During the final quarter of the year, airports across the former Yugoslavia will record mixed trends in scheduled seat capacity compared to the same period last year. Podgorica will add the most seats in absolute terms, with its growth being fuelled by Wizz Air’s new base. However, the Montenegrin capital is expected to record further growth following the Montenegrin government's decision this week to declare Air Montenegro the winning bidder for the country’s five new Public Service Obligation routes, which are set to commence this winter, although an exact date has yet to be specified.
Pristina will also grow strongly, positioning itself as the second largest airport in the former Yugoslavia during the fourth quarter. Its growth will be powered by Wizz Air’s new base in the city. The highest monthly growth is expected in December, when capacity will reach 592.892 available seats, representing an increase of over 32% compared with the same month last year. Belgrade Airport will complete the top three, with Air Serbia, Air Montenegro and Austrian Airlines making the largest contributions to its growth during the fourth quarter.
Scheduled capacity change in Q4 2026 compared to Q4 2025
On the other hand, Sarajevo will be the hardest hit this quarter due to Ryanair’s seasonal withdrawal in late October. Gains made through Wizz Air’s new routes will be insufficient to offset the loss of Europe’s largest low cost carrier. Similarly, in Niš, Ryanair’s withdrawal will result in a loss of capacity, with Air Serbia’s new routes unable to make up for the shortfall. Zadar will also be impacted by Ryanair, which has reduced its capacity by 15.8% from October 1 through November 1, when it ends its seasonal operations from the Croatian city.
Looks like PRN will overtake Zagreb this year.
ReplyDeleteQuite remarkable how quickly the market has developed.
Deleteshould really be a wake-up call for Croatia Airlines and the airport management.
DeleteOU certainly doesn't care, and apparently ZAG doesn't either, they are comfortable staying where they are and never expanding the terminal.
Deletecan they even afford the expansion? i believe business there was not really profitable in past years...
Deletethe airport has been profitable for years.
Deleteis it really necessary, whats their capacity?
Delete@9:42 - not true. In 2025 they operated with a loss.
DeleteIncrease of seat capacity does not prove everything, especially not if it is balooned by LCC. ZAG does not have bad connections in Europe and I do not understand such a obsession with "must be" growth. Look at pax numbers in postcovid era and compare it with years before that. They are approaching 5m, come on. OU is different story.
Deleteironically if somebodys seat capacity is "balooned" it is ZAG with OUs capacity because LF we know how much it is
DeleteSarajevo really needs to find a way to convince Ryanair to stay during winter. Having so many routes disappear for five months is hardly ideal for a capital city airport.
ReplyDeleteThe airport needs more year round routes
DeleteThat's what happens when you depend entirely on foreign low-cost carriers and don't have your own national airline.
Deleteor is it the market
Delete@09:49 a country such as BiH cannot have a workable national carrier
DeleteI must say that Bosnia has a very week diaspora demand compared to Macedonia and Kosovo. LCC can make much profits in Macedonia and Kosovo than Bosnia due to higher ticket prices and higher frequencies. Also 3 airports doesn't work and is not efficient. Bosnia is closer to western europe so makes sense Bosnians drive more often. How much more south how worse demand. Also bad road network is a problem. If you find an flight from Germany to Tuzla but your family lives in Zenica is still an 2 hour 40 minutes drive. Ofc people are going to consider to drive.
DeleteIt will be offset by Wizz and easyJet next year, don't worry
DeleteThe situation in Niš is disappointing. Every time one airline adds a route, another one cuts something. The airport seems incapable of maintaining sustained growth.
ReplyDeleteIt is very close to its limits.
DeleteLook on a bright side, Niš is 30 times more successful than Kraljevo.
Delete09:59 Nis is far away from its limits. INI just never got any chance to "shine". INI could have at least double passengers per year, only if JU would want to launch some routes. There is a huge potential and there is demand. I know many people driving from Belgrade to Budapest or even Sofia to catch cheaper flights. JU just doesn't want to lose BEG passengers, and INI is doing absolutely nothing to attract LCC.
Deletedont really agree. They had all these destinations that didnt work: EIN, MMX, BER, BGY, Weeze plus JU launched 12 destinations from which only two survived (LJU and Hahn)
Deletemaybe @9.59 is right, i dont know
It is somewhat ironic that Montenegro is subsidising Air Montenegro to operate routes while Wizz Air is expanding commercially without those PSO payments.
ReplyDeleteIt is obviously being done just to give money to the national carrier.
Delete+1
DeleteCroatian airports are in the free fall
ReplyDeleteIt will get worse for the small airports from January when PSO routes are suspended again.
DeleteThe biggest question for Podgorica is whether all this additional winter capacity can actually be absorbed by the market. Montenegro is still highly seasonal as a destination.
ReplyDeleteThat PRN capacity in December is massive.
ReplyDeleteHuge traffic from Switzerland and Germany due to holidays.
DeleteSKP still doing very well considering people were saying how it would stop growing in winter.
ReplyDeletethe growth is almost because of October which is stil summer season
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2026/09/mixed-october-for-ex-yu-capital.html?m=1
You are right. I forgot October is almost a full month of summer season.
Deleteall good. (I expected worse tbh)
Deleteit will have -27k in Nov&Dec (ако е точно пресметано)
DeleteWe might see Prishtina's growth leading to Skopje stalling.
Delete@ 10.00 get real
Delete@10:07 useful view
DeletePodgorica gaining the most seats in absolute terms is probably the biggest surprise here. Not long ago it was one of the least interesting airports in the region in terms of route development.
ReplyDeleteConsidering who is managing route development for BNX I'm not surprised with this result.
ReplyDeletealmost spilled my coffee
DeleteWho is managing it?
DeleteA regional self proclaimed aviation expert and analyst.
Deletezaminljiv comment
DeleteNot surprised at all lol
DeleteIt’s good they still exist, with that character in charge
DeleteWow, it will actually be extremly close for Lju to surpass their all time record.
ReplyDeletethats it, SPU is falling to 6th place now
ReplyDeleteAnd they used be second before covid.
Deletewere they really above ZAG?
DeleteDBV is 6th, tight race between SPU and SKP for places 4&5
SPU was not second but third
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2020/01/ex-yu-airport-race-2019.html
https://www.exyuaviation.com/2019/01/ex-yu-airport-race-2018.html
Uff that Ryanair withdrawal will really hit SJJ this winter.
ReplyDelete:( people underestimated their exit.
DeleteLol no one did. Without W6 or FR, SJJ is irrelevant
DeleteSarajevo is still much much stronger than many of the regional airports if they were without LCCs
DeleteInteresting numbers
ReplyDeletewe could see Ljubljana breaking annual record from 2018 ...
ReplyDeleteI think it will happen.
DeleteIt's time!
DeletePristina is growing fast, but I would like to see more legacy carriers serving the airport.
ReplyDeleteIt keeps growing despite the limited number of traditional network carriers serving it. So I don't think they need them.
DeleteAMS or CDG would be great. PRN needs a not star alliance hub.
Deletethey had flights to both and didnt work
DeleteNot from KLM/Transavia or Air France. Do you think anyone used ASL Airlines for connecting to and from PRN?
DeleteZagreb Airport management should be asking themselves some serious questions. How can an airport serving Croatia's capital be overtaken by Pristina in terms of scheduled capacity?
ReplyDeleteWhy are you so astonished? Kosovo's capital airport has been at ZAG tail for years. Passing it was a matter of time. OUs bad management help it, but it was inevitable.
DeleteWhy shoud managament be especially focused on comparison with Kosovo's main airport scheduled seat capacity? I do not see a lot of similarities between ZAG and PRN, economically. Numbers are just bigger in PRN, so what. Fueled in majority on diaspora frequent journeys. Wizzair and other LCC apparently see a future here, therefore they are increasing capacities a lot. What about connectivity, profitability, economical impact. Is all this really worse in ZAG? No.
Deletethere are coastal airports in Croatia plus Zagreb is not that a huge city
DeleteAlthough i hope it sticks to this, i think the growth at PRN will be smaller. GP most likely go out.
ReplyDeleteThe decline in Niš is another example of what happens when an airport has no clear long-term development strategy. Announcing a few routes every now and then isn't enough.
ReplyDeleteWhen you see who is running the airport, everything becomes much clearer.
DeleteThe biggest problem for Sarajevo is the lack of consistency. Airlines come in, announce several routes, generate excitement and then disappear for half the year.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand why Sarajevo is unable to negotiate year-round Ryanair operations when other airports with smaller populations can sustain winter services.
DeletePopulation does not always mean demand. Let's be realistic...most of the demand in exYu is gasto related. That's why PRN has astonishing numbers. SKP still a little less, yiu see more business people and tourists there but still dominant is gasto.
DeleteBosnia has defenitly a weak gasto demand even though they have a larger diaspora than Macedonia. Reasons are they Bosnia is closer so more gasto's chose to drive. SJJ has a small selection of gasto routes so people need to fly to Tuzla or Banja Luka.(Banja Luka also small selection). In Bosnia its easily a 2,5-3 hour drive from Tuzla to your hometown ofc people are not gonna fly. From what I have seen Macedonian and Albanian diaspora is a bit wealthier rhan Bosnian diaspora which might also influence the numbers.
DeleteThe main issue is the winter smog which makes RYR reschedule flights or reroute them to other airports which impacts their business model tremendously as well as crew hours, they were really happy with the yields in Sarajevo but proposed this summer schedule thing to avoid situations like that which would've caused a full withdrawal eventually. For SJJ it's important they got easyJet and Wizz Air and are improving on the legacy front as well. If the Gulf doesn't spiral into another large-scale conflict 2027 will shatter all records in SJJ. Even if it does they will still see more pax than ever before.
DeleteI wonder whether the strong growth at Pristina will put pressure on airlines operating from Skopje. There is considerable overlap between their catchment areas.
ReplyDeleteNo, and let me fix it:
Delete"I wonder whether the string growth from Wizzair at Pristina will put pressure on other airlines operating from Pristina. There is considerable overlap among their destinations."
Time will tell.
Delete@anon1127 No, and let me fix it:
Delete"I wonder whether the strong growth from Wizzair at Pristina will put pressure on SKP and other airlines operating from Pristina. There is considerable overlap among their destinations."
The answer is yes. SKP is heavily used by Kosovars.
+1
Deletelol. so you think Wizz added capacity to Pristina to fight against each own base in Skopje but not to fight against weak airlines at Pristina??? (GP, ReisebüroGazdaJashari, Eurowings...) All added destinations are already present at PRn. Their goal is to kick them out of PRN
DeleteLuckily you will never be a CEO of an airline with such a narrow minded point of view
so GP and other scammers will be fine but they will canibalize each own base. Haha
DeleteIt will put some pressure but SKP will survive this..Chaerloi and Malmo routes will be possibly the most hurt. But the majority of the demand to SKP is to Macedonia itself. Macedonian diaspora is also large and tourism is growing so SKP will survive.
DeleteYou thinking that Wizz or anyone operating the same routes from two 1h away airports would not affect each other is a wrong assumption. Wizz does not want to cannibalise SKP. But growth at SKP will smaller because they are growing at PRN, they might shift capacity between two airports, Kosovar passenger will move to using PRN...if they can serve 500k from both airport vs 400k from one airport, they will do the first.
DeleteSKP has some 20 destinations which PRN doesnt serve.
DeletePRN has 0 dedtinations which SKP doesnt serve.
In light of Wizz additions to PRN - the only route which may be affected from SKP is that to Ljubljana.
Since when does Skopje have flights to Riyadh and Medina?
DeleteIs the LJU route getting added to PRN?
Deletereading this one would think only Kosovars are flying from Skopje... SMFH
DeleteNorth Macedonia and Kosovo are lucky to have two growing airports from which to select from. Thats positive given the horrid connectivity of the past decades.
DeleteI wish that EasyJet would attempt a return on the London-Pristina route year round. For large parts of the year the Wizzair timings are so horrid with returns into London during the middle of the night. Although this winter it seems to be a morning departure from Luton is ok. Similarly, the three weekly flights into Skopje get back so late at night that if I need to go there I'm often tempted for a one-stop via Vienna.
DeleteI would take these figures with a grain of salt. We are still in early October and airlines can make further schedule changes before the end of the year.
ReplyDeleteWe're already in Q4. What significant changes are you expecting?
DeleteNone
DeleteUnlikely there will be many changes. Even if there are some cancellations here and there, it is unlikely to drastically change the picture.
Deleteadmin usually posts these a bit before the quarter. My guess is they waited this time around as there was uncertainty over Wizz schedule from Belgrade.
DeleteBelgrade is demonstrating solid resilience and growth without Wizzair being in the top 3 contributing airlines.
ReplyDeleteNumber of passengers for the whole year will for the first time reach over 9 million, most likely in 9.5-9.7 range.
+1
DeleteTo be honest I didn't expect so many airports would be in the red.
ReplyDeleteWhy? You are aware how difficult the situation is in the industry at the moment?
DeleteTables and colours found their way back to Ex-Yu aviation news. Much appreciated.
ReplyDeleteHopefully you read the article too since there is info there you can't find in the table.
DeleteWishing all airports good luck and a busy three months.
ReplyDelete