TAV Macedonia, the operator of Skopje and Ohrid airports, is focusing on attracting additional legacy and leisure carriers to launch services to the country this year. Speaking to the “Bloomberg Adria” network, CEO Nejat Kurt said the company is seeking to achieve a more balanced airline mix across its two airports. “We have substantial low cost traffic, accounting for 60% of our operations. We are focusing a little bit more on leisure and legacy carriers. Overall, we are trying to balance it out. There are certain goals we want to reach this year. There are new marketing strategies in place, and we would like to make a difference this year”.
Mr Kurt noted that additional new routes are expected to be announced in 2026, on top of the existing three from Skopje, to Naples and Budapest by Wizz Air and Bodrum by AJet, which have already been scheduled. “2026 will be a promising year. We will be focusing on growth and increasing traffic even more. We expect substantial growth until the end of the year. We also expect new destinations. Once we have the agreements in place with airlines, we will make the announcements soon enough. I would like to thank the airlines for their commitment to increase traffic to Skopje. We are confident we will add some more diversity to the current destinations we have at Skopje”.
Skopje Airport is anticipating record growth, driven by Wizz Air’s network expansion late last year and a significant increase in frequencies on several existing routes this summer. Based on preliminary figures and current schedules, which remain subject to change, Skopje Airport has 3.029.345 seats available on scheduled services for the 2026 summer season, running from March 29 to October 25. This represents a 28.2% increase on the previous summer, or a significant additional 665.712 seats. Growth is also expected in Ohrid, where Wizz Air will introduce four new routes, while Austrian Airlines will commence services from Vienna. Overall, Ohrid currently has just over 300.000 seats available on scheduled flights for the summer, marking a 33.4% increase, or an additional 79.000 seats compared to last year.
Would be great to see Air France, BA or even Iberia at SKP.
ReplyDeleteI think you are getting ahead of yourself with those picks.
DeleteI do not think BA is looking to enter the North Macedonian market. It hasnt made Belgrade work, let alone Skopje.
DeleteAnd the ZAG route is not working out either going to seasonal. So I doubt we will see them in SKP.
DeleteSKP offers subsidises so it could happen.
Delete@10:23 no it could not. Its very low yield route which BA wouldn't make pay.
DeleteBA was present before the 2001 war. Also Lufthansa (now restored) and Alitalia. Not sure about Air France. But all of them have significantly changed their strategy since then.
DeleteVery impressive growth figures for Skopje.
ReplyDeleteThe real question is whether this growth is sustainable or still too dependent on Wizz Air. Sixty percent low-cost share is quite high. Diversification is definitely needed.
ReplyDeleteGrowth of course will stall. The focus on keeping routes and making a good inboud tourist offering is vital.
DeleteIf they are serious about legacy carriers, maybe we could see Lufthansa Group expansion or even Turkish Airlines adding more frequencies. That would improve connectivity beyond point-to-point traffic.
ReplyDeleteBalanced airline mix is easier said than done. Legacy carriers look at yields and corporate demand, and that market in North Macedonia is still limited.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteSkopje has quietly become one of the faster growing airports in the region. If this growth continues it could overtake some larger regional competitors in a few years.
ReplyDeleteYou mean Prishtina? Which is its own competition? Will take a while
DeleteWe are happy with what Wizz has to offer, but of course some diversification is needed.
ReplyDeleteAs a Macedonian, I can say that the situation in the country is very depressive for few years now, I would say after the change of the name and all the false promises made to the country.
No real EU integration talks, corruption is high in all the ruling parties and at the end that hurts the economy and potential new investments, and people are used to the ship moving nowhere for a very long time now.
Heck, even Dubai is not working from Skopje, few attempts were made but the market can't sustain 2 or 3 flights a week throughout whole year.
Until the county will not make some move in the EU integration the situation will be 'skini-vrzi' without a proper plan.
Ohrid on the other side, has a great potential, but it also needs a major plan to attract some high end hotel luxury brand, to renovate some of the hotels from Tito and change from a cheap place where the youngsters from UK are coming to get drunk to something better
+100
Deleteyou mean youngsters from Serbia?
DeleteReaching a true balance won’t be easy. Legacy airlines need business demand and stronger corporate presence.
ReplyDeleteAnd the market is, after all, not very large.
DeleteI’m curious which “new destinations” they are hinting at. Western Europe? Scandinavia? Maybe something in the Middle East?
ReplyDeleteThese are impressive numbers
ReplyDeleteDiversification is crucial in SKP's case.
ReplyDeletetwo more turkish destinations are coming for the summer season
ReplyDeletefirst thing what TAV should do is to lower fees
ReplyDeleteMUC, DUS and CPH are strangely missing from SKP's network
ReplyDeleteI'm genuinely curious, is CPH coming back this summer season or not? I've seen people with 'insider info' hint at it a lot in the past months here, but nothing is getting announced yet. So is it happening or not?
Deletethere is nobody here with insider news to tell you such things.
DeleteCPH is officially targeted by gov/airport to bring it back and thats been also reported on this page. Everything else is ЧАРШИСКИ МУАБЕТИ
Would be nice to have KLM in Skopje and Edelweiss to increase its frequencies.
ReplyDeleteEdelweiss has the same freq from SKP and OHD in summer, 3 weekly from SKP is bizzarely low. Guess they are just maintaining a min presence
Deletewith such a big diaspora they could go daily liek nothing
Again KLM is a very unlikely candidate for Skopje given the restrictions in Schiphol.
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