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| Ljubljana’s passenger decline ends as Zagreb and Skopje see double digit growth |
The airports in Zagreb, Skopje and Ljubljana have all recorded strong passenger growth during the month of March. While Ljubljana managed to end its recent poor run of results, it was again outperformed by Skopje Airport.
Zagreb Airport continued its passenger growth streak by welcoming 185.693 travellers, an increase of 12.3% compared to the same month last year. The number of operated flights also increased, from 3.030 last March to 3.232 this year, or an increase of 6.7%. The growth comes primarily as a result of foreign carriers, with Swiss International Air Lines to become the latest to launch services to the Croatian capital today. Meanwhile, from June 30, Qatar Airways will boost its operations to Zagreb, increasing frequencies from its current five weekly services to daily flights. Other arrivals this year will include SkyGreece Airlines from Toronto on a seasonal summer basis, Brussels Airlines, additional summer charters by Korean Air from Seoul and Air Croatia, which continues to introduce new routes. During the first quarter, Croatia’s busiest airport handled 478.193 passengers, up 11.3% on the same period in 2014.
| Month | PAX | Change (%) |
|---|---|---|
| JAN | 150.667 | ▲ 11.0 |
| FEB | 141.833 | ▲ 10.5 |
| MAR | 185.693 | ▲ 12.3 |
Skopje Alexander the Great Airport posted impressive figures again as it continues to benefit from Wizz Air’s new routes and added capacity from last summer, which are set to further increase this July. Skopje Airport welcomed 95.811 travellers, an impressive increase of 25.1%. As a result, Macedonia’s busiest airport continued its dominance over its traditionally busier counterpart Ljubljana. During the first three months of the year, Skopje Airport has seen 264.165 travellers pass through its doors, up a notable 29.3% on 2014. The number of flight operations increased 17%. Meanwhile, Macedonia’s second international airport, Ohrid, handled 4.235 passengers during the first quarter, up 15.1%.
| Month | PAX | Change (%) |
|---|---|---|
| JAN | 88.275 | ▲ 41.6 |
| FEB | 80.079 | ▲ 22.8 |
| MAR | 95.811 | ▲ 25.1 |
Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport’s passenger decline came to an end in March, with the airport recording sound growth figures. Slovenia’s busiest airport welcomed 90.902 travellers, an improvement of 5.3%. The result comes despite a significant reduction in the number of operated flights, which stood at 2.471 this March, down 10.3% on the same month last year. Despite the slow start to the year, Ljubljana Airport anticipates a strong year. In late March, Swiss introduced flights from Zurich, with Ljubljana Airport’s Commercial Director, Janez Krašnja, confident the new service will add 13.000 passengers per year at Slovenia’s busiest airport. During the first quarter, Ljubljana Airport handled 236.263 travellers, which is still slightly down on last year, by 0.2%. The number of operated flights for the three months stood at 6.636, down 5%.
| Month | PAX | Change (%) |
|---|---|---|
| JAN | 73.096 | ▼ 2.9 |
| FEB | 72.265 | ▼ 3.8 |
| MAR | 90.902 | ▲ 5.3 |
Why the sudden decline in Ljubljana flight ops. I thought Adria added new routes.
ReplyDeleteTrue, Adria did add some routes, but at the same time it reduced a few (from Ljubljana). Newly introduced routes by Adria mostly come from other bases, not Ljubljana.
ReplyDeleteI wish Ljubljana luck.
On the other hand, I am happy for ZAG. It was about time...
Doesn't seem like Fly Dubai affected Qatar too much if they are going daily.
ReplyDeleteAnd FZ also increases from 3 to 4 weekly from winter schedule.
DeleteNo confirmation yet, but it was reported Qatar will start daily to Belgrade without a stop in Sofia. Daily A320 nonstop? Are they going to fly empty?
DeleteGDS shows BEG going daily from JUL as well. It had to be filed probably today as that wasn't in the reservation system yesterday. And this will improve their offering from Serbia, but also to Serbia, so we can expect their numbers to start increasing.
DeleteAnd it is daily via SOF, not non stop.
DeleteQR is turning the heat on EY/JU with daily A320 BEG flights. One source mentioned going nonstop in the future. If they keep it year long, it would certainly end up being money losing route. If they are determined to throw away money, QR might as well open daily from DOH to Kraljevo and Nis airports.
DeleteZagreb also gets daily flights from Qatar Airways, go Zagreb!
Delete@ Anonymous 7:30: Increasing frequency means product improvement and keeping tag with SOF keeps BEG without 'obligation' to achieve high SFs on its own. I think EY will feel this, and it still remains relatively safe territory for QR. Also bear in mind that QR beyond DOH has much larger capacity than EY from AUH.
DeleteHow would QR feel if Air Serbia started Belgrade-Doha for example? It would not be able to connect to Qatar's flights from DOH, but it would offer nonstop advantage over QR, it could set pricing to take over most of O&D traffic, and it could codeshare with other airlines serving DOH like Jet Airways, or with Bangladesh, Pakistan etc. Would Qatar like that?
DeleteThat would hurt QR only if there is really high O&D dermand between BEG and DOH that QR already sells. It is very unlikely that JU + OAL could offer as competitive and logistcially sellable product as QR only beyond DOH. That is why BEG DOH on JU is highly unlikely and would probably not hurt QR anyway.
DeleteLJU is catching up. The difference with Skopje isn't that big anymore but they will have a real difficult time catching up to them especially from July onwards. Two massive expansions by Wizz Air in two years. You can't compete with that.
ReplyDeleteI read an interesting article in on one of the Croatian business webstes recently that the concession agreement for Zagreb Airport wasn't that great and that the state has taken on a lot of risks. I didn't understand most of it really so if anyone can share what's going on?
ReplyDeleteP.S and I'm not trying to troll I'm genuinely interested.
DeletePurger might have something to say here because he did comment his objection to the Zagreb concession.
DeleteThe reality is that there will always be elements who are against a free market system and articles will usually be one sided and list all the negatives which a project like this in any country could have especially at the early stages. Did the article mention the continued increases in both capacity and number of airlines flying to Zagreb along with the additional passenger numbers?
Also, where would we be today if the concession was not signed?
Congrats to all
ReplyDeleteZagreb is really having a great year. All the new airlines coming remind me of BEG in 2010. Remember when airlines like Air Baltic and Sky Work were opening flights?
ReplyDeleteSkopje is on fire. It will again be one of the top growing European capital cities this year
ReplyDeleteAnyone care to predict how these three will finish the year?
ReplyDeleteSkopje should be around 1.5 million or more.
Deletemy prediction:
ReplyDelete- Ljubljana: 1.440.000 max...
- Skopje: 1.480-1.550.000
- Zagreb: 2.740-2.840.000 (depending on whether Air Croatia pulls the entire season through)
@Peter, I am bit more optimistic and hope AirCroatia can pull entire year, although I don't think they can make a profit with ATR 42, they'll need to get a bigger aircraft, ideally they'll need to lease E-175 or E-190. E-175 has around 80 seats, they might be able to squeeze 86 passengers at 78cm pitch but they'll need to figure out better marketing strategy to attract more pax, To make a profit with E-175, they'll need to maintain 75% LF year round.
DeleteMy predictions for 3 airports,
Zagreb - 2.8 million
Ljubljana - 1.42 million
Skopje - 1,5 million
Split - 2.0 million
Dubrovnik - 1.75 million
Svaka cast svim ex yu aerodromima sto su uspeli da se oslobode VIE i sad oni da imaju porast a VIE pad.
ReplyDeleteI dobo je sto je OS dobio konkurenciju na ovim prostorima.
INN-NS
Slažem se s INN-NS, OS i VIE su u nekom trenutku, ali doslovce okupirali širu regiju.
DeleteVIE je još 1979 imao manje pax od BEG, te samo malo više od ZAG, te su dobro iskoristili raspad bivše države i vidimo gdje su danas (preko 20 mil pax). 5 x daily letova samo iz ZAG za VIE je zaista (pre)smješno...jer su to većinom sve feeder letovi...
CTN je mogao da iskoristi taj Q400 bolje na liniji za RIX a i od toliko silnih letova za FRA mogli su jedan izdvojiti za ARN.
DeleteA opet kazem da je dobro da Ex Yu putnici sve manje osudjeni da lete sa LH grupom.
INN-NS
QR uvodi od 2 Jula svakodnevne letove za BEG i planira da postanu direktni toliko o tome da ce pobeci iz BEG.
ReplyDeleteINN-NS
ajde odakle ti to da planira direktne? Evo ja ti kažem da trenutno nema šanse tj nitko ne razmišlja da postanu direktni. Nemoj lupati svoje kao insajderske. Evo ja ti dajem insajderske iz qr. Nema direkta.Niti beži iz beg niti je mislio bežati.
DeleteBilo bi dobro da razumete sta ste procitali u Novinama.
DeleteINN-NS
INN-NS, stalno trčiš pred rudo. Vidim da prognoziraš niže EK u BEG. Mislim da nemaš nikakve ideje o tržištima i potencijalu ex Yu, kao i da nemaš ikakve ideje o tome koliko košta slati negdje A332 gdje ima putnika business class za izbrojati na prste jedne ruke a ekonomski isto ne plaćaju puno niti putuju tokom cijele godine. Mislim da EK na ex yu dolazi tek (i to ako) za par godina. Ima prije toga određen broj gradova koji su malo intersantniji. Pa vidiš da se FZ drži na samo 3 tjedno. Čak i u ZAG diže na 4, a u BEG ostaje na 3.
DeleteLolsies
ReplyDeletehttp://www.aviokarta.net/vesti/3076-qatar-airways-iz-beograda-uvodi-svakodnevne-letove/
I was not expecting that even if its still via Sofia. As I said many times before Qatar might not bring BEG a lot of pax, but it sure does bring prestige. Anybody who traveled with them will know what I mean by that.
DeleteAlso for the pax its a big plus since from time to time they offer excellent promotions to Dubai and other popular Asian destinations.
BTW does anybody know have the loads gotten better? On this site I have heard numbers from 20 to 35.
Average number of passengers per flight was around 42 in 2014., while it was 44 in 2013. year, speaking about the ESB-BEG-ESB segment. I think that in the first quarter of 2015 it was like 40 passengers per flight.
DeleteNo offense but something does not make sense with those stats.The stats you provided show that numbers are declining yet they are increasing frequency and planning in future to go direct to BEG. Also its hard to believe that they had better loads two years ago than now even thought they increased frequency from 4 to 5 weekly. If those numbers are in fact true then my bad. Is there any way you could copy paste a few digits and still stay anonymous ( assuming you work for travel agency or QR).
DeleteThese numbers are going to be even lower with daily flights. You can't make profit with 40 or less passengers out of 144 seats. Flying to LHR is prestige, but flying to BEG is not. QR increase is only done to hurt Etihad's interest.
DeleteMEB3 don't actually care load factors for now. They get fuel for almost free and receive greasy incentives from their respective governments which makes their break-even load factor at a much lower point than their major European competitors.
DeleteLook at Emirates. They have shitloads of A388 I doubt they have load factors which justify their usage instead of B777-200 or A330-200 in low season. At the same time European carriers are quite hesitant on ordering them. All A388 delivered so far in Europe are result of strong political and government influences, since these craft are fully made in Europe and that was somewhat similar to Soviet planned distribution of aircraft without a market.As a result European carriers lose money most of the time they fly A388.
MEB3 dont have this problem as they have very little expenses for all aircraft and breakeven loadfactor for most aircraft is about 40 percent for em. In long term they will try to crush Turkish Airlines which pays huge expenses, especially fuel and relies on high load factors. This is why they are expanding in Ex-Yu although to a common sense such load figures would call for immediate cancelling the service.
Sledece je dolazak EK sto se ja nadam da vidimo oceli onda QR i EY slati vece Avione onda.
DeleteINN-NS
Zašto bi slali vece avione za toliko malo putnika?
DeleteZbog konkurencije a i Sto vise kapaciteta mogu ponuditi jeftinije karte.
DeleteA ako EK dodje sa A332 videcmo kakav ce im biti odgovor.
INN-NS
Moje je mišljenje da EK nema rezona dolaziti - kada bi imali narrow body ok, ali wide body je non sense. Ima FZ koji može surađivati s njima, LCC je, a i on se drži na samo 3 tjedno. Wide body je previše, nema potebcijala na tržištu za to niti potrebe.
DeleteI don't know about BEG, but ZAG currently apparently has load factor of 70-80% on average which in my opinon can probably reach 80-90% during summer. Maybe actually up to 80% on average as extra flights have been put on sale very late. Seems to do well for its first year of non stop operations in ZAG. Also, if QR finally launches SYD, that will be signifcant additional push for both ZAG and BEG routes as demand from and to Australia must be significant.
Delete