Commercial airports across the former Yugoslavia handled a combined total of 1.733.335 passengers during the first month of the year. Among them, Belgrade positioned itself within the top 65 busiest in Europe, while Pristina Airport also made it within the top 100. A number of airports registered their busiest January on record, however, some fell short of both last year’s result, as well as that of the pre-pandemic 2019. Belgrade, Pristina, Zagreb, Skopje, Podgorica, Sarajevo, Ohrid, Zadar and Kraljevo posted record numbers. Notably, Skopje Airport saw its figures jump 50.5% on last year, as well as 50.9% on the pre-pandemic 2019. On the other hand, Split, Niš, Banja Luka, Tuzla, and Osijek handled fewer travellers than in January last year. While Dubrovnik’s figures saw an improvement on 2023, they were still down over 40% on 2019.
Passenger performance by airport, January 2024
During January, Belgrade Airport ranked 65th busiest on the continent, just behind Tirana, Naples, and Seville, but ahead of Sofia, Toulouse, and Bristol. Pristina positioned itself as the 97th busiest, behind Vilnius and Tbilisi and in front of Trondheim and Stavanger in Norway. Zagreb took 104th place. It was behind the likes of Pisa, Cagliari, and Wroclaw, but ahead of Hanover and Skopje, which itself ranked 106th. The Macedonian capital outperformed Tromso in Norway, London City, and Tallinn. During the first month of the year, the Macedonian market was the second-fastest growing in Europe, increasing its overall figures by 47.1%. It was behind only Albania with 51.2% growth. In contrast, the market in Bosnia and Herzegovina saw the biggest year-on-year decline in Europe, contracting 23.4%.
Rank of select European airports by passenger numbers in the region
The majority of European markets saw growth during the first month of the year compared to 2023. In addition to Bosnia and Herzegovina, the exceptions were Russia, Moldova, Sweden and the Netherlands. Olivier Jankovec, the Director General of Airports Council International Europe, said, “Demand generally remained resilient in the face of much increased air fares, even though the growth dynamic slowed down or even stalled in a few markets. This is adding further divergences to an already much fragmented airport market, where geopolitics and structural aviation market changes - including the primacy of leisure demand and selective low cost carrier expansion - are shaping traffic performance like never before”. London Heathrow was Europe’s busiest airport in January, with 6.004.801 passengers, just ahead of Istanbul’s main gateway with 5.996.416 travellers. They were followed by Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam Frankfurt, Barcelona, Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen, Rome and Munich.
Largest airlines by scheduled seat capacity across the former Yugoslavia, January 2024
Why are Dubrovnik's numbers so below 2019? Did something special happen that January?
ReplyDeleteGame of thrones hype is slowly dying and people found out about cheaper alternatives like Kotor...
DeleteWho even goes to Dubrovnik in January?
DeleteThe Croatian coast isn't exactly known for having a strong winter season. Moreover, diehard Game of Thrones fans have already visited it, and the rest care less since the last season was such a shitfest
Delete2019 was an anomaly, usually almost noone comes to Dubrovnik in January, it's really depressing here during that time of the year. Last years the weather has changed dramatically, it has become much warmer and much drier and sunnier so who knows, maybe in a decade or two we will become a new Malaga.
DeleteWasn't January 2019 busy because of those Europe charters that were operated by Freebird I think?
DeleteZa DBV u januaru i ovo je mnogo.
DeleteWow well done Skopje!
ReplyDeleteGetting close to ZAG
DeleteIs it all down to Wizz and Lufthansa that is pushing this growth?
Delete^ mainly W6
DeleteWizz Air, Pegasus Airlines which has deployed the A321neo for the past two years, as well as their flights from Izmir and SunExpress from Izmir. I am seeing many turks in Skopje in the last couple of months.
DeleteNeighbour free visa regime is main factor pushing such growth in SKP.
Delete@13.22 LOL
DeleteIt really seems that SKP benefitted visa-free travel for Kosovo citizens more than PRN did.
Deleteridiculous claim but maybe you were satirical
DeleteAnon 17:59
DeleteWould be interesting to get the nationality of passengers through SKP.
Skopje figures for February will be a lot worse bc of Macedonian government passport fuck up.
DeleteUm no? Why would it be? Everybody knew about that for four years and they had time to change the passports on time, i am sure that nobody bought a ticket if their passport hasnt been changed. SKP-VCE this Tuesdays was full 177/180 pax for example.
DeleteIt was reported on here some time ago that PRN CEO said that 50% of all passengers in SKP were from Kosova and that makes sense. PRN was quite expensive to fly from and SKP was cheap thanks to Wizz Air getting all those government subsidies.
Delete50% are not from Kosovo.
DeleteI am from Kosovo and usually fly from SKP when flying with family because is MUCH cheaper. However, 50% is way to much. I wouldn’t know exact figure, but, even 10-20% would make big difference.
Delete@6.58 lol that was the most embarassing thing ever said by an ex-yu airport CEO (and there is no shortage of strange things said by them). Best example of rekla-kazala without presenting a prove, haha.
DeleteRyanair fewer seats than last year?
ReplyDeleteThey turned a few Zagreb routes seasonal and also suspended a few routes from Podgorica, Nis and Banja Luka. So makes sense.
DeleteStill, Turkish ahead of Ryanair is a surprise.
DeleteIt won't be that way for long. Wonder if Ryanair becomes number one in summer considering their planned growth.
DeleteRyanair had more seats in ZAG than last winter,increase around 10%
DeleteThat total is a disaster for so many airports
ReplyDelete+1000
DeleteThe whole region is way behind the rest of Europe.
The region is highly seasonal due to many coastal airports.
DeleteTIA surpassed BEG?
ReplyDeleteA poor country with less than half the population of Europe?
Less than half the population of Europe?
DeleteYes, there is an LCC war going on as TIA does not charge airlines anything. People have also discovered Albania for tourism.
Delete@09:08 I meant to write Serbia, my bad.
DeleteGoes to show that LCCs drive traffic a lot more than legacy national carriers.
DeleteUntil the bubble bursts
DeleteOne of them leaves, one remains and reduces the operations, puts bigger prices on the tickets, and the number of pax will stagnate.
DeleteLCCs basically offer a trade of far higher pax growth in exchange for lower reliability and. We've seen that airlines like Wizz or Ryanair can single-handedly change an airport's fortunes around, yet abandon it overnight
Delete@09:29
DeleteIt didn't happen in SOF though despite all the doom and gloom that many "experts" here were predicting.
But SOF used to have more passengers than BEG durung its LCC war. Now it has less.
DeleteAnd Wizz didnt base 11 aircrafts in Sofia
DeleteSOF never had more pax than it has now.
DeleteIt actually has 2.5 as many pax as it had just 10 years ago.
And all that without the state having to give subventions to a national carrier. Imagine that...
It still has less passengers than Belgrade compared to some years ago when the situation was different. Not to mention it is an EU, NATO capital etc.
DeleteSOF was always similar or behind BEG.
DeleteBulgaria has now fully developed Varna & Burgas which carried 3.7 million pax last year. BEG on the other hand carries something like 95% of Serbian air traffic
No for a time it had more passengers than Belgrade during the LCC war. I remember the cheering and jeering by some here. Now it has less. And all that in a EU capital.
DeleteI always find it interesting how BEG seems to be the biggest issue for some in every equation. An obsession so to speak.
DeleteTrue it came to the point where TIA social media team was literally poiniting out they had more passengers than BEG. Which airport even does that?! Crazy.
DeleteTIA social media team is also posting here if u didnt get it
DeleteI wonder why haven't they been so active up to now?
DeleteActually, I know why 🤣
Liam Neeson must be persona non grata in Albania after he trashed the country in Taken and Taken 2. Must be hard to build an image of a beach destination after that. Is this all Albanian diaspora travelling? Is Durres even warm in Jan? Or are they visiting Tirana itself?
Delete@13:04 No there are many tourists visiting Tirana, thats why there are eight flights from Milan per day.
DeleteWow. I just remember in the 1990s there was so much illegal migration across the Ionian, sort of like what we see from Africa now. Weird that traffic is now going the other way from Italy?
DeleteYes SOF was way ahead of BEG for many years because of the LCC's. but their drive to grow in SOF has stopped. However as Bulgaria grows and economy increases it is slowly benefiting Bulgaria Air. But BEG growth is different since its from the national carrier and also they are trying to build a hub and spoke model for their growth.
DeleteIn the end TIA growth is only due to the LCC's and when one stops that will be the end of that growth. in the end Serbia and Bulgaria have larger air travel demand.
Also the downturn in economy means that they looking for the dirt cheap beach holiday. with better economy those travellers will return to Croatia, Italy and Greece. Again a difference to BEG and SOF who has different type of demographic of tourism and will continue to grow.
@13.14 eight flights from Milan per day is because there are MILLIONS of albanian emigrants in Italy.
DeleteUmmm it was sarcastic. Do you really think that i assume that those 8 flights are full of tourists? It was sarcastic answer to the anonymous above. Some people here…
DeleteVarna and Burgas have nothing to do with Sofia, look at the map and where these airports are located. Sofia has literally no competition and takes all the traffic for itself, including winter ski traffic. That is why until recently they always had more passengers in winter while BEG had more in summer. This year that changed and BEG overtook them.
DeleteEveryone is pushing growth in BEG and not only JU which has barely 50% marketshare.
SOF boomed after Wizz and Ryan started their war. Over time both airlines slowed down and the airport's rapid growth slowed down. BEG on the other hand kept growing steadily and it overtook them once again.
The same will happen with TIA. At some point both W6 and FR will realize that selling seats for €20 one way is not the way to make money. One or the other will start cutting and that will be it. I am looking at Tirana-Bergamo with both Ryanair and Wizz Air and you can find tickets for €26 and €22 respectively for next week. This is a two hour flight so costs are not that low. Good luck to the one who is willing to burn more money to beat the other.
On a side note, cheapest one way from BEG to BGY is €63 next week and the flight is shorter than the one from TIA while being 300% more expensive. Go figure.
By comparison Vienna Airport handled 1,828,557 passengers in January...
ReplyDeleteBringing Vienna to this convo is a bit odd here. You can’t compare it to any ex-yu cities or airport..
Deletenot at all. Justice to VIE pls :D
DeleteAnon 10:39 I'm comparing VIE to the 22 ExYu airports COMBINED!
DeleteVienna airport had 3.2 times less passengers than IST. BEG had 3.2x less than VIE.
DeleteBEG compared to VIE is like VIE compared to IST.
If you put aside the number of paxs in the regional, you have to be impressed with the number of commercial airports for a relatively small country that Yugoslavia use to be. I mean 22 airports is to be respected even by todays standards, let alone back in the 70 s or 80s... 👏
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteDoes anyone have traffic data during YU record year of 1987 or 1988 before the troubles. I always got the sense that JAT pushed ZAG and LJU more than BEG, especially to Western and Northern Europe. I thought ZAG was the busiest of all then?
Delete1987:
DeleteBEG 3.331.951
ZAG 1.866.314
LJU 886.281
1988:
BEG 3.277.537
ZAG 1.831.017
LJU 835.206
ZAG and LJU combined don't reach BEG numbers
Poor Tuzla. Such a shame. And without Lumiwings those numbers will be even lower.
ReplyDeleteAnd January is one of the busier months for them because of holiday diaspora traffic.
DeleteFebruary will be a disaster
DeleteLjubljana seems to be stuck in 160th place for the last 2 years.
ReplyDeleteBravo Fraport and Stapel
DeleteYou can thank Schengen for that. ZAG, Trieste, Klagenfurt and Graz are all very accessible.
DeleteYet Bratislava, only 50km away from Vienna, still somehows has more traffic than LJU
DeleteZa to se lahko zahvalite uničenju Adrije. In tako bo tudi ostalo (nekje okrog 160.mesta v EU).
DeleteSkopje Airport will at least handle 3.5 million passengers this year, maybe even closer to 4M. Well done!
ReplyDeleteCould have been even over 4 million if Wizz didn't reduce traffic because of engine issues.
DeleteYeah but Wizzair always must ruin something.
DeleteLol true 😂
DeleteMore than 20% of Wizz Air's fleet currently grounded. Considering that, both SKP and BEG managed to escape major cuts.
DeleteBut there are bases with less cuts. They removed two planes from skp not one like they did in LGW, SOF, CLJ, FCO…
DeleteNot all bases are created equal.
DeleteThey are trying to keep the most profitable routes flying.
It makes sense.
@10.13 its one not two
Delete3.5m is science fiction without the sixth Wizz aircraft
DeleteIt is not sience fiction. We already had 2.9 million pax last year with five planes of Wizz during the summer. This year, in the first month we already have 100k pax more then last January. 4m maybe sience fiction but 3.5 is totally expected and reasonable.
Delete@10:13 They removed two jets from SKP, idk what you are talking about.
they have 5 in summer
DeleteI know.
Deleteso thats not two jets removed
DeleteThat is two jets removed. They had six until mid January and now they have four. Learn to count. In summer they will have five, i wasnt talking about summer i was talking for the winter season.
Delete...
Deletegood luck reaching 3.5mil with the same amount of aircrafts as last year. fingers crossed they bring it back in winter
DeleteYes SKP will reach 3.5M this year, as you can see there is already 50% increase in January compared to last year. Not every month will have huge growth like January but still no sixth jet of wizz doesnt mean that the passenger numbers will stagnate. There are four additional flights to AYT this summer compared to last one for example and overall between 35-40 departures every day during the busy months, which wasnt the case last summer.
DeleteAman, 3.5 mil will require 30% for every month. There is no way to reach 30% in summer with only 5 Wizz aircrafts
DeleteI was under the impression SJJ had more passengers than Podgorica. Guess I was wrong.
ReplyDeletePodgorica, with a population of only 200k, has more pax than Sarajevo or Ljubljana, both of which have a significantly larger population
DeleteTo be fair, Montenegro has a flag carrier.
DeleteAnd SJJ will soon have LCC
DeleteSame as with Croatia and Serbia, one of those countries has a coast and because of it a huge tourist appeal, the other one doesn't... If you put together the traffic of all Croatian coastal airports you'll get a bigger number than that of Belgrade's, and the combined population of all those coastal cities is maybe 1/3 of Belgrade's population.
Deleteand its in the middle of nowhere
DeleteTo pomeni, koliko je nacionalni prevoznik pomemben za male države!
Deletekorektura: za majhno državo
DeleteIt will call behind them in summer.
ReplyDeleteTIA going 10 mil pax for 2024. Jan and Feb 1.2 mil pax with 60% growth.
ReplyDeleteTemorarily only.
DeleteWe saw similiar in SOF and now they are behind BEG. Not organic growth at all.
@10:51
DeleteYesterday some called it impossible, today it's called 'temporary'. Good riddance.
But Bulgaria has a dying population while Albania up and coming so for a few years at least there PAX numbers will be higher than Belgrade
DeleteOkay guys chill. TIA is getting summer tourists as well, Albania is becoming popular slowly. From the other side, BEG has a national carrier which cant just leave overnight, while TIA totally depends on Wizz Air now who is dumping prices in order to compete with Ryanair. How far will they go? With 20 flights to Milan per day? At some point they will stop and the growth will slow down. Albawings is already dead, Air Albania is alive cause of their IST flights and partnership with TK.
DeleteAir Albania is suspending routes at the moment.
DeleteTIA will not reach 10mil, thats hilarious. When the airport in TIA is no longer able to let wizz and ryanir fly for free, then that will go crashing down
Delete@12.09 what a crap of a post
DeleteOther than London, 7-8 busiest destinations in Tirana are all in Italy. That's mostly diaspora, not tourism. Tirana is currenlty riding a wave of LCC wars and good for them, but ignoring what happened in SOF when estimating long term TIA projections is at their own peril.
DeleteWhat actually happened in Sofia, since lots of people are mentioning it? They have 7.2 m pax in 2023
DeleteStill impressive with zero transfer passengers. Do not forget that
DeleteWizz Air is already reducing some routes this summer like ATH. I guess Aegean managed to beat them there.
DeleteBravo to all ex Yu Airports. Excellent result 👏
ReplyDeletehow did OHD get a plus?
ReplyDeleteAnyone know what's driving the SKP growth? 50.5% is massive!
ReplyDeleteWizz @SKP was in sleepy mode this time last year
Deleteand they had a 6th aircraft based until middle of January
Delete@12:01 The question stands. The fact that they are also facing cuts while growing at a 50.5% rate makes this topic even more intriguing.
DeleteI think that everybody at SKP have better LF overall, plus wr have LH this winter. However, more pax on W6 flights means that more and more people are leaving this country, which is great.
Deletethey had only 3-4 aircrafts last winter
DeleteMany passengers from Kosovo due to Visa-liberalization
Deletelol
DeleteTIA goes this year +10 mln passengers, BEG maybe max 9 mln passengers
ReplyDeleteWho cares?
DeleteHe is probably a member of TIA's social media team 😂
Delete@12:55. they dont even have the capacity at the airport to handle 10 million. funny how they imagine it would work
DeleteI am wondering for a long time now how is that tiny terminal buidiling capable of handeling so many people, not even jet bridges, i think that it is as chaotic as possible there.
DeleteHow has Ohrid got record numbers when it seems to be losing routes?
ReplyDeleteBecause people are travelling more on existing routes.
DeleteWithout Basel which was operating four and five times per week in the past. Ohrid only had one weekly flight to Zurich, three to Vienna and two to Memmingen and Dortmund last month. In 2019, Wizz only had flights from Ohrid to Luton, Basel and Vienna while Memmingen, Dortmund, Malmo and Milan were launched in the summer of 2019. Last winter, Wizz suspended the flights from Malmo and was going on and off with FMM and DTM, MXP and LTN were already discontinued.
DeleteMalmö was always seasonal
DeleteNo it wasnt. All new routes (8) that Wizz launched in 2019 from both SKP and OHD were year-round.
DeleteThe case ot TIA is different. It is basically the only airport in the country. Kukes airport did not go well. The country seems very beautiful like all Balkans with no exception. However, there is a very huge Albanian diaspora as well especially in Italy logically being very close. BEG and SOF numbers are similar in many different ways. Also, Burgas is expected to have a strong demand this year especially from Czechs and UKs. Very similar to the Croatian coast. Bulgaria and Serbia have smaller populations, but still have many airports similar to Bosnia and especially Croatia. SKP is performing well no doubt about it, but OHD being a very touristic destination is performing very very bad. It reminds me of Constanta in Romania. There was a boom, but went really down. Timisoara is performing really bad and considered a more "rich" region, but think people use BEG a lot because it is again very close but the airport has not grown for decades. LH is leaving them after so many years. For sure, Croatia will do very well in 2024 because of Ryanair and so will Sarajevo. As for Hungary again, BUD is basically their really main airport but nobody visits Debrecen. SOF and SKG and BEG figures are very similar usually but the kind of traffic is very different. SKG is a highly seasonal airport. SOF, INI and SKP are all very close but in general terms have a high population density and bad roads, transport etc because of the mountains. This is why you will see cars with INI registration in SOF for example and probably the other way around in INI. The distance is just too close similar to LJU and ZAG. Slovene aviation is slowly improving but only in LJU sadly although Maribor has potential and Slovenia can promote more ski tourism, similar to Bulgaria. PRN is expected to also boom after EU visa liberations but we also see a very strong gasto traffic. Trade Air for example are very active.
ReplyDeleteRomanian aviation is not really in a good shape and we see many of their airports struggling especially the huge Brasov airport failure. Romanian airports, being a huge country and growing economy should be, similar to Poland, in a very good shape. The second Bucharest Baneasa airport was very well renovated, but failed to develop because it has a very good geographical location and much closer to their centre, etc.
BEG will host the important Expo in 2027, but should be VERY well prepared. Sarajevo Middle East trend will likely to continue. ATH had a very strong year in 2023 because well know how Greeks and Turks like to "compete" which each other who is best. Both economies are not performing great and they need more tourists. Montenegro lost many Russian tourists and trying to capture new markets very similar case with the Bulgaria "small coast" especially in Burgas region, which is their "favourite" but still for a very small country is doing quite well and even having its own carrier. Greets from Sofia :)
Great summary and analyses! Its great to see this portal is also followed by Bulgarians. Hopefully one day it becomes Balkan aviation news!
Deletecomparison to January '23
ReplyDeleteBEG: 125 097
SKP: 77 064
PRN: 51 620
ZAG: 27 832
What?? In 1923 or in 2023?
DeleteOh i get it. You are mentioning the difference for pax handled. Sorry!
Deletethat SKP result deserved to be a separate flash news :) even OMO got one (no pun intented) ;)
ReplyDeletegreat number
There will be a separate feature article about Macedonian airport performance, projections, capacity and planned developments in the coming days.
Deletethank you :)
DeleteOHD has less passengers this year compared to previous years. Wizzair has removed more than 50% of flights/destinations to OHD. From 21 flights per week this summer will have only 10 flights per week.
ReplyDeleteRemoved airport: (MMX, BSL,FDH,MXP,LTN)
Operating this summer (VIE,DTM,FMM)
In January 2024, Ohrid Airport's passenger figures grew 6.7% on 2023 and 65.1% on 2019. In January 2024, Ohrid Airport's capacity grew 3.9% on 2023 and was up 91.6% on 2019.
DeleteFMM, DTM, MMX, MXP were launched in the summer of 2019, Wizz only had BSL, VIE and LTN that winter, so its the same. In 2020 they discontinued MXP. In winter 2022-23 they operated to BSL and VIE, on and off to FMM and DTM, Malmo was suspended, LTN and MXP already terminated. FDH was launched in late December 2022 so yes it took a part of Wizz active routes to Ohrid that winter. Overall last winter, Wizz had 8-10 weekly flights to Ohrid, and this year 7.
Delete