JAT by flying 747 all the way from Australia to BEG and ZAG in the late 80's? Absolutely not. Point of the post above was not a study of route profitability in a different and bygone era, but to point out 23,5 year gap: about one third of a typical life span.

      Delete
  5. Anonymous17:37

    So, in ExYU negative score in October have just:
    - Belgrade
    - Tivat
    - Mostar
    - Banja Luka

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous19:16

      A broj jedan Aerodrom u EX YU je BEG .
      INN-NS

      Delete
    2. Anonymous19:47

      A država broj jedan u Ex Yu je Hrvatska!

      Go Croatia!

      Delete
    3. Anonymous21:10

      BNX has only three flights per week to Belgrade.
      No any other airport can be compared to this.
      BNX is deeply down at the bottom of the bottom, apart from all others mentioned.

      Delete
  6. Anonymous18:58

    ...a ukupni sampion je...... BEG :)))))) u novoj, rekordnoj godini!!

    ReplyDelete

  7. Oct. 137.600 +25% (SKP & OHD)
    Predictions of members of the forums says that only about 3000 belong to OHD and the rest is SKP

    ReplyDelete
  8. Kosovo is still not a sovereign country so please edit the headline , tnx.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

EX-YU Aviation News does not tolerate insults, excessive swearing, racist, homophobic or any other chauvinist remarks or provocative posts with the intention of creating further arguments. A full list of comment guidelines can be found here. Thank you for your cooperation.