Three airports in the former Yugoslavia have placed among the top 100 busiest on the continent this March, as well as during the first quarter of the year, according to Airports Council International Europe (ACI). With a total of 292.924 passengers last month, Belgrade Airport ranked 82nd ahead of the likes of Larnaca, Vilnius and Luxembourg, but just behind Thessaloniki, Riga and Tirana. After several months, Zagreb Airport faired better than Pristina, welcoming 196.280 travellers. It positioned itself as the 95th busiest, ahead of Billund, Tbilisi and Yerevan but behind Newcastle, Tromso in Norway and Treviso. Just behind was Pristina, ranking into the top 100 by placing 96th with 195.241 passengers.
March performance
Q1 performance
During the first quarter, Belgrade, Pristina and Zagreb were among Europe’s 100 busiest airports, while Skopje was the closest among others from the former Yugoslav region to making the list, ranking 110th. It was just ahead of Aberdeen, East Midlands and Paphos in Cyprus. Sarajevo Airport was 130th on the continent, surpassing Alghero, Bremen and Rovaniemi in Finland. On the other hand, Ljubljana ranked 150th, in between Olbia and Chania. Out of all the European markets, only four in Europe have surpassed their 2019 pre-pandemic passenger performance during the first quarter - Albania, with the largest growth in Europe exceeding 38%, followed by Kosovo with 15% growth, Bosnia and Herzegovina with an increase of 3.5% and Armenia with marginal 0.3% growth. With exception to Ukraine, which is in the midst of war, as well as Moldova, which reopened part of its airspace on March 22, Slovenia saw the slowest recovery on the continent.
 |
| Traffic performance change March 2022 vs March 2019 for select markets |
 |
| Traffic performance change Q1 2022 vs Q1 2019 |
During the month, the effects of the war in Ukraine were felt, albeit they have been mostly limited to European countries bordering the two states. “In addition to the collapse of passenger traffic at Ukrainian airports and the loss of most international passenger traffic at Russian airports, for some other airports these risks are immediate. This is the case for those in the vicinity of Russia and Ukraine, or which are generally reliant upon inbound traffic from these countries - such as airports in Cyprus, the Baltics and along the Bulgarian coast”, Olivier Jankovec, the Director General of ACI Europe, said. He added, “But for most of Europe’s airports, these downside traffic risks remain much less acute for now, as they essentially relate to the inflationary pressures accelerated by the conflict. This is about the extent to which increasing oil and other commodity prices might lead airlines to increase their fares, reduce disposable income for households and affect both consumer and business confidence”. During the first quarter, Istanbul, London Heathrow and Paris Charles de Gaulle were the busiest airports in Europe.
 |
| Top ten airports by traffic volume Q1 2022 |
"With exception to Ukraine, which is in the midst of war, as well as Moldova, which reopened part of its airspace on March 22, Slovenia saw the slowest recovery on the continent."
ReplyDeleteDidn't the CEO of LJU say the other day we can't compare apple and pears? I guess we can compare our aviation market to Moldova...
Agreed. They do very little to make someone establish a base...
DeleteAs well as, you can only have a charter hub if you have someone like tui or condor, not only one plane based like tradeair and few other charters from outside the country...
Yes, it seems we can now be compared only to a country that had its airspace closed for 2 months :(
DeleteI don't know if I should laugh or cry
DeleteIt just shows how much the management is detached from reality.
DeleteLet's see if Split makes it into the top 100 by the end of the year.
ReplyDeleteIt should
DeleteSPU will have a very strong summer.
DeleteNot bad
ReplyDeleteIs there a link for the complete list of those top 100 airports?
ReplyDeleteOr is it available only for subscribers of the ACI?
Many thanks for any help.
I think it's only available to registered media.
DeletePity but glad we get this info at least.
DeleteYou can google buisiest airports in europe
DeleteDon’t understand why BEG is behind Thessaloniki. Is SKG that busy ?
ReplyDeleteIt's the main entry point for all of northern Greece as well as the islands in the northern Aegean.
DeleteSKG serves as the only international airport for an area with about 2 million people.
DeletePlus it is in an E.U. country with much higher GDP per capita than Serbia.
It's not so much about the GDP as it is about tourism arrivals in the summer. Once summer goes away BEG is ahead. Also don't forget that last year the difference between BEG and SKG was not that big. This year without Russian tourists in Greece their summer performance won't be as spiffing.
Delete@ANONYMOUS 10:02 according to the Greek ministry of tourism, 2022 will be at 90% of 2019 level. They said that according to the bookings they have. So 90% of 33.000.000 tourists is 29.700.000. Not bad at all for me.
DeleteThessaloniki also enjoys a lot of domestic operations
DeleteAnd I should note it is a hub for 4 airlines.
DeleteLet's see if BEG can reach 1.1 or 1.2 at the end of this month.
ReplyDeleteI don't think BEG will be able to have 500,000 passengers in April. That would be more than in 2019.
DeleteApril should be around 350.000 passengers.
DeleteNot bad at all
DeleteBEG's overall performance will greatly depend on how Air Serbia performs this year. I am not just talking about charters but their overall network and especially the number of transfers they manage to attract.
ReplyDeleteThat said, it's nice to see Air Serbia resume MAD flights today.
Air Serbia should have a strong summer.
DeleteTIA and PRN growth this year is out of charts. Unbelivable!
ReplyDeleteAgree. For TIA I understand, it's down to Wizz Air. But what about Pristina? There have not been so many new routes. Probably planes are full though.
DeleteThe diaspora is huge. Many in the Scandinavian countries couldn’t come last year because of the strict covid restrictions the countries had.
DeleteMakes sense, thanks. Good work for PRN in any case. If Wizz Air carries through with those plans to open a base there, we will see huge growth.
DeleteAnyone know if BEG gates C1-C6 are opened for use or is the reconstruction still ongoing? I don't see them being used on beg.aero
ReplyDeleteThey are being reconstructed and a floor is being built on top.
DeleteCool, thanks. Do you know when they should complete these works? I see that they also stopped using A6/10 gates which is also good.
DeleteIt will take a bit longer than the refurbishment of A1, A2 etc because here they started immediately building the whole connection with the new floor so gates will be identical to the new ones. After that I believe they will go back to A1-A6 to build the connection with the new floor. A6-A10 gates will be reconstructed in the very last phase. They have mostly stopped using them because they can handle the traffic with the existing new gates and because of lot of complaints from airlines and passengers about A9, A10 gates which are very small.
DeleteI think A6-10 will take the longest because these gates weren't included in the reconstruction project some 15 years ago. Back then the terminal was expanded by linking the gate area and turning it into open space where today we have some seating area or shops.
DeleteActually, will be interesting to see what they do with A10 since that one is an improvised gate. Maybe they will remove it and add some terminal space. I mean, it's not like they need it now after the C terminal expansion.
Then again maybe they will turn A10 into a bus gate with the parking position in front for Ryanair. 3:D
I guess the situation at the old A6-10 gates would be better now regarding security has not to be done at the gate anymore and there is no more need to squeeze passengers for a A321 flight into the space of a living room. But even like this I would be fine with hibernating that run-down part of the airport until renovation is finished there as well.
DeleteYes, those older gates were indeed horrible. Who knows, maybe they will merge A9 and A10 into a larger gate that could be used by a widebody. In the end they might just remove A10 and get it over with.
DeleteI still don't know what their plan is for the cargo terminal. Right now their capacities are not great and facilities are extremely outdated.
I'm surprised at how little the decline is in Russia considering all foreign airlines have stopped flights.
ReplyDeleteStrong domestic market I guess
DeleteI know there is a strong domestic market but still. I would not have thought that this would manage to substitute the loss of so many airlines and flights.
DeleteZagreb behind Newcastle, Tromso and Treviso. Capital of EU member, touristic superpower and country with 4 million diaspora on all continents, located in the hearth of Europe, on all major crossroads. Bravo Croatia Airlines! Bravo ADEZE! We had bigger numbers, more connections and better ranking 40 years ago
ReplyDeleteWill be interesting to see if they manage to keep these rankings this year
ReplyDeleteCongratulations. I'm really surprised to see Tirana ahead of all of them.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations to them. Really impressive.
DeleteI'm hoping one day an ex-Yu airport will reach top 50.
ReplyDeletePerhaps BEG will manage one day.
DeleteNice. Last year we only had 2 in the top 100 and before Covid just 1. Let's hope it can stay this way.
ReplyDeleteWow, apparently Slovenia really was the only country affected by covid (as someone here suggested a few months ago, that LJU recovery was slow due to the government's strict anti-covid measurements). Just goes to show, that people have no clue what they're talking about.
ReplyDeleteAmazing for Bosnia and Herzegovina aviation. Hopefully this will increase more and SJJ, BL, TZL and OMO will be where they deserves.
ReplyDelete