Commercial airports across the former Yugoslavia handled a combined total of 5.428.484 passengers during the first quarter of the year. In March alone, 1.931.234 travellers were welcomed. March saw Podgorica overtake Ljubljana, despite both shedding passenger numbers on last year. Podgorica saw its weakest March performance since 2022, with Ryanair being the main culprit for the 4.9% passenger decline. The low cost airline suspended all but one route from the Montenegrin capital over the winter season, reducing its capacity by over 50% in March. Niš and Ohrid continued to see reduced figures with both airports impacted by Wizz Air’s capacity cuts. Meanwhile, Kraljevo Airport almost doubled its passenger numbers on 2024.
Passenger performance by airport, March 2025
During the first quarter of the year, both Belgrade and Pristina ranked among Europe’s top 100 busiest airports, taking 67th and 94th place respectively. Belgrade Airport positioned itself just behind Sofia, Malta and Fuerteventura but ahead of Tenerife, Cologne and Palermo. Pristina was preceded by Gothenburg, Luxembourg and Tbilisi but in front of Pisa, Trondheim, and Rome Ciampino. Zagreb positioned itself as the 103rd busiest, behind Vilnius, Stavanger and Tromso, but ahead of Wroclaw, Cagliari and London City. Skopje took 123rd place. It was immediately behind Poznan, Cork and Santiago de Compostela, but ahead of the likes of Salzburg, Innsbruck and Paphos. Sarajevo ranked 144th, with Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capital behind Kaunas, Montpellier and Bremen, but outperforming Leipzig, Lille and A Coruna.
Passenger performance by airport, Q1 2025
London Heathrow was Europe’s busiest airport during the first quarter with 18.258.402 passengers, while Turkey’s main gateway of Istanbul second with 17.973.085 travellers. The pair recorded a decline of 1.5% and an increase of 1.6% on 2024 respectively. They were followed by Paris Charles de Gaulle with 15.903.578 passengers, Madrid with 15.506.167, Amsterdam with 14.821.876 travellers, Frankfurt with 12.415.039, Barcelona with 11.798.550, Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen with 10.304.101, Rome Fiumicino with 10.275.290, and London Gatwick with 8.440.669 passengers. Out of Europe’s top ten busiest, four are still below their pre-pandemic 2019 records. These include Paris Charles de Gaulle (-3.5%), Amsterdam (-4.3%), Frankfurt (-16.1%) and London Gatwick (-12.8%).
Largest airlines by scheduled seat capacity across the former Yugoslavia, March 2025
Fantastic Q1 for PRN
ReplyDeleteYes, 115.000 more pax than ZAG.
DeleteYes, no matter how much growth ZAG secures they just can't catch up with BEG and PRN. I blame OU for that.
DeleteZAG usually is behind PRN in first quarter. It overtakes it in summer.
Delete09:04
DeleteWhy would ZAG be ahead of BEG?
Anon 09:11
DeleteZAG was never so far behind PRN in Q1.
How could ZAG ever be ahead of BEG? BG is a much bigger city then ZAG, Serbia has more people than Croatia. Also, Croatia has a larger airport network than Serbia so the numbers spread more than in Serbia. Blaming OU for those facts is simply childish.
DeleteHow many people live in Reykjavik but KEF has more passengers than BEG and ZAG. So population has nothing to do with that.
DeleteLOL dude, size of population has a LOT to do with how busy an airport can be.
DeleteAnon 12:37 , not necessarily. Greece has 3.800.000 more population than Serbia but ATH airport is thriving year after year , just because the whole country is a mega tourist destination , something that Serbia is not.
DeleteOr maybe it has to do with the fact that continental Greece is primarily served by ATH and SKG? If you are going anywhere in the country, what is your alternative?
DeleteAthens could easily be served by two airports but any such proposals were killed in the past. For the time being we are all 'stuck' with ATH and their crazy surcharges.
I hope that, as Air Serbia, expands their E-jet fleet, they will consider introducing year-round flights to places like Heraklion. Crete is home to some 625.000 people with limited options for travel once the summer is over.
It's normal. Do you expect every city and village to have their own airports?
DeleteNEMJEE , I agree with anon 13:38 . And that is your answear for Greece although there are some international continental airports like Kavala , Alexandroupolis , Ioannina , Preveza.
DeleteNEMJEE , and that's because Athens is a mega tourist destination , airlines like Ryanair which wanted to bully ATH , now they are paying whatever ATH charges.
DeleteKosovo has 1.6 mil according to last registration
DeleteAnd how many passengers do Kavala, Alexandroupolis, Ioannina, Preveza.. have and how many international carriers fly there on a year-round basis? Also, there are over 500 km from Athens to Thessaloniki so there is more than enough room for another airport in that region. Heck, even ATH could handle two airports.
DeleteNEMJEE , Why is it necessary a second airport in Athens ,since until 2032 they are gonna have a state of the art airport that will be expanded up to 40 million passengers- more using advanced IT logistics. The expansion airport project is on youtube and it is quite impresive.
DeleteWhy do you think they have such low numbers? Probably because there is no demand for more flights? You have Volos Airport and it barely handles any flights.
DeleteAnyone know how TIA performed in April? I can't find their numbers, last ones online are from like February?
ReplyDeleteApril just finished, it is early
DeleteWhat about March then?
Delete751.235 in March.
DeleteThank you, how much of an increase is that?
Delete+6.3%
DeleteHmm seems to be slowing down. Thank you.
DeleteOTP is doing amazing. Very impressive considering the state of Tarom.
Delete11:56 What did you expect?
DeleteFor it to keep on growing with double digit numbers. People who said that growth will slow down were mocked. So where are they now?!?!?!
DeleteI don't know who said it but to me it's pretty impressive that they're still growing after that huge boom for all these years. And I think this year in Q1 they even had less capacity compared to 2024 yet they still had growth in terms of pax.
DeleteBravo Serbia! <3
ReplyDeleteWhat's going on in Kraljevo? How come they have double the passenger numbers?
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that people are getting used to flying from there. In addition to that, there was zero marketing by either JU or KVO to promote flights from the airport.
DeleteNews probably spread by word of mouth.
INI has been far more active in this regard. I remember seeing their ads in cities like Cuprija or Vrnjacka Banja.
KVO has a lot of potential especially since its catchment area is far wealthier than, let's say, the one served by INI.
INI serves some of the poorest regions in the country.
It could be that some local tour operator started selling tkts on these flights. They are really affordable.
DeleteI wonder what's the LF on these flights.
DeleteHow on earth you can actually say far wealthier region? South Serbia is just marginally poorer than the western Serbia but Nis as a third largest city in the country is for sure wealthier with better tourist potential, more industrial activity and university. And the catchment area of Nis is way bigger. Excluding Kragujevac not a single city in western Serbia is bigger than Leskovac for example.
DeleteThe region around Nis is poorer and that's a fact:
DeleteVećina ima primanja između 70.000 i 80.000, a 19 gradova i opština u proseku manje od 70.000, kao što su Arilje, Rekovac, Aleksandrovac, Raška, Golubac, Bojnik, Vlasotince, Lebane, Crna Trava, Gadžin Han, Merošina, Ražanj, Svrljig, Bela Palanka, Vranjska Banja, Bosilegrad, Bujanovac, Preševo i Blace.
How many of those are in south-east Serbia and how many are in Western Serbia?
Western Serbia has Kopaonik, Zlatibor, Vrnjacka Banja itd
https://n1info.rs/biznis/koliko-su-plate-po-gradovima-u-srbiji-a-koliko-je-zaista-potrebno-za-zivot-sto-hiljada-nije-dovoljno/
Nice pic :)
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteWaiting for the comment how Vienna has more than all ex-Yu airports combined 😀
ReplyDeleteI'm not that person but it is embarrassing that no airport can get over 1 million pax other than BEG
DeleteDon't forget Athens as well :)
DeleteWhy? You can't reach those numbers unless:
Delete1. You centralize your traffic around a few airports like Hungary, The Czech Republic or even Romania did (for example there is no real alternative to OTP).
2. Until you have a healthy economic system which supports and encourages economic development.
Our region never embraced the second point. Most of our economies are based on FDI which is problematic in the long-term due to massive subsidies it requires and since those companies can leave whenever they want without any real consequences.
Look at Air Serbia and how it nicely developed once Etihad left and the Serbian government stopped meddling.
It's easy for VIE to handle all those millions when Austria is a rich and functional country. Comparing their numbers to ex-YU is like comparing apples to oranges.
^ exactly that's why I made the comment. There is always someone making this absurd comparison.
DeleteVIE having more traffic than all our 20+ airports is sad. Soon BUD would be that far ahead too.
DeleteIndeed, it's like saying VIE and OS are usless because they did not recreate what DL and ATL did.
DeleteOnce again you have to look at VIE's catchment area. Basically its closest competitors are BUD (259 km), PRG (400 km) and MUC (456 km). Now tell me, how many people live in that area and what is that region's GDP?
DeleteBTS is a joke and even LCCs have opted to fly out of VIE despite its larger costs. Airports such as LJU or SZG are within this region but they failed to position themselves as serious players.
Same with BUD which covers literally all of Hungary and Slovakia. Coincidence or not but Wizz Air terminated most of their Debrecen flights once Vinci won the concession at BUD.
Ah yes, because BEG has insane competition
DeleteBEG might not have a giga airport right next to it but it did have smaller airports with decent traffic. We all know BEG boomed after covid. Coincidence or not but that is when TSR started to struggle. In 2019 they reached an all time high of close to 1.6 million passengers. Since they they struggled to bring back their passengers and they even recorded a drop last year.
DeleteAdd to that INI, TZL, BUD (378 km) and SOF (327 km). Both Budapest and Sofia are closer to BEG than PRG or MUC are to VIE.
What about BUD? What are its closes competitors othern than VIE or BEG? Debrecen which handles less traffic than INI (306.000) and which is left with a handful of flights? Maybe Kosice which was brought to life by the war in Ukraine? Before that unfortunate event it handled around 550.000 passengers.
Finally, BEG's catchment area is less densely populated and has less disposable income.
And by the way, TSR is some 180 km from BEG. while TZL is 241 km.
DeleteBefore covid, both of these handled (combined) 2.188.095 passengers. Last year they welcomed 1.531.241 (-30.1%) passengers. The market did not just disappear, it obviously shifted and I am certain a considerable number of passengers made the switch to BEG.
BEG seems to be doing what airports such as BUD, OTP, VIE or PRG have done in their own catchment areas... killed off their competition.
It's no different than what ZAG (and others) seems to be doing to LJU.
''What about BUD? What are its closes competitors othern than VIE or BEG?''
DeleteOh and what about BEG? Timisoara and Tuzla? Oh, come on. Budapest to VIE is a shorter drive and I won't even mention Sofia.
That's what happened with many of Wizz tertiary bases after Covid. They shifted capacity to their stronger bases which is why airports like Tuzla, Timisoara or Debrecen are suffering today. Which makes your ''competition'' argument even less credible.
DeleteAnon 13.30
DeleteMention SOF in what sense? Related to BEG or related to BUD?
VIE is to the west of BUD, what about the catchment area to the north, south and east? What competitor lies there? Even DEB's future is questionable now when Wizz Air kept just one year-round destination (London).
Anon 13.34
Wizz Air has been growing for well over six months. In some places more, in some other places less. However when it comes to the airports I mentioned, growth has been minimal (if there was any at all). So the argument stands. Wizz Air made the decision that for them serving this region via BEG makes more sense than to dedicate extra capacity to smaller regional airports such as INI, TSR, OSI or TZL... or even BTS or DEB for that matter.
My point is that you can't mention SOF which as you said is +300 km away as a serious competitor for BEG, while ignoring VIE which handles more than all ex-yu airports combined. It's a less than 2h 30 min drive from BUD without border crossings. How much closer are places like Tuzla and Timisoara with barely anything to offer?
DeleteIt is a fact that Wizz has made massive cuts in the aforementioned airports (TZL, TSR, INI). Whether it is related to Belgrade or not it's debatable, however that just means less and less competition for them.
Trieste is leaving LJU in the dust.
ReplyDeleteRyanair effect.
DeleteThat could have been LJU two years ago or more
DeleteFraport effect
DeleteIndeed
DeleteBravo Fraport!
DeleteThe race is between Ljubljana and Podgorica this year 😀
ReplyDeleteBelgrade is down in Q1. No recent updates regarding contruction at the airport. New lounge is not open yet. Inserted runway still not used as a taxiway. Is airport ready to handle big increase with 7 new routes starting in about a month?
ReplyDeleteIt is not down in Q1. Look again.
DeleteWell, we won't know until the airport becomes busier. So far they were/are doing a good job and delays were minimal. Hopefully they had enough time to prepare.
DeleteThey already enouraged Wizz Air to reschedule their first departure of the day which they eventually did.
This morning there were no serious delays. Flights to BCN, AMS, ZRH and MXP were somewhat delayed (up to 40 minutes) but those are usually airports that experience slot and airspace restrictions.
The real question we should be asking ourselves is if Europe coped with increased traffic. ATC delays were a real problem last year. We already saw that Croatia introduced some restrictions which is not a good sign.
Regarding ATC, this summer will be worse.
DeleteDid they open new ticket office across from Air Serbia Premium check--in and second WHSmith
Delete^ not yet but should be very soon. It's pretty much done
DeleteSeveral WH Smith shops have opened their doors. I saw one in Terminal 1 while the second is right after the duty free shop.
DeleteThey are about to open one in the arrivals hall which is great news. They already put up the signage.
New Air Serbia lounge was originally announced for the end of last year. Any chance it will open soon?
DeleteNo, it's not even close to finishing.
DeletePRN should have over 1 million next Q1
ReplyDeleteNice to see JU as the biggest airline!
ReplyDeleteAnd not such a small difference compared to Wizz.
Delete@ admin
ReplyDeleteGreat u added some more regional airports for comparisment. Thank you
+1
DeleteTIA and ATH would be interesting too.
+1
DeleteThey always add them
DeleteTIA is listed.
DeleteWould be interesting to compare cargo traffic too
DeleteKraljevo doubling its passengers is encouraging. Shows there’s potential if its infrastructure was improved to handle different aircraft types.
ReplyDeleteLjubljana continues to struggle
ReplyDeleteLJU has been mismanaged since Adria’s collapse and the government still hasn’t come up with a clear aviation strategy
DeleteWhy are countries in the region still so dependent on a handful of low-cost airlines? As soon as they reduce frequencies, numbers tumble.
ReplyDeletesame as for 90% of airports across other parts of Europe
DeleteIt’s concerning that major ex-Yu airports are still lagging behind smaller European airports.
ReplyDeleteBEG does ok and its position should improve after this summer. Wizz Air increased BEG-DTM to daily!
DeleteW6 increasing BEG-DTM to daily is what will finally close the gap between our capital airport and medium western European airports.
DeleteYes but in addition to Wizz Air flying daily to Dortmund, there is also Air Serbia with flights to DUS.
DeleteI don't know whether we should count Eurowings. I don't think this route will last. For the time being we have 16-17 weekly flights to this area of Germany.
Still lagging behind smaller European airports? Belgrade is right there and ahead of Toulouse, Keflavik, Luxembourg, Liverpool, Glasgow, Bergen, Gothenborg etc. It won't take long to get to 10 million passengers.
DeleteWhat’s the long-term plan for Niš and Ohrid? They had good momentum a few years ago, but now seem forgotten.
ReplyDeleteNiш apparently tries and they said they are about to make a deal with Ryanair. Nothing happened since then. I think the management is not very competent.
DeleteOhrid is trying their best with getting new airlines and routes. For now Turkish is doing amazing and is expected to continue like that. For summer its also expected good number of charters also. And the terminal building is going under renovation. Also they are looking for long term airlines and routes as well year round not only for summer.
Delete@19.58 all lies. There are no chartra except that one weekly to Katowice. Even Holland is only 4 weekly. Pricam ti pricu good numer of charters
DeleteSo Air Serbia load factor for March stood at 73.5% . Not good , not bad .
ReplyDeleteAir Serbia said 74% in a statement, so that's it.
Delete73,5% or 74% is good result for Q1 and brings profit. Air Serbia usually had 65% in Q1 in the previous years. And that means that LF in summer will be well above 80%.
All major companies post losses in Q1. Air Serbia is great comparing to LH, LX, OS, KL, AF
Delete@14.08 aha
DeleteAha? You know better? Or you know only "aha"?
DeleteINI keeps on sinking, sinking and sinking. Incompetent management with 0 consequences for their failures to gain new routes. Pathetic.
ReplyDeleteLowcosters don't need competent airport managers. All they need is someone that will give them money to fly to their aiports.
DeleteThey dont even wanna do that. INI management would rather pocket that money for themselves than use it to advance the airport and connect the region with the reston of Europe. They are acting like theu dont live there.
DeleteWhat money?? There is no money to pay LCCs.
DeleteSounds just like Vinci managers.
DeleteThere sure was money to pay 53 million for that gov Falcon jet. Yet theres no money to improve connectivity of southern regions, which will in turn bring much more benefits.
DeleteNothing stops other politicians from promissing to sell that Falcon once elected to pay for INI airport subsidies. Don't wake me up until they do.
DeleteIf you are from the neigborhood, imagine what money saved by not buying a couple of used Rafale jets or new A220 planes could do to to bring more airlines to Osijek or Pula.
Why Portorož is not on the list?
ReplyDeleteMali Lošinj as well.
DeleteSo nice to see BNX in top 10 😍
ReplyDeleteTrue - SJJ top 5 and BNX top 10, who would have thought.
DeleteLol wait for summer results for DBV and SPU
DeleteWell done for SKP with all W6 cuts and reducing its still very fewer passengers in the first 3 months of the year. In May we expect numbers to grow and all summer months to be with a good raise!! But for OHD need alot of work to come back on the path before Covid...
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteRijeka keeps winning!!!
ReplyDeletePalalalalić keeps parking!!!!
Bravo Palalalalić, you managed Kraljevo overtaking Rijeka!
Congratulations!!!!
It was March. Wait for the next months.
Delete