Airports across the former Yugoslavia are continuing to claw back their passenger numbers at an uneven pace with 3.367.502 travellers handled during the first half of the year. The majority of airports began to see their figures improve during the second quarter as most European markets began scaling back pandemic-related restrictions and started easing curbs on non-essential travel. Pristina continues to be one of the best performers in the former Yugoslavia so far this year as it was closest to its pre-pandemic results during the first half, by handling 32.4% fewer passengers than during the January - June period in 2019. It has also registered a strong start to July.
The former Yugoslavia's busiest airports during H1 2021
On the other hand, Ljubljana Airport continues to struggle and fell out of the top ten busiest in the former Yugoslavia. The airport is at just 8.9% of its pre-pandemic traffic, with Slovenia being one of the most affected markets in Europe. The airport was outperformed by Tuzla, which, with a single airline and significant travel restrictions, handled 19.315 passengers more than its Slovenian counterpart. Commenting on the slow pace of recovery during the first half of the year, Ljubljana Airport noted, “Statistics and analysis must be put into context. Air traffic in Slovenia is exclusively international in nature (there are no domestic flights). We are among the countries that had the longest and strictest lockdowns and Slovenia does not have traffic generated by expatriates, nor can it rely on mass tourism”.
Among the smaller airports in the region, Mostar Airport has seen almost no traffic this year and is lacking any scheduled flights. It was dealt a further blow recently as Eurowings cancelled plans to restore operations from Dusseldorf, which were planned to run once per week this summer. The Covid-19 pandemic has significantly shifted passenger flow in the region and completely altered the balance among the former Yugoslavia’s busiest airports. During the first half of the pre-pandemic 2019, Belgrade Airport was the busiest, followed by Zagreb, Split, Dubrovnik, Skopje, Pristina, Ljubljana, Podgorica, Sarajevo and Tivat.
Wow a real shame for Ljubljana. Outside of the top 10.
ReplyDeleteSkobir and Krašnja should be ashamed of themselves with these mediocre results.
DeleteAbsolute disaster
DeleteIt's no surprise. Numbers in LJU were declining months before anyone even knew about corona.
Deleteand with such leaders they will still decline even after we get rid of Covid
Delete@9.20
DeleteThe market started to recover and then covid happened.
@anon 09:50
Deletestarted to recover? while other airports had 20% increase to PY, LJU had 30% decrease before Covid happened. If that's recovering then I'm afraid what might happen to LJU in future. I can't wait for the moment when Skobir/Krašnja will have to admit that without national carrier LJU will be just on level of TZL, TIV, DBV. What a shame..
Anon above is correct. February 2019 numbers were down 24%, January down 27%
DeleteLjubljana's numbers started to fall in August 2019.
DeleteWhen Adria crisis started.
DeleteWhat they should have done is been better prepared for Adria's collapse. The writing was on the wall for years. But this is not just related to the airport but the government too.
Delete@09:44
DeleteYou mean Sarec and Bratuskova? I agree, they screwed up everything.
Mostar :O
ReplyDeleteWhy surprised? They have 0 scheduled flights.
DeleteAmazing result.
DeleteShould we ask so called expert in the region if employees in Mostar receive regular salaries?
It was so criticized that people working in KVO are getting paid.
That airport needs to seriously do something if it is ever to have decent traffic.
DeleteIt had the perfect chance to attract Wizz Air. Now with them opening a base in Sarajevo those chances have dwindled.
DeleteMostar is a small city with not a large catchment area.
DeleteIt does not need an airport.
DeleteOK guys, let's say you are right. Can you then please explain to me how it was possible during ex-yu for OMO to have daily, on some days even double daily flights to BEG and daily flights to ZAG by JAT, plus few weekly to ZAG with ongoing connections to 5 destinations in Germany, so called "worker 's flights" by Adria, plus numerous charters?
DeleteBack in the 80s JAT did a good job of selling so called "pilgrimage" packages to Mostar. My dad used to work for JAT in that era on sales in the Asia region and told me they would get a lot of transfers from the Philippines via Singapore heading to Mostar. So I can imagine there were many from all parts of the world.
DeleteCorrect. Manila was supposed to be one of the first new Asian destinations, planned to be introduced after MD11 joining the fleet. And like half of the all North American passengers were also to Medjugorje
DeleteWhen you hire workers politically (by HDZ) you have these results.
DeleteThey are just burning government money. Airport need to be sold to some private company and fire current workers
These figures are really sad
ReplyDeleteIt is unbelievable that PRN has more than double passengers comparing to ZAG.
ReplyDeleteAnd by quite a lot
DeleteI'm surprised about Rijeka's result and that it had almost the same number of passengers as Osijek!
ReplyDeleteRJK is more useless than OSI, in my opinion. Had the authorities provided same financial support to OSI, OSI would have more passengers for sure.
DeleteThey already have PSO. What more?
DeleteRijeka actually has been left mostly out of PSO. There are just 2 PSO routes compared to Osijek's 5. RJK complained to the government about it but doesn't seem much will change in the next PSO contract.
DeleteI fear Rijeka will hurt big time from Ryanair's base in Zagreb. Fewer airlines will be inclined to launch flights because there will be LCC flights from Zagreb.
DeleteMaybe pozdraz iz Rijeke could shed some light :)
DeleteRijeka airport was built on the spot with strongest bura winds and is closed for traffic much more often than other airports. It had fatal accident the first year after opening. All managements were more or less incompetent. Whole county has been punished for 30 airlines for not being pro HDZ, airport and aviation included. It is surrounded by Zagreb, Ljubljana, Pula, Trieste, Venice and Treviso, all on 2 hours drive. People from the area never created habbit to use the airport, for all of the listed reasons. Economy which was the source of business passengers almost does not exist any more. Tourists to the region are mostly from nearby countries and come by car/bus. Results are obvious. Cheers!
DeleteHas been punished for 30 years, not airlines, sorry, typo
DeleteOsijek - only PSO flights.
ReplyDeleteWithout money from Government it would have been deserted airport.
Who flies to Mali Losinj? How come it has more passengers than Brac?
ReplyDeleteI think it gets a lot of private flights.
DeletePrivate flights shouldnt be counted as pax. Passenger is only someone who
DeletePays for the ticket. Private flights - pilot and her/his partner are not pax.
Well people pay for private flights too.
DeleteNot if their company pays for it.
DeleteGA has no pax, only CAT ops have pax. And anon@15:41 is right.
DeleteThank you for the results
ReplyDeleteThe numbers are dire
ReplyDeleteThings will get better in Q3
DeleteWith delta variant and many countries putting up restrictions again, I wouldn't be so certain.
DeleteRestrictions seem to have been in place only in Slovenia...
ReplyDeleteSure seems so. That's what some anon was trying to tell us all this time. Only Slovenia has travel restrictions because we are the only nation on planet Earth with covid infections.
DeleteI'm surprised Podgorica is managing those numbers. They are doing better than I expected, especially since there is no YM.
ReplyDeleteSo Podgorica, Sarajevo, Tivat and Tuzla all overtook Ljubljana.
ReplyDeleteI think Zadar, Pula and Niš could also have more passengers this year.
Deletehahhaa right ... good one. tell another one.
DeleteBanja Luka :)
DeleteAnd Ohrid.
DeleteThe PRN figures are extremely impressive.
ReplyDeleteGenerated by many gastos who could not travel last year. Also numbers in February also performed well because of elections and everyone coming to vote.
Delete@ Anon 10:58 ...
Deleteand your point is?
Pristina Airport is not only gastos airport. Just look the flights with Turkey. You have three 3 to Istanbul per day, 4 flights to Antalya and 1 flight to Bodrum. Daily there are 8 flights to Turkey.
DeleteWhen could we see 2019 figures again?
ReplyDeleteIt will take at least 3-4 years to full recovery.
DeleteThat's what Air Serbia thought for this summer too.
DeleteNow they do not have enough planes to cover the demand.
3-5 years at best
DeleteRecovery will be quicker than most people think.
DeleteI really hope so but doesn't look like it for most airports.
DeleteNumbers are in line with global trends.
ReplyDeleteZAG is very, very far from it.
DeleteWhat are you talking about? ZAG's decline is actually exactly the European avarage.
DeleteNo, it is not.
DeleteEuropean average is around 50% decline an ZAG has 80%.
Far from it.
No the European average is 74%. Had you read any of the news here rather than just come to argue, you would know.
DeleteOh yes I had read them, but I don't know if you did the same.
Delete"Under the organisation’s baseline scenario, Eurocontrol sees flights rising steadily from just 39% of 2019’s level in May to 60% in September and 70% by the end of the year."
You obviously don't understand what you are reading. This is a prediction by Eurocontrol which has not actually materialized. And it is just one of three scenarios they worked out. What we are talking about here are actual numbers January to June where the avarage decline in Europe was 74%.
DeleteAgain you are wrong.
DeleteAir traffic in Europe in first 5 months of this year is 39% of traffic from 2019 and June can nothing but to improve that figures to expected 45% due to relaxed measures.
It is very close to 50% that I mentioned and very far from 74% decline you claimed.
"Our baseline scenario indicates that the number of flights should rise from 39% of 2019 levels in May to 57% in August." stated by Eurocontrol.
Not a single month in this year was under 34% of traffic from 2019
DeleteJan 36%
Feb 34%
Mar 36%
Apr 36%
May 39%
Jun expected 45% (worst case scenario 41%)
Boy how the rankings have changed. Crazy
ReplyDeleteHige difference between second and third place.
ReplyDeleteYes massive drop. Really interesting though
DeleteDifference will be even bigger, since Tirana dropped heavily their prices due to new ownership. Pristina Airport also. Add the new Kukesi Airport that has began to operate and Skopje will lose many passengers in the future, not to mention in 3-4 years the Vlora Airpot.
DeleteIronically the first three airports in ex-Yu all had their citizens unable to enter the EU for the first 6 months of the year.
ReplyDeleteCorrect.
DeleteOtherwise the difference between them and ZAG and SPU would have been even bigger.
Anon 09:28 First three airports in the list above accept visitors from all around the world except EU, while the ones in EU cannot. Maybe that's why there's a difference in numbers? Maybe that's why the traffic recovery is multiple times better at European airports which are not in EU, compared to the ones at EU? Does that ring a bell?
DeleteFirst three airports have 80% of their market being inbound or outbound travel from the EU.
DeleteAnd in the end it just goes to show that restricting people from third countries is completely useless. The situation in western Europe was disastrous at the start of the year with the people in their 12th lockdown of the year. Had nothing to do with third countries.
DeleteBEG 922.000
ReplyDeletePRN 715.924
.
.
.
All Croatian airports 685.859
For BEG it helps that it has a strong national carrier and an LCC based there.
DeleteBravo Hrvatska!
DeleteVery weak demand out of Croatia
DeleteSJJ will probably overtake TGD this year
ReplyDeleteNo doubt
DeleteConsidering the situation, some have held up quite well.
ReplyDeleteWaiting for SJJ numbers to explode. I think it will happen this month with so many flights from the Gulf plus Wizz Air now operating in full capacity.
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering if SJJ might have more passengers than July 2019. One to watch.
DeleteSJJ numbers in July and August will be crazy, might even overtake ZAG. Cant wait to see :)
DeleteLJU shall start a new business, connecting by bus ZAG, VCE and GRZ. Exactly to the airports which took their market starting 15y ago. Good morning Slovenia.
ReplyDeletelol
DeleteThe more problematic thing is that revenue and profits have declined heavily. While governments are helping out their airlines, many have forgotten their airports.
ReplyDeleteSome are helping. Croatian government recently gave guarantees for ZAG concessionaire to take out a loan.
DeleteLJU received aid and so have airports in Bosnia.
DeleteBelgrade has managed to weather the storm and avoid collapse.
ReplyDeleteAirports should do more of what Sarajevo did, especially smaller airports
ReplyDeleteWhat exactly? To become an islamic state (not saying this in a bad manner)? Most of the demand is coming from the Middle East. That's not a viable scenario for any other airport in the region.
Deletedoes anyone know what the hell happened to BER-BNX route? communicating with Ryanair is like pulling teeth, and I like my teeth thank you very much
ReplyDeleteNot surprised
ReplyDeleteMostar Airport's outlook is dire
ReplyDeleteThe difference between BEG and PRN is not big at all.
ReplyDeleteIt will get bigger. Keep in mind that in Q1 Pristina was ahead of Belgrade. So in 3 months from April to June Belgrade overtook it and added an extra 200,000 passengers.
DeletePristina Airport will have a fight back. 120 000 in first two weeks in July and new routes starting second week of July: Amsterdam, Rome....
DeleteYeah, I think PRN will fight back too. This is the only ex-Yu airport being able to handle and operate A340 flights. Simply insane.
DeleteBEG has been handling and operating Conviasa A340 flights for a while and still is. BEG currently has regular passenger service on TK A330, JU A330 and SU A333.
DeleteI do not think Conviasa passengers are counted as BEG passengers.
DeleteNobody enters or leaves that plane in Belgrade.
Conviasa flights are just for freight.
DeletePristina Airport haven seen even close full potential. Having in mind that Kosovo is the only place in ex-Yu without visa liberalization. Will be insane to see Pristina in future reaching 4-5 millions passengers for such a small country.
DeleteWho would have thought Dubrovnik numbers would be behind Tivat? On one hand, two US airlines starting services, on the other hand less than 100k passengers for the first half of 2021. Stunning.
ReplyDeletedoes anyone have belgrade by months? thx!!!
ReplyDeleteDont be scared about Zagreb, next year the numbers will be same like two years ago..it means second busiest in exyu...some people on this site are so happy about numbers in Zagreb this year, but they will be dissapointed very soon..
ReplyDeleteZAG is an EU capital, of course it will do better and will not rely on 3rd party countries such as India, Russia or China to fill its airports. It's just a matter of time.
DeleteGreat strategy that is proving. Airport just took out another loan on top of the debt it already has accumulated and has fewer passengers than Skopje.
DeleteLJU is also an EU capital. That doesn't guarantee a lot of traffic.
DeleteSome people and self proclaimed experts published opinions on how ZAG was closing on BEG couple of years ago but despite that opinion gap between the two actually grew bigger in favor of BEG. Just a matter a time before BEG with soon to be available 29 air bridges grows the gap even bigger.
Well good for BEG.
DeleteAnon at 01:32: ZAG will not rely on 3rd party countries such as Russia to fill its airports.
DeleteWow I did not know ZAG will cancel Aeroflot flights from Moscow to avoid Russia filling Croatia's airports. Are SPU and DBV also going to ban tourist flights from Russia? What is a 3rd party country anyway? Is Croatia going to dismantle Peljesac bridge as it was build by 3rd part country China?
Well said.
DeleteThat kind of comment mentioning "third world countries" reminds me very much on a guy who claimed here that ZAG is prestigious airport and does not need LCC.
It seems he has hidden somewhere.
Nice showing for Podgorica... I was looking to book a trip from Toronto via London UK to MNE, and it appears that only two budget airlines will be flying to MNE from the UK this summer, EasyJet and Ryanair. Was thinking of flying BA to Dubrovnik but then there's the hassle of finding ground transportation to *any* Montenegrin city from there. Any tips on how to solve this? I know there are taxi companies but only some are reliable... There used to be a Dubrovnik-Kotor bus line, not sure if it's still around. All tips super welcome.
ReplyDeleteToronto - NewYork, Belgrade, Tivat. Air Serbia. Easy.
DeleteAccording to telegrafi, PRN yesterday (on 23.07.2021) had 130 arrivals and departures.
ReplyDeleteSee link
Deletehttps://telegrafi.com/ne-aeroportin-adem-jashari-rekord-operimesh-130-vetem-sot/