A total of 1.096.940 passengers travelled between the former Yugoslav markets and Spain in 2025, marking a record level of traffic. The figure represents an increase of 30.6% on the previous year or an additional 256.738 passengers. Throughout 2025, several new routes were launched between the region and Spain, including Croatia Airlines’ new Zagreb - Madrid service, complementing Iberia’s seasonal operation, Wizz Air’s Belgrade - Alicante flights, Ryanair’s Sarajevo - Girona route, and Vueling’s new Tivat - Barcelona service. In addition, Wizz Air restored flights between Skopje and Barcelona following a three-year hiatus. In late October, Wizz Air inaugurated operations between Belgrade and Madrid, while airBaltic introduced flights between Ljubljana and Las Palmas.
Croatia handled 592.010 passengers on services to and from Spain, representing a year-on-year increase of 18.9%. Zagreb accounted for the most travellers at 308.701, up 27.2%, driven primarily by Ryanair’s strong growth on its Spanish routes from the Croatian capital. Dubrovnik welcomed 162.055 passengers on Spain services, an increase of 11.9%, while Split saw 109.223 travellers, up 16.7%. Zadar recorded 12.337 passengers, down 29.4% year-on-year, reflecting a 30% cut in Ryanair’s flights to Barcelona.
Top five Croatia - Spain vv routes by passengers carried, 2025
Serbia recorded strong growth on services to Spain, with Belgrade handling 409.226 passengers to and from the country, up 23.2%. Barcelona remained the most popular destination, accounting for more than half of all Spain-bound traffic, followed by Madrid, Alicante, Valencia, Malaga and Palma de Mallorca. Wizz Air's new service to Alicante, launched in June, carried 38.790 passengers, achieving an average cabin load factor of 89.2%. The Serbian flag carrier will launch flights to Alicante, Seville and Tenerife this year.
Top five Serbia - Spain vv routes by passengers carried, 2025
The bulk of passengers between Slovenia and Spain were carried on flights between Ljubljana and Barcelona. Vueling’s new service, alongside charters which operated between the two cities during the year, resulted in 9.458 passengers, up 143.8% on 2024. Iberia’s seasonal service between Ljubljana and Madrid saw 4.325 travellers, up 31.5% on last year. airBaltic’s new service between Ljubljana and Las Palmas, alongside charters to the Canary Islands generated a further 1.931 customers, a year-on-year increase of 305.7%. Overall, there were 20.241 passengers between Ljubljana and Spain in 2025, an improvement of 81.4%. The remaining passengers flying between the two countries were distributed across leisure services operated by Trade Air.
Macedonia saw 33.391 passengers on its Spain flights. This was split across Wizz Air’s Barcelona service, with the carrier achieving an average cabin load factor of 86.3% on its Skopje operations. The airline also launched flights between the Macedonian capital and Madrid on October 28, resulting in a further 10.115 travellers and loads of 76.9%.
Montenegro welcomed 18.074 passengers on Spain services. Of these, 16.674 travelled on Vueling’s new Tivat - Barcelona route, which recorded an average load factor of 87.8%, while the remaining 1.631 passengers were carried on limited Iberia-operated Madrid charters. The Spanish flag carrier will launch seasonal flights between Madrid and Tivat this year.
Bosnia and Herzegovina saw 28.171 passengers on Ryanair’s new Sarajevo - Girona service, which commenced on March 31. The route recorded an average cabin load factor of 82.8%.
EX-YU flag carrier performance on Spain operations, 2025
What's the LF on Lju-lpa flights?
ReplyDeleteSo far around 75% on average.
DeleteI was expecting better tbh
DeleteAnd Vueling LJu-BCN
DeleteVueling is 87 % so far.
DeleteSo Croatia Airlines handled 8% of total traffic between Croatia and Spain... What to say.
ReplyDeleteGreat success
DeleteUsual disaster from OU.
DeleteImpressive
ReplyDelete1.1 million passengers is crazy considering how weak Spain connectivity was a few years ago. Huge turnaround.
ReplyDeleteOver 30% growth in one year is huge.
DeleteYes, it is really surprising that for many years the region lacked flights to Spain.
DeleteFinally things are changing. And there is more potential to be unlocked.
DeleteZAG barely had Spain flights until Ryanair came.
DeleteZagreb had double-daily Iberia flights to Madrid, Croatia Airlines flights to Barcelona nine months ago year, and previously also Croatia Airlines and even Spanair flights to Madrid.
DeleteWizz flight loads to MAD and BCN are actually not bad from SKP, especially Madrid, they launched in the winter season, and it should improve in the spring and summer I think
ReplyDeleteBCN is increased from April
DeleteIt is really interesting that no Spanish airline showed interest for the flights to Serbia although the demand is obviously there.
ReplyDeleteThey simply ignore more than 400.000 passengers (and expected to grow).
Too late now in my opinion.
DeleteBravo Hrvatska!
ReplyDeleteThe LF for LPA from LJU seems to be below 70 %, considering the capacity for this year was 2812 and there was 1931 passengers.
ReplyDeleteBelgrade–Barcelona more than half of Serbia’s Spain traffic
ReplyDeleteI wonder why it is more popular than say Madrid
DeleteBarcelona is generally a more popular destination and has much nicer weather and is on the cost. It's not much of a mistery
DeleteWizz Air doing 89% loads to Belgrade-Alicante is a strong result. That one was clearly overdue.
ReplyDeleteAir Serbia entering the same route will be interesting
DeleteIt is exceptional especially when you take into account that this includes winter months and that flights are operated with the A321.
DeleteInterestingly Air Europa has no interest in ex-Yu at all.
ReplyDeleteThey have a codeshare with Air Serbia.
DeleteWizzAir could do MAD-LJU when iberia is not flying
ReplyDeleteThey could do it when they are flying too.
DeleteWow, Croatia Airlines +82%.
ReplyDeleteOf course when they introduced a new route. But there share of traffic to Spain is a disaster.
Delete^ It added a new route and has a low base number. What did you expect?
ReplyDeleteLjubljana–Spain still tiny but growing fast. Charters + Vueling seems like the right mix for Slovenia.
ReplyDeletethat's okay for now, but for the future we need a LCC with year round flights to a few Spanish cities. The demand is there. Vueling is a good start, but their two, some weeks even one weekly flight to BCN in the summer is not gonna cut it.
DeleteSkopje–Madrid loads at 76.9% aren’t amazing for LCC, but for a brand-new route launched late in the year, that’s acceptable.
ReplyDeleteThat's very poor for LCC, even very questionable for LC. No bright future there
Deletemeans a normal 180 seater A320 is too small for the route
Deleteit actually exceeds our expectations. It started with 3 weekly from the start.
Deletein the next expansion they could station an A320 neo and run only leissure routes: Nizza, Malaga, Palermo, Warszaw Modlin, Bucharest
DeleteNeeds time. It just launched a few months ago in winter.
DeleteSpain is becoming the region’s top leisure market. Next step is more year-round routes
ReplyDeleteWould be great for 2pw INI-BCN Wizz or INI-GRO Ryanair. If INI-MLA works year round, BCN should do at least seasonally.
ReplyDeleteit works because of gastos
DeleteWatch 2026 numbers explode again once Air Serbia adds new routes and more airports get direct links.
ReplyDeleteCroatia total is big
ReplyDeleteDo you think for Serbia will introduce more Spanish routes ? Because i can!t find more places that this destination will rentable. Perhaps Ibiza?
ReplyDeleteIbiza. Other than that, I think Spain is now well covered.
DeleteI think Bilbao is missing very much. Ibiza as well.
DeleteBilbao could definitely work. And I think it would be a surprise, like Alicante turned out to be.
Deletenah Alicante is succesfull because it gets all the Costa Brava tourists. Do you really expect the yugos to flock into to the Guggenheim in Bilbao? malo morgen
DeleteBlanca*
DeleteHow come Belgrade Barcelona has 213.000 but Zagreb Barcelona is not even in the Top 5?
ReplyDeleteBecause it is only operated by Croatia Airlines seasonally. Ryanair flies to Girona seasonally.
DeleteGreat breakdown,
ReplyDeleteWithout Ryanair and Wizz, these numbers wouldn’t exist.
ReplyDeleteThank you to both
DeleteThats true.
DeleteBelgrade-Madrid would still be at twice a week with Air Serbia.
How as Air Serbia had 5 weekly flights to Madrid this summer before Wizz Air announced its flights to Madrid? Less stupid nonsense more facts please.
DeleteTrue
ReplyDeleteMadrid is finally taking off now while Barcelona has been dominant for years.
ReplyDeleteWill be interesting to see how Bilbao-Split will perform this summer.
ReplyDeleteThe route is for Spanish tourists. It will perform fine.
DeleteAre JU's Seville flights going to be year round?
ReplyDeleteIt starts in September. It's year round
DeleteSevilla in summer is much too hot.
Delete50 degrees celsius-thats why most restaurants in Andalusia do not open before 22.00 in the evening.
Slovenia still has massive untapped potential to Spain
ReplyDeleteIndeed but there is noone to tap into it.
DeleteBilbao and around is not only Guggenheim. San Sebastiรกn is one of the most beautiful placรฉs in Spain near of border with France ( only 45 km from Biarritz ). Santander is also near from Bilbao and like San Sebastiรกn also is nice place with amazing nature ,sea and mountains. So why not Bilbao?this Airport took 7 millions passengers last year without Ryanair,when 10 years only had 3 or 4 millions
ReplyDeletedont forget inbound tourism which is increasing sharply. There is an article in El Pais today about it: https://elpais.com/extra/fitur/2026-01-23/hacia-los-balcanes-mas-inexplorados.html
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteGRO is a large market that is growing steadily. I am confident that more routes will be added in the coming years.
ReplyDeletethere are BCN flights now to most of the airports that come in question
DeleteIt is true that BCN monopolizes almost all the routes, but GRO could work for secondary airports such as INI, PDV, ZAD or others
DeleteGirona works fine for budget travel, but anyone connecting onwards will still want Barcelona proper.
DeleteZAD has BCN flights according wiki
DeleteIt says in the article that it has flight
Delete"Zadar recorded 12.337 passengers, down 29.4% year-on-year, reflecting a 30% cut in Ryanair’s flights to Barcelona."
Montenegro’s entire Spain market is basically one route
ReplyDeleteThe region clearly loves Spain.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised it took this long to discover it.
DeleteSpain offers great value for money and there is so much to see.
DeleteExactly. Spain is the perfect combination: cheap flights + good weather + good value.
Deleteand good vibes
DeleteCroatia and Montenegro have become twice as expensive compared to Spain. That is the main reason I see when talking with people who are traveling in Spain.
Deletevery positive article <3
ReplyDeleteMore Spanish visitors to the Balkans and more EX-YU tourists to Spain :)
DeleteI wonder if there are transfers from/to Latin America on these flights
ReplyDeleteonly on Iberia flights and maybe JU to MAD if they codeshare with someone
DeleteJU codeshare with Air Europa
DeleteOnce Air Serbia adds its new routes, Belgrade will probably hit half a million passengers with Spain alone.
ReplyDeleteAlicante numbers are impressive. That market is stronger than I expected.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteYep. Became third busiest route even though it launched midway through the year. Amazing
Deletevamos a La Playa!
ReplyDeleteNon tengo dinero ๐
DeleteHow comes that Zagreb-Malaga performs so much better tan Belgrade-Malaga?
ReplyDeleteDont they have the same frequency?
They don't have the same frequency. Zagreb-Malaga is 5 weekly in S25 and 4 weekly in W25/26, while Belgrade-Malaga is 3 weekly in S25 and 2 weekly in W25/26.
DeleteFascinating to see Belgrade having 12 weekly flights to Barcelona right now in the middle of slowest season while Zagreb has none. Just mind blowing, what an opportunity for airlines.
ReplyDeleteRyanair launching Sarajevo–Girona was smart. They got in early and captured demand.
ReplyDeleteI’m just not sure whether a load factor of 82.8% is good for a low-cost carrier.
DeleteLjubljana only 20k passengers… that’s tiny. The market is still very underserved.
ReplyDeleteCroatia’s total is massive compared to the rest. Shows how big the tourist flows are in both directions.
ReplyDeleteBelgrade alone had just 30% lower number of Spain passengers than all four Croatian airports combined. Belgrade performance is truly massive.
DeleteBelgrade alone = all of Serbia.
DeleteWizz operated BEG-MAD by just over two months in 2025, so real impact will only be seen this year. Air Serbia adds Seville, Alicante and Tenerife so Belgrade/Serbia will see major passenger growth on Spain routes, likely closing gap with Croatia.
DeleteWhy was SKP-BCN gone for three years?
ReplyDeleteCovid19 and engine issues together
DeleteMadrid is still underdeveloped in the region compared to Barcelona.
ReplyDeleteI don't get why though
DeleteMadrid hotels are way more expensive in compare to Barcelona , most of the people will look first for cheap place to stay or second option going through agency that organize everything....
DeleteRyanair with their 189 pax Boeing 737-800's would have had 98% LF on that new SKP-MAD route according the number in the article. Just saying they are missing out big time
ReplyDeleteNot actually, this LF will be even better , this is result for just 2 months operations... so we cannot judge as the route is served just 3 months, but for sure the LF% will be higher in 2026
DeleteSKP-MAD is launched 28th october and for just 2 months operating the LF is nice , overall in year round the LF would be 80+ which for two airports BCN and MAD serving from airport size of SKP those results are
ReplyDeletePretty promissing.. I wish Macedonia to get more Spain coast airports this year๐๐