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
Comments
A poor country with less than half the population of Europe?
The whole region is way behind the rest of Europe.
It didn't happen in SOF though despite all the doom and gloom that many "experts" here were predicting.
It 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...
They are trying to keep the most profitable routes flying.
It makes sense.
Bulgaria 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
We saw similiar in SOF and now they are behind BEG. Not organic growth at all.
Actually, I know why 🤣
@10:13 They removed two jets from SKP, idk what you are talking about.
Yesterday some called it impossible, today it's called 'temporary'. Good riddance.
BEG 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
In 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.
Romanian 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 :)
BEG: 125 097
SKP: 77 064
PRN: 51 620
ZAG: 27 832
great number
BEG compared to VIE is like VIE compared to IST.
Would be interesting to get the nationality of passengers through SKP.
Removed airport: (MMX, BSL,FDH,MXP,LTN)
Operating this summer (VIE,DTM,FMM)
Everyone 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.