Zagreb Airport recorded a decline in passenger numbers on two of its three routes to capital cities in the former Yugoslavia during the first half of the year. Belgrade just managed to retain its position as the busiest, followed by Skopje and Sarajevo. However, the latter two routes remain below pre-pandemic levels, despite frequencies now matching those of 2019.
Air Serbia’s flights between Belgrade and Zagreb saw a decline in figures year-on-year on the back of a decrease in frequencies during the first quarter from fifteen weekly in 2024 to eleven weekly this year. The carrier handled 28.269 travellers between the two capitals, down 6.4%. It decreased its capacity by 6.384 seats. However, the airline did see its performance improve 8% during the second quarter when compared to last year. Its average cabin load factor for the six-month period stood at 67.2% on the ATR72-600 aircraft.
Croatia Airlines, as the only operator on the Zagreb - Skopje service, welcomed 27.443 passengers on board its aircraft. The figure represents an increase of 3.9%. The airline also increased its capacity on the route as it started deploying its new Airbus A220-300 jets in lieu of the Dash 8 Q400 turboprops on some operations. Overall, it added 3.719 seats between the two capitals. However, its cabin load factor took a hit with average occupancy at 49.6%. Despite increasing its capacity by 9.6% on the same period in 2019, figures are still 10% below pre-pandemic levels.
As recently reported, Croatia Airlines handled 22.938 passengers between Zagreb and Sarajevo during H1 2025. The figure represents a decline of 13.6% year-on-year and is 24% below 2019 levels. The Croatian carrier increased its capacity on the Zagreb - Sarajevo service this year when compared to last by 1.074 seats and by 740 seats on 2019. Its average cabin load factor on the route over the first six months of this year stood at 44%.
Zagreb is no longer linked to Podgorica, with Ryanair terminating the route last October. During the first half of last year, it carried 12.269 travellers with an average cabin load factor of 87.4%.
If Ryanair was operating those routes, its load factor would be over 85% for all of them.
ReplyDeleteThey were selling tickets for 10 euros between Zagreb and Podgorica. I’m not sure how profitable it was for them even with their low margins thanks to all the incentives they get.
DeleteIf it had worked for FR they would still be flying the route.
DeleteObviously it did not, since they are no longer flying TGDZAG.
DeleteYes Ryanair had full flights between TGD and ZAG and pulled it. Nice!
Delete^ Well it's not made up. It's written in the article
Delete"Zagreb is no longer linked to Podgorica, with Ryanair terminating the route last October. During the first half of last year, it carried 12.269 travellers with an average cabin load factor of 87.4%."
It could likely make more money by deploying the aircraft somewhere else.
DeleteWould be intersting to compare this to other modes of transport, effectively -- only buses. For BEG-ZAG, 150 as daily average is equivalent of about 2-3 daily buses (as flights), and there's usually 4-5 daily buses between BEG-ZAG. Knowing how many people take cars and blablacar would be fun.
ReplyDeleteFor business people, car is the most common option. The highway is good, it does not take too long to drive. The only issue is in summer with the border, I heard some people were at the border for hours.
DeleteIt will be interesting to see if the new rules with needing to get biometric data will impact car travel. Not just to Croatia but other destinations too and more people may be willing to go by plane. It will be much easier to do that entire process at the airport.
DeleteI'm sure the fancy new A220 will grt the LF up to 110%!
ReplyDeleteJokes from the 80s.
Delete^ but it's not a joke. OU promised miracles when the A220s arrive. So far finances are worse off, loads are worse off, the airline is doing flash sales in July and passenger numbers are marginally up but significantly less compared to capacity growth.
Delete09.24
DeleteUnfortunately, in 80's our aviation was developed and dozens of those looking at our back then, are in front of us now. Instead our own, we today help develop and profiting other countries aviations. The only joke today is Croatia Airlines which is headed by aparatchiks with mindset stuck in 50's. I would be happy if they were in 80's, golden age of ex-yu aviation. So, wake up and stop advocating shameful miserable feeder Croatia Airlines.
Golden age with no LCCs? No thanks!
Delete^ No LCCs and only one sort of yoghurt.
DeleteLife was hell then..
It was not hell on Earth back in the 80s as some like to portray it, but Croatia is much better off now than it was back then.
DeleteWhat Croatia needs is to cut the prices by 30-40 percent and that's it. No way anyone will fly to Sarajevo for 130€ one way
ReplyDeleteIf only it was just 130 one way
DeleteI checked prices for 14 OCT departure and 21 OCT return, tthe return ticket price is 135 euro.
DeleteFor 29 SEP departure and 02 OCT return, the return ticket price is 190 euro.
I think OU needs to adapt to travelers habits. A lot of people traveling intra EXYU routes, make plans last minute and/or do not have fixed dates for when they plan to return. So at the end they opt for car/bus due to the flexibility they offer.
Also they should adapt prices of one way ticket like Air Serbia did. They still have old time pricing for one way ticket being way too expensive.
DeleteI wonder how many pax is the break even point for JU and OU on these types of routes.
ReplyDeleteFor JU is a out 50% on ATR routes
Delete*about
DeleteAI says
Delete"On a 70-minute sector, an ATR72-600 typically needs a breakeven load factor of around 50%, depending on yields and operating costs.
Love flying OU you can virtually guarantee an empty seat so you have lots of space.
ReplyDeleteLiterally, you mean?
DeleteHow Jasmin is still in a job is a mystery, then you look at the crooks running the country.
Delete43% on Dash is like 25% on A220 btw
ReplyDeleteAnd? The costs of the A220 and DH4 are virtually the same, so you can assume that in this case the revenue remains the same, while costs do too.
DeleteWhat??!? This is too stupid to consider it seriously, so we will take it as a joke
DeleteWow even the JU LF is bad. I can imagine how bad it will be in SPU in winter
ReplyDelete67% is fine in terms of profitability on such a short route, especially outside peak summer months.
DeleteAlso it's likely P2P traffic is down considering the political situation in Serbia. Especially in the first half of the year.
Delete67% LF on ATR is fine.
DeleteWell you will see how fine it is when soon JU cuts ZAG this winter. Next to NUE it's the worst performing route in their network.
DeleteThey will not cut Zag or if it be marginal. Because it play political role as Zagreb-Sarajevo route
DeleteYes, they will really cut a route that is operating 12 or more time a week. They fly it because they make money off it. People here read too much into load factors on short regional flights.
DeletePlus it's not they can deploy this surplus capacity elsewhere, where it would be more profitable, as they have more than enough spare capacity.
DeleteEven if the 67% LF on ATR is fine I believe that on the SPU - BEG route the LF could be even better taking in consideration that with the car or bus you have 4 hours from Zagreb to Belgrade and from Split cca 10 hours.
Deleteadmin, whats the LF between BEG and LJU?
ReplyDeleteSay please.
Deletei think its around 75%, similar is for podgorica. skopje has 98% LF.
Delete98%?
Deletesorry 98% was in july. in jan-july was 95%
DeleteOh LJU-SKP, sorry wasn't sure which cities you were talking about.
DeleteAnonymous 09:09
DeleteDuring the first half of this year it stood at 74.0%
But there are also more flights to Ljubljana from Belgrade than to zagreb
Delete^You do realize that just because there are more flights doesn't mean the load factor will be higher? More flights = more capacity.
DeleteHe means that since there were more flights and the LF was higher that there were a lot more passengers.
DeleteAnonymous14:07 - you do realise point was more flights means harder to reach 75% ... jesus some people here are really ...
DeleteI assume the low BEG-ZAG LF is still acceptable considering it's a feeder flight?
ReplyDeleteSure, bad LF for JU is always acceptable, but not for OU.
DeleteIt's also an ATR so you don't need big loads to make it profitable.
Delete@9.25 quite different. A regional prop does not need big loads. Not to mention JU has almost 20 point higher load factor than OU. Try to keep your nationalistic agenda out of here.
Delete@09:25 keep your toxic comments to yourself
Delete@9.25, the problem is that in 2024 JU's network wide load factor was 80%. OU's was 60%.
DeleteWhy are OU numbers still so far behind 2019 on many routes?
ReplyDeleteTheir route network is still smaller and fewer people are using them for transfers.
DeleteSkopje lost a share now that Wizz flies to Ljubljana, Sarajevo relied on transfers which are less needed now due to Ryanair and SJJ's far bigger network.
Deletethere was actually more people flying from Ljubljana to skopje than zagreb skopje in H1.
Delete^ wow!
DeleteIf Wizz flew SKP-ZAG numbers would be much better.
DeleteAnd Ljubljana - Skopje is still underserved, it could easily go up to 5 flights a week.
DeleteAlso SKP got Lufthansa while there was a decent amount of passengers transfering in ZAG to go to FRA
DeleteMost transfer from SKP to ZAG were to AMS,CDG and FRA , now that SKP have AMS and FRA , most of transfers are to CDG
DeleteI was thinking the biggest loser of LH flights to/from SKP would be OS and LOT, but it seems it is OU.
ReplyDeletehow are they they biggest losers when they have more pax??? your logic !
DeleteThere are no losers. Those 100k passengers LH generated themesleves
^ They have 10% fewer passengers than 6 years ago.
Delete@12.57 and that has nothing to do with LH which is the topic
DeleteOU is having more pax to/from SKP (albeit small increase but stil) as in 2023 & 2024 despite LH flights
Delete@14.02
DeleteIt does as LH was not around in 2019.
@14.10 bravo genie
DeleteAny chance ZAG-PRN will ever come back?
ReplyDeleteHighly doubt it
DeleteOU used to fly right?
DeleteMight happen when they get the ATRs through an ACMI. A220 is too much plane for that route,
DeleteIs there a need for those flights? I would assume that the need might exist for the coast but Zagreb has lost it's allure as a transfer point. And I'm not sure there is a demand for P2P.
DeleteBEG and SKP are close. Will be interesting to see if SKP can return to top.
ReplyDeleteWizz's LJU-SKP will make sure it never happens. People are flying for much less money now than with OU from ZAG.
DeleteOU tickets to from SKP to ZAG are very expensive, everyone will choose Wizz to LJU , but there is still transfer pax for CDG via ZAG and some european hubs that are not serving SKP directly
DeleteThose load facrors are a disaster. Good luck to OU and their single aircraft short term strategy.
ReplyDelete*factors
DeleteIt is unbelievable really, not sure how long OU can manage to stay afloat - as an EU member there are limitations as to what the state can do to support. At some point even the state would give up, like they did with Alitalia.
DeleteAlways great to see the numbers. Thank you admin!
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteThe wild part here is that for some reason prices for SKP are set at about 150€ for one way ticket...what is the OU pricing department doing? 70€ ticket would be WELL enough, and that's how you fill up the planes, increasing the chance of on-board shopping, you can charge more for the baggage, extra features etc.. We are not in 1995 anymore, adapt please
ReplyDeleteThere is no use trying to find reason in their decisions. I mean they still fly from Zagreb to Rome via Split and Dubrovnik which was actually a JAT routing pre 1990s
Deletethe last sentence is key "We are not in 1995 anymore, adapt please"
DeleteI don't know if this was your case but booking only one-way is considerably more expensive than booking return. This is common policy of flag carriers. Booking return would maybe add just 30 euro to ticket price, making it a total of 180 euro, which is not bad.
DeleteNot all of them. Air Serbia adopted one way ticket price.
DeleteI said common, so not every one. Air Serbia did good on that. They can fight LCC on same routes this way.
Deletesee it a bit positive: with LH flights plus Wizz route from LJU, they stil managed to get a plus of 3.9%
ReplyDeleteZAG - SKP is underrated, a LCC can fly 2-3 weekly between them
DeleteIt already does, LJU has it covered
Delete@14.23 lol sure
DeleteI am very happy that from SKP to ZAG route is served by A220 one of the best planes I ever fly on a short haul, I cant imagine anymore flying on the dash 8🤮
DeleteThese numbers prove that replacing the old Atrs with new ones was just the right decision at the right time for JU.
ReplyDeleteI love OU and ZAG!
ReplyDeleteGood for you
DeleteThose numbers are from January-June which means the LF in SKP will be much more higher during the summer peak months , and something telling me SKP will have more pax then BEG in the end :)))))
ReplyDeleteHow can it tell you that? If BEG had more passengers in the weaker winter, what makes you think it won't have more passengers in summer?
Delete@21.35 OU's load factor in 2024 on Skopje route was just 56%. So don't get your hopes up about "much higher" load factor
Delete