The airports in Skopje and Belgrade will see among the largest seat capacity growth rates in Europe over the upcoming second quarter when compared to the same period during the pre-pandemic 2019. On the other hand, Ljubljana Airport will continue to register among the slowest recoveries in Europe and retains its position as the slowest recovering main capital city airport on the continent, if conflict-hit Ukraine is excluded. According to “Air Service One”, Skopje Airport will have the sixth largest capacity growth rate in Europe during the second quarter when compared to last year, with the number of available seats growing 37.4% on 2019. The main driving force will be Wizz Air, which has six aircraft based in Skopje this summer. Also aiding its figures will be the arrival of Lufthansa with its ten weekly service from Frankfurt starting in April.
Belgrade Airport will see its seat capacity levels grow 31.1% from April 1 to June 30 compared to 2019, positioning just behind Skopje. During that period, 24 new routes will be introduced from Nikola Tesla Airport by four airlines: Air Serbia, airBaltic, AnadoluJet and Jazeera Airways. Overall, Tirana will see the biggest capacity growth in Europe on four years ago with a 107.6% increase, generated primarily by Wizz Air’s rapid expansion in Tirana, which has more than doubled the number of available seats. It is followed by Memmingen which has benefited from a significant increase in traffic by both Ryanair and Wizz Air.
On the other hand, Ljubljana will see the fourth slowest recovery rate in Europe during the second quarter. The airport will reach just 55.1% of its Q2 capacity levels from 2019, although back then Adria Airways was still present on the market. It will see Finnair restore operations from Helsinki after three years this Saturday, while Aegean Airlines will return after a seven-year hiatus in June. Overall, Southend, which was developed as London’s sixth airport and saw significant low cost carrier growth prior to the pandemic, will see only 5% of its pre-Covid capacity levels. Post-pandemic, budget carriers have chosen to consolidate their operations at other airports in London, hurting Southend’s recovery and making it the slowest recovering in Europe.
Ljubljana is consistently a massive disappointment. With Ryanair's expansion in Zagreb they are really doomed.
ReplyDeleteWhat happened with FR flights in LJU? Any news?
Delete^ The tender for new routes hasn't started. The EU hasn't approved it yet
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2023/03/slovenian-airline-tender-awaiting-eu.html
Thank you very much, I missed it.
DeleteRyanair needs to open a base in Ljubljana
DeleteFully agree.
DeleteBy opening FR base in LJU the whole situation with ZAG would be balanced and Slovenian passengers would not have to go to ZAG for each FR flight.
More or less we go Budapest. Ryanair, Wizz
DeleteWizz is more likely
DeleteMy guess is that Wizz is taking over Zagreb, and Ryan Ljubljana
Delete12:05, and that is based on...what exactly?
DeleteZag subsidies are tailor made for Wizz and Ryanair won't stick around just to compeate where they have favorable conditions 60km away
DeleteLet's wait and see. The tender for subsidies in Ljubljana has not even started yet.
DeleteCould have been even larger in MKD if the government wasn't playing games with the tender.
ReplyDeleteWhen is it realistic now for new routes to start if the tender closes next week as planned?
Deleteprobably late summer
Deleteeven though you are probably sarcastic but nobody is here "playing games". They just want to please the EU that they could do tender in a transparent way.
DeleteIt is fully transparent to everyone that Wizz won every single tender in SKP. If that's not the definition of transparency I don't know what is.
Delete@14.01 blah how are you not bored writing the same nonsense every time... They even relaxed the rules last time after the first annul. because of the envelope issue to attract more airlines (no OHD base as a requierement anymnore).They gambled and lost with only Wizz applying again and winning the tender and (we have) no base in OHD.
DeleteI wonder if the all three airline applied again.
Delete*airlines
DeleteWe will find out in a few days
Delete@16:44 I Suffer From That Disorder Where I Speak The Truth And Others Get Offended
DeleteWhere is all the capacity growth coming in SKP considering there are no new routes and the Qatar and Flydubai are no longer flying?
ReplyDeleteWizz Air. They add an extra plane and they replaced some A320s with A321s.
DeleteThanks. Makes sense
DeletePlus Lufthansa 10x per week.
DeleteYes those will help especially since they are operated by A320 family aircraft.
DeleteA lot of Wizzair routes have frequency growth
Deleteplus reconstructions works last year
DeleteTK is also increasing capacity and freq
DeleteAren't they operating the same number of flights?
DeletePegasus has also increased capacity compared to 2019.
DeleteTK wasnt double daily last year
DeleteNow to see if all those seats can actually be filled.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteI'm just sad for Slovenia
ReplyDeleteIt is the government's fault. No one elses. Failed to save Adria, failed to find alternatives, failed to set up new airline...
DeleteAnd they sold Adria to obvious crooks in the first place.
Delete@Admin, do you know what is TIA capacity growth comparing to 2022?
ReplyDeleteThanks.
Good work SKP and BEG. Congratulations
ReplyDeleteWow a real shame for Ljubljana
ReplyDeleteHow many airport in ex-Yu are already above pre-Covid levels?
ReplyDeleteAs far as I know: Belgrade, Zagreb, Podgorica, Pristina, Sarajevo, Nis and Banja Luka are above 2019 levels.
DeleteFrom a recent ex-Yu article
Delete"The airports in Belgrade, Pristina, Zagreb, Podgorica, Sarajevo, Tuzla, Banja Luka and Kraljevo, registered their busiest start to the year on record. All markets within the former Yugoslavia, with exception to Slovenia, saw their passenger numbers grow during the first month of the year when compared to the pre-pandemic era."
Thank you!
DeleteTIA is crazy
ReplyDeleteWizz, huge diaspora and developing tourism industry
DeleteNot even Wizz. So many more carries especially from Middle East launching flights. Also air Air France.
DeletePercentile growth isn't hard to achieve if your base number is low like it was in Tirana in 2019.
Delete2019 it handled almost as much as ZAG
DeleteNice, good job
ReplyDeleteMinus LJU
DeleteCan't wait to see for Q3.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteLJU will be just 54.7% in Q3.
DeleteSo worse than Q2?!?!
DeleteYes, about the same as q2. For now.
DeleteFor now? What you think suddenly new airlines will launch flights to LJU to make up for the almost 50% decline
DeleteYes for now, because new routes could be launched by Q3 because of the subsidy tender.
DeleteWhat about other ex-Yu markets?
ReplyDeleteAll ex-Yu markets will have more capacity than in 2019 except for Slovenia.
DeleteNo surprise.
DeleteGood. Numbers in the region are ahead of global trends.
ReplyDeleteWhile LJU is far below of global trends.
DeleteLJU will improve when the subsidies for new routes are finalized.
DeleteWhat does this mean in terms of passengers numbers? 30%+ passenger growth too?
ReplyDeleteWell if they manage to fill all those extra seats which is highly unlikely.
DeleteThat is one long airport corridor on the photo
ReplyDeleteIt will be even longer when the next phase of the project is completed :)
DeleteMore gates are planned on the corridor in the forefront of the photo?
DeleteSkopje will grow even more when tender for subsidies is finalized.
ReplyDeleteWould be nicer if the growth was organic and not paid.
DeleteThe growth in Q2 is completely organic.
Delete@9.52 haha again you. Desperate
Deletethe first @9.52
DeleteWhat about the other Balkan markets like Bulgaria or Greece?
ReplyDeleteBelgrade airport is having a phenomenal streak this year.
ReplyDeleteGood to see growth all around. Except for Slovenia for obvious reasons.
ReplyDeleteLJU should have been better prepared for this scenario.
DeleteAgree. Everyone knew JP was going bankrupt and LJU was claiming how it is no problem for them and then we saw that it is.
DeleteDidn't people write in the comments here how it was going to be a tough year for ex-Yu airport and that people won't travel because of financial crisis? Seems like it will be quite a good year.
ReplyDeleteThis is available capacity. We will see if the seats can actually be rilled.
DeleteYes, like I wrote in the comment below, most airport have strong capacity growth in Q1 too but have not overtaken passengers numbers. Like in Skopje.
Delete@10.09 those are comments from the "Winter is coming" guys
DeleteI'm positively surprised about Skopje's capacity growth.
ReplyDeletewhy? you must have listened to the anons here
DeleteBecause there isn't a single new route from SKP. That's why. But I'm glad there is more flights and larger aircraft.
DeleteFRA, Enfidha, Split, Norwegian ...
DeleteIt's nice about the capacity growth but passenger numbers are still below 2019 levels.
Delete@17.24 Einstein: there has not been a capacity growth for Q1
DeleteIs there a realistic chance Belgrade will achieve those 7 million passengers this year?
ReplyDeleteGood summer ahead for most countries
ReplyDeleteAnyone have an idea how many seats are offered in Q2 from Croatia?
ReplyDeleteMacedonia has been at the top of capacity growth in Europe for several years actually (excluding 2020/2021)
ReplyDeleteReferece:
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2017/01/macedonia-sees-largest-capacity-growth.html
Always coincides with subsidy tender. Although this year is an exception (the capacity growth is before tender has been finalized).
DeleteWould be to see the actual number of seats offered too.
ReplyDeleteYes, it would be interesting to see.
Deleteimpressive for both SKP and BEG
ReplyDeleteInteresting photo, looks like airbridge for gate C6 does not exist. Is this a recent pic?
ReplyDeleteI would say it is fairly recent (considering the central processor is completed and construction is taking place on the A gates additional floor) but if you see the latest construction update that was published here a few days ago, it has photos of C6 gate and says it has finally reopened after a year of reconstruction.
DeleteYes C5 and C6 reopened recently.
Delete