Several country markets in the former Yugoslavia will see considerable scheduled seat capacity growth this winter season. According to the data and analytics company Cirium, previously known as FlighGlobal, which analyses trends within aviation and the wider travel industry, Montenegro will see the biggest change (absolute percentage growth) in departing seats on the European continent during the 2019/20 winter season compared to 2018/19. On the other hand, Slovenia will see the biggest reduction, as a result of Adria Airways’ collapse. Montenegro will register a 28.1% increase in winter capacity, outperforming the second placed country market Albania. Montenegro’s growth is supported by Ryanair, which has become the nation’s third busiest airline. The low cost carrier anticipates handling over 175.000 passengers on its flights to and from Montenegro this year, up from 150.000 in 2018.
Macedonia will enjoy an 18% increase in capacity, the third largest growth rate in Europe. The increase is being driven by Wizz Air, which added a number of new routes out of Skopje and Ohrid this summer season and based its fifth aircraft in the Macedonian capital. As a result, the low cost airline will be operating 38 routes to sixteen countries from Skopje this winter. Bosnia and Herzegovina’s winter capacity will grow 16.8%. This is the result of a stronger season at Sarajevo Airport, which will see additional frequencies by Turkish Airlines, Eurowings’ new service from Berlin launched this summer, as well as FlyBosnia’s new flights to London and Rome. The country’s capacity growth will be further driven by Ryanair in Banja Luka. The airline anticipates handling some 135.000 passengers on flights to and from the city this year.
Serbia’s scheduled seat capacity will increase 14% this winter, with Air Serbia fuelling the growth with an additional eighteen new routes from Belgrade and Niš and an extra Airbus A319 aircraft in its fleet. In neighbouring Croatia, the change in departing seats will stand at 2.2%. On the other hand, despite the rapid response from various carriers to the collapse of Adria Airways in Ljubljana, scheduled capacity in Slovenia is still expected to fall 38.8% this winter. Overall, the biggest volume increase in seats looks set to be in the Turkish market where scheduled capacity will increase by over 12%, which is equivalent to an additional 5.2 million seats.
What about the other Balkan markets like Bulgaria or Greece?
ReplyDeleteSofia isn't doing that well but coastal airports are.
DeleteSofia trend will change. Check wiki page. Many new routes this winter and more UK ski tourists on weekends.
DeleteYeah that's what people wrote last year yet here we are.
DeleteOk. Lets see :)
DeleteBelgrade airport is having a phenomenal streak this year. October is fantastic and it will have double digit growth again.
ReplyDeleteBtw today A319 completely full to Tirana and back!
Yeah, seems that even Etihad is sending more and more frequently A321... at least according to BEG airport site.
DeleteEY is always A320.
Delete@11.01 I really have to ask where did you get that info from? Looking at Flightradar, both of their flights - EY71 and EY69 are constantly on A320. They only sent A330 one day during the summer when they cancelled the other flight.
Delete@11.54 Sure... If you go to BEG airport official site and check departures, when you choose destination it will expand and beside flight number and timetable you can see used equipment for that day. I noticed couple of times that for AbuDhabi it stands A321. That is why I thought they started to send A321, but It is possible that it is not updated info.
DeleteOn the other hand, it seems that on FR it is not always updated too, as whole summer you could see there scheduled flights for Sharjah (although never started) and for Hurghada, operated by AlMasria Universal, which was just on certain days but not as many as it was shown on FR
Belgrade will see even 12-13% pax growth in current October.
DeleteLJU certainly helped
DeleteThis winter best increase will be from Arab countries as tourism is expected to grow significantly due to improved security situation following the end of the war in Syria.
ReplyDeleteThe war is just starting in North Syria ...
DeleteWhy would Syrian war impact on tourism from Gulf countries which are not even close to Syria?
DeleteBravo Crna Gora!
ReplyDeleteWow I'm surprised by Montenegro. Well done.
ReplyDeleteFR now has just one route lees than Montenegro Airlines from Podgorica in winter.
DeleteGoes to show that national airlines are not that important.
DeleteYes look at how rosy the picture looks in Ljubljana...
DeleteYes look at how rosy Adria's loses looked all these years
DeleteWow LJU will see a massive passenger reduction all winter.
ReplyDeleteOctober will be brutal.
DeleteWell Ljubljana really needs to bring in new airlines. Their entire growth (and demise) over the years has been completely dependent on Adria.
DeleteThe real question is why is Wizz Air so slow to grow in LJU. They had the same schedule for ages now.
DeleteNow that the Chinese are going, Maribor should be activated for LCCs.
DeleteMBX is dead. No one wants to fly there.
Delete^That has always been the case.
DeleteIt is such a shame.
DeleteMaribor could be perfect airport for LCC's especially as there are no airports in surrounding which offer affordable LCC flights.
LJU, ZAG, GRZ, KLU do not have LCC flights or their number is very reduced.
Maribor could become low cost alternative to all of them. Spa tourism and village tourism are quite developed in that region.
Shame
+1 last anon
DeleteCroatia only 2%? Poor result due to Zagreb Airport's inaction.
ReplyDeleteZAG is in a deep sleep for the past 12 months. Adria's bankruptcy might help figures a bit in October.
DeleteI'm actually really curious to see their October numbers in ZAG. I think it will be around 6% growth, not more.
DeleteZAG's numbers will be impacted from December when Korean Air leaves.
DeleteAlso Flydubai will decrease frequencies.
DeleteYes but it will be compensated by Iberia and Aegean and probably some more additions in winter that will be announced soon.
DeleteKL will also have one less flight from the beginning of winter season in ZAG. Last year it was reduced in late January.
DeleteWinter season starts on Sunday. Don't expect more announcements for winter period.
DeleteAll capacity growth this summer (which was significant) was generated by the coast.
DeleteLooking like TIA might catch up
DeleteI read Tirana has improved dramatically and is becoming very touristic.
DeleteTirana - thanks, but no thanks
DeleteTirana is really booming in terms of passengers, also look at JU growth there.
DeleteInterestingly I read on another specialized aviation site a few days ago how "Flydubai is further decreasing Zagreb to 4 weekly in winter" but then I looked it up here and this news was published in April!
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2019/04/flydubai-shakes-up-ex-yu-operations.html
Same way another site published today how TK is operating A330 to Ljubljana next week which I remember was published here ages ago.
Deletelol true it was published in July
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2019/07/turkish-to-deploy-a330-to-ljubljana.html
"Overall, the biggest volume increase in seats looks set to be in the Turkish market where scheduled capacity will increase by over 12%, which is equivalent to an additional 5.2 million seats"
ReplyDeleteWow shows how percentages are relative.
Flew with WizzAir twice in last 30 days, round trips to Bratislava and Eindhoven from Skopje.
ReplyDelete3 out of 4 flights were with 100% LF and only the one return flight from Eindhoven yesterday had 6 empty seats.
Both flights were with A321.
Consistent ~100% LF on an 230 seater A321? Impressive.
DeleteGood to see growth all around. Except for Slovenia for obvious reasons.
ReplyDeleteLJU should have been better prepared for this scenario.
DeleteDidn't people write in the comments here how it was going to be a tough year for ex-Yu airport with little growth? Seems like it will be quite a good year.
ReplyDeleteWell generally growth has slowed across Europe.
DeleteSome people here don't seem to get that there is a difference between capacity growth and passenger growth. The two need not go hand in hand.
DeleteI'm positively surprised about BiH's capacity growth.
ReplyDeleteSarajevo really should be handling well over a million passengers by now. They just managed to break 1 million last year.
Delete+1 SJJ should have around the same number of passengers as Skopje and Pristina or at least be on the same level as Podgorica.
DeleteI think Sarajevo has much more potential because it is heavily underserved. They need to do everything they can to get Wizz to open a base there.
Delete@11.21
DeleteAll that is required is for Wizz or someone similar to open a few routes and they would be there.
Exactly. Take Tuzla for example. Had Wizz opened those routes in Sarajevo instead of Tuzla, SJJ would have an extra half a million passengers, at least.
DeleteDon't forget that BiH comes second in ex-YU after Croatia in the number of operating airports.
DeleteThe more airports you have, the stronger you will be.
I am surprised with Bosnia, not sure where is that growth coming from? Only from BL?
ReplyDeleteFlyBosnia contributed as well. Like it says in the article.
DeleteBosnia was extremely underserved in the past and they are catching up with the rest of Europe.
DeleteIf Mostar gets those Ryanair flights it should an even better year in 2020.
DeleteI don't think anything will come of those Mostar flights.
DeleteMe neither. They would have been announced by now.
DeleteMontenegrin airports have been quiet achievers these past few years and it seems the trend will continue this winter.
ReplyDeleteI'm really surprised how well they have been doing. I mean who would have thought Podgorica would be handling over a million passengers on an annual level.
DeleteWell it seems all that was required was for the market to open up to competition.
DeleteIt also helps that Montenegro Airlines is growing :) but yes opening of the market had the positive impact
DeleteHow has YM grown. They still offer the same capacity as last year no?
DeletePercentile growth isn't hard to achieve if your base number is low so the likes of Albania, Bosnia and Montebegro on the list is no surprise.
ReplyDelete*montenegro
DeleteAlbania has been really growing dramatically this year and last.
DeleteYou can't put Albania in the same group as Bosnia or Montenegro, Tirana will have more than 3.5 million this year, it's more than MNE and BIH combined.
DeleteTIA will have more passengers than ZAG
DeleteHighly doubt it.
DeleteWe will see...
DeleteThey might very well have a higher number of pax but it can't be compared at all. TIA is the only commercial airport of the country and centrally located. Croatia has 9 commercial airports, traffic is decentralized, large coastal volumes and ZAG is not at all in the middle/centre of the country.
DeleteThis Croatian argument about many airports doesn't make sense. If DBV gets closed, literally no one would drive to ZAG to catch a flight when TIV or SPU are closer. Same with Istra which has other foreign airports closer to it than ZAG.
DeleteAlso Albania has OHD and TGD that are stealing some passengers from it. So it might not have domestic competition but it has international one.
It doesn't matter whether ZAG or TIA comes up on top. The fact remains that they have similar number of passengers.
DeleteThe argument thatC has more airports so you can't compare it with Albania is a moot point. As the poster above said, plenty of people from Albania go to Montenegro and Macedonia to travel. Countless tour agencies Ohrid in Albania bus people to SKP or PDG. OHD airport has marketing campaigns aimed directly to consumers in Albania.
In addition, ZAG benefits from transfer passengers, which count as twice in the overall numbers, whereas TIA has virtually no transfers.
It doesn't reflect bad on ZAG that TIA has a similar number of passengers. But it's more a case that it's impressive that TIA has grown so much.
Is there a realistic chance Belgrade will achieve those 6.2 million passengers this year? And how many passengers could Nis handle with these new flights? Remember Ryan starts Malta in 2 weeks as well.
ReplyDeleteINI should be around 410.000 this year, next year probably around 550.000 unless something drastic changes. It will take some time for JU's flights to become popular in the wider region and for them to build a brand in the catchment area. I think Bologna will eventually become a hit from INI especially with the large Albanian diaspora in bella Italia.
DeleteAs for BEG, with October going strong I think 6.1 is all but guaranteed.
I think it was a year or two ago that BEG issued a statement how the size of aircraft in BEG has increased over time. Whoever has been flying from BEG could have noticed that. I remember some years ago most airlines flying into Belgrade would do that with regional jets, from Olympic's Atr-42 to Austrian's CRJ-200. These days A320 has more or less become the standard aircraft used by foreign carriers in Serbia. Heck even JU went from 125 seat B737 to 144 seat A319.
DeleteIn ten years BEG has managed to more than double its passenger numbers:
2008: 2,650,048
2018: 5,641,105
2009 vs 2019 will be even more impressive:
2009: 2,384,077
2019: 6.000.000 (estimate)
I believe Belgrade will easily handle 6.2 this year.
DeleteFive A321 in BEG today!
DeleteLH FRA A321
KK IST A321
TK IST A321
TK ISTA A321
QR DOH A321
Plus A320 from MUC, FRA, CDG, ATH and LO E95!
And this at end of summer season.
Wizz Air is ... ZzZzZz ... in BEG
DeleteAmazing job is done in BEG.
DeleteMany ex-yu airports, especially those continental should learn from Belgrade
LYBE will handle around 6.120.000 passengers in 2019.
DeleteTo Anonymus at 11:54 :
LYBE overall pax growth 8.5%, solely W6 pax growth in Belgrade 12%.
BEG/LYBE will not be able to continue growing at the same rate over the next 2-3 years without major improvements to terminal facilities. I am afraid management will not be ready to provide quick improvements and BEG will become constrained during peak summer months.
DeleteYou only have to pass by BEG to see that major construction work is going on near the T2 building next to the C gates.
DeleteGood thing is that JU is finally boosting the night wave which was rather quiet in the past.
DeleteAs for Wizz, their growth is minimal. They basically upgraded Luton to A321 and added a seasonal flight to Lyon.
@Anonymous 23 October 2019 at 16:10
DeleteFor those of us that don't go to BEG airport every day, are there any pictures or videos anywhere on the internet of that T2 construction? There must be a tweet, instagram photo or youtube video with tens of thousands of people being around every day, but google can't find any?
I passed there today. I really don't care if you believe me or not.
DeleteIf internet doesn't have one photo then it doesn't exist. Satellite photo from yesterday shows no changes in that area in the past couple of weeks. There is no construction.
DeleteYes there is. I suggest you drive by and see it for yourself. Love diaspora commentators who think they know everything that is happening in the city but have not been in years.
DeleteI was there a few days ago and there is definitely some action going on there. Hopefully it's not something as stupid as a parking lot or a warehouse.
Delete@Anonymous 23 October 2019 at 18:52
DeleteGotta love construction apologists! You are wrong, last time I was at the airport was last month and the only newly built thing in that area was parking for Vinci temporary offices.
Nemjee, unless you still have old Nokia 3310 mobile phone can you please snap a couple of pics next time you are there? Thanks!
DeleteIt's not that easy from all the trees and taxis. However from what I saw is that they defined like some squares in the ground, I suppose that's how the foundation will be placed for whatever will be built there. Personally I would love if they would extend the C gates to C10 but let's see what happens.
DeleteThis year Bosnia will overtake Slovenia.
ReplyDeleteWell it was about time. The country is larger by one million people and road network is bad. It also has a significantly bigger diaspora.
DeleteGood winter ahead for most countries. Congratulations.
ReplyDeleteAll the best to all the hard working airports across ex yu. :)
DeleteAnyone have an idea how many seats are offered annually to Croatia?
ReplyDeleteTurkish added a lot of new seats yet there is huge economic downturn happening - in that country sales of new homes and cars fell by 70%.....still no data for air travel or I cant find them, but its certainly also heavilyhit. Turkish government gives huge subsidies for their airlines since theyre not even EU candidates so they can. But for how long Europe will tolerate that?
ReplyDeleteIf they're not in the EU, they can make as many subsidies as they want. Just like QR or JU.
DeleteBeing in EU does not stop Croatian Government to pour money in OU
DeleteAt least difference is outside EU you can pour in as much as you want as it's completely uncontrolled there.
DeleteWhen you look at it from a country level all ex-Yu markets are growing very nicely this year which is great news.
ReplyDeleteexcept slovenia...
DeleteSlovenia had a decline in capacity this summer, even before Adria went bankrupt. So it's not all just because of Adria.
DeleteNo, LJU had very decent growth until Adria collapsed. So it is all just because of Adria.
DeleteMacedonia has been at the top of capacity growth in Europe for several years :)
ReplyDeletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2017/01/macedonia-sees-largest-capacity-growth.html
So TK is going triple daily to LJU next year?
ReplyDelete