Germany is Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport’s largest market with 1.163.318 passengers flying between the two in 2024. Four airlines - Air Serbia, Lufthansa, Wizz Air and Eurowings – maintained operations on eleven routes, which will grow to twelve from next month. Last year, Air Serbia had the largest share of available capacity on routes between Belgrade and Germany, standing at 33.6%, followed closely by Lufthansa with 32.5%, Wizz Air with 30.6% and Eurowings with the remaining 3.3% of available seats. Frankfurt had the highest seat capacity among Belgrade’s routes to Germany, followed by Berlin and Munich. It was also the busiest route, with 324.771 passengers in 2024. Berlin ranked second, surpassing Munich, with both Air Serbia and Wizz Air operating flights to the German capital.
Belgrade- Germany passenger volume by route, 2024
The German market has struggled to return to pre-pandemic passenger volumes, with most airports still handling fewer passengers than in 2019. However, operations between Belgrade and Germany have surpassed their pre-Covid figures. In 2024, there were 295.986 additional seats on services between the two than in 2019. This will further grow in 2025, which is expected to be a record year for operations between the two countries. This year, Air Serbia will maintain operations on seven routes between Belgrade and Germany, Wizz Air six, Lufthansa two and Eurowings with one.
Air Serbia, Wizz Air and Lufthansa are all increasing operations between Belgrade and Germany this year, with Eurowings being the only exception. The budget carrier has opted not to restore its seasonal service between Stuttgart and the Serbian capital this year, maintaining only flights from Dusseldorf. On the other hand, Air Serbia has increased frequencies on select months this summer to Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Stuttgart. Lufthansa has introduced a third daily rotation between Munich and Belgrade this summer season, while Wizz Air is launching flights from the Serbian capital to Friedrichshafen in June.
For context that's almost as much as Ljubljana had traffic last year
ReplyDeleteFor context that's almost as much as ATL handles in three days.
DeleteI wonder which airport belnogs to the region of ex YU...
DeleteLJU or ATL?
Good point,btw😂
DeleteSurprised Berlin managed to overtake Munich!
ReplyDeleteWizz Air effect.
DeleteI suppose JU also reduced their fares since Wizz launched flights. Issue is that BER is an extremely expensive airport so it's not easy to offer low fares.
DeleteI do not think that BER is more expensive than FRA.
DeleteThing is that BER no longer has an alternative, FRA has.
DeleteAlso FRA's catchment area is larger and wealthier.
It’s not when you add Memmingen. Also Stuttgart and Nueremburg are in the catchment area
DeleteSTR & NUE? You sure?
DeleteEurowings could do so much more in BEG.
ReplyDeleteWhat is left for them to serve?
DeleteCologne! Crazy that there are so many flights from BEG to Germany but not to Cologne.
DeleteThere are flights from Nis to Cologne.
DeleteBremen also
DeleteBut not many people would go from BEG to INI to fly to Cologne, they would rather transfer somewhere or take a train in Germany
Delete^That's true. In fact I doubt many people from BEG even know there are flights from INI to Cologne.
DeleteI have a few friends who went to INI to fly with Ryanair.
DeleteJU was flying BEG-CGN and it seemed not to be so successful.
DeleteDUS is just 1h away from CGN by a regional train.
DeleteEurowings really seems to be falling behind though. Only one route left?
DeleteDortmund is also close to Köln.
DeleteEurowings is LCC with the prices stronger than JU. What else to expect?
Bremen is missing for sure. Loy og out people live in Lower Saxony. Also Nord Nederland, Groningen gravitates towards it, not to AMS as it is furher than tp Bremen.
DeleteLeipzig is also large city with no traffic to ex yu
Yes, Bremen, Cologne, Leipzig and Rostock are missing
DeleteRostock is a must guys
DeleteRostock is a must? The airport literally has no scheduled flights.
DeleteThe actual number of destinations served in Germany is impressive.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteWould be great to see more even distribution of capacity. FRA, MUC and BER are saturated but smaller cities like Dresden or Erfurt have no direct link. Huge opportunity missed.
DeleteJU should join Star Alliance.
ReplyDeletelol that's the last alliance it should join.
DeleteOU might object.
DeleteOU is these days relevant as jokes on liners.
DeleteMama Lufti is not though.
DeleteMutti Lufti established *A in order to serve it to her needs.
DeleteCan't be anyhow compared to JU.
Mama Lufti would only allow JU to join if it was to have the same role as OU.
DeleteSame - servant role.
DeleteExactly, so unless JU wants to be that why join *A?
DeleteThey are not interested in joing any alliance and especially not Star Alliance.
DeleteAnd when you would add flights from Germany to Nis as well you would probably come to 1.3 million passengers.
ReplyDeleteImpressive. I wonder what is the second market.
ReplyDeleteEither Italy or Russia....
DeleteIt is Turkey
DeleteYou're right
Delete^ Turkey has around 800,000 passengers from BEG. Italy could be larger. Russia deffinitely isn't second.
Delete@Admin, any avaliable data?
DeleteI don't have the data for all cities in Italy yet. However, there were 337.969 passengers on flights between Belgrade-Rome Fiumicino/Campiano/Milan Malepnsa/Bergamo.
DeleteIn terms of Russia there were 344.700 passengers on flights between Belgrade/Moscow/St Petersurg.
Detailed Turkey results can be found here.
All data for 2024.
🙏
DeleteSo Turkey definitely n. 2
Thanks for the numbers admin. I guess with all the other routes in Italy they probably serve around 500,000 passengers there. Russia with Kazan and Sochi I assume around 420,000.
DeleteI guess Italy, Spain and Turkey could become the biggest markets in the future. Lots of capacity is being added especially to the first two.
Delete"...which will grow to twelve from next month."
ReplyDeleteWhat is going to be 12th destination?
" while Wizz Air is launching flights from the Serbian capital to Friedrichshafen in June."
DeleteFriedrichshafen
DeleteThanks.
DeleteA pretty good coverage of destinations in Deutchland.
ReplyDeleteThere is always room for more :)
DeleteAnd the best thing is that no one is feeding the other and all are competing against each other.
ReplyDeleteHuge market.
DeleteMakes me think of there was also actual competition and open skies, would BEG - Turkiye still be behind BEG - Germany
DeleteHope we see easyjet back on Germany-Serbia market.
ReplyDeleteeasyJet is really playing strange in Belgrade.
DeleteThey closed so many destinations where competition managed to beat them. The only destination that remained is GVA and I am glad to see they kepp fightng for it, but they should be much more active in Serbian capital.
They should open new destinations like Gran Canaria / Teneriffe, Ibiza, London, Menorca, Paris Orly...
Manchester, Glasgow, Dublin…
DeleteSure, but visa regime is limiting the possibilities for travel to these destinations.
DeleteExcept maybe to London as the demand to UK capital is big despite this strict visa regime.
Nonsense, last year 3 operators were at London route to 2 different airports. Manchester and Dublin are famous among top 10 unserved BEG destinations
DeleteVisa will limit demand but demand isn't 0. Another thing to factor is the amount of pax travelling from the UK and Ireland to SE Europe where JU has decent coverage.
DeleteMakes you wonder what percentage of these passengers are actually transfers. Of course, these would fly on JU and LH and to a lesser extent on EW.
ReplyDeleteAir Serbia has positioned itself quite nicely on the German market and even their NUE flights are not as bad as they were before. If they keep on densifying their network then they will be much more competitive.
I think they are losing a lot of passengers because they have very few Western European destinations with more than daily flights. On Wednesday I flew on OS 735 and there was maybe one empty seat on the E95. Most passengers were coming from Western Europe. Without double daily flights to key markets they will keep on losing customers to airlines such as Lufthansa.
My guess is that more than 50% of Lufthansa's passengers are transfers.
DeleteIndeed, wouldn't surprise me.
DeleteBut Defenitly also 10%-15% transfer on Germany-BEG fligths who transfer in BEG
DeleteI believe that a huge amount of Lufthansa passengers (i.e. FRA and MUC) are transferring passengers, even though there are direct flights from BEG to many destinations. Lufthansa has some really good offers for connecting flights.
DeleteFor example, in the past year I flew twice through FRA, once to Paris and once to Lisbon, because LH price was half of Air Serbia or Wizz Air, and the added time due to a connection was minimal. (e.g. CDG - FRA - BEG in 4hrs, LIS - FRA - BEG in 6hrs)
My company keeps sending me to France on Lufthansa rather than on Air Serbia / Air France / KLM. I hope that Air Serbia would expand its reach in France to enjoy more direct flights.
Lufthansa also offers great flexibility. I think that's their main selling point.
DeleteEspecially since they can offer you inbound and outbound flights on different airlines across their group. And it is seamless. It will only get better now that ITA joined. I only wish Lufthansa's service was better.
DeleteYes, that's a big advantage of having so many airlines within the group and all bascially existing to serve Lufthansa in Germany.
DeleteI wonder when we might see ITA being included in their offer. I guess Lufthansa is not rushing to add BEG to their system as it means relying on JU and their code-share with ITA.
DeleteDown the road they will either go with that option or ITA will launch their own BEG flights.
Lufthansa and Austrian have a huge advantage: late departure to BEG. LH is at 22.00 while OS is at 22.25. This means you can leave any Western European city between 19.00 and 20.00. Meanwhile KL's BEG flight leaves at around 20.25. Not as convenient.
Not to mention that when I was at AMS about a week ago, there were mice running all around the terminal building. Not the best experience.
JU has made progress in Germany in the last couple of years.
ReplyDeleteAir Serbia seems to be making smart strategic moves by expanding capacity where demand is clearly strong.
DeleteJU still can't find a way to get some of the 150.000 passengers flying between BEG and MUC.
DeleteOh no, not again...
DeleteI think there is still an opportunity to serve Bremena and perhaps Leipzig.
ReplyDelete*Bremen
DeleteSecondary airports often go under the radar but can attract solid VFR and price sensitive traffic. Wouldn’t be surprised if more similar routes follow.
DeleteInteresting how closely matched JU, LH, and Wizz are in terms of capacity share. Shows just how competitive this market is.
ReplyDeleteYes, not very common to have three airlines with simmilar figures.
DeleteThanks for the numbers. Interesting stats
ReplyDeleteOne third of market share for each of the three carriers. EW is pathetic.
ReplyDeleteEW's BEG network was always thin. With JU and Wizz growing aggressively, there’s just not much room left for them to compete effectively.
DeleteEW market share is statistical fault.
ReplyDeleteYes, unfortuantely they are completely irrelavant on this market.
DeleteShame they never focused too much on BEG.
DeleteJU has the routes, but it’s time to focus on frequencies. 2 weekly on some routes isn't enough for business travelers who need flexibility. Lufthansa understands this well and it shows in the numbers
ReplyDeleteYou can bet a good portion of those Lufthansa passengers are transfers via FRA and MUC. That’s where JU could do more. Feed the regional markets better and keep that traffic in-house.
ReplyDeleteJU also gets alot of transfers from FRA via BEG to other destinations including those served by LH direct.
DeleteI've noticed that JU actually fets a lot of transfers from smaller German cities/operations like Hannover and Nuremberg.
DeleteIt would be interesting to see which are the source markets for transfers on both ends.
DeleteAgree. Would love to see a breakdown of passenger types. How many are VFR, leisure, business or transfers.
DeleteHighly unlikely any airline would give away such information.
DeleteGood results. Well done to all four airlines.
ReplyDeleteInteresting pic. Is that some sort of evacuation of the LH plane on the taxiway?
ReplyDeleteYes, there was a bomb threat onboard. It's back from 2019.
Deletehttps://www.nst.com.my/world/2019/07/505406/lufthansa-plane-evacuated-belgrade-airport-after-bomb-threat-call
Thank you!
DeleteSurprised there’s still no Belgrade–Cologne route. It’s a major city with good demand, and both JU and Wizz could make it work if timed right.
ReplyDeletewhat about load factors?
ReplyDeleteNo susprise really considering the diaspora. Germany is also Serbia's biggest trade partner so...
ReplyDeleteIndeed, Germany is Serbia's top trade partner in terms of overall volume. Unfortunately for us, there is an €89.6 million deficit.
Delete