Capital city airports across the former Yugoslavia have all seen reductions in flights and capacity this month, following a series of network revisions by airlines amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, rising fuel prices and potential supply constraints. Compared to the originally filed schedules and capacity levels for April published by EX-YU Aviation News in late March, the situation has shifted across several airports. The following are the revised figures.
Under the revised schedule, Belgrade Airport is set to offer 897.733 seats on scheduled flights in April, down by 36.995 from the original plan. Despite the reduction, this still represents a 7.6% increase compared to April 2025. Air Serbia remains the largest carrier with 433.502 seats, although this is 20.000 fewer than initially planned, followed by Wizz Air, Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines. Zagreb will have 549.720 seats on scheduled services, 10.332 fewer than originally filed. This marks a 2.6% decline year-on-year. Croatia Airlines retains its position as the largest carrier with 203.998 seats, up 5.4% compared to last year, ahead of Ryanair, Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines.
Skopje Airport has lost 6.866 seats following network revisions so far this month, bringing its total to 393.355. Despite the reduction, this still represents a strong 32% increase compared to last year. Wizz Air remains the largest carrier, with capacity up 68%, followed by Pegasus Airlines and Turkish Airlines. Pristina Airport is set to offer 390.680 seats, down 7.345 from the original plan, with overall capacity growth currently projected at 2.6%. GP Aviation holds the largest share, followed by Wizz Air, Chair Airlines and Pegasus Airlines. Sarajevo Airport’s seat count now stands at 223.574, a reduction of 6.820 compared to initial plans. This represents a 5.1% decrease on 2025 levels. Ryanair is the largest carrier, followed by Turkish Airlines, Pegasus Airlines and Austrian Airlines.
Podgorica Airport will have 205.319 seats on scheduled flights during the month, down 2.505 from initial plans but still up 14.6% compared to last year. Wizz Air is set to become the largest carrier, followed by Ryanair, Air Montenegro and Turkish Airlines. Ljubljana, meanwhile, will offer a total of 191.974 seats on scheduled services, shedding 11.196 seats compared to earlier projections, yet still recording a 17% year-on-year increase. Lufthansa will be the airport’s largest carrier, followed by Turkish Airlines, Swiss and easyJet.
Would be nice to see the quaterly figures for all Airports so far.
ReplyDeleteNot surprising at all. Fuel prices up, Middle East situation unstable. Airlines are just protecting margins. Honestly, these cuts could have been worse.
ReplyDeleteSkopje +32% even after cuts is impressive. Wizz Air clearly doubling down there.
ReplyDeleteSkopje numbers are crazy
Deletethey had +37% pax in March
DeleteI think April still will reach 33-34% because of the Freebird charters that are not counted here and those flights are daily...
Deletene
DeleteWe will see ;)
DeleteAll those cuts will be a little bit covered by the Freebird charters that are doing amazing job in March, and April ,and as planned May too ... maybe not in full but will civer this cuts caused by other airlines reduction
Deleteno
DeleteGosh Skopje fanboys are obsessed with %
Delete@23.51 same for you if it was negative %
DeleteThese “reductions” are relatively small when you look at the bigger picture. Most airports are still growing compared to last year.
ReplyDeleteAgree. Even with all the global issues, the region is still growing overall.
DeleteThese are minor adjustments now, but they could snowball if fuel keeps rising.
DeleteIt could be just the beginning especially if loads and yields aren't as great after the cuts.
DeleteAirlines should accept the realities of the labor market and compensate their stuff accordingly! 🤷♂️
ReplyDeleteAirline staff are overpaid as it is, the unions should be banned from holding strikes all the time.
Delete^ Actually they are not, and especially airline staff in our region and staff of airlines like W6.
DeleteThe demand for their services in much higher than the supply.
+1
DeleteThere is no such thing as "overpaid" in capitalism. Supply vs demand.
Deleteanon 9:33 And there is no decent pay in communism, lol But there is bonuses in capitalism, 13th wage, benefits, giving shares etc. Mali Djokica pogresno zamislja kapitalizam.
DeleteLjubljana finally showing some decent growth, even if Lufthansa still dominates everything.
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting to see where the 11k loss in seats comes from. Although the LH strikes are probably not helping.
DeleteThe real question is what May and June will look like if the situation in the Middle East doesn’t stabilise.
ReplyDeleteBelgrade losing 37k seats but still growing… tells you how aggressive the original schedule was.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteIt wasn't aggressive, BEG still has a lot of catching up to do compared to other airports in the region like BUD or OTP.
DeleteGood thing only BEG has catching up to do. Other airports in ex-Yu are never mentioned in the context of catching up.
DeleteTIA shows how it should be done! Open the market and allow all LCCs to fight for passengers.
DeleteGreat. Can't wait for Ljubljana, Sarajevo and Pristina to open the market and allow all LCCs to fight for passengers.
DeleteYes, and then go bancrupt
Delete^ LOL, what?
DeleteAnon 09.41 because they are doing ok and there isn't much catching up to do. ZAG tried it with FR and we see that they increased their numbers by a bit and now they are actually having less capacity.
DeleteAha so Zagreb has no catching up to do to Bucharest and Budapest. Only Belgrade has catching up to do?
DeleteSoon ZAG will have to catch up PRN.
DeleteIndeed, that seems to be the case. ZAG tried to catch up and it failed.
DeleteFirst they tried to expand long-haul flights and that plan collapsed as there are barely any flights left.
Secondly, they played around with FR and short-haul flights and we see this year that their numbers aren't growing. Apparently the market is already saturated. That is why government had to make a new stimulus plan.
ZAG is still serving a respectable number of passengers for an airports its size.
@ 10:08
DeleteTIA is not a model anyone should catch up. With tickets prices 10-20 Euro it is guaranteed that airport charges nothing and LCCs are not making profit. So, someone is subsiding airport, which is NOT sustainable in a long term. Actually, that is not business model at all
Since when are Bucharest, Budapest and Tirana part of the ExYu region?
DeleteWho cares about Ex-Yu?
DeleteThe geographical region comprises Hungary, Romania, Albania and so on.
^ if you don't care, why are you on this site?
Delete@11:01 - Yes, Belgrade has because it's a city with similar potential, a true hub that in the past served more than BUD or VIE.
DeleteZAG is another category completely, as numbers reflect.
Until 1991 ZAG had just same slightly fewer passengers than VIE and more passengers than BUD. Today, ZAG is another category completely, I agree, compared to BUD and VIE, but only because of politicians and Mafiosos who still insist on incompetent flag carrier remaining LHG feeder, and preventing ZAG from becoming a serious or at least half-serious hub, which is exactly the opposite of what happened with JU and BEG during the last decade
DeleteUntil 1991 Zagreb was second largest city in country of 23 million people. Now is largest in country of 3 million and maybe little more. AS has tradition from JAT, so normally BEG is where it is. BEG had more pax than VIE in late 70s. Maybe one day it will achieve that again with such growth, economic progress etc. OU is more like Bulgaria Air, similar fleet size, numbers. Bulgaria had 14 million foreign tourists, little less than Croatia. But BG is bigger EU country, similar standard, wages etc . So Bulgaria is very comparable with Croatia. And do not expect better company than Bulgaria air. That means that Jasmin does awesome job.
DeleteCroatia last year had 22 mil tourists compared to 14 mil in Bulgaria. It's almost double. Bulgaria has almost no tourists from distant markets, Croatia has over 2 mil. Bulgaria and Croatia are totally incomparable, by wages, living standards, mentality, inheritance, geography...During Yugoslavia, Croatia was part of the 23 mil market, today It's part of 500 mil EU market. Jasmin is incompetent aparatchik placed by politicians and Mafiosos and the only reason why you write positive about Jasmin and negative about ZAG and Croatia, is very very obvious. I will not name it, I leave other participants here to make their own conclusions here and have no intention to discuss this matter with you out of all the people, because you will keep saying as a parrot your mantra which is totally detached from reality. Cheers!
Delete"Until 1991 ZAG had just same slightly fewer passengers than VIE "
DeleteThis is a complete lie. Vienna had 6 million passengers in 1990, while Zagreb NEVER in it's history reached that number.
In the 90s Macedonia also had three airlines and so on. Its 2026 now not 1991
DeletePristina and Skopje remain very stable compared to others. Diaspora demand keeps it resilient.
ReplyDeleteExactly. They are not as dependent on tourist arrivals as some other markets. Migrant workers and diaspora families will visit home with regularity which is a solid proportion of their aviation markets.
DeleteTurkish Airlines in top carriers across almost every airport. They really dominate the region .
ReplyDeleteTurkish Airlines and Pegasus showing up everywhere.
DeleteWould be interesting to see load factors alongside this. Capacity cuts don’t necessarily mean weaker demand.
ReplyDeleteIt was reported that OU and JU had a record Q1.
Delete^ When can we expect them to publish their Q1 results?
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2026/04/croatia-airlines-posts-record-q1.html
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2026/04/air-serbia-delivers-record-q1-figures.html
Thank you 09:30!
DeleteApril is just the beginning. Summer season will be the real test.
ReplyDeleteFor destinations like BEG with no serious inbound tourism , I think the effect will be a little bit less .
DeleteSorry : *will=might .
DeleteIn 2025, Belgrade had more foreign visitors than Zagreb.
DeleteIt had more foreign visitors than any other ex-Yu capital actually.
DeleteAre the tourist Russians?
DeleteNo. The largest group of foreign tourists are Chinese then Turks.
DeleteFeels like airlines overestimated demand for April and are now quietly correcting.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteNot a single airport spared
ReplyDeleteWhy the overall decline in ZAG? Who is causing it? For once it is not OU.
ReplyDeleteI remember that Ryanair has a small decrease in April.
Delete^ That's correct, Ryanair has a small decrease on its initially published schedule.
DeleteI wonder what the result for ZAG would be if OU did not make the switch to A220.
DeleteAlso why the decline in Sarajevo?
DeleteBecause people are flying on FR now and O&D demand to ZAG is very modest. Plus most will switch to the bus to save €10
DeleteInteresting that lccs are still expanding while legacy airlines are trimming.
ReplyDeleteWizz is expanding. Others, not so much.
DeleteTrue dat, FR is being very conservative this year.
DeleteThey were conservative before the war began. So it seemed like they planned for a slower year.
DeleteWizz Air dominating multiple markets now. Hard to compete with their cost base.
ReplyDeleteRyanair has an even lower cost base than Wizz
DeleteCost base is not a primary driver. Wizz retreated from Abu Dhabi and TLV, engine issues are mostly resolved, new aircraft will be joining the fleet, Ukraine opening is not on a horizon. Now they have to expand in Europe at any cost, even as demand is softening.
DeleteOnly ZAG and SJJ are declining.
ReplyDeleteWhy couldn't these 2 airports also achieve increase despite the seat reduction?
Not good.
These are not passenger numbers. This is capacity. They still may have more passengers than last year despite decrease in capacity.
DeletePassenger increase to these two airport so far this year is higher than BEG.
DeleteIn absolute numbers?
Deletejok absolute numbers
Deletejok
DeleteZAG JAN-FEB +36.707
SJJ JAN-FEB +10.180
BEG JAN-FEB +83.235
But you keep lying to yourself.
Even in percentile terms, the growth is bigger in BEG than at the other two airports
DeleteJAN-FEB
SJJ +4.6, ZAG +6.8%, BEG +7.9%
@11.03, what a fail.
DeleteSJJ March +22%
DeleteThank you for the update
ReplyDeleteSKP will still reach 33-34 % in April , because of the Freebird charters that are operating daily and are not counted here....
ReplyDeletenope it will not. No airport can achieve 100% of capacity increases. It was not the case in March although the growth was excellent.
DeleteIt is not increase. Even before 3 weeks when airports had the % for April , Freebirds charters were not included. Maybe will not reach 100% growth , but from those numbers posted here will come close
DeleteSKP some of the days now have double daily Freebird charters , those flights will cover the - passengers numbers...
DeleteArguing over percentages and the like just looks a bit sad guys.
DeleteI am just saying that Freebird charters are not included in those numbers, and all that charters will if not 100 but 60% will cover the minus numbers caused by other airlines cuttings...but some people just dont want to accept the reality
DeleteSKP tomorrow have double daily Freebird charters , Munich and Copenhagen , and most of the days in April will see double daily flights. Each flight lets say 150 passengers, thats 300 in one day, itis 2100 weekly, simple math, count monthly you will see what I talk for ;)
DeleteFor Macedonia Wizz air still havent reduced any route because of the middle east crisis??? (Except Larnaca )
ReplyDeleteEveryone wants to visit beautiful Skopje this spring.
DeleteWizz probably thinks it is better to fly than park planes.
DeleteSo how Wizz air find jet fuel and other airlines dont ? 🫣or they just look for excuse to rapidly grow the ticket prices .... thats why they will reduce and Wizz will grow✈️👍
Deleteif this continues no one will have fuel
Delete@20:28 what do yo mean? Doesnt make complete sence
DeleteIt meant that Wizz did not increase ticket prices as others did...
Delete20:47 only the countries close to russia will have jet fuel :)
Your reply still doesnt really come across as understandable.
Delete@20:28 LCCs in general hedge their fuel prices for 12-18 months, while legacy carriers usually for 0-6 months. If this fuel crisis persists for another 6-12 months, LCCs should profit a lot.
Delete