NEWS FLASH
Prstina Airport ended 2021 by handling 2.176.036 passengers, which is just 8% below its record in 2019, when it welcomed 2.373.698 travellers. Overall, it marks the second busiest year for the airport in its history. The growth was generated by pent-up demand for travel from the diaspora, as well as the swift development of tour operator MyWings Aviation, which has established a number of routes from Pristina through partner airlines. The airport anticipates registering its busiest year in 2022 by handling 2.5 million passengers, unless new virus-related restrictions impacting travel are introduced.
Unbelievable! I think this may put PRN on the top 100 busiest airports in Europe following the closure and restrictions of so many airports. The gap with BEG will be narrow this year if it reaches 2,5m as
ReplyDeleteProjected.
If they reach 2.5 million it will be 50% of traffic. So less narrow than this year.
DeleteWho would've thought PRN would go that far... also the runway upgrade I read the other day here. Very good developments. Do you know if there will be A330 operations this year?
DeleteNot sure, but on interview from Minister for Infrastructure, he mention that with upgrade of runway, they have many demands for flights to PRN. He mention as example Turkey, who are planning to increase weekly flights from 28 to 48.
DeleteTürkiye is planning more flights because of a longer runway? Interesting, i didn't know it worked like that.
DeleteHas nothing to do with runway, but landing system. From category 2 to 3B, which enables landing in bad weather. Main reasons for TK flight cancellation to Pristina over years.
DeleteCancellation of flights that are scheduled to begin with. So those flights will actually operate instead of being cancelled or diverted. It doesn't affect the number of frequencies.
DeleteIt's phenomenon to me how EU airports struggled even though you could fly intra EU with less or no restrictions, and yet we have PRN who skyrocketed despite all the restrictions as non-EU member state.
ReplyDeleteI guess answer is in base from witch you calculate.
DeleteI find this extremely interesting
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/air-trips-per-capita?region=Europe
It shows that number of flight originating per country in 2019. Just as example how is read this: people in Serbia fly once a year (if they fly at all), going to holidays. That's what they did in 2019, that's what they did in 2021.
However, people in Belgium used to fly few times for leasure reasons (summer holiday, spring break and probably winter holidays), while now they are more cautions about spring and winter trips (summer noone wants to miss, Covid or no Covid).
You should also consider that these restrictions didnt worth for diaspora which is still most important passenger category in PRN.
DeleteYeah, due to visa requirements there is virtually no outbound tourism originating from PRN.
DeleteIt's not about visas. Kosovo Bureau of Statistics published some grim statistics recently. Average family in Kosovo spends €7.803 per year which is €1.511 per family member which makes the citizens of Kosovo the poorest in Europe. It was published in all local media.
DeleteAverage per capital spending in Europe is $35.800 while in Kosovo is $4.442. EBRD estimates that our region will need between 200 and 400 years to reach EU standard of living.
Until these numbers improve don't expect any outbound demand from Kosova.
Is not only diaspora. Kosovars has build this culture of going on holidays multiple times a year. You can see only on border between Albania and Kosovo, every weekend you wait for hours to cross the border from people returning from short weekends. As example for Antalya before was one flights a day, while this years were four-five flights a day and you cannot find a seat. I couldn't book holiday in Antalya this year, due to non availability of the seats on the flight.
Deletebasel is the first destination out of Pristina airport
ReplyDeleteZurich may still be the busiest route out of PRN, but over the years the traffic has moved significantly from Zurich to Basel (EuroAirport) due to no-frills airlines. But Zurich still has very significant traffic and will be hard to surpass it (I don't have final detailed figures for 2021).
DeleteAlso, worth noting that in 2020 Prishtina was the businest destination for EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg and it's likely to have been the same in 2021. If I recall correctly Prishtina was the 3rd or 4th business destination for EuroAirport prior to the pandemic.
next saturday we are waiting about 15 flights from Pristina to Basel..
DeleteGenuinely impressive Nico. And some of these flights are operated with A321 aircraft with well over 200 seats.
DeleteWhat is also interesting to me is that the independent (family, ethnic flight operators, whatever term people use) are not just holding up against no-frills airlines like easyJet and Wizz Air, but seem to have a better offer, at least in terms of frequencies.
Air Prishtina is now operating a Chair Airlines A320 as well as Enter Air A737 in addition to Chair Airlines A319 for BSL-PRN route.
we have a good week end in Basel with 28 flights today and tomorrow...
Deleteif Visa restrictions are ever lifted, PRN will most likely maintain 2nd spot in exYU.
ReplyDeleteThat's over 200,000 passengers in December 2021 alone.
ReplyDelete