The three remaining flag carriers of the former Yugoslavia - Air Serbia, Croatia Airlines and Air Montenegro - handled a combined total of 3.255.470 passengers during the first half of the year, up by 190.696 travellers on H1 2025.
Air Serbia uplifted 2.062.488 passengers during the first half of the year, representing an increase of 2.9% on the same period in 2025, or an additional 57.367 travellers. The two-millionth customer of the year was handled on June 27, three days earlier than a year ago. At the same time, the company operated 23.225 flights, over 1.000 more than in the first six months of 2025. During the second quarter, between April and June, the flag carrier welcomed close to 1.25 million passengers on board its aircraft and operated 13.192 flights. Although Air Serbia has not specified its average load factor for the first half of the year, based on available seat capacity, it is expected to have hovered between 77% and 80%. Its capacity grew 3%.
Croatia Airlines handled a record 981.482 passengers during the first half of the year, representing an increase of 15.2%, or an extra 129.499 travellers, compared with 2025. International scheduled services accounted for 739.470 passengers, up 18.5%. Domestic scheduled traffic grew by 6.5% to 228.420. A further 13.592 passengers travelled on charter services, representing an increase of 1.9%. Croatia Airlines’ passenger load factor improved by 2.7 percentage points to 66.2%. Passenger numbers fell by 2% in June, ending the 21% growth recorded between January and May. During H1, the airline operated 2.2% more flights and had a 9.2% increase in capacity.
Air Montenegro handled 211.500 passengers during the first half of the year, representing an increase of 1.8%, or an additional 3.830 travellers. The result was achieved despite the airline operating 129 fewer flights operated in 2026 than in 2025. Its average cabin load factor increased five points to 78% The discontinuation of services to Armenia and Azerbaijan, following the introduction of visa requirements for nationals of those countries travelling to Montenegro, played a role in the more modest passenger growth and the decline in flights.
That's a very good load factor for Air Montenegro!
ReplyDeleteWell they had just 3 planes in the first half of the year.
DeleteThat's exactly what they need for the first (and last) 3-4 months of the year.
DeleteIt has nothing to do with how many aircraft it has.
DeleteWell it's much easier to fill 3 planes then 10 or 20. They also operate very few routes.
DeleteIt never had, did it?
DeleteWell we can conclude that the Embraers are definitely the perfect aircraft for them.
DeleteYes they are the right fit like the Fokkers were. They made the perfect transition.
DeleteBoth JU and 4O have loads in the high 70s and OU is in the 60s. How can OU fix this issue? They already do flash sales even in the height of summer and it does not seem it has had a major impact.
ReplyDeleteThen it's about product. They offer way too little.
DeleteI don't think the other two offer substantially more. In fact, OU has brand new planes so they should offer the best product.
DeleteI'm talking about their offer, not hard product when in plane. You can't reach Rome without stop with OU, that's bad product. You can't reach many European destinations, not to mention wider area or transatlantic, with OU - that's no product. They're not fit for the market.
DeleteYes, you are right about that
DeleteYou can offer flash sales all you want but if your market can't generate more demand then what can you do? It's not like ZAG is thriving right now.
DeleteStill among the best standard of living in the wider region.
DeleteNo one said otherwise but obviously the market is slowly reaching its full potential. Now it can grow more through transfers or more tourists.
DeleteSometimes i think people forget the actual size of markets in the region is (on a european scale) small.
Delete9:38 You are living in delusions. Croatian standard is average at the best. High costs and expenses doesn’t allow high standard
Delete09:49 its high in Zagreb compared to the region.
DeleteThe problem is that they have too many of the same routes with no passengers. Munich-Zagreb (4 rotations - 600 people - available capacity) They could keep 2 rotations (morning and evening) and cover the difference with new routes, which would consequently lead to a higher LF.
DeleteBut you forget that to adequately feed long haul flights this is actually useful. Its not the Munch feed that is fundamentally the problem, its everything else. The lack of ambition. I think that has been stated many times.
DeleteThe LF of OU SKP-ZAG two days ago was 100%.
Delete@11:22
DeleteIt's not just Munich.
What do you think about maybe increasing rotations to Istanbul, Amsterdam, Prague, Paris, Athens?
At least it would be worth a try.
Can I ask how you find and gather this data? Would be interested in hearing the methodology behind it.
ReplyDeleteThe airlines provide the data.
DeleteI am getting a bit confused with JU numbers for 2026. They added 7 routes, 3 more to come, it seems they expanded capacity by adding Embraers and substituting A319 with more A320. With all of that combined they only grew 2.9% or 58k passengers.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the catch? Have charters fallen significantly or is there some other contributing factor to explain the data
Charters have fallen significantly, they have greater competition from Wizz Air on key routes, the A320s arrived in July not June.
DeleteThis is only first six months. Most of new routes started in June
DeleteCharters are more relevant for H2. So, mostly Wizz effect.
Delete3%growth in the first half of year is not at all bad.
DeleteAir Serbia carried more passengers than Croatia Airlines and Air Montenegro combined...
DeleteAnon 09.12
DeleteWell it's not great either. JU is not the size of EK or LH for a 2.9% growth to be a good result. For an airline its size it needs to grow at least 5% to catch up to bigger players.
JU has to aim at handling between 7 and 10 million passengers. They need the volume, that's what saved LO and A3.
^ The airline has already said their growth rate at the end of the year will be 5%.
DeleteAnd to add they said that is a conservative growth and they said it just 2 weeks ago.
DeleteOk, for that we have to wait. Maybe they expect 5% at the end of the year once they force W6 to shut their base in BEG. However that would be very bad growth given the circumstances.
Delete@09:19 what world do you inhabit that you think JU will catch up 'the big players?'
DeleteHaha why very bad growth???
DeleteIts not very bad growth. They dont know what they are talking about. Its very steady and measured growth which is backed up by other aspects. JU has been excellent in maintaing healthy and proportionate business development thus far.
Delete@09:14 that is expected. Its a larger country. The aviation market in Croatia will always be larger, but JU will always be the western Balkan's largest national airline. Simple geography.
DeleteGeography has nothing to do with it. OU could have done the same thing JU is doing now 20 years ago. Instead, the Croatian state decided to fill top management with apparatchiks and let the company die a slow death.
DeleteGeography does also play a part irrespective of your belief that OU could do what JU could. But yes PIR you are right they could have used their geography better.
Delete09:25
DeleteWhen it was a 30% growth, it was very bad and non organic. Now it’s 5-6% and it’s very bad again, because it’s not 30%...
@09:06
Delete4 wet lease A320's operating last summer were replaced by 3 dry lease A320's this summer. 2 arrived last month and are not included in the statistics. JU gained 4 wet lease A220's compared to last summer as well as 2 dry lease Ejets. Overall to oversimplify, 2 Ejets replace 2 A319's leaving 26 less seats per flight and 4 A320's for A220's leaving 32 less seats per flight giving more flights but a small increase in capacity.
New routes had a later start (GYD, YYZ and MUC late May, ALC early June and BWK mid June), JTR the exception at the end of April. At best, these 6 routes would of brought 20.000 pax of the extra 57.000 transported which means growth was mostly on its existing network. JU also lost ESB and LYS but gained GVA. 6 seasonal routes last year became year round adding extra pax in the first half of the year.
@09:19
JU has come at a stage where anything less than 10 new routes is only a couple of extra percentage points. That was unthinkable 5 years ago. Forcing growth for the sake of it also isn't a solution and BT is a perfect example of this. What's important is that the airline is profitable and growing.
It’s growing 50% more than W6, which actually chokes it, by some experts:-)
DeleteWhere is Adria? :P
ReplyDeleteIn the grave
DeleteAirSerbia had 1000 flights more and just 57k pasangers more? Not all of those flights were atr, so load factor dropped for sure.
ReplyDeleteWell would be fantastic to know what was their capacity growth for that period.
DeleteCapacity grew 3% on scheduled services during the first half of the year.
DeleteCool, so 3% more seats and 2.9% more passengers.
DeleteSo that matches the fact that the load factor is mostly the same as last year.
DeleteHopefully the meltdown at Lufthansa Group creates some spillover effect.
DeleteCroatia Airlines’ passenger growth is impressive but a load factor of only 66.2% remains far too low.
ReplyDeleteCroatia Airlines increased capacity by 9.2% but passengers by 15.2%, so the improved load factor is encouraging despite still being low.
DeleteLoad factor will stay abyssmal until they fix the hub and actually start flying. 50% theoretical available capacity is not flying.
DeleteAlmost one million passengers for Croatia Airlines in six months is a good result. Now it needs to turn that growth into profitability.
ReplyDeletehe visa policy hit Air Montenegro specifically because they operated niche seasonal routes to Baku (Azerbaijan) and Yerevan (Armenia) that relied almost entirely on inbound tourists from those countries. When visa restrictions were introduced to align with EU regulations, demand on those specific routes collapsed, forcing Air Montenegro to suspend them. In contrast, low-cost carriers like Ryanair, Wizz Air, and easyJet primarily link Montenegro with Western/Central Europe and the UK—markets where travelers already enjoy visa-free access. we have massive ~50% passenger surge at Podgorica Airport, 15% Tivat European LCCs have flooded Podgorica with huge seat capacity, whereas Air Montenegro operates a small fleet of just 3–4 aircraft and simply cannot wage a price war against ultra-low-cost giants. Instead, the national carrier strategically cut 129 non-performing flights to focus on yield over volume, successfully boosting its load factor by 5 points to 78% while staying profitable.So while LCC expansion is capturing the bulk of the airport growth, the visa changes directly eliminated key routes that were unique to Air Montenegro’s network.
ReplyDeleteGTP?
DeleteI think GTP would write more clearly.
DeleteIt is good to see all three airlines recording passenger growth, even if their individual circumstances are very different.
ReplyDeleteWill be interesting to see what happens with Air Montenegro when Montenegro introduces visas for Turkey later this year.
ReplyDeleteDemand will crash like it did at the end of last year when visas were reintroduced for a short period.
DeleteTime to seek out new markets.
DeleteThey will be getting PSO soon to fly to places like Frankfurt so I don't think they care much.
DeleteDa je Boga i pravde, region would be integral part of EU, than there wouldn't be local protection such in case of Serbia and Montenegro- and picture will be quitte different.
ReplyDeleteRyanair, Wizz, Easy will be 10 to 15 times bigger than " national flag" carriers- because they will not face restriction that exists today. Inter region flights ( Serbia - Montenegro, BiH- Serbia etc. )
Cioncept of national flag carriers are concept of the past.
Ryr, Easy or so employ more locals than " flag" carriers, invest money into local ( read EU) economies, offer better inter city connections and last but not least- they pay much more dividends to owners( that again must be citizen of EU i.e. local ones) than all old european flag carriers.
But, somehow, it is not like it should be.
On the other hand, I'm happy that my country is not a member of the EU, and I'm proud of my national company, which directly employs 1,500 people and indirectly supports several thousand more -> tens times more than FR or Wizz, plus taxes
DeleteAlthough the country as a whole would benefit. Those stats outside the EU are poorer on every level than those inside. Hopefully one day voters will realise that.
DeleteFantastic idea. We all see how Slovenia is doing amazing since the bankruptcy of JP. LJU is crowded with Wizz, Ryan Air and easyJet, in fact a 5th runway is being prepared for all that demand. Lets kill off a profitable company important for Serbia's global connectivity so we can chace the standard of Macedonia and Moldova where we can fight for the prestige to be the lowest in Europe in yet another category.
DeleteOr why have a profitable JU when we can fund the years of losses at BEG just like what happened in BUD when MA went bankrupt. Da je Boga i pravde and we turn a profitable company into another hole for tens of millions of tax payer money.
Concept of national airlines is a thing of the past. Germans must be stupid with that outdated Lufthansa. And France. And Poland. And the UK, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Russia, Finland, Turkey, Switzerland, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Egypt, Jordan.....I guess they all didn't get that memo.
Connectivity to cities like New York and Shanghai I guess isn't as important as is a Wizz connection to Baden Baden. We definitely need less Heathrow and more Luton - the way it should be.
@10:08 Somehow you avoided to mention the case of Croatia, already in the EU, with government funding and protecting national carrier.
DeleteCroatia Airlines’ June decline is concerning.
ReplyDeleteWhat caused it?
DeleteWell they stated that the number of tourists to Croatia fell.
DeleteThis site reported that they actually reduced capacity in June compared to last year.
^
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2026/06/croatia-airlines-reduces-summer-flights.html
June was slow in most ExYu
DeleteLipanjska rupa.
DeleteWith exclusion of Sarajevo which is suffering from the Middle East crisis, I don't see it is particularly slow elsewhere.
DeleteGood results for Air Serbia, excellent job! What a transformation form the times when they were called Jat Airways and flew 8 broken planes. As for the other two - Croatia what? Air Monte who? :)
ReplyDeleteYes, the airline really is unrecognisable compared to 2013.
DeleteHow many routes and planes had JAT in 1987 ?
Delete@14:48
Delete+1
Nice pic. We only need an OU tail in the middle :)
ReplyDeleteThe photo was made at Belgrade Airport. Somehow I doubt we will OU back there anytime soon.
DeleteWhere do all three fly to?
DeleteOne question for you guys since I want to work in Wizzair as cabin crew but I’m not that into aviation in terms of business and demands for winter periods, do you think Wizzair will have new open days for jobs in Montenegro, Podgorica in the fall-winter period or do you think I’ll have to wait until february when recruitment for summer season begins? Thanks in advance!
ReplyDeleteThe combined figure is impressive for three relatively small countries
ReplyDeleteyields and profitability are most important.
ReplyDeleteAir Montenegro carrying more passengers with fewer flights is probably the most encouraging efficiency improvement in this report.
ReplyDelete