Skopje and Ljubljana airports see strong growth

Skopje Airport maintains lead over Ljubljana

The main airports in Macedonia and Slovenia have recorded strong passenger growth during the slowest month in the aviation calendar. Skopje Alexander the Great Airport handled 102.178 travellers, registering its strongest February on record. The figure represents growth of 27.6% compared to last year. Over the past two months, Skopje welcomed 211.275 passengers, which is up 25.5% on 2015. The country's second international airport, Ohrid, also recorded strong growth. Its monthly passenger figures stood at 3.334, up by 310%. Combined, the two handled 1.087 flights, an increase of 18% on last year. Ohrid's strong figures were fuelled by Wizz Air, which last year introduced year-round flights from Basel. Similarly, in Skopje, Wizz Air has significantly strengthened its network compared to last winter.

Skopje Airport has secured a handful of new routes for 2016 which should ensure strong passenger growth throughout the year. Starting tomorrow, Wizz Air will begin adding new routes out of its Skopje base with flights to Berlin, Copenhagen and Bratislava to launch on March 21, 22 and 28, respectively. Furthermore, the budget airline has announced it will launch services from Skopje to Hamburg as a replacement for its Lubeck route. The budget airline will pull out of the German city in mid-April, substituting it for Hamburg instead. In May, Czech Airlines will introduce services from Prague, while in November Qatar Airways will launch flights from Doha to Skopje. Similarly, Ohrid will offer several new routes this summer, with Arkia Israeli Airlines to start seasonal flights from Tel Aviv as of June 9. A week later, Air Serbia will introduce seasonal three weekly services from Belgrade, while on June 20, one of Europe's largest tour operators, Thomas Cook, will commence summer charters from Brussels.

SKOPJE AIRPORT
MonthPAXChange (%)
JAN109.097 23.6
FEB102.178 27.6

In February, Ljubljana Airport saw 77.976 travellers pass through its doors, an improvement of 7.9% compared to the same month last year. The result came despite a notable decline in the number of operated flights, which amounted to 1.950, down 4.6%. The fall can be partly attributed to Adria Airways' suspension of its Istanbul service. Furthermore, Swiss International Air Lines' discontinued flights from Zurich, although the carrier introduced this service last March. Over the past two months, Slovenia's busiest airport handled 151.543 passengers, up 4.3%, while aircraft movements were down 6.8% to 3.924. Earlier this month, LOT Polish Airlines launched flights from Warsaw to Ljubljana, while Adria Airways will commence services to Cologne in just over a week.

LJUBLJANA AIRPORT
MonthPAXChange (%)
JAN73.567 0.6
FEB77.976 7.9

Comments

  1. Anonymous09:03

    Two interesting things :)
    1) Skopje had only 3,000 fewer passengers than PRN in February.
    2) Ljubljana's February was stronger than January which is rare

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous09:07

    Skopje is doing amazingly well for the past few years. Congratulations.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous15:46

      With subsidies to LCCs, they're doing indeed great, however as soon as these subsidies stop you'll see numbers fall like ton of bricks.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous16:14

      Subsidies have stopped for 19 out of the 24 routes and an even larger proportion of capacity since new routes are all 2x weekly. Quite contrary to your statement, route frequencies have only increased and no routes have been dropped, make it an unprecedented success not only for exYu but Wizz Air as well.

      Your comment?

      Delete
    3. Anonymous19:39

      too much stupid people......

      Delete
    4. Anonymous20:16

      How much is Wizz paying SKP per passenger for nonsubsidized lines? Thanks!

      Delete
    5. Anonymous22:00

      Wizz didn't take subsidies from TAV(SKP) in the past, they were taken from goverment, so what is not clear here ?? So from 06.2015 until 06.2018 under subsidies will be only 5 rout, and stop blamed

      Delete
    6. Anonymous22:19

      @Anon 8:16

      List prices.

      Delete
  3. Anonymous09:08

    SKP growth will be minimal from new routes as capacity is not increasing. Current routes are remaining on lower winter frequencies to facilitate operations to the new airports with the same amount of aircraft.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:10

      Edit: With reference to Wizz Air...

      Delete
  4. Anonymous09:10

    Yeah the one problem I have with Wizz Air flights from Skopje is that their frequencies are quite low to many destinations. Most flights are 2 or 3x per week. Other than that congratulations on the good numbers.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous09:11

    LJU is doing good considering the drop in flights.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous09:13

    Ja mislim da bi SKP imao jos veci uspeh da imaju nesto slicno kao FlixBus u Nemackoj posto su skoro jedini pravi LCC Aerodrom u EX YU .
    INN-NS

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Poredis FlixBus (firma sa autobusima ne avionima) sa aviokompanijama?
      Da li si realan?

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:51

      Pa naravno da nije ali niko vise ne obraca paznju na njega.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10:11

      Actually, what INN-NS said makes lot of sense. There should be regular buses (from the airport) to cities like Nis, Pristina, maybe even Sofia (although this is risky since Sofia has much more LCC capacity than SKP). The guy says lots of nonsense, but give credit where credit is due.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous10:44

      sadly people here (as in any other developing country) are addicted to cars. There was a bus to PRN as far as i remember. People dont even know there is a bus to Skopje City Center ....

      Delete
    5. Anonymous12:22

      There are shuttle services already between Pristina and SKP just like there are between Belgrade and BUD.

      Delete
  7. Anonymous10:09

    If the only KPI is number of PAX than all my best to SKP. But the bacisc economy question is what was the profit? 20 could be 1*20, 2*10, 4*5, 5*4, 10*2, 20*1 (x*y if x is no of pax and y profit per pax). I have not seen any SKP report so far. (Would be glad if someone could provide this data)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous11:41

      I don't think anybody will as it's confidential. However, considering they added aircraft every year for the past three years, it's relatively safe to assume that their profit is at least average compared to the network. Take the profit for their last reported year and divide by the number of aircraft at the time and you'll get a decent figure. Or wait for the next one since their fiscal year ends in ten days.

      You can also very easily figure out what the percentage of govt subsidies is to both revenue, costs and profit like that (very low). You can also find % of sales by market from the last report.

      What would you use these numbers for?

      Delete
    2. Anonymous12:49

      It would be nice to see the rank by profit sometime.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous15:48

      At least that one's pretty easy, given Wizz is by far the most profitable airline flying to exYu. So the more capacity in a given a/p, the higher the profit. I reckon by this criteria SKP is easily the most profitable one.

      It would also be interesting to see revenue distribution per pax or per seat available, weighted by stage length of course. That would provide for a proper professional comparison.

      Along those lines, I'd love to see CAPA - like analysis on this blog, but I'm also aware of its skill limitations. No bad feelings.

      Delete
  8. Anonymous12:34

    Prishtina growth was at 22%.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous12:45

    Ovim tempom Skopje će još malo da dostigne Zagreb. To pokazuje svu moć LCC. A neka vlasti u Zagrebu i Beogradu i dalje misle da su Abu Dhabi i da samo legacy prevoznici smeju da im dolaze.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous12:54

      Pa bas i nece. Ovaj rast bice sve do 6og mjeseca, nakoj toga bice minimalan (naravno, ovo je ukoliko FR ne otvori neke rute)

      Delete
    2. SKP je napuhani balon koji će puknuti: a) prva iduća kriza, b) smanjenje subvencija.

      Za Zagreb mogu reći kako je sva prometna struktura stabilna, tržište je bogatije, jer putnici plaćaju "masne" cijene avio karata. Da je dobro ne imati LCC = nije, ali u ZAG je strategija ustabiliti se prvo na 3 mil pax bez LCC, a da vidiš onda eksploziju.... puno lakše do 4 ili 5 mil sa sezonskim linijama nakon što si stvorio bazu i osigurao letove 365 u godini.

      SKP da i hoće dovesti legacy carriera, teško da će uspjeti. Može se jedino s W6 dalje navlačiti dok bude išlo. Inače, bazirati strategiju rasta na 1 x partneru je idiotizam, ne samo u avijaciji već i u drugim businessima (hotelijerstvo npr.).

      SKP... dajte molim vas...

      Delete
    3. Anonymous13:28

      Petar moj dragi daj malo olado od ukupno 24 linije wizz pod subvencije se samo 5 - tako da molim te nemoj sa "naduvane" komentare.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous15:49

      @PetarMarch 20, 2016 at 1:09 PM x2

      Delete
    5. Anonymous15:57

      Until Terminal 2 is completed Zagreb has limited room for growth, I use Zagreb frequently in my travels and waiting time at the airport check in cab be stressful at best of times.

      There's literally no sitting area where you can sit and relax before the flight, and current restaurants and carafes are a joke, they charge 20 kuna for a small espresso and service is dismal.

      With maximum capacity reached in 2012, old terminal can barely cope with 3 million that it might handle this year.

      2017 Will see new airport terminal open, this should improve situation for all concerned. With arrival of Alitalia, SAS. Aegean, Finnair, Korean air, and return of TAP, in 2017 things should go up fast, if EasyJet comes back and few other low costs operators can be enticed to offer service Zagreb numbers will hit 5.0 million really fast.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous15:58

      Petre, dnevna doza hejta, jel? Može samo da ti bude krivo.

      Delete
    7. ma nije to "hejt". ok, možda sam malo bio pregrub (sori), ali SKP kao aerodrom, grad i država se općenito forsira/prenemaže...s veličanjem i načinom na koje divlje ulaže u projekte , glume i vode politiku "pokazivanja" u svim sferama života, što nije u skladu sa mogućnostima. meni osobno to osobno ide na živce.

      Delete
    8. Anonymous17:16

      Okej, kapiram i donekle se slažem sa tobom. Primam ispriku.

      Ali, u ovom - i samo ovom - slučaju fakti govore sasvim drugačije. 80% kapaciteta je neovisno od subvencija (koje su jako male, 5 EUR po putniku). Sve dodatne frekvencije veće od 2x tjedno su rezultat profitabilnog poslovanja. Po meni, nije napuhan balon već najbolje rješenje za dio regije. Smatraj da su ovo informacije iz prve ruke, da direktnije ne može biti. Pozdrav.

      Delete
    9. Anonymous23:11

      Skopje airport is bigger than Zagreb.

      Delete
    10. Anonymous00:54

      ´+ at least for 1 more year SKP is a WAY better looking airport than ZAG

      Delete
    11. Anonymous01:40

      SKP is much bigger airport than all airports in exYU exempt Belgrade which look like shit.

      But to say that it will have more pax than ZAG. First you have to run over PRN, DBV, SPU, and than we can speak about ZAG. To run over ZAG you need to double number of passengers. Is it real in short period of time?

      Delete
  10. Дечко Тзар20:29

    OT: From EBRD chief interview: EBRD is trying to lower the asking price for Belgrade aiport, pointing to long term benefits.

    Fully agree with EBRD on this one. It is far better to get 100mil eur less with contractual commitment to main tenant Air Serbia's hub model and building new terminal, second runway etc than getting far better deal from buyer that will kill JU and turn BEG into LCC backwater.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous00:00

      EBRD is not really a bank.
      They are not interested in profit at all. They are investing in politics.
      Buying influence in politics.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous08:15

      Second runway? They won't need a second one in the next 30 years... lol

      Delete
  11. Some 10 days ago I accidentally found (and bought) ticket Belgrade - Maastricht Aachen (MST). I was sure I never saw it before, went here to check is there any news and found none so I thought it could've been existing route I wasn't aware of. But then, no one knows about it so maybe it is a new one. On Wizzair's site it stated it begins May 31st

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is a temporary replacement for its Eindhoven service as the latter will be overhauling its runway for 2 weeks.

      Delete

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