Legacy carriers brace for Lufthansa shake-up in Skopje


Legacy carriers operating at Skopje Airport are preparing for Lufthansa’s arrival on the market, with the German carrier to launch ten weekly rotations to the Macedonian capital in less than month, along with plans for further growth. Wizz Air dominates in Skopje, making competition between the legacy carriers more pronounced. Turkish Airlines is by far the largest among them. According to data provided by the European Statistical Office, it handled 158.955 passengers between Istanbul and Skopje in 2022. Despite its hub being east of the Macedonian capital, Turkish Airlines sees notable transfer traffic on the route to Western Europe, the United States and Canada, which are being targeted by Lufthansa as well.

Legacy carrier performance in Skopje, 2022


Commenting on Lufthansa’s upcoming arrival in Skopje, the General Manager of Skopje Airport operator TAV Macedonia, Metin Batak, said, “We are very happy over Lufthansa’s decision to enter the Macedonian market, by launching flights between Frankfurt and Skopje. This means that as of April, Skopje will be connected to Frankfurt, which is Lufthansa’s main hub and one of Europe’s most important transfer airports. Additionally, the high frequency of scheduled flights, seven days per week with double daily flights on select days, gives great flexibility for our passengers traveling to Germany and those connecting within Europe and North America. This new connection is especially important for passengers traveling for business purposes and it will give new options for air cargo transport to Germany, as the main trade partner of North Macedonia”. The German national carrier noted, “Lufthansa is offering Skopje for the first time from April 23 and will connect the capital of Northern Macedonia up to two twice a day. The flights are scheduled to be attractive for both business travellers and tourists. Lufthansa is strengthening its position in Eastern Europe by adding Skopje".

Notably, the majority of legacy carriers serving Skopje are either part of the Lufthansa Group or Star A
lliance, including Turkish Airlines, Austrian, Croatia Airlines and LOT Polish Airlines. Among the national carriers in the former Yugoslavia – Croatia Airlines and Air Serbia – the former maintains its dominance on the Macedonian market. The Croatian carrier sees a notable number of transfer traffic on the route. Its Star Alliance membership also provides benefits for passengers connecting through Zagreb onto Germany for long haul flights. It is the Star Alliance membership that also saw a number of travellers migrate from Adria to Croatia Airlines following the Slovenian carrier’s collapse in late 2019. Frankfurt is its number one Skopje transfer destination followed by the likes of Brussels, Amsterdam and Munich. On the other hand, the likes of New York, Ljubljana, Zurich and Amsterdam are among Air Serbia's top Skopje transfer destinations.



Comments

  1. Anonymous09:00

    My guess is that LH will probably take the most passengers from Austrian.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:04

      Austrian will definitely be hurt by this

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:12

      Austrian still offers more flights than Lufthansa.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous11:07

      OU is the candidate not Austrian

      Delete
    4. Anonymous16:17

      Oh yes...everyone is a candidate but JU??? JU has been losing market share in SKP for a long time and this is going to hurt them more than anyone else. Everyone keeps saying how bad OU is, but yet according to the statistics in this article, they have carried almost twice as more passengers on the SKP route than JU.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous16:20

      Yes, the statistics speak for themselves. Air Serbia has 10 points better load factor despite more capacity, more than 5 times the cargo, profit and a million passengers more.

      And yes OU will be hit. If you bothered to read, Frankfurt is their top transfer destination from/to Skopje.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous07:50

      I see no issues hefe given a fact that Austrian and Lufthansa are two brands of the same company.

      Delete
  2. Anonymous09:01

    Considering the constant strikes happening at Lufthansa Group hubs, I would avoid them.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous09:03

    Wizz has little to be concerned about.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous12:17

      Wizz dominates in SKP.

      They are parking fift a320/1

      Delete
    2. Anonymous13:24

      Now this Wizzair route to Frankfurt Hahn (which has nothing to do with Frankfurt and is +100 km away from it) will become completely redundant, as there would be a direct connection to the airport of the actual city of Frankfurt.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous14:59

      You think gastos will suddenly decide to pay 500 euros to fly with LH? HHN will be just fine.

      Delete
  4. Anonymous09:03

    Very interesting numbers

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous09:06

    Worst airline,for avoiding.Always late and very bad service.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous11:07

      haha!

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:23

      Absolutely correct. Flew recently with them to Cyprus. 2,5 hrs Delay on Board! No water or anything handed out to passengers. The Captain was not stupid enough to say, quote:“the caterer doesn‘t answer the phone“! Seats are cramped, crew unfriendly! Avoid Lufthansa !!!!

      Delete
    3. Anonymous11:46

      it doesnt happen with other airlines im sure ^^

      Delete
  6. Anonymous09:07

    How come Air Serbia has so few passengers?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:08

      In Q1 of last year their entire network was really impacted due to Covid. In February they had very few flights, especially to Skopje. In Q2 their flights were impacted by Skopje runway closure as some of their flights were scheduled during the time the airport was closed.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:11

      True I forgot about that

      Delete
    3. Anonymous11:43

      @9.08 you can say that for every airline

      Delete
    4. Anonymous13:54

      You literally can't. Not all countries had same covid travel rules, JU cut a lot last January/February and didn't offer too many transfers at the time. And not all airlines had scheduled flights during the part of the day airport wasn't working.

      Delete
  7. Anonymous09:09

    What equipment will Lufthansa be using on its Skopje flights?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:10

      Depends on the day but A319, A320 and A321 all scheduled

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:11

      Nice!

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:11

      A-319/A320

      Delete
  8. Anonymous09:11

    wow only Turkish recorded improved numbers

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:12

      Only just

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:20

      Do remember there was Covid and its effects very much present in 2022.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:20

      Also Macedonians could travel to much of Europe until April.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous09:40

      was meant to say *could not

      Delete
    5. Anonymous10:29

      Turkish performance is fantastic especially considering that Anadolujet started flights and new routes from secondary Turkish airports have been launched by Pegasus and Sun Express. Turkish carries a lot of transfers to secondary airports in Turkey, especially in summer.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous10:30

      How many flights does Turkish Airlines have to Skopje?

      Delete
    7. Anonymous10:39

      Double daily.

      Delete
    8. Anonymous10:41

      Thanks. Is there potential for more?

      Delete
    9. Anonymous10:55

      Before the pandemic they announced third daily flight but it didn't happen.

      Delete
    10. Anonymous11:00

      What equipment does TK use mostly to SKP? Do they send a lot of A321s?

      Delete
    11. Anonymous11:06

      Mix of A321s and 738s.

      Delete
    12. Anonymous11:08

      its mostly A321s in the summer schedule. one two weekly are only on 73x

      Delete
    13. Anonymous12:12

      Turkish is big in SKP like all the Balkan any way. They ate the best legacy service I Europe in my opinion.

      Delete
    14. Anonymous13:28

      THY has different configuration on A321s, yes they have more capacity then the B739 but it is almost the same, the good thing is that they dont send A21N which have under 180 seats i think

      Delete
  9. Anonymous09:12

    This is just the beginning. Lufthansa will likely increase SKP to 14 weekly and launch Munich very soon.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:12

      Well they mid for the subsidy program for a reason.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:41

      I think we will see Eurowings launching flights rather than Lufthansa. And I believe LH was bidding on that tender on behalf of Eurowings.

      Delete
  10. Anonymous09:19

    I’m assuming there is a big play here for cargo opportunities into/out of MK, even if the passenger profitability isn’t huge.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:24

      Is there so much cargo from SKP? Although I do notice the general manager mentioning cargo for Lufthansa flights.

      Delete
  11. I am surprised that OU has 20 000 more pax. per year than YU.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:23

      It had double the number of flights to SKP for most of the year.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:26

      Croatia Airlines has always been a better performer than Air Serbia in Skopje. The only exception was in 2021 due to Corona but it didn't stick.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:27

      A lot of people dislike flying with JU due to ATR operations (especially since they operated until recently with old ATRs that were falling apart inside) and I doubt many know they are now flying with newer planes. Also years ago they had lots of delays.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous09:28

      OU will probably loose good share of flights as Lufthansa will be preferred choice for Germany. On the other side, Albanian diaspora is strong in Croatia and Slovenia, so I guess there is a nice market for direct flights that will remain.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous09:39

      Not to forget that OU is starting Split-Skopje this summer, so that will probably reduce numbers somewhat on Zagreb route.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous09:39

      And at the same time JU will have 20+ new routes. So it will be interesting to see if JU will get close to OU this year in Skopje.

      Delete
    7. Anonymous09:53

      9.28 Macedonia has it's own diaspora so do even go there as you always do!

      Delete
    8. Anonymous09:59

      @9.26 don't forget that JU benefited hugely from people being able to fly from the US via Belgrade in 2020 and 2021. Transfer via Schengen Area was not allowed.

      Delete
    9. Anonymous11:29

      @9.26 well not always but since they increased their number of flights. Before that they had a strange split schedule which made transfers very difficult. With party shifting their network to SPU ...

      Delete
  12. Anonymous09:24

    LOT carries the most passengers to Canada without doubt. Will be interesting to see how Lufthansa's arrival will impact them.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous09:27

    The only important metric is yields.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:37

      Yes, but passenger numbers are a good indication who is making money and who not.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:44

      Not always

      Delete
    3. Anonymous15:47

      It’s actually Revenue per available seat kilometre or mile (RASK or RASM)…

      Delete
  14. Anonymous09:43

    Welcome LH!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Anonymous09:43

    Wizz Air is the one that needs a shakeup. They are getting more and more expensive.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Anonymous09:47

    Lufthansa will definitely hurt a few airlines. Also Lufthansa, like in many Balkan countries, is viewed as some divine being by many Macedonians even though the service is crap, they are often delayed and their hubs are on strike more and more often.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous13:59

      Man, they had like billion eur profit last year.

      Delete
  17. Anonymous09:48

    Not surprised by TK and OS to be honest. They really dominate the market after Wizz.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Anonymous09:48

    List shows how dominant Star Alliance is at Skopje.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:50

      Star is dominant at all ex-Yu airports more or less.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:52

      It helps that the main diaspora centres of ex-Yu are in the three main Lufthansa group airlines - Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

      Delete
  19. Anonymous09:51

    Since New York is top US transfer route I think that there is more space for Air Serbia at Macedonian market, and also for EU transfers. Just to be more proactive and do much more marketing, which they seem to be lacking everywhere.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Anonymous09:52

    A few years ago there was an idea of TK operating some long haul flights from Skopje - to the US and Canada. Shame it never happened.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:59

      That was a long shot. It was initiated by TAV but when TK calculated the numbers, it just didn't make sense.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:06

      TK are killing it with transfers to the US from SKP. I guess cheap prices and great connections are the reason. They fly to so many US cities with double daily frequencies.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10:13

      I cannot believe someone is mentioning SKP-US flights when the airport doesn't have a link to AMS or CDG and not fully operate functionally in winter.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous10:26

      Agree. TAV should do more to engage Air France - Klm group

      Delete
    5. Anonymous11:18

      @10.06 yes but you cant beat FRA's US network.

      Delete
  21. Anonymous09:57

    One of the main reasons LH is starting flights is because there is room since Adria went bust.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:07

      I wonder to which airline the majority of passengers who used Adria for transfers migrated to

      Delete
    2. Anonymous11:10

      the two exyu airlines plus Austrian (according the same source in the article)

      Delete
  22. Anonymous10:07

    It's fascinating that the largest airline in Macedonia (Wizz), which is bigger in terms of operations than some other regional national carriers basically has no transfer passengers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:56

      To me it is interesting how little passengers the legacies have that do handle transfer passengers.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous11:16

      no routes no pax. Wizz is doing exactly the opposite

      Delete
  23. Anonymous10:07

    JU is dropping the ball in Skopje.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:25

      There's lots of room for improvement, that's for sure.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous11:13

      It's actually quite sad that both JU and OU have such small numbers in SKP with so many unserved routes.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous11:14

      they should really switch to something else then ATR

      Delete
    4. Anonymous11:44

      Why should they if there is no demand? Since when is SKP a legacy airlines specialist?

      Delete
    5. Anonymous11:48

      look at TK and OS (even LO)

      Delete
    6. Anonymous22:37

      Its not about being a legacy specialist. Its about others having 5 times more pax

      Delete
  24. Anonymous10:33

    The biggest problem with JU is the departure/arrival times in and out of SKP. Arrival at 2 a.m. or departure at 4 a.m. are not the most convinient ones. OU was carrying the largest portions of transfers to the US via Frankfurt and that will be over in few weeks which means they will be hurt the most by LH.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:56

      +1

      Delete
    2. Anonymous11:25

      agree with both of your arguments

      Delete
    3. Anonymous17:46

      Bingo... this is the biggest reason JU is dropping the ball at SKP. Nobody wants to spend an entire day at BEG waiting for their onward connection. Even if they were less expensive than Turkish, I would choose Turkish over JU all day (even with the backtracking). Total travel time will always be less than JU.

      Delete
  25. Anonymous10:55

    What about Aegean? Do they carry many passenger, I doubt considering their frequency and small aircraft.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous11:13

      well they dont since they are not interested in transfer pax from SKP. Still puzzles me. They could for sure reach LOT numbers

      Delete
    2. Anonymous13:27

      Aegean is adding a 3rd weekly flight to SKP this summer that does mean that they are performing well.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous13:46

      nice one! I guess they are doing OK with O&D. Their flight arrives in ATH at 22.30-45h so it doesnt really connect to anywhere in West Europe only Middle East ...

      Delete
    4. Anonymous15:04

      Thats basically what's they offering to Ex-Yu region good connections to the Middle East and Africa.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous15:47

      and thats the answer why they are so much behind Austrian in the exyu region

      Delete
  26. Anonymous10:56

    Would love to see these numbers for all main ex-Yu airports :)

    ReplyDelete
  27. Anonymous11:07

    They will all need to make themselves more competitive with good fares.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous11:12

      they are very competitive at the moment

      Delete
  28. Anonymous11:12

    LOT only 6k less then JU

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous11:14

      And LOT didn't fly to SKP until the start of 2022 summer seaon!

      Delete
    2. Anonymous11:24

      really? I think they did

      Delete
    3. Anonymous11:25

      Nope. Flights resumed in March.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous11:31

      it means for the rest of the year they should have at least reached 2019 numbers

      Delete
    5. Anonymous11:32

      didnt they pause during the reconstruction works as well?

      Delete
  29. Anonymous11:21

    Good to see that TK and OS are stronger (OS is -2.8% but we couldnt travel for the first few months) even with an ever expanding Wizz

    ReplyDelete
  30. Anonymous11:47

    Pegasus is not legacy but they also offer good transfer options. They would probably rank 3rd or 2nd in the table above

    ReplyDelete
  31. Anonymous11:54

    strange KLM is not considering SKP with such a demand for Amsterdam

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous12:08

      KLM and also ESY - they are not looking for this opportunity.

      I am more than certain that 2 fights a week even with a319 in case of Easyjet and probably 3/4 with e175 could be reality on AMS -SKP.

      Delete
  32. Anonymous13:41

    OU must have had a solid summer season because they barely had a flight in the beginning of '22

    ReplyDelete
  33. Anonymous18:35

    Competetition and more options are generally good but as a passenger frequently flying from Frankfurt I can only recommend to avoid Frankfurt as a transfer hub. Even if there are no strikes (as mentioned before) it’s a logistical desaster. Especially if you have to cross Schengen border between flights or if you have a connecting flight from T2. Jams - at both passport control and additional security checks (T2) - are unpredictable but appear constantly. MUC should be better and BEG is now best in breed!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous22:35

      so why do you keep flying through FRA?!? not buying it at all... plus the best in breed

      Delete
    2. Anonymous08:28

      @an22:35: because I’m living in Frankfurt.
      About best of breed: BEG has modern luggage scanners where 3 passengers can put their belongings at the same time on the feeder and don’t need to unpack electronic devices from backpack. Furthermore passport control leaving BEG usually doesn’t take more than 5 minutes waiting time. Try that in Frankfurt T2, especially if you haven’t an EU-passport for biometric self service border crossing.

      Delete
  34. Anonymous01:02

    @9.11 turkish increase due to Australian Dispora flying as this is the only direct royte to SKP ftom Australia via SIN or KL or BKK. Otherwise if QR or FZ were then maybe TY numbers not that high. Not sure if this addition will help Australian travellers but SKP needs to bring others as its 85% WIZZ and thats means no real incentive in reducing tix prices. SKP is a capital and yet non existent in getting itself up their in the flying market

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous11:42

      its 85% only in your illusion. see the article in this blog for the actual number.
      And TK has nothing to do with Australia. It was double daily even before Corona....

      Nonsence

      Delete
  35. Anonymous16:10

    10 flights a week with A319 is potentially up to 150 000 seats a year with full load.

    That is a serious number. So SKP is growing 20-30% this year.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

EX-YU Aviation News does not tolerate insults, excessive swearing, racist, homophobic or any other chauvinist remarks or provocative posts with the intention of creating further arguments. A full list of comment guidelines can be found here. Thank you for your cooperation.