NEWS FLASH
Pristina Airport has registered its busiest January on record, outperforming figures it achieved during the same month in both the pre-pandemic 2019 and 2020. Pristina Airport welcomed an impressive 194.207 passengers through its doors, representing an increase of 6% on January 2020, when it handled 183.130 travellers, as well as an increase of 15.1% on 2019. During the month, the airport saw 1.584 aircraft movements, also its best on record. Pristina Airport anticipates 2022 will be its busiest year and estimates handling 2.5 million passengers.
Congratulations. Excellent result
ReplyDeleteVery interested to see how February 2022 goes, particularly in comparison to 2020.
DeleteWizz Air's network is down to bear bones, but Eurowings and others have the same schedule throughout the winter.
Meanwhile Skopje airport is sleeping...with very few flights per day...
ReplyDeleteWhich only goes to show that all of their recent success was thanks to PRN's inactivity. Once they became active SKP performance collapsed.
DeleteWizz base in TIA as well. Many Albanians used to go to SKP for cheap flights. No need to anymore.
Delete@Anon 11:17
DeleteNot true.
SKP success over the last decade was simply because Wizz Air brought a new business model to the country and the market responded.
Yes, some Kosovars made use of this new offer, but that's not the reason why SKP had such success in the last decade.
SKP plateaued because tripling of the market size every decade is not possible , but also because PRN is being covered by and more by operators like Wizz Air, easyJet, Pegasus etc.
"But also because PRN is being covered by and more by operators"
DeleteSo it's partially true?
Partially true, correct. There is no doubt about it.
DeleteNonetheless, the credit for the rapid growth at SKP should go to Wizz Air's business model. It stimulated a lot of new traffic out of North Macedonia that was not there before. Additionally, it attracted some passengers from Kosovo and Albania too.
This is impressive. How?! Is Kosovo diaspora really that big? Let's not forget Kosovo population is now well under 2 million while their airport is killing it. I know these two things don't have to in correlation, but when you realize Pristina had almost 4 times more pax than Sarajevo or 50.000 more pax than Zagreb and probabaly a significantly more pax than Skopje this month, I mean... Super impressive.
ReplyDeletethey dont care about (are not afraid of ) Corona. thats the main reason
DeleteThere is a massive exodus of population and most go to the West to get jobs. With more LCC links with PRN more of them can afford to return home and visit family and friends. In the past they would only come in summer and stay one month and now more and more come for a few days and go back.
DeleteThe less people there are in Kosovo, the more passengers PRN will have. It's sad but it's the truth. That's why there are only flights to gasto destinations.
Keep in mind that Kosovo is much farther from Western Europe than Zagreb area, or Slovenia is. For them it is a drive of a few hours, maybe even 8--10, but for someone from Kosovo it is a much longer drive to W. Europe.
DeleteI'm happy because airport is doing very well, despite that I'm sad because I know a lot of people already gone to EU because they don't have a job in Kosovo.
ReplyDeleteImmigrations level don't differ much from those in other Balkan countries.
ReplyDeleteId say strong family bonds are the main incentive for flying often.
Kosovars will fly home on monthly basis if they can.
If PRN reaches 5 million passengers in next years I would not be surprised.
Strong family bonds is critical here.
DeleteBut Covid-19 has had another positive effect as far as air travel in Kosovo is concerned in that it has discouraged many to drive (too many countries en-route, each with their own rules) or fly to neighbouring countries (SKP in particular). I don't think these last two categories have made a major contribution to the figures, but it would be reasonable to assume these two have made the difference between January 2020 figures and those of January 2022.
Immigration level is very different, especially in Kosovo and Bosnia & Herzegovina. Check the facts
DeleteThe level of immigration has not drastically changed in the last two years, but somehow in the middle of a worldwide pandemic the airport is having its busiest months ever (see July and August of 2021) and busiest January ever.
DeleteIf anything it's been harder to immigrate into any of the EU countries over the past 2 years.
DeleteMeanwhile Croatia lost 400k people in the last decade to the point where the chronic problem of the past - the unemployment, became a new problem - the lack of workforce.
Croatia is solving this by increasing immigration...beginning with other Balkan countries to importing workforce from the Philippines, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, India...etc. The most bizarre thing however is, unlike any other country in the EU, Croatia for some reason does not count immigrants on its censuses...as though they weren't living and working there, paying taxes, renting apartments, using roads and public transit, needing healthcare...etc.
Weird does not begin to describe Croatia.
I wonder what will now happen with the new Kukes Airport open in Albania. Will it affect OHD and PRN, time will show. Wizzair already announced an expansion over there.
ReplyDeleteWizz will play all the those airports against each other.
DeleteYeah, could be. But I also suppose they got some sweet discounts from the government to start promoting the airport. Which by the way looks awesome.
DeleteIt's mostly a propaganda tool. The government has been begging to Varadi for 1 year for a couple of crappy gasto routes, so the airport wouldn't end up in a complete failure. I doubt it will affect anything.
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