Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport was the only one from the former Yugoslavia to rank within the top 100 on the continent based on passengers traffic this April. During the January - April period, both Belgrade and Pristina were within the 100 busiest, although the latter just made it onto the list. It comes as airports across Western Europe stage a strong recovery, as Covid restrictions are lifted. With a total of 390.042 passengers in April, Belgrade Airport ranked 84th ahead of the likes of Keflavik (Reykjavik), Tirana and Vilnius, but just behind Thessaloniki, Larnaca and Riga. Both Pristina and Zagreb, which have placed within the top 100 throughout the year, failed to do so in April, ranking 103rd and 105th respectively. Skopje came 128th, Split 135th and Sarajevo 151st. Notably, during the month, both Niš and Banja Luka airports handled more traffic than Tivat.
April performance
January - April performance
During the first quarter, Belgrade and Pristina were among Europe’s 100 busiest airports, while Zagreb was the closest to making the list, ranking 103rd. It was just ahead of Tbilisi, Treviso and Tallinn. Skopje Airport was 120th on the continent, surpassing Memmingen, Salzburg and Montpellier. On the other hand, Ljubljana ranked 162nd, in between Strasbourg and Harstad in Norway. Out of all the European markets, only three in Europe have surpassed their 2019 pre-pandemic passenger performance during the first four months of the year - Albania, with the largest growth in Europe exceeding 34%, followed by Kosovo with 20.6% growth and Bosnia and Herzegovina with an increase of 9.1%. With exception to Ukraine, which is in the midst of war, as well as Belarus, which is unable to handle any traffic from the majority of Europe due to international sanctions, Slovenia saw the slowest recovery on the continent.
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| Passenger performance change January - April 2021 vs 2019 |
Airports Council International Europe (ACI) has revised upwards its passenger traffic forecast for 2022 and beyond, with a base case for Europe’s airports to fall 22% below 2019 levels over the full year - compared with the previous forecast of -32% published last October. A full recovery to pre-pandemic volumes is now expected for 2024 rather than 2025. However, the airport association sounded a loud note of caution, pointing to the triple jeopardy of the return of geopolitics, worsening economic conditions and the threat of new Covid variants as creating significant uncertainty and traffic downside risks. During the first four months of the year, Istanbul was the busiest airport in Europe, followed by London Heathrow, Paris, Amsterdam, Madrid, Frankfurt and Barcelona.
"Ljubljana ranked 162nd, in between Strasbourg and Harstad in Norway."
ReplyDeletewow
New reality unfortunately.
DeleteAnd this Norwegian airport has only 6 year round routes.
DeleteYes but they are mostly domestic and I assume have 20 flights per day to Oslo.
DeleteThis airport had more passengers than Ljubljana last year. But keep in mind it is in the far North of Norway. They have no other way of traveling but by plane.
DeleteThe LJU management told us we shouldn't compare apples and pares :D
DeleteWe shouldn't really compare LJU to other airports. I don't think anyone has as useless management as LJU.
DeleteWas it pears or oranges? We should check with Fraport just to be sure.
Delete@9.35 the only ones we can compare in terms of recovery at the moment is Belarus and even they are close. Slovenian traffic is down 60% on 2019. Belarus 61%
DeleteI don't know if I should laugh or cry
DeleteSame
Deletethis friday LJU has finally more than 20 departures ... its been a while...
DeleteLet's hope recovery is on the way. But it will be a long road.
DeleteIt's impressive that INI and BNX had more passengers than TIV
ReplyDeleteTivat will be affected a lot this summer. No Russians, No Ukrainians, No Belarussians.
DeleteTIV is a summer destination.
DeleteRegardless by April (which was Easter this year) it was always ahead the smaller regional airports.
DeleteIt is logicial that the Ukraine-Russia war will impact it, 50% of its passengers were Russian.
Delete@ex-Yu admin: Could you tell us how many passengers there were in Tivat in April and from January to April? Thanks in advance.
Delete30.030 passengers in April
Delete62.293 passengers during January - April period (210th in Europe).
Congratulations
ReplyDeleteLet's see if Split makes it into the top 100 by the end of the year.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't look likely.
DeleteSo BEG is again ahead of Tirana.
ReplyDeleteOf course.
Deleteit always was
DeleteWell it wasn't the case so far this year.
Delete''With a total of 390.042 passengers in April, Belgrade Airport ranked 84th ahead of the likes of Keflavik (Reykjavik), Tirana and Vilnius'' Tirana had 386.444 pax for April. So, not that far off.
DeleteFYI: For Jan-April 2022 Tirana had 1.147.270pax while BEG 1.132.864 but likely that BEG will have more pax than TIA in the following months. Will see but likely will be a close race.
DeleteHas Wizz Air now based all of its planned aircraft in Tirana or are more of the announced ones yet to be stationed there?
DeleteAs far as I remember they announced that they will base 10 aircraft and they already have 9 based in TIA
Deletewow. And I believe they only started flying to TIA recently.
DeleteThey opened the base less than 2 years ago.
DeleteI don’t know about BEG, but TIA will see continous growth in next years. This year most probably will have about 4.5 million pax.
DeleteBut in two-three years TIA will reach 7 million. TIA needs to built bigger terminal, much bigger and then TIA can go ahead toward 10 million pax until the end of decade.
TIA has a big potential.
My assumption is that by the end of May BEG had around 1.58 million.
ReplyDeleteYes, 450,000 seems realistic in May.
DeleteHow many passengers did Belgrade have in May 2019?
Delete507,663
DeleteThanks. So I would agree then that 450,000 is realistic. Maybe a bit more.
DeleteI think it will be stronger than that but we will see.
DeleteNice lineup on the pic :)
ReplyDeleteRussian market just 11% behind 2019 levels? And all of this with sanctions.
ReplyDeleteHuge domestic market.
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.
DeleteI agree, I'm surprised as well.
DeleteThey have many international flights as well.
DeleteNot all markets are closed.
Here in EVN they have 5-10 daily flights to Russia, many with SSJ.
Beautiful plane btw.
Lepo je opet citati vase Komentare Aэrologic :)
DeleteINN—NS
Aerologic, it’s a shame that airlines don’t operate aircraft based on subjective assessment of beauty. Otherwise, SSJ could have had more non-Russian airlines operate the type other than the 5 or so aircraft that are currently supposed to be in operation.
DeleteI know, I know, even Nemjee tried hard to push that piece of junk in this forum with “very happy” Irish and Mexican operators that didn’t pass the long term truth test.
Even the EVN-based airline returned that junk.
Mind you, the plane itself didn't fail because it was junk based on its performance, it failed because of after sales support, especially related to spare parts that were manufactured by the Italians and French.
Delete@Anonymous 07:09
DeleteRegardless of the reason of its failure, I don't want it anywhere near AirSERBIA.
Thanks, but no thanks.
Will any ex-Yu airport stay in the top 100 by the end of the year?
ReplyDeleteBEG will stay in top 100 for sure.
DeleteIt should. Before Covid BEG was hovering in the 90-100 position. I think that's where it will end up in 2022 as well.
DeleteI would say BEG will keep its position as before pandemic and it was between 80th and 90th place.
DeleteSo it seems Pristina will be the ahead of Zagreb for a second year in a row.
ReplyDeleteLooks like it, especially since ZAG traffic will be impacted in May and June by all the Ryanair cuts.
DeleteRyanair also cut flights until second half of july in ZAG
DeleteDisaster.
DeleteI think these will be delayed even more. If ZAG didn't manage to fill these FR flights in June and July I don't think they will manage to do so after.
DeleteI think Zagreb will be in 2nd place of Croatian airports this year with all the cancellations in high season, and most likely winter, also CA adding frequencies to Split this summer and plans to add more frequencies and routes in winter as well as 15 new routes this year in Split in comparison to 4 in Zagreb.
DeleteThe only problem of ZAG, and whole croatian civil aviation is politically driven, incompetent, corrupt and outdated Croatia Airlines which lost all opportunities and potentials for its own growth and development, and growth and development of ZAG as its hub.
DeleteAs always the world revolves around OU for mr Pozdrav. You know not every country has a flag carrier right? PRN, SJJ are booming without a local airline. What a terrible excuse for ZAG.
DeleteAnd as usual POZDRAV with all those accusations for corruption without any proof !!!
DeleteSvatko se cese gdje ga svrbi! Uhljebi na aparatima!
DeleteThey always write the same thing and only on the subject of Croatia. This company is also a good example of government mismangement and incompetence. But with the experience and knowledge they have, I'm a little surprised that they almost never comment on other topics here. For example why Ryanair is making so many cancellations in Zagreb
DeletePRN was ahead of ZAG for two years. This year would be the third.
DeleteHow come PRN and ZAG suddenly got knocked off from the list?
ReplyDeleteIt says. Airports in western Europe started performing better.
DeleteKnocked off is the right word.
DeleteUnfortunate. Hopefully PRN and ZAG will make it in the top 100 by the end of the year.
ReplyDeleteDoubt it
DeleteBefore Covid, Belgrade and Zagreb (sometimes even Split) were always in the top 100. Pristina entered last year. We will see what happens by the end of the year.
DeleteCongratulations. I'm really surprised to see Tirana ahead of all of them.
ReplyDeleteFrom May it will no longer be.
DeleteMaybe from June. Tirana hosted the conference league final. So that’s boosted may figures
DeleteWizz air is the answer.
Delete10:56 Wizz Air is not the answer for May. 23-25 TIA handled record numbers as they hosted the Europa Conference League final. 40+ aircraft parked in ramp with 17 parking positions, crazy days.
DeleteYeah, Wizz air has 9 aircraft in Tirana and you’re are saying how that is less important numbers than Europa League... Don’t be ridiculous. Those flights to and from TIA are packed to the last seat...
DeleteOh god almighty... I was talking about May specifically. We know that TIA is booming because of Wizz, it's been said here a hundred times. However, May in particular will be a record holder for TIA due to dozens of charters that brought Italians and Dutch.
DeleteI'm hoping one day an ex-Yu airport will reach top 50.
ReplyDeletePerhaps BEG will manage one day.
DeleteI doubt any of the current airports have capacity for that.
DeleteHappy to see BEG get so close to LCA which was always far ahead. Good news is that from today Cyprus has removed all entry requirements, vaccination included.
ReplyDeleteIf JU 's June expansion performs well then BEG could consolidate its ranking.
How many did LCA usually have pre Covid?
DeleteIn 2019 LCA had 8,229,346 passengers, up 2%.
DeletePFO had around 2.500.000 that year from what I remember.
Impressive
DeleteI would love to know what is currently the busiest route from ex-Yu.
ReplyDeleteI believe BEG-IST is among the busiest with so much capacity and healthy loads.
DeleteI think BEG-ZRH is busier.
DeleteCould be, I think it was the busiest route out of BEG back in 2019. Would be interesting to see what kind of capacity is offered in both markets. ZRH might see more weekly frequencies but I wouldn't be surprised if Istanbul is ahead in terms of overall capacity. After all there are days when LX sends the smaller A220 to BEG.
DeleteIs BEG position good? How far it can go in the future?
ReplyDeleteIt seems that BEG fanboys obssession shifted from BUD to TIA in less than 1 year. Love to see it :D
ReplyDeleteI don't see anyone obsessing about anything. Your comment says more about yourself though.
DeleteNope, BUD is still there, we almost caught up with it at least as far as demand to the UAE goes ;)
Delete12:13 You need glasses then
DeleteSecond 12:13 "Demand to the UAE" I like this one better. Seems more realistic.
No need for glasses. Your attitude and envy is visible without them :)
DeleteOk buddy 👍
DeleteIt is very true that TIA is booming but it is in reality the country's only airport. Kukes was launched quite recently so it cannot be yet included in the statistics.
DeleteTIA's airport serves for the capital, for the coast and diaspora. For the tourists obviously and you have no other entry level. from the rest of the world.
We also see an immense Italian connection to TIA for obvious reasons. In other words, many people would choose to arrive and depart from the same airport, see as much as they can and the return back. It will remain Albania's main airport for a good amount of time.
Uh well, it's quite a small country, you can't fit that many airports there. Even Serbia which is much bigger only has 2 (KVO is too insignificant to include). New airport in Vlorë, southern Albania will be opened in 2024 and most people living in the south and tourists coming for the coast will shift to the new airport.
DeleteBelgrade Airport is not Low Cost Airport, so you cannot rank them as same.
ReplyDeleteBergamo is fully low cost.
Average price ticket at Belgrade is at least 100 euros, Bergamo is
10 euro.
Average ticket price is way higher at both airports.
DeleteOn top of announced Euro destinations and charters, Belgrade also needs things like major new tourist attractions, tourists from China/other Asia countries and new long haul lines to grow passengers numbers way beyond 2019 levels. No indications any of those will happen soon.
ReplyDeleteIs there a reason why Macedonia is a "body of water" in the image above? :)
ReplyDeleteGood result
ReplyDeleteShows how insignificant the ex-Yu market is. Just 1 airport in top 100.
ReplyDeleteSame for Austria, Finland, Ireland, Hungary etc... so sad.
DeleteAverage Airport in EU, looks like a Bum Shelter, they sleep all over around, Bergamo Airport is Shelter for local homeless people during Winter, Dublin and many other, looks like a place for bums.
ReplyDeleteYou cannot compare Airports by numbers and chase with Bums.
They properly stink at Bergamo Airport and you cannot walk around, during a night.
Bathroom the same story, stinky places.
Wtf? Dublin Airport is actually way cleaner and better than BEG. I have no idea what are you talking about.
DeleteI'm wondering. Why did Wizz wait so long with opening a base in Tirana if it suddenly proves itself as much more successful than even Skopje?
ReplyDelete