The 2025/26 winter season begins today, with almost all airports in the former Yugoslavia increasing their available capacity compared to last year. Running until 28 March, Skopje and Belgrade are set to record the strongest growth in the region, each adding more than half a million seats. A resurgent Wizz Air is driving the expansion in both cities, boosting capacity by 453.636 seats in Skopje and 315.817 in Belgrade.
Winter 2025/26 capacity compared to W2024/25
Zagreb Airport completes the top three, with Croatia Airlines acting as the main driver of growth. The flag carrier is adding 167.315 seats in the Croatian capital as it expands its fleet and network while transitioning to a single aircraft type. Ryanair, which was responsible for a significant portion of Zagreb Airport’s growth in recent years, will see a more modest increase this winter, adding 26.720 seats. On the other hand, Ryanair’s rival Wizz Air is also driving growth at several smaller airports in the former Yugoslavia this winter, including Tuzla, Niš, Banja Luka and Ohrid.
Overall, the former Yugoslav market offers 13.165.258 seats on scheduled flights this winter season across 84,633 operations. When considering the entire region collectively, the busiest international destination is Istanbul Airport, with 473.568 seats, followed by Zurich with 414,502 and Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen with 342.704. So far, a total of 26 new routes have been scheduled from the former Yugoslavia this winter. They include a new service from Central Asia between Astana and Belgrade, the long-awaited link between Ljubljana and Barcelona, as well as leisure additions such as the Skopje - Larnaca route.
26 new routes in winter is a lot! Good news
ReplyDeleteI am glad it is green for most of the airports. The top three are really killing it! And some more positive news for LJU - FlyDubai is increasing it's flights from 4 to 5 per week for the whole duration of the summer.
ReplyDeleteCan't wait! LJU deserves a lot more!
DeleteI wonder if Wizz will increase it's flights to SKP. How far will they go? Five, six weekly? Hopefully daily.
DeleteIn summer they can go with 8 weekly without a problem. Especially if OU starts reducing ZAG-SKP. We saw the other day how badly this route is performing
DeleteWould be great, their LF in August was 99,1 %!
DeleteI would like to see capacity for previous two winters, because last one was a disaster.
DeleteLast winter it was above 80% during February, which is the slowest month
Delete(unless you were talking about ZAG-SKP and not LJU-SKP, my bad)
DeleteI'm not talking about LF, I'm talking about total capacity for previous two winters. That's what todays article is about.
DeleteAdmin do you know what's W6 growth in BEG this winter? I mean in percentages compared to last winter
ReplyDeleteYou can calculate. Minus the added growth from total and you have last year's capacity and then just calculate percentage difference. So +14.1%
DeleteThanks for the info, that's impressive.
DeleteDo you happen to know what JU's growth rate is?
It was written in yesterday's article.
Delete"Air Serbia has placed 2.048.030 seats on sale for the upcoming five-month winter period, an increase of 5.9% compared to last year"
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2025/10/air-serbia-and-croatia-airlines-set-for.html
To sum up:
DeleteW6 +14.1%
JU +5.9%
Wizz Air has a lot of extra planes. I wonder if they will introduce a fifth one next summer. They still have CPH in the drop down menu, maybe they will bring it back.
Fifth W6 plane at BEG is long overdue
DeleteWizz Air has over the years become a major and reliable player in BEG. Let's hope this encourages them to add a 5th plane.
Delete^ Reliable? Have you been under a rock for the last two years?
DeleteNo but I flew with them for the past year and Wizz Air was great. Last year and a half they have been more than fine.
DeleteIn the last year and the half they cur half of their network, removed one aircraft from the base and downgraded from A321 to A320. Only in the last few months have they restored growth.
Delete^ You do realize that was because of the Pratt engine issues, right?
DeleteWizzair diverted some Belgrade flights to other airports to do maintenance such as tire change, without annoucing it beforehand to passengers. That's exact opposite of reliable airline.
DeleteBravo BEG 🇷🇸🇷🇸🇷🇸
ReplyDeleteBravo Fraport!
ReplyDeleteAnother amazing year for Franjo Tudman Airport! Can't wat to see what FR will announce for summer 26.
ReplyDeleteI wish for more destinations in France and Greece.
DeleteThe only capital city airport without a single new route this winter.
Delete@09:33
DeleteAnd yet it has massive capacity and passenger growth!
I really don’t see a space for optimism. With so many cuts around the Europe, FR have more than enough capacity for ZAG growth. Yet, it’s not more than symbolic. Seems that Crioatian national potential (without tourism) have hit the top. Despite constant bragging about high GDP, salaries and investments by some experts. I wouldn’t comment OU growth in capacity due to new bright and shiny A220s. It’s everything but organic
Delete^
DeleteZAG smashed pre pandemic pax record back in 2023.
And it had another record year last year and it is going to have another record year this year too.
If people are still pessimistic both for ZAG and for European travel demand in general it is because they chose to ignore facts. 🤷♂️
As for Croatia's economy the E.U. things differently and are only praising both its growth and the reduction of debt to GDP.
@Anonymous 09:42
DeleteAnd so do the IMF and the EBRD. But some people are blind to reality...
I agree with him. Ryanair has cut a lot this winter and they are getting way too many planes. They had the capacity to expand ZAG but decided not to do so.
DeleteI think it has to do with their contract with ZAG expiring soon so they want to keep expanding only when MZLZ keeps the same conditions.
As for ZAG growth, most of it comes from OU so no one is excited about that. I know I am not.
Any update to FlyDubai flights to SKP
ReplyDeleteflydubai has no plans to return to SKP.
DeleteBravo Hrvatska!
ReplyDeleteLol
DeleteIf W6 keeps it up I can definitely see SKP passing PRN in W26/27.
ReplyDeleteI am saying the same
DeleteSKP and BEG returned as lead markets with most increased capacity just like in 2023. To everyone that were saying this willl not happen again, what do u say now that
ReplyDeleteI say thank you W6!
DeleteWell, W6 was to blame for the bad results some years ago.
Delete^
DeleteThis is 2025 and soon it will be 2026.
We will see if Wizz Air delivers on this plan. They are known to announce a lot of new routes...and then...nothing.
ReplyDeleteWow wow Skopje!!
ReplyDeleteThis is a huge growth for this airport and the choice of destinations amd coverage is really great. It is not only important to have 20+ daily flights to one single market but to be able to reach many destinations without transferring.
Hopefully they attract one or two more legacy carriers in future like KL, AZ or AF.
Nobody has 20+ daily flights to one single market in this region.
DeletePRN to CH in summer is coming close to it :))
Delete@Ex-yu: Can we get maybe an overview of all destinations of JU, OU and 4O and a comparison between past winter and this one?
ReplyDeleteNice to see Tuzla in top 5
ReplyDeletebecause nobody wrote it yet: a great article @ExYu !
ReplyDeleteINI is the suprise here, PRN unexpected (are all charters included?), SKP is a relief after all the stagnation
ReplyDeleteFor PRN, it’s likely that the provider of ACMI has changed to one of the tour operators and their seat count is not included. This small growth doesn’t make sense considering the growth up to August. The September numbers haven’t been published yet, so they might provide some insight.
DeleteYes, capacity sold through OTAs and tour operators are included in this figure. A slowdown in growth over winter bas been unchanged for several months.
DeleteThe situation isn’t well at all then.
Delete@admin, when will we have the September results? Thank you for the great job you are doing!
It should be available by the end of the coming week.
DeleteImpressive numbers in Skopje, and especially Ohrid!
ReplyDelete