Skopje Airport overtakes Zagreb to become EX-YU's third busiest


Skopje Airport has handled more travellers than its traditionally busier counterpart in Zagreb during the first four months of the year, as the coronavirus pandemic continues to impact traditional passenger flows. Macedonia’s busiest airport handled 197.887 passengers during the January - April period, down 48.6%. This is compared to Zagreb, where passenger numbers declined 65.8% to 167.420 over the four-month period. The majority of Macedonian nationals are still not permitted entry into most European Union-member states, which are traditionally the busiest markets from Skopje Airport. Some 77% of the airport’s traffic is generated to EU markets. The Covid-19 pandemic has changed the traditional order of the busiest airports in the former Yugoslavia, with Pristina having the most passengers during the first quarter, overtaking Belgrade, Zagreb, Split and Dubrovnik.

During the January - April period, the most capacity in and out of Skopje was offered to Istanbul’s two airports - Istanbul International and Sabiha Gokcen - followed by Basel, London Luton, Dortmund and Vienna. At the same time, the most seats in and out of Zagreb were offered to Frankfurt, followed by Amsterdam, Dubrovnik, Split and Istanbul. Skopje outperformed Zagreb in both February and March, although the Croatian capital was busier in April, which included the Easter holidays. This month, the amount of offered capacity from Macedonia stands at 45.6% compared to pre-Covid 2019 levels. On the other hand, Croatia has reached 20.6% of May’s capacity from two years ago. 

Both Skopje and Zagreb are managed by the same company, although the latter is part of a bigger consortium. Croatia’s busiest airport is expected to rebound strongly over the summer with Ryanair to open a base in the city towards the end of August and launch sixteen new routes during the summer. Commenting on the current state of the Macedonian air travel market, the General Manager of Skopje Airport’s operator TAV Macedonia, Metin Batak, said, “Until the EU/Schengen restrictions are lifted and people are able to travel freely for non-essential purposes, as they did before, we will be facing difficulties. Considering these challenges and the shifts in the aviation industry on a global scale, recovery will be slow and will take time in order for Macedonian airports to return to the same passenger numbers we had prior to the crisis”.


Comments

  1. Anonymous09:01

    Good on Skopje. But like the article says ZAG will have a strong summer with Ryanair.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:14

      It depends what the market will look like. There will be only so much demand and we will have to see how many new passeners they create and how many they steal from others especially OU.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:19

      LCCs are well known for creating a whole new market and category of passengers. Skopje is the best example of that.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:22

      Yes but they stimulated gastos in SKP for whom flying back home more often became so much easier. I don't think ZAG has so much gasto demand and they also have to compete with BNX and TZL which have a solid LCC offer.

      BNX will have year round flights to Stockholm, ZAG won't.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous09:24

      Ryanair already said 90% of demand is coming from outside of Croatia, so they obviously simulated someone. But it doesn't matter. To make you happy: Ryanair will fail in Zagreb, the airport will have fewer passengers than Banja Luka and will eventually close. Good enough for you?

      Delete
    5. Anonymous09:48

      They said that 90% of total booking came from abroad, they didn't say how many tickets we sold. I am not saying that they will fail in ZAG but that since covid is still around we should be careful with growth projections.

      Delete
    6. I agree covid scam brought significant limitations and reduced or even erased any chance for predictability and certainty in planning and development, yet I strongly doubt FR would be pushing forward ZAG start and announcing 16 new services and the third plane during winter, if overall number of sold tickets had been small or modest

      Delete
    7. Anonymous14:54

      They are going over the top to make sure OU can't survive the winter. FR can afford to burn money in ZAG this winter if it means making a profit the next five ones.

      Delete
    8. As everyone knows, I am very critical about OU and I think they don't deserve to exist at all, in form they have in the last decade or two. But I also know that LC carriers and legacy carriers are after different market segments, and that LCC'S are generally not very keen on burning money to try making disappear company which has unlimited support and fundings of the state. So in my opinion, FR services from ZAG are not going to be empty and over the top because they are trying to destroy OU. OU will feel some consequences of their presence, probably lose some passengers as well, but definitely not majority of OU passengers would switch to FR.

      Delete
    9. Anonymous07:31

      I think many who used to connect in FRA/MUC/VIE on OU and LH Group can now fly non-stop on FR especially to places like GOT (for example).
      I also think they are introducing MMX which will be a huge blow to OU's Copenhagen route. I mean they are charging over €200 to fly you two hours on a Q400 when FR will transport you on a more comfy B737 for a fraction of that amount.

      Delete
    10. I agree. As I said, some P2P passengers will switch to FR. Still, much more OU passengers are transfer than P2P, and FR cannot provide transfers for them. OU has codeshare flights to the US on SK via CPH. UA, AI, AC, codeshare on OU flights from airports you listed, so no, FR cannot take over that part of passengers. As always, they are creating new market in ZAG for people who used before LCC to/from destinations in ZAG proximity, or used ground transportation to travel. They are generally not after OU passengers neither is their primary goal to shut OU. If OU stop operating it won't be because of FR but because gvt decides to stop covering their losses. If there were no state intervention, they would have been history long ago, with or without FR.

      Delete
  2. Anonymous09:02

    Crazy how things have changed in the Covid era

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:10

      Especially TZL having more passengers than LJU :)

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:25

      Yeah, that sucks :(

      Delete
  3. Anonymous09:03

    It would be interesting to see the breakdown of passengers at SKP. How many people are going there from Kosovo too.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous09:04

    "This month, the amount of offered capacity from Macedonia stands at 45.6% compared to pre-Covid 2019 levels. On the other hand, Croatia has reached 20.6% of May’s capacity from two years ago. "

    wow this is surprising!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:16

      Not really, SKP relies mostly on gastos who are relatively loyal. Building your business on tourists or transfers is more challenging.

      Delete
  5. Anonymous09:07

    I assume Skopje would have done better this month too because of Orthodox easter.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous09:08

    I don't understand how. All these countries have travel bans in the EU while there is none in Croatia. Croatia also has domestic flights which is helpful with passenger numbers. On top of everything Croatia is not like Slovenia and it actually has a diaspora...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous14:30

      I like both Skopje and Zagreb as airports and cities but this result brutaly shows how powerless and out of step Croatia Airlines is. Zagreb, an EU capital with few travel restrictions and a national carrier with 12 planes based in the city outperformed by Skopje, a non EU capital with a lot of travel restrictions and no national airline. Disaster.

      Delete
  7. Anonymous09:10

    Very important fact

    "The majority of Macedonian nationals are still not permitted entry into most European Union-member states, which are traditionally the busiest markets from Skopje Airport"

    What would have happened if the rules of the game had been the same for all? ZAG would have been even more behind SKP.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous09:11

    No prizes guessing which airline is the busiest from SKP :D

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous09:13

    Skopje Airport CEO seems most realistic.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous09:35

    Hope the Nordwind flights start to Skopje. Anyone know why they were cancelled?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:12

      Probably not enough demand. The official reason is epidemiological situation which makes no sense whatsoever.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:16

      People always come here to repeat how the SKP-Moscow market is large and underserved. Nordwind tried it and they failed. Hopefully this puts an end to this discussison.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10:17

      They tried by putting tickets on sale 10 days before flights were supposed to start without any advertisement.

      Delete
  11. Most of Macedonian gastos have Bulgarian passports.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Vlad11:41

      Completely irrelevant, since being gasto automatically implies having an EU work/residence permit, ergo they could travel freely regardless of the passport.

      Delete
    2. Ok, let me rephrase this, most Macedonians become gastos once they obtain Bulgarian passport. There are new gastos all the time, so yes, it is relevant to the demand.

      Delete
  12. Anonymous09:40

    Many citizens in NMK have Bulgarian passports, so travel to the EU is easier.
    Also, SKP relies heavily from the huge Albanian diaspora where the airport is used as an alternative to PRN.
    As of September, ZAG will regain its second position in ex-Yu.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous11:52

      Some people from NMK maybe have Bulgarian passports but surely they do not have all the benefit of freely travelling to EU as all CRO passport holders do have.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous15:16

      Exactly, just like a lot of Serbs have Hungarian/Croatian/Bulgarian passports along with their Serbian passports, but that does not mean everyone has a passport to spare.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous15:18

      The number of the population with foreign passports is very small in both countries yet in Croatia everyone can travel but does not seem to do so.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous18:42

      Correct

      Delete
    5. Anonymous01:59

      @15:18 - very small where? There are at least around 120 thousand North Macedonians with Bulgarian passports according to official data. Same with Moldavians with Romanian passports. As you can see neither SKP nor KIV have bad figures..

      Delete
    6. Anonymous04:52

      And there are over 4 million people with Croatian passports yet the figures are bad.

      Delete
  13. Anonymous09:46

    This only shows that OU can't be the engine of growth at ZAG. No wonder the airport lost patience with them and found a new business partner.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:07

      +1

      Delete
    2. Engine of growth and OU in the same sentence, it simply doesn't fit, sorry, they are far far far away from any engine, except one, public money burning engine

      Delete
  14. Anonymous10:07

    The decline in Skopje isn't as bad as some other airports.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Anonymous10:08

    This is a fantastic achievement considering Macedonian citizens cannot travel to EU.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous14:56

      The tiger is only waking up now! SKP's time in only coming now.

      Delete
  16. Anonymous10:08

    Hopefully, SKP will reach 1 million in 2021

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:13

      I think it will be difficult to reach a million.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous14:25

      All depends how summer performs.

      Delete
  17. Anonymous10:09

    Which airiness that flew before crisis still have to return to SKP?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:12

      LOT, Flydubai and Qatar as far as I'm aware.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:34

      Not bad all things considered. I just hope QR will be back.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10:35

      Hope all Wizz routes are restored too

      Delete
    4. Anonymous10:44

      Qatar has been delaying the launch time and again. Let's see what happens.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous10:45

      Qatar return will depend completely on when Australia reopens its borders and allows its citizens to leave the country. Currently not planned until mid 2022.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous14:24

      ^True

      Delete
  18. Anonymous10:35

    SKP's recovery will also depend a lot on Wizz Air.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous12:46

      When does Wizz Air's current three year subsidy contract expire?

      Delete
    2. Anonymous13:00

      2022

      Delete
    3. Anonymous14:24

      So we will probably see a tender next year.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous14:26

      Definitely

      Delete
  19. Anonymous10:41

    Imagine if Qatar was still flying as well...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous14:24

      I don't think there would be any difference. Absolute majority of QR passengers to Skopje were from Australia whose residents can't leave the country. That's why QR suspeded Skopje and has not restored it.

      Delete
  20. Anonymous12:38

    Wonder how many pax SKP would have had if there was no coronavirus in 2020, especially how well things started out.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Anonymous12:40

    Recovery will be long, that's for sure.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous12:44

      It might take 4 or 5 years before full recovery at 2019 level.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous12:45

      That's the real unknown. I think if vaccinations stabilize the situation and then there could be a lot of pent up demand like we see in the US.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous12:48

      Eurocontrol: Domestic and international air traffic in Europe is not expected to recover from COVID-19 slowdowns until 2024 at the earliest
      https://airwaysmag.com/industry/eurocontrol-no-traffic-uptick/

      Delete
    4. Anonymous14:23

      Crazy how much this virus has set us back.

      Delete
  22. Anonymous14:22

    It was too be expected. SKP started having more passengers on a monthly basis around November last year.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Anonymous14:28

    Not surprised Istanbul is number one route. Turkey will be very popular this summer, which is why we have all those new Anadolujet routes.

    ReplyDelete

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