Four EX-YU capitals see complete London route recovery

Four capital city airports in the former Yugoslavia have seen passenger numbers on their London flights improve in 2022 compared to the pre-pandemic 2019. England was swift to relax Covid-related entry requirements during the first quarter of last year. Fuelling the growth in the four capitals was the introduction of new flights to London. As a result, Sarajevo led the way, as Wizz Air launched operations from London Luton to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capital during 2022. In March of this year, it suspended flights on the route but has since announced their resumption in late September. Back in 2019, FlyBosnia linked Sarajevo to London during the fourth quarter.

Podgorica’s strong growth on the London service is contributed to Wizz Air, which commenced operations between the two cities during the summer of 2022. Pristina saw a notable 55% increase in passenger numbers to London. During 2022, easyJet introduced a new service between Gatwick and Pristina, however, the route was terminated just four months later. British Airways, which maintained seasonal operations between Heathrow and Pristina last year, will not restore the service in 2023, leaving Wizz Air as the exclusive operator between the two cities. In 2022, it accounted for 101.016 passengers. Zagreb’s 47.7% increase is contributed to Ryanair, which in 2021 introduced services from Stansted to the Croatian capital. The route has since become its busiest at Zagreb Airport. It handled just 8.000 fewer passengers than Croatia Airlines and British Airways combined.

Belgrade Airport saw figures on its London service decline 21.4%, primarily as Air Serbia was forced to cancel numerous flights after being informed by Heathrow of its inability to handle the carrier’s aircraft due to a lack of staff. It welcomed just 61.434 passengers on the route, down 40% on 2019 levels. It is important to note that during the summer of 2019, in addition to its regular Heathrow flights, Air Serbia operated an additional daily scheduled service to London with Etihad Airways equipment in order for the Emirati carrier to retain ownership of the slots which it inherited from its former equity partner Jet Airways, which went into liquidation. This resulted in Air Serbia maintaining sixteen weekly flights between the two cities during the height of summer. On the other hand, in contrast to 2019, Wizz Air outperformed Air Serbia between the two cities, handling 74.042 passengers, up 6% on 2019. While Skopje’s figures on the route remained almost unchanged, Ljubljana took the biggest hit. Its passenger decline was not caused by Adria Airways’ bankruptcy in 2019, but by easyJet’s significant reduction in flights to the Slovenian capital. Furthermore, Wizz Air operated its Luton service to Ljubljana off and on throughout 2022.