Frankfurt and Istanbul ranked among the busiest routes at Belgrade, Zagreb, and Ljubljana airports during the first half of 2025. Data shows that each of the three airports had one Gulf service within their busiest routes, while Paris and Amsterdam featured in the top ten at all three as well.
In Belgrade, Istanbul’s main airport maintained its position as the busiest route. Traffic between Belgrade and Montenegro also reached an all-time high, with a combined total of 290.762 passengers, a notable increase on the previous year. Services to and from Larnaca recorded a further 18.980 additional travellers year-on-year, as Cyprus continues to perform strongly among both point-to-point and transfer passengers.
Belgrade Airport's top busiest routes, H1 2025
At Zagreb Airport, Ryanair continued to fuel strong growth. While most of its services fall outside the top busiest routes, they all recorded solid gains, with the London Stansted service performing significantly better than London Heathrow, operated by both Croatia Airlines and British Airways. Flights to and from Malta have also proven popular, growing by 20.346 passengers year-on-year. Domestic demand also strengthened, with Croatia Airlines posting growth on the Split route, while Amsterdam maintained its strong performance through joint operations by the Croatian flag carrier and KLM.
Zagreb Airport's top busiest routes, H1 2025
In Ljubljana, Istanbul remained the busiest destination. Lufthansa recorded growth on its Frankfurt and Munich services, although both are still below pre-pandemic levels when they were operated by Adria Airways. Swiss continued to post the strongest gains among Lufthansa Group carriers, with traffic rising over 13% year-on-year and notably surpassing 2019 levels. Zurich is now the airport’s third busiest route.
Ljubljana Airport's top busiest routes, H1 2025
Paris down 40% in LJU since 2019 is miserable
ReplyDeleteTourism to Paris is cooling off for Slovenian folks... I've not met a person who would like to return to there. And TK offers better US connections nowdays, not to mention KLM
DeleteAF has reduced flights. Plus there is also Paris Orly in summer with Transavia.
DeleteAir France-KLM still has a lot of work to do in LJU.
DeleteThey really do and I'm sure they will start doing it soon. LJU is a high yield market
DeleteLet's see if KLM can have the same success in LJU as it did in ZAG and BEG.
Deletethey would if they can add one more daily flight ...
DeleteLjubljana once again proving that if toy give them flights, the demand is there. Especially leisure routes are very undeserved... Wizzair, Easyjet, please for the love of everything, give us Spanish, Greece, Egypt flights
ReplyDelete+11111111
DeleteWe really do need more flights
DeleteIsland flights, Spain flights, even TelAviv would work, I hope Wizzair folks read this, as I know statistics might not be there, but just look at EDI how good it's selling with almost no demand showing in the stats... one of MANY like that
Delete@9:37 i think wizz and ryanair have data. If they just outlabel slovenian passport holders that travelled to lets say Greek islands and Spain in summer from VIE, VCE, ZAG, TRS, ... they will see there is a demand. Plus there will def. be additional interess if flights will be from LJU.
DeleteI'm really surprised by such strong growth on Belgrade-Montenegro routes. Especially compared to 2019 when Montenegro Airlines was still around.
ReplyDeletePleasant surprises
ReplyDeleteBelgrade-Larnaca
Zagreb-Malta
How come LCA has become so popular from Belgrade?
DeleteTourism+transfers.
DeleteRussians too.
DeleteCyprus has best beaches in Europe by far and prices are actually on Spain levels
DeleteI remember Nemjee claiming for years that Larnaca is underserved :)
DeleteAnd he was always attacked by same person who kept saying LCA is not important. We see now who was right
DeleteCyprus is popular because, despite its size, it offers everything for everyone. From high end tourism to affordable €20 per day apartments in Agia Napa.
DeleteOn top of that, the island is very safe, beaches are nice, the sea is clean and generally Cyprus is organized, mostly thanks to the British.
Wizz Air made Cyprus affordable for Serbs. I am just waiting for a third player on BEG-LCA. I think someone will eventually jump in though I'd rather see Ryanair open PFO-BEG.
Ryanair might open PFO-INI. They won’t come to BEG until it slashes prices which isn’t happening any time soon
Deletewow Zurich very close to Frankfurt in Ljubljana.
ReplyDeleteNovartis doing wonders
DeleteIn my opinion Swiss is a better airline than LH and Zurich is a much nicer airport to transfer through than Frankfurt.
DeleteNeither of those airports even comes close to MUC for transfer ease.
DeleteFor transfers MUC is a wonder!
DeleteEspecially if you go T2 to T1 and non Schengen to Schengen
DeleteWho would have thought in 2019 that Barcelona would be one of BEG's busiest routes.
ReplyDeleteOr IST being number 1.
Delete^ true that
DeleteJust people who know people's movement. Istanbul is like 16M and dominates everything up to Alps.
DeleteKLM has lifted Amsterdam numbers in Zagreb and Belgrade nicely.
ReplyDeleteThey sure are a fine carrier. We finally have a reliable and a good airline on BEG-AMS
DeleteWould be so nice seeing Skopje on a table like this too! Thanks for the numbers
ReplyDeletewhen they send their results like LJU does
DeleteDubai is the only top 10 BEG destination without JU flights. It clearly shows that DXB or AUH are long time due.
ReplyDeleteActually top 13
DeleteYes but they have competition on almost all routes. Their marketshare in BEG has fallen to just 47%. People have voted with their wallets
DeleteNo, it has not 'fallen to 47%'. When you are calculating capacity share you need to take the entire year into account. Not one month.
Delete^ You just can't please some people. Most of the time they scream there is no competition. Now when you see that JU has competition on all of its busiest routes, it is concerns over market share.
DeleteUAE is a missed opportunity for JU for sure.
DeleteOf course it's not. Especially when W6 retreated. I don't really know what are they waiting for...
DeleteAnon 09.43 you always repeat the same comment. It's boring
DeleteLet's not forget Istanbul-SAW too. As a city with two airports +80 and +40 millions of passengers yearly, Istanbul is no match to Frankfurt.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting statistics,
ReplyDeletethank you adimin for sharing this.
+1
DeleteImpressing figures BEG to ZRH. Favorite hubs for ex YU airports are IST, FRA and ZRH
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, BEG has more pax than MUC in LJU
It is beyond me that Croatia Airlines is not serving the second busiest route out of its main hub.
ReplyDeleteBigger problem is Minken on fifth place. We need more frequencies
DeleteSorry, meant third busiest - IST
DeleteJU also needs to start serving MUC.
DeleteLufthansa is killing it in Belgrade! Very good job.
ReplyDeleteFRA is served by LH and JU.
DeleteBut they have a monopoly in MUC.
DeleteYes but only to MUC since both FMM and NUE are served by W6 and JU.
DeleteSo the catchment area is covered quite well, especially FMM by W6 which has more than daily flights from Belgrade.
Belgrade has only one route with less passengers compared to 2019 in this table. Zagreb beats Belgrade in that category by a wide margin, having seven routes in red compared to 2019 in that table.
ReplyDeleteRyanair has been a saviour for ZAG so it seems they made the right decision to bring them.
DeleteRegarding BEG, even that one route is Moscow which had 3 airlines serving the route in 2019 before the war.
Ryan is saving ZAG only if we ignore seven of the top performing routes being down. Everything is fine.
Delete^ what do you mean? FR has saved ZAG. Considering that many other routes not served by FR have not recovered their 2019 numbers.
DeleteProblem is that those routes did not recover. What is the cause and how to fix it?
DeleteI assume the cause is exactlt that - FR.
DeleteWith introduction of so many new direct routes or cheaper options for the same routes (STN vs LHR), probably many of travellers switched to those.
You don't have to transfer in FRA, MUC or VIE anymore to travel to Malta or Malaga, for example.
Croats are now free to travel and do not think anymore that Adriatic coast covered in concrete is the best sea.
DeleteAnon 12:43 Ryanair in ZAG can't explain double-digit drop to both Dubai and Doha since 2019. You can keep repeating Ryanair until you are blue in the face but that's not a universal answer for ZAG troubles.
DeleteThe drop on the Dubai route is because Emirates used to fly with its B777.
DeleteThe drop to Doha is because Qatar Airways used to have 14 weekly flights to Zagreb and now has 10. The airline has a shortage of narrow body planes. Same reason they have also decreased Belgrade. The only person that is blue in the face, agitated and angry is you.
How many weekly flights did Adria have to Brussels? I'm surprised to see SN still below pre covid levels.
ReplyDeleteIt was double daily on CRJ7/CRJ9 and the government was paying Adria roughly 1 million € per year to maintain such schedule.
DeleteNice growth for JU in Ljubljana!
ReplyDeleteYes, quite surprising.
DeleteTime for another UK destination by Ryanair from Zagreb
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteThey do have another UK destination from ZAG- Manchester. Ok, it's seasonal but it exists. Anyhow, Edinburgh or Glasgow should be the next, and soon
DeleteAre there any data about ticket sales of new routs from LJU to BCN, LPA, EDI ? :)
ReplyDeleteBased of the flight prices all are doing good. You cannot get a flight for under 200 euros to LPA until January I think. I am also surprised that quite some people have already booked EDI flights (judging by the number of purchased seats in the seatmap of flights).
DeleteLarnaca busier than Paris from Belgrade!! What the hell
ReplyDeleteMoscow bigger than Amsterdam...that speaks volumes too.
DeleteParis will grow more when easyjet starts flights next week.
DeleteI can't recall the moment when Moscow wasn't bigger than Amsterdam in Belgrade.
DeleteJU is keeping low number of frequencies to Paris only so that they can charge crazy prices. I pray easyJet does well, we literally need them in BEG!
Delete^ do you ever get tired of writing nonstop nonsense? JU flies twice per day to Paris and from next week 3 times per day on some days. How many times per week does Air France fly to Belgrade or easyjet? Please stop writing plain nonsense.
DeleteIt's not nonsense, they are facts. Do you seriously believe that 14 weekly in June, July and August are enough for a route like CDG?
DeleteFunny thing is, I don't think even JU agrees with you on that since last year they actually had more flights in summer than this year. They also planned to increase CDG but decided against it. They loaded those extra flights only to remove them.
Those 2-3 extra flights you mention are only there because easyJet announced flights to Belgrade. So I don't know who exactly is writing nonsense here.
So please stop insulting people and let's keep this forum civil.
And FYI those extra flights to CDG have great loads further proving that JU should have grown more and faster.
Zagreb-London Stansted outperforming Heathrow makes sense. People want cheap and frequent connections, not expensive legacy carriers.
ReplyDeleteLJU must be the only capital city airports in Europe with just one airline on its busiest routes.
ReplyDeleteLJU is probably also one of the European capitals without Binter Canarias flights!
DeleteIt is also the 10th smallest capital city in Europe with a favorable location and negligible diaspora which should also be taken into consideration when we discuss its progress.
DeleteWhat's so great about Larnaca?
ReplyDeleteCyprus
DeleteI was flying from LCA to BEG this year and on the flight was me and Russians
DeleteYes, in BEG any success is because of Russians, migrants, and construction workers. You should know that by now.
DeleteSame like any growth in ZAG is because of Slovenes.
DeleteI know 50 people who went to Cyprus and they all loved it. This boom is because many discovered it and keep going back
DeleteI know some friends and family members who flew on Wizz Air to LCA. Flights were always fully booked on the A321 and there were no Russians onboard, all Serbs.
DeleteJU has some Russians but not more than 20% from my experience. Air Serbia carries a lot of transfers via BEG where most of them head to north and western Europe.
Thank you for the statistics admin. Do you plan publishing most unserved routes?
ReplyDeleteYes, that would be very interesting to see after long time.
DeleteAgree
DeleteI will provide them soon.
DeleteThat's great. You're the best! :-)
DeleteVery nice, and very good for Croatia Airlines and Air Serbia.
ReplyDeleteAnd Air Montenegro as well.
DeleteNice to see Split grow compared to last year. Any idea why?
ReplyDeleteI wish the list for Belgrade would be longer.
ReplyDeleteSo we could see wich routes match the ones in Zagreb and Ljubljana.
Also for Istanbul SAW is missing.
Two airlines-Pegasus and Anadolujet fly from there to Belgrade.
Would be intersesting to see the number of pax they carry.
There were 78.406 passengers on the Belgrade - Istanbul SAW service in H1 2025, up 4.9% on 2024 and 144% on 2019.
DeleteThere were 22.748 on Zagreb - Istanbul SAW service in H1 2025, up 50.5% on last year.
Hi Admin, would you be able to publish the same information for other airports? It would be great to know the best performers in those as well. Congratulations on the great job you’re doing!
ReplyDeleteData is published for airports where it’s available and complete. As soon as the same level of verified data is provided for other airports, it will be included too. Unfortunately, for airports in the region, data publication is often delayed by months, or in some cases over a year. Including a wider range of airports only brings more interest and readers, so there is no reason for it not to be featured once it is available.
DeleteSKP in LJU's top ten deserves a mention... after all what we had to read in the comments :)
ReplyDeletethere are two intra-exyu routes in each top 10