EX-YU airports set for November growth, Wizz remains largest airline


All capital city airports from the former Yugoslavia are expected to see passenger growth next month when compared to November in both 2022 and the pre-pandemic 2019, based on available seat capacity levels.

Belgrade Airport has the most available seats on scheduled flights in November, standing at 821.414. The figure represents an increase of 48.2% on last year and up 55.6% on 2019. Air Serbia will continue to maintain its position as the largest carrier, holding 51.7% of all available scheduled capacity at the airport. Zagreb follows as the second largest airport with 366.196 available seats on scheduled flights during the month. It represents an increase of 9.7% on last year and is up 12.6% on 2019. Croatia Airlines will retain its position as the largest carrier at the airport, with 41.8% of available capacity.

Skopje Airport boasts 285.698 seats in November, up 54.4% on last year and an improvement of 48.1% on 2019. Wizz Air will hold a 59.6% share of available seats at the airport. Pristina Airport will have 197.409 available seats, however, it has numerous flights sold exclusively through tour operators which are considered as charters. Therefore, these are not included in overall scheduled seat capacity. If only seats on scheduled flights are taken into account, the airport sees an increase of 12% in capacity on last year and 19.9% on 2019. Chair Airlines has the largest portion of scheduled seats, holding a 21.9% share.

Ljubljana Airport will see capacity levels exceed the pre-pandemic era with Adria Airways having already declared bankruptcy in September 2019. It boasts 121.650 seats this November, up 20% on 2019. The figure is an improvement of 51.9% on last year. Ljubljana’s largest carrier by seats next month is Turkish Airlines with a 17.8% share as it prepares to send wide-bodies on some of its flights, just ahead of Lufthansa, which will have only 2.000 fewer seats compared to its Turkish counterpart with a 14.7% share. Podgorica Airport has 111.154 seats on sale next month, up 10.2% and 13% on 2022 and 2019 respectively. Turkish Airlines is the largest carrier, with a 21% share, ahead of Air Serbia with 15.5% of the market and Air Montenegro with 12.7%. Finally, Sarajevo Airport has 103.236 seats available this November, which is up 7.2% on last and an improvement of 12.3% on the pre-pandemic 2019. Turkish Airlines will be its largest carrier with a 18.8% capacity share, just ahead of Pegasus Airlines with 18.7% of the market.

Largest carriers by scheduled seat capacity in the former Yugoslavia, November 2023




Comments

  1. Anonymous09:01

    The growth in Skopje and Belgrade is huge

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:17

      I am waiting for the day when SKP overtakes ZAG.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:22

      @9:17 and I am waiting for the day to see SKP stop smoking all the time and try connecting to European capitals and not villages

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:24

      Not from SKP but I have the impression they are working on it. They got flights to Frankfurt through Lufthansa, seasonal flights to main airport in Oslo with Norwegian, soon they are getting flights to Riga. So I would say they are working on connecting to main European airports.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous10:05

      The November number really is huge for BEG and November is traditionally it's softest month of the year.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous15:09

      Offer is there, let's sit and wait to see how strong the demand will be.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous20:10

      If you could the charter seats ( I can see the reason they are excluded) Prishtina is firmly second after Beograd, far ahead of any other.

      Delete
    7. Anonymous20:40

      I think the admin makes clear that they don't know charter capacity because my guess is these numbers come from GDS which can show you exact capacity but for obviois reasons only from scheduled flights as charters are not sold through GDS. But I think you are right, if charters are included PRN is probably second or third.

      Delete
  2. Anonymous09:04

    TGD is really very good in contrast to TIV, but even there the situation is not so critical. They will slowly recover, it's just that other markets that receive Russian tourists are recovering more slowly.
    But the construction of 4O and the expansion of Wizz Air and Ryanair should also be noted.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:24

      4O is in a dire state if it is third in Podgorica where it should be the largest, and it is beaten by two airlines which operate a single route from Podgorica!

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:30

      Matter of fact is that MNE is too small to have their own national airline. The market is best served via JU and LCCs.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous17:48

      Very true.
      4O operates with a significant loss, with no chance to be financially solvent.

      Delete
  3. Anonymous09:05

    Air Montenegro being third at its main base shows how poor the situation is for the airline.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:08

      And it focuses on Tuzla...

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:25

      It makes no sense, then again Montenegro Airlines, which was larger and number 1 in its home market was a chronic loss making business, so maybe it is not profitable.

      Delete
  4. Anonymous09:06

    ZAG is definitely not the one that many people used to laugh off that nothing was happening. But yes it is a fact that only Ryanair adds and grows anything.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:26

      Ryanair's growth came at the cost of Croatia Airlines adding any new routes whatsoever.

      Delete
  5. Anonymous09:07

    LJU is slowly recovering. So in 2024 we will have a full recovery of p2p?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:20

      What is p2p recovery in definition for you? Air transport connectivity is much more complex and only one indicator does not say a lot.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:21

      You simply can't have a full p2p recovery with 6 weekly flights to Brussels, 2 to Amsterdam, 0 to Vienna, 0 to Iberian peninsula, 0 to the Scandinavia etc.
      Yes the pax number will be matched but that's not a recovery if 50% of p2p routes are missing

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:57

      P2P recovery is a mantra which Fraport guys are repeating over and over again. And charter hub of course.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous13:31

      No, it's not a myth. That's the truth, I don't care if someone from Albania goes through LJU. The market in Europe has become and will continue to work on the p2p model.

      Delete
  6. Anonymous09:07

    Interesting to see Ljubljana finally ahead of both Podgorica and Sarajevo in terms of capacity.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:19

      Good to see that, Ljubljana traffic is less seasonable as it used to be, this is the main reason.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:26

      It used to be ahead of TGD and SJJ all the time until Adria went bankrupt.

      Delete
  7. Anonymous09:09

    SJJ does well without W6. It's just the market it's always been - TK, PC, LH, OS, JU, OU.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:27

      Well we can all conclude by now that W6 was performing really poorly in Sarajevo, which makes you wonder if there is a reason there are almost no routes to western Europe.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous20:57

      W6 was performing well, if they weren't they wouldn't do London now nor Abu Dhabi. The issue was never the LF or weather conditions, it was Covid political turmoil in Hungary and BHDCA tax of 1.5€ that SJJ followed strictly and when TZL tried the same they lost Wizz too

      Delete
    3. Anonymous20:58

      But Abu Dhabi is gone

      Delete
    4. Anonymous21:44

      Yes the fact that they only kept 1 route shows they performed extremely well

      Delete
    5. Anonymous23:13

      Remember one main thing. Wizz Air launched numerous low-profit routes and bases during covid, with one sole objective - fleet occupancy. They opened many small bases with one plane each, then closed them because they were ineffective. SJJ came as a gift - here they opened a temporary base and even received money - this is called collaboration.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous23:17

      Wizz Air is now focusing on its strong bases, unfortunately TZL was closed, but at least there is increased capacity for BSL, DTM, FMM(or just no A320 available?). As is well known, the place of business of the big entrepreneurs is in the big market, not in Saarbrücken or Vaxjo.

      Delete
  8. Anonymous09:11

    Skopje has significantly increased holiday traffic. Also LH comes, W6 expands.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:27

      Norwegian came too.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous11:56

      Hopefully they extend flights. They flew for like 2 months or less.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous12:16

      I think it has taken some traffic from ohrid but still good growth

      Delete
    4. Anonymous00:22

      Now that Ohrid will lose BSL and MMX, SKP will get even more traffic. But i dont see a problem with that :)

      Delete
  9. Anonymous09:12

    Bravo OU, Bravo Hrvatska!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If only I could have your brains for half an hour. And sandwich as well, of course

      Delete
    2. Anonymous15:11

      You wish, pozz. You have an ex-yu commie brain. Vrijeme te je pregazilo.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous15:57

      @anonymoys 15:11
      + 1.000.000 !

      Delete
    4. Danke Deutschland17:18

      so why are you @15.11 lurking on a exyu blog then, Genijalcu

      Delete
    5. Anonymous17:55

      Hahaha!
      Yours must be one of the best comments on here, @1511!

      Delete
    6. Anonymous19:18

      Because, 17:18, this is an ex-yu aviation portal, and not a portal for let-go-of-your-frustrations-old-commies, brain deadu!

      Delete
    7. Sendvicara open 24/720:30

      yeah especially because the nationalistic "Bravo X" comments are indeed the most inteligent and well thought comments. The country is in the same state as OU. Hillarious!

      Delete
    8. Komunjare koje su is SKJ presle u Kradeze i dijele isti mentalni sklop zarobljen u 1950-tima, jedino sto umiju i znaju je vrijedjati ljude koji su ih provalili, i koji govore o njihovoj mentalnoj bijedi, u kombinaciji s kriminalnim aktivnostima koje guraju i OU i Hrvatsku preko ruba provalije.

      Delete
  10. Anonymous09:16

    Shame on Easy. Pathetic number of seats, almost 1/10 of Wizz.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:17

      They are not a lbig player in the Balkans.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:39

      Outside of Croatia (during the summer) they really never put much focus on this region.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:58

      Ryanair doesn't have much of a presence either in winter with exception to Zagreb base.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous10:47

      coudnt agree more. If it wasnt for their PRN-Switzerland flights they wouldnt even make it in the list

      Delete
  11. Anonymous09:21

    What surprised me the most is Pegasus being 2nd in Sarajevo. How many flights a week does it have?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:23

      I think Pegasus has had some sort of impact on TK. TK no longer sends A321 that often to Sarajevo.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:29

      Pegasus has 11 weekly flights to Sarajevo, many of them on the A321 which has 239 seats!

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10:30

      Even their A320s have a lot of capacity 186 seats crammed in.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous10:33

      that's more than Wizz

      Delete
    5. Anonymous10:44

      Talk about cramped...

      Delete
    6. Anonymous11:55

      Well done to Pegasus, almost the same amount of capacity as Turkish

      Delete
    7. Anonymous15:13

      Why so surprised? 2 million Muslims who gravitate to Turkey...

      Delete
    8. Anonymous19:14

      They actually gravitate to Erdogan.
      But what happens if Turkey is without Erdogan..?

      Delete
    9. Anonymous20:59

      Turks view B&H as an interesting tourist land and some other people that hold their citizenship see it as a good route to Western Europe via illegal migration. SJJ doesn't have Ankara, Antalya or Izmir flights yet (except for Antalya in summer months) which would lessen the demand and help businesses and people who own sea properties.

      Delete
  12. Anonymous09:25

    I think PRN numbers will be much higher in PRN. The visas for Europe will be lifted very soon:

    https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/news/kosovo-citizens-eligible-to-travel-to-schengen-area-visa-free-as-of-january-1-german-embassy-confirms/

    I think Trade Air will further increase its presence as well as GP Aviation. Could potentially reach 3rd or 4th place in ex-YU in 2024 and certainly surpass SKP.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:29

      Visas will not be lifted, France already said that they will oppose it because of recent actions by the politicians in Pristina.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:51

      Sure they won't buddy

      Delete
    3. Anonymous17:57

      Macron said it, I guess you know something he doesn't.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous21:42

      He may block for France, not for entire EU

      Delete
    5. Given what's been discussed in Luxembourg and the anti-immigrant sentiments in many EU countries, it's not only doubtful that the visas will be lifted for Kosovo, but they could be reinstated for Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia too, until they harmonize their visa policies with the EU.

      Delete
  13. Anonymous09:26

    Interesting that Chair is 9th airline even though they only fly from SKP and PRN.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:39

      Don't they also fly to Ohrid or no?

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:30

      Yes, they fly year round from Zurich to Ohrid.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous11:52

      They are very unknown outside the Albanian gasto market.

      Delete
  14. Anonymous09:34

    LCCs dominating as largest airlines in ex-Yu.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:35

      Not really. It's a good mix between legacy and LCC.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:37

      LCCs dominate in most European markets. It's nothing different in ex-Yu

      Delete
    3. Anonymous03:34

      I dont agree... i travel between zurich, munich, hamburg and vienna and the LCC present is only between holiday destinations.

      Delete
  15. Anonymous09:34

    Nice to see LJU on the mend.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous11:52

      It took just 4 years...

      Delete
  16. Anonymous09:35

    Very good growth for all of them.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Anonymous09:35

    Well not surprised about Wizz being the biggest with bases in BEG and SKP.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:38

      I think Wizz is unbeatable at this point. They will probably keep adding capacity next year. I can only imagine the figures had they not closed their Tuzla base.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous11:51

      You are probably right.

      Delete
  18. Anonymous09:37

    Can passenger result be predicted for BEG based on the procded capacity?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:04

      I would guess over 600,000 pax

      Delete
    2. Anonymous11:51

      That would be amazing for November.

      Delete
  19. Anonymous10:04

    Skopje has the biggest improvement compared to 2019.. Nice work

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:14

      In percentage terms

      Delete
    2. Anonymous01:40

      I assume BEG added the most seats overall.

      Delete
  20. Anonymous10:13

    There was a recent interview with the director of TAV Macedonia, link https://play.mrt.com.mk/play/566605, at the 4:00 mark he is answering the questions about the return of the flights to Doha, Dubai and Barcelona, by the gesture he did its pretty obvious that for the time being at least the flights to Doha and Dubai will not resume because of not enough interest, at least that's what I think based on his moves :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:44

      haha vo pravo si :D

      i think he is bringing a fresh vibe to SKP compared to the previous one who gave the most boring interviews one can imagine

      Delete
    2. Anonymous11:50

      Interviews from all TAV CEOs give away basically nothing. Just press release phrases.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous13:37

      It's hard to imagine Dubai (or Doha, but i think Dubai is more likely) not returning soon. There is no one stop route from Australia and that's a lot of PAX.

      Delete
  21. Anonymous10:28

    Air Serbia has 419000 seats in November. My calculation is that they need all 32 planes for that with 3 rotations daily (excluding a330), all 30 days of November.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:32

      Not really as they have wet leaased capacity

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:33

      *leased

      Delete
    3. Anonymous11:13

      Of course that 31 or 32 planes include wet leased equipment.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous11:49

      They will get 2 additional planes in November.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous16:01

      And anon 10:28 who told you that every flight will be full to the last seat ??

      Delete
  22. Anonymous10:58

    Chair > Swiss??? ... probably because Swiss and Edelweiss are counted separatly but it stil shows the sort of LX failure in the KS and (especially) MK where it could be one of the leading airlines when you take in account the amount of diaspora

    ReplyDelete
  23. Anonymous11:57

    So in November the only new routes are Ryanair from their new Lanzarote base to Zagreb and Air Serbia from Belgrade to Porto.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Anonymous01:40

    Interesting stats.

    ReplyDelete

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