Two airports in the former Yugoslavia have placed among the top 100 busiest on the continent, according to Airports Council International Europe (ACI). With a total of 3.285.295 passengers, Belgrade Airport ranked 71st ahead of the likes of Edinburgh, Krakow, Malta, Minsk and Riga, but just behind Venice and Sofia. On the other hand, Pristina Airport entered the top 100 for the first time, positioning itself as the 88th busiest with 2.176.036 travellers handled. It was ahead of of Glasgow, Keflavik (Reykjavik) and Vilnius but just behind Rome Ciampino, and Yerevan. This year, Belgrade Airport is expected to reach pre-pandemic capacity levels, while Pristina Airport is highly likely to register its busiest on record and overtake its pre-Covid results.
Elsewhere, Split Airport, as the third busiest in the former Yugoslavia, ranked just outside of the top 100 on 103rd place. It was followed by Zagreb, which positioned itself on 112th, while Skopje was on its heels, placing 113th. Dubrovnik was Europe’s 129th busiest airport, while Sarajevo 132nd. Ljubljana Airport, which fell out of the top ten busiest in the former Yugoslavia in 2021 was Europe’s 154th busiest, just behind Sinop Airport in Turkey and ahead of Rennes Airport in France. As previously reported, airports in the former Yugoslavia handled a combined total of just over 14.8 million passengers in 2021, up 97.3% on the year before but still down 49.7% on the pre-pandemic 2019.
Istanbul became Europe’s busiest airport in 2021, followed by Moscow Sheremetyevo, Paris Charles de Gaulle, Amsterdam and Moscow Domodedovo. With a 34.6% decrease in traveller numbers compared to 2019, airports outside of the European Union significantly outperformed the continent’s average which stood at a 64.6% passenger decline on pre-Covid levels. Olivier Jankovec, the Director General of ACI Europe, said, “After losing 1.72 billion passengers in 2020, we all had high hopes for a strong recovery in 2021. But last year proved another difficult one, as Europe’s airports ended up losing another 1.4 billion passengers compared to 2019. This means they remain under considerable stress, with systemic financial weakness across our industry”. He added, “The knee-jerk reaction of many governments who ignored the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control guidance and rushed to reimpose travel bans and other restrictions in late 2021, including for intra-European travel, has stalled our recovery. Yet, these travel restrictions did nothing to stop the spread of Omicron, as recognised just last week by the World Health Organisation”. The most affected European market in 2021 was Finland, followed by the United Kingdom, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Ireland.
Will be interesting to see if they manage to keep these rankings this year.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations. I'm surpried airports like Riga and Reykjavik are behind. These are major hubs.
ReplyDeleteIt's because of Covid. These airports will be in front this year.
DeleteLet's wait and see.
DeleteBudapest handled 4.6 million or 30% more than Belgrade.
DeletePersonally I am very happy with the way Serbian aviation is developing. The recently announced expansion by Air Serbia will do wonders for the Serbian economy as it will considerably improve its competitiveness.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, the fact JU enjoys next to no protectionism at home, means that most foreign carriers can expand as they see fit. Wizz Air and others will force JU to compete and remain competitive.
When it comes to civil aviation, Serbia has a lot to be proud of. Not only was AeroPut founded in 1927 and operated out of Tosin Bunar but Belgrade was also home to the first ever aviation expo in south-east Europe. It was hosted in June 1938 and had over 200.000 visitors. After that an airshow was hosted in Zemun with participants from Yugoslavia, Germany, Italy, Czechoslovakia and Poland.
This aviation expo was organized by the Belgrade Aeroclub whose president was Tadija Sondermajer, founder of AeroPut.
Hopefully the TangSix yearly conference resumes once covid is gone as Belgrade could and should continue its long and successful tradition when it comes to civil aviation.
Stopped reading at "next to no protectionism". Which word nowdays we use for 100mil state aid, PSO contract with JU name all over it, CAD stopping the flights?
DeleteProtectionism is not the same as state funded my friend.
DeleteAs for the CAD, they are blocking flights from two, three markets. Not overall.
No need to be a drama queen.
Wizz Air has three A321 in belgrade because of protectionism. Right?
DeleteI stopped reading at AS expansion will help with Serbia economy. Good one mate, good one. AS can only help Serbian economy once government decides to make company that is there to actually earn money and finance itself instead of company that is used for state money laundering schemes, employment of ruling party members etc.
DeleteDo I really need to explain to you the benefits of having a strong national airline on an aviation portal?
DeleteThe economic impact that you are talking about, will only happen if the airline actually drives more tourist arrivals into the country, or indeed helps to export goods/products etc. Flying more transfer traffic does nothing for expanding the country's economic situation. All it helps is the airport (transfer pax hopefully spend while in transit) and the airline itself - zero benefit to the country.
DeleteAnd this is the problem when injecting significant money from the state. If it was driving significant volumes of P2P traffic - especially inbound tourists - then absolutely the govt should continue to invest funds in the airline. BUT, if these funds are used to finance cheap fares for transfer pax from outside of Serbia and who do not stay in Serbia and spend their money - then I'm afraid it's a bad deal for the state.
They should really make these funds contingent upon the airline keeping a healthy balance between P2P traffic (the absolute majority of pax) and transfer pax.
So basically what you are saying is that any and all passenger growth at JU comes from transfer passengers?
DeleteFrom what I know, roughly 30% of all passengers flying at JU are transfers meaning that they are far from being the majority. Furthermore, without them many routes JU currently operates wouldn't be possible, meaning that many air links are there because of them. One fine example that comes to mind is LCA. Without them I doubt JU would have enough locals to sustain this route now in winter.
Look at what was written on here the other day when Bologna was announced. LH was the airline of choice for most passengers. With JU launching flights total travel time between the two cities will be reduced and fares will go down.
So yes, Air Serbia does help keep the Serbian economy competitive. They bring in thousands of tourists each year especially from places like Russia or Turkey. By removing JU from the equation you would rely on a foreign management making decision far away from Belgrade and Serbia.
All airlines around the world are used by their governments for geopolitical purposes. How many states around the world do you know that are willingly and without problems giving up on their airlines?
Not sure what you are banging on about mate. I suggest you re-read the earlier comment and if you do want to then respond, make sure it is actually relevant and on point.
DeleteI was actually directly replying to the comments you were making. I don't think what you wrote had much to do with my comment.
DeleteI addressed your comments on how Serbia doesn't benefit from transfers and how JU supposedly isn't boosting inbound tourism when it's more than obvious that it does.
Also saying that the country doesn't profit from transfer passengers is silly especially since it drives employment from which the government directly profits. Especially in Serbia where employers pay 62% tax on salary.
Wow ... not just an aviation enthusiast, but now also an economic analyst.
Delete"The most affected European market in 2021 was Finland, followed by the United Kingdom, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Ireland."
ReplyDeleteThis is the second year Slovenia is on the bottom. If this isn't proof enough in favour of a new national airline, then I don't know what is.
Or this...
Delete"Ljubljana Airport, which fell out of the top ten busiest in the former Yugoslavia in 2021 was Europe’s 154th busiest, just behind Sinop Airport in Turkey and ahead of Rennes Airport in France"
At least we now know our competition is Sinop Airport. I actually had to google it.
DeleteSinop has only Istanbul as destination, just like LJU will soon only have FRA.
DeleteFRA and INI since the latter is subsidized. Lol
DeleteNice. Split was close to top 100 too.
ReplyDeleteWill an ex-Yu airport ever reach top 50?
ReplyDeleteUnlikely
DeleteBEG has a chance if reach planned capacity. We'll wait for that still.
DeleteCongratulations, especially PRN since it's their first time
ReplyDeletePRN has achieved incredible results.
DeleteInteresting to see that non EU airports in ex-Yu have much faster pace of recovery than the ones in Slovenia and Croatia.
ReplyDeleteIn general non EU countries in Europe are performing better even though they have much stricter travel requirments imposed on them.
DeleteLjubljana's results are just embarrassing. Capital city, EU airport... should be doing much better.
ReplyDeleteBravo Fraport LOL!
DeleteNo national airline, turned down offers from six airlines. What else to expect?
DeleteAnd on top of that it has the most incompetent airport management in region.
DeleteIt is unbelievable that PRN has over 700,000 passengers more comparing to ZAG
ReplyDeleteThis year, Zagreb's numbers will be the same like 3 years ago.
DeleteThank you for the results
ReplyDeleteIronically the busiest in ex-Yu had its citizens unable to enter the EU for the first 6 months of the year.
ReplyDeleteWhat happened in Finland for them to be doing so poorly?
ReplyDeleteI assume restrictive entry requirements?
DeleteFinland is a country with quite developed airline industry with quite developed dfferent kinds of markets. They are a small country, with 5. mil. people, and is not quite tourist atractive, but they managed to have more then 20 mil. passengers a year. They had quite developed transfer market towards East Asia which become useless when pandemic came.
DeletePattern at recovery is quite obvious. Who had more developed aviation that country will have harder way to achieve that again. Just look at Ukraine.
You are saying Turkey and Russia don't have developed aviation industry?
DeleteIt has more to do with the kind of draconian measures put in place by governments of certain countries. In the end it had virtually no affect on the virus.
Restrictions are also important thing about recovery.
DeleteThey do have developed aviation but not as vunerable like finish one. Finnish airline industry really did all these years the best to develop more market segments.
On the other hand russian aviation is heavly relied on domestic market.
Like ACI said, the more problematic thing is that revenue and profits have declined heavily. While governments are helping out their airlines, many have forgotten their airports.
ReplyDeleteSome are helping. LJU got aid from the government, Croatian airports got support and government guaranteed loans for ZAG airport, Bosnian airports all got aid too.
DeleteI'm sure TAV, VINCI, Limak and Aeroports de Paris which are concessionaires in ex-Yu all got some support from the governments in those countries.
DeleteTIA overtook many ex-Yu airports
ReplyDeleteHow many passengers did they have last year?
Delete2,928,275
Delete3 million
DeleteThat's a good result.
DeleteA major issue is still the price of testing which is required by almost all destinations. Until that is in place or those prices are in place, recovery will be slow.
ReplyDeleteYes, very expensive, especially for families travelling together.
DeleteYou cannot compare low cost traffic Airport with non low cost traffic Airports.
ReplyDeleteNo sense at all.
Sarajevo used to be in 175th place, and now it is in 132nd place. If it continues to expand, it could enter the TOP 100 in a couple of years
ReplyDeleteWhich airport je 98. 99. and 100? Thanks
ReplyDeleteFunchal, Stavanger and Chania.
Delete