Two capital city airports in the former Yugoslavia are set to see scheduled seat capacity decline this October compared to the same month last year, continuing a trend observed over recent months. Wizz Air will remain the region’s largest carrier, followed by Air Serbia.
Belgrade Airport has the most available seats on scheduled flights in October, standing at 1.008.451. The figure represents an increase of 3.6% on 2025. Air Serbia will continue to maintain its position as the largest carrier with 516.421 seats, up 8.2% or an additional 39.000. Wizz Air, which may yet modify its operations from the last week of October in response to Serbia’s new regulations governing foreign carriers, will currently reduce seats by some 200, contracting by 0.1%. Zagreb follows as the second largest with 563.881 available seats on scheduled flights during the month. It represents a decrease of 5.1% on the previous year. Croatia Airlines will decrease its capacity by 6.2% but will continue to be the airport’s largest carrier with 206.848 seats. It is ahead of Ryanair with 187.144 seats, down 5.3%.
Skopje Airport will boast 414.412 seats in October, representing a 19.6% increase compared to the same month in 2025, with all the growth driven by Wizz Air. The low cost carrier will add 90.348 seats, marking a 50.1% increase year-on-year. Collectively, the remaining carriers will decrease capacity by 13.5%. Pristina Airport will have 383.086 available seats, with capacity currently projected to decline 7%. It follows frequency cuts by GP Aviation, the lack of Condor, SAS and ASL Airlines France services, which operated last year, as well as cuts made by Pegasus Airlines and Turkish Airlines.
Podgorica Airport will continue to grow at record pace on the back of Wizz Air’s new base, with the airport registering 301.090 seats on scheduled flights during the month, up 55.6%. Wizz Air will be the largest carrier by adding 102.792 seats, representing growth of 315%, for a total capacity share of 45%. It is followed by Ryanair with 11.6% of the market. Sarajevo will have 232.216 scheduled seats in October, representing an increase of 1% on 2025, despite the temporary withdrawal of Ryanair starting from the last week of the month. Ryanair will still be the largest carrier, with 37.556 seats, down 14.1% on last year. It is followed by Pegasus Airlines with 14.1% of total capacity.
Finally, Ljubljana has a total of 207.353 seats on scheduled services, up 15.9% on October 2025. Lufthansa, despite having 12% fewer flights, will have 26.1% more seats, retaining its position as the airport’s largest, holding 16.7% of capacity. It is followed by Turkish Airlines which is reducing its seat count by 6.3%.
Largest carriers by scheduled seat capacity in the former Yugoslavia, October 2026
Overall scheduled seat capacity in October across all former Yugoslav markets and airports combined: 4.240.540, up 3.4% year-on-year
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.
Absolutely crazy that OU has less capacity this year with all the new planes. I don't get it.
ReplyDeleteHigh fuel prices. You will find that most Airlines across the world will be forced to reduce capacity this winter and increase fares.
DeleteThey have been reducing capacity for months, including peak summer. This is not the first month.
DeleteYou do realize that they are retiring A319s, right?
DeleteYou do realize that they have 11 new planes and soon 12th and currently have more planes in their fleet than at any other point in their history. They promised huge network growth.
DeleteYou do know that the A220 series is a smaller aircraft than the A320 series, right?
Delete^ You do know they have fewer flights this year than last, right?
DeleteIn a fuel environment where the price of kerosene has more than doubled vs same time last year no airline is going for huge growth.
DeleteJust let the planes sit and wait to see. how the situation unfolds:))
DeleteCurrent seat capacity -including ATR 72
DeleteUsing the published configurations:
* 9 A220-300 × 149 = 1,341
* 2 A220-100 × 127 = 254
* 4 A319 × 144 = 576
* 3 Q400 × 76 = 228
* 1 ATR 72-600 × 72 = 72
* Own fleet = 2,399 seats
* + wet-leased ATR = 72 seats
* Total operating capacity = 2,471 seats
Before A220- 2023
Using the published configurations:
* 2 A320 × 174 = 348
* 5 A319 × 144 = 720
* 6 Q400 × 76 = 456
* Own fleet = 1,524 seats
So Croatia Airlines’ nominal fleet capacity is now about 1.6× what it was before the A220 program.
They have the perfect aircraft for this crisis. Small and efficient. When prices go up, demand goes down, making smaller aircrafts more economical per occupied seat basis.
DeleteBut bright and shinies are less consumpting, right?
Delete@09:37 mate, you realise they struggle to get anyone onto aircraft irrespective of its size. Their pricing and route network is shite.
Delete5th consecutive month with over 1 million seats at BEG.
ReplyDeleteAnd very strong growth by JU in October.
Delete💪💪💪👏👏👏👍👍👍🔝🔝🔝
DeleteCrazy numbers for Podgorica
ReplyDeleteAmazing that Wizz now has almost half of total capacity.
DeletePodgorica at more than 300,000 seats in October is remarkable. Not long ago, that would have been considered a strong summer-month result.
DeleteHow are the pax numbers?
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2026/09/montenegros-airports-pass-three-million.html
Deletei know that but what is the relation capacity growth vs pax growth for TGD in Aug and Sep
Delete09:04 Come down it is just scheduled capacity
DeleteLJU keeps doing great this year.
ReplyDeleteI haven't heard any news for some time now for Skopje airport, no updates for new destinations or airlines, is the management doing anything? Beside Wizz, all the other airlines are reducing the operations, what is happening? At least they removed that funny rule for one entry in 24h for the kiss & fly stop at the airport, since it was obvious that they were targeting the private parkings around the airport.
ReplyDeleteMost of the European airlines that could make routes there work are already there it seems. Wizz will forward future growth until such time as maybe Ryanair decide its time to enter the market.
DeleteIt seems that it is difficult for other airlines to compete against W6 in Skopje.
DeleteYeah its fundermentally a LCC market served very efficiently by wizz.
DeleteThe hug and fly is a big problem because there are many cars who are making circles all the time while they wait instead of paying 1.5eur for parking for 1 hour. Its becomih chaotic at certain times of the day.
DeleteI would be surprised if we won't have a decrease in capacity next month.
DeleteI don't think they did that because of the cars, but because of many parking spots around where finally for a decent amount of money you can park your car, instead of paying little fortune at the official parking, they increased the parking fees few times for no reason, the parking doesn't spend electricity, nor water, its open area, yet they increased the prices quite a bit
DeleteYes, currently a capacity decrease is projected for the month of November.
Deleteфала, ExYu
DeleteHey Admin, what was the decrease in capacity of GP Aviation? Thank you :)
ReplyDelete23% in October.
DeletePRN will bounce back in November with the Wizz base.
DeletePristina’s decline is not surprising considering how many airlines are either reducing flights or not returning this year. Hopefully the Wizz base will reverse the trend from November.
Delete09:56
DeleteGP is about to lose all its 6 aircraft.
Wizz will only be adding two so far, albeit with a somewhat bigger capacity.
Best case scenario Wizz will soften the crash of GP. Reversing the trend will require a 3 or 4th Wizz aircraft.
@11:18 am afraid you're right! I don't like this but, it looks that's the truth.
DeleteMy favourite article of the month :)
ReplyDelete+1
Deletemy second fav after the "ExYu airports handle ..." article but I have not seen it for two months now dont know why
DeleteLet's see if the BEG capacity will stick but I am positively surprised that there will be over 1 million seats in October.
ReplyDeleteWizz Air seat reduction in Belgrade is dramatic and concerning, hopefully official Belgrade will get the message.
ReplyDelete200 or 0.1% seats is "dramatic and concerning"? News flash, 2 years ago they reduced capacity by 40%.
DeleteWhat’s interesting is that Wizz Air has entered the slots for the BEG flight in Basel twice for March 2027: once for flights operated as part of a W-rotation with an aircraft based in BUD, and a second time for the published and bookable flights operated with an aircraft based in BEG.
Delete200 seats is less than 1 flight less than last October. I don't know why that is dramatic?
DeleteIt’s dramatic for Wizzibot, no one else. They are not growing for some time now
DeleteAir Serbia alone will offer more seats from Belgrade than the entire scheduled capacity of either Skopje or Pristina.🥴
ReplyDeleteGiven the size of the city/country is that surprising?
DeleteBEG is on fire, check how many airports have direct flights to NY, China AND Russia.
DeleteNobody else in Europe (ex -Turkey). But there is a reason for that so hardly surprising.
DeleteZagreb’s capacity forecast is disappointing
ReplyDeleteWhat is happening in ZAG? Why decrease?
DeleteSarajevo still managing modest growth despite Ryanair withdrawing for part of the month is actually a decent result.
ReplyDeletewhat is a modest grow for you??
Deletethey had a capacity increase in Aug of 0.5% but pax -1.6%
https://www.exyuaviation.com/2026/09/sarajevo-airport-figures-dip-in-august.html?m=1
Wizz adding more than 90,000 seats in Skopje in a single month is huge. Can the market absorb all that capacity outside the peak summer season?
ReplyDeletecheck pax numbers for February, March, April, May ...
DeleteWill they add any more in Nov?
Deleteand compare it with the capacity articles. Looks fine to me
DeleteLjubljana’s growth appears much healthier now. Steady double digit growth is encouraging after years of slow recovery.
ReplyDeletehopefully they will get some additional new routes ... Berlin, Newyork, Dusseldorf are great addition so far ...
DeleteTenerife is useful. Hopefully more leisure routes.
DeleteBravo Podgorica!
ReplyDeleteWith W6 and Freebird charters SKP still keep doing great job with adding 400k seats in October which couple years ago it was roughly 150 to 200k the same month
ReplyDeleteIt seems the BIG FOUR of exYU airports is firmly established now. BEG, ZAG, SKP and PRN.
ReplyDelete2025 ranking:
DeleteBEG, ZAG, PRN, SPU, SKP, DBV
Let Skopje fanboy inflate a bit as needed.
Delete00:46 whats wrong with him ? is something he said not true ? as u have the right to write on each artical , he has the same right so chilll buddy
Deleteand its not like SPU will 100% hold this position at the end of the year
Delete