All capital city airports in the former Yugoslavia will see their capacity levels grow during March, which will mark the start of the 2026 summer season towards the end of the month. Wizz Air remains the region’s largest carrier.
Belgrade Airport has the most available seats on scheduled flights in March, standing at 803.244. The figure represents an increase of 11.2% on 2025. Air Serbia will continue to maintain its position as the largest carrier with 384.988 seats, up 6.4%. Wizz Air will add 56.900 seats, growing by 50.3%. Zagreb follows as the second largest with 449.840 available seats on scheduled flights during the month. It represents an increase of 5.8% on the previous year. Croatia Airlines, which will grow its seat count by 15.662 or 9.2%, will be its largest carrier with 41.2% of total capacity followed by Ryanair with 28.9%. The low cost airline will increase its capacity by 9.1%.
Pristina Airport will have 385.234 available seats, with capacity growth currently projected at 6.6%. GP Aviation has the largest volume, holding a 32% share. It is followed by easyJet with 18.3% of total capacity. Skopje Airport will boast 347.683 seats in March, up a notable 40.8% on the back of Wizz Air’s expansion. The low cost carrier will grow its seat count by 129.200 or 75.2% on the same month in 2025. It will hold the largest share at 65.1%. It is followed by Pegasus Airlines with an 8.9% share. Sarajevo will have 183.189 scheduled seats on the market in March, representing an increase of 15.2% on 2025. Ryanair, which is growing its capacity by 19.330 seats or 97.9% year-on-year, is the largest carrier with 21.7% of total capacity, followed by Pegasus Airlines with 15.3%.
Ljubljana has a total of 145.669 seats on scheduled services, up 22.5% on March 2025. Turkish Airlines will be the airport’s largest, holding 15.1% of all seats, followed by Swiss with a 12.2% share. Finally, Podgorica Airport, which will see the opening of Wizz Air’s base at the end of March, has 130.728 seats on scheduled flights during the month, up 8.4%. Air Montenegro will be the largest carrier - just - with 24.824 seats compared to Wizz Air’s 24.378, while Turkish Airlines comes in third with 23.750.
Largest carriers by scheduled seat capacity in the former Yugoslavia, March 2026
Please note that the above figures are correct as of the date of publication. As the month progresses, they may change due to schedule revisions or equipment adjustments. Nevertheless, they provide a reliable indication of overall capacity trends across the airports.
Good growth all around
ReplyDeleteThe region overall seems to be moving into another expansion cycle. The key question is whether demand will keep pace with this capacity growth.
DeleteMarch is usually a shoulder month. If these are the numbers now, summer peak will be very strong across the region.
DeleteSJJ back with double digit growth
ReplyDeleteI'm really surprised Ryanair hasn't added any extra routes this summer :(
DeleteWe are waiting for winter, then we will announce new lines and increased frequencies.
DeleteExcellent. I am looking forward to it. But a bit odd to go for expansion in winter, especially with Sarajevo's weather conditions. Or you mean they will announce in winter for summer 27?
DeleteWho is we? K U M and Michael O'Leary?
DeleteI think he meant "we" as in Sarajevo Airport :) Fingers crossed for Ryanair expansion.
DeleteWizz might be close to 1 million seats in a single month this summer.
ReplyDeleteImpressive!
DeleteThe purple and pink sheriff is in town haha
DeleteI await for this article every month 😀
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteMe too. I would love to see it for the smaller airports too though.
DeleteThose are massive increases for SKP. Can the airport handle such growth?
ReplyDeleteEasily. It's the smoothest airport I have flown through, IMO. 4m pax shouldn't be a problem, but maybe 5m will become an issue.
DeleteGP Aviation seems strong.
ReplyDeleteGP Aviation holding 32% in ANY market is remarkable..
Deletelol true
DeleteI'm a bit surprised how low Lufthansa has fallen on the list. They used to be one of the dominant airlines in the region.
ReplyDeleteIt's because LCC have grown a lot, namely W6 and FR.
DeleteIt seems like hell will freeze over first before they consider starting Pristina.
DeleteAnd they offloaded some routes to EN (MUC-LJU, for example).
DeleteThey still operate MUC-LJU though.
DeleteInteresting how Turkish Airlines remains among the top carriers in multiple capitals. Their regional dominance is often underestimated.
DeletePegasus also keeps quietly building a presence in multiple capitals without too much fuss. I find it amazing they are ahead of LH.
DeleteAnon @0925 yes they do, but mostly under EN flight number and those flights are not included in LH statistics.
DeleteI get that since those are actually Air Dolomiti marketed flights but what I meant was that Lufthansa still serves the route with its own flight numbers/metal as well as far as I'm aware. Less then before but still have some flights.
DeleteCorrect, most of the weeks they have 3 flights under LH flight number and 7 under EN.
DeleteThey seemingly moved them back to LH for the full summer season, which is odd
DeleteWouldn't be surprised if people complained. I think there are a lot of corporate travellers on this route.
DeleteYes, S26 is fully back on LH flight number. The same as W26-27, but this might (probably will) change as CRJ9 is planned indefinitely in the route, however they announced the type will leave the fleet by the end of 2026 or Q1 2027.
DeleteBravo Fraport!
ReplyDeleteSeems like LJU will have yet another year of double digit growth. 🥳
DeleteMy opinion is that it will have 20%+ annual growth in 2026 compared to 2025.
DeleteLjubljana’s 22% increase sounds good, but in absolute numbers it’s still the smallest capital airport in the region. The gap remains significant.
DeleteYes but Ljubljana’s reliance on network carriers rather than LCCs gives it a very different profile compared to others in the region.
Delete@09:11 @9:12 haha another day in the F office
DeleteI thought Fraport had nothing to do with the airport’s network and pax numbers.
Delete^ If the airport is growing it's thanks to the government.
DeleteIf the airport is not growing it's thanks to Frapirt.
This is the "logic" of some commenters.
If the airport has no new routes it has no demand, but when there are new routes it's because of Fraport - Fanboy logic.
DeleteFraport is successful everywhere in the world.
DeleteBut somehow they bought LJU to sabotage it.
- Western Balkan logic.
@11:58 It looks exactly like that :) In wildest dream i would love to some LCC open base in MBX and this successful boys go home
DeleteBravo Hrvatska.
ReplyDeleteWizzAir is going crazy in Skopje
ReplyDeleteSkopje’s 40% growth is huge, but 65% dependence on Wizz Air is risky. We’ve seen before how quickly things can change if the airline reallocates aircraft.
DeleteBelgrade crossing 800k seats in March is quite good. Double-digit growth on an already large base shows the market is still expanding.
ReplyDeleteGood year ahead
DeleteBelgrade’s size advantage is becoming structural. Once you cross a certain threshold, airlines naturally gravitate toward you and I hope that after this year that point will be reached.
DeleteTrue, but the airlines are still very shy and cautious about coming to BEG, look at recent U2 launch to CDG.
DeletePodgorica will be very interesting to watch once the Wizz base fully kicks in April.
ReplyDeleteYes. And interesting that in March, three airlines have almost the same share of seats.
DeleteSarajevo and Skopje stand out as the real growth stories this March.
ReplyDeletewell Belgrade is not that far away from the Sarajevo number
DeleteIf you look at actual number of added seats and not at percentages, BEG adds more seats year-on-year in March than SJJ.
DeleteZAG too
DeleteWould be interesting to see load factor comparisons once March is over.
ReplyDeletePristina’s numbers are consistently strong relative to population size. Diaspora traffic continues to drive that market.
ReplyDeleteGood for aviation but bad for Kosovo itself,
Deletemeaning more and more people are leaving
The rate of people leaving has gone down, and I believe is at the same rate as other exyu countries. The growth is primarily coming because people are traveling more. Years ago, most of diaspora traveled to home once, now it is 2+ times per year. With visa liberalisation, locals now are also visiting family and friends in Europe.
DeleteThe airport has huge potential when you see that the load factor across all airlines operating at PRN is 90%+ and it has one of the lowest seasonalities amount exyu airports.
Skopje looks like the breakout airport of 2026 so far.
ReplyDeleteWait for Podgorica from next month onwards.
DeleteIndeed. @admin any hint what we could expect in terms of capacity growth?
DeleteCurrently, growth is expected to surpass 40% during peak summer months.
DeleteNice! Thank you
DeleteAnd Air Montenegro has not responded at all. Like I said before, they are going to make the same mistake OU made in Zagreb with Ryanair's arrival.
Deleteyou are overestimating them, how should they respond
DeleteReduce prices and launch new routes.
Delete^ That's a recipe for huge losses, what are you talking about?
Deletedidnt JU do exactly that
DeleteEven in 2013 JU was 3 times the size of Air Montenegro today. It also sells connecting flights so it is much more competitive. Even with its new TK codeshare you can't even check baggage in for a connecting TK-4O flight. It's just a codeshare in a press release not in reality.
DeleteThe region overall seems healthier than many others in Europe in terms of air traffic.
ReplyDeleteThat is one way to look at it.. another is that its growing from a drastically lower starting point. But either way its positive for the aviation sector and consumers in the Balkans
DeletePlus huge gastarbeiter traffic.
DeleteSarajevo nearing 200k seats in March would have sounded unrealistic five years ago. The airport has transformed.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, I think for years the market was underserved from SJJ. And I still think it has a whole lot of potential.
DeleteIt was. But will Sarajevo be impacted by Wizz Air's expansion in Tuzla? Or it does not steal that many passengers from Sarajevo?
DeleteConsidering all the new aircraft, Croatia Airlines growing by 9.2% in Zagreb on a relatively low base number is not all that great.
ReplyDeleteThey are replacing A320s as you already knew.
DeleteMeanwhile JU is losing market share fast in BEG.
Losing market share? It is higher than March last year if you look at the article from February last year. And the fact that it is higher on top of Wizz Air's expansion means they are definitely not losing market share. I didn't write the original comment at 10.27 but your need and urge to counter anything related to Croatia with negativity about Serbia is telling :)
DeleteThey are replacing a whole lot more Q400s and A319s than A320s. So your argument failed on all fronts. Take a deep breath next time and think.
Delete@10:40 actually he is right on that.
DeleteBEG seat capacity is increasing by 11.2% but JU capacity is increasing by 6.4%.
But this is great overall performance even if foreign airlines get more pax.
^ capacity share is written in the article. But whatever allows you to sleep at night.
DeleteDon't know what you are trying to say exactly but the article is pretty clear:
Delete"Belgrade Airport has the most available seats on scheduled flights in March, standing at 803.244. The figure represents an increase of 11.2% on 2025. Air Serbia will continue to maintain its position as the largest carrier with 384.988 seats, up 6.4%. Wizz Air will add 56.900 seats, growing by 50.3% "
Beautiful pic
ReplyDeleteSomewhere in Greece I believe
Delete^ Skiathos
DeleteZagreb feels like it’s waiting for its next big catalyst.
ReplyDeleteWizz perhaps?
Deletetragic. I mean why is there OU at all?
Delete