Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport was the only one from the former Yugoslavia to rank within the top 100 busiest on the continent last year, according to Airports Council International (ACI). With 5.610.364 passengers handled, it was the 81st in Europe, ahead of the like of Riga, Tirana, Belfast and Luxembourg but behind Sofia, Thessaloniki and Malta. Notably, during the second half of 2022, the airport ranked 76th on the continent with 3.468.058 travellers handled, outperforming Sofia, and just behind Thessaloniki with 3.499.838 passengers. During the first quarter of the year, travel was still heavily restricted from Serbia due to entry bans and limitations for Serbian citizens in many European Union member states as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
European rank for former Yugoslav airports in 2022
Zagreb Airport ranked 114th on the continent during 2022, ahead of Tbilisi and London City but behind the likes of Santiago de Compostela and East Midlands. Pristina ranked 117th in Europe, followed by Split, which was 119th, then Dubrovnik ranking in 129th and Skopje in 130th position. The only other airport from the former Yugoslavia to make it within the top 150 was Sarajevo, which ranked 148th. As previously reported, Ljubljana was the lowest ranked main capital city airport in Europe, taking 159th position out of over 300 airports. For comparison, in 2021, which was severely impacted by Covid-19, there were two airports from the former Yugoslavia in the top 100 - Belgrade and Pristina - while there was the same amount in the top 150 - a total of seven.
European rank for select airports in the region in 2022
During 2022, Istanbul’s main airport was the busiest, handling 64.284.215 passengers. It was followed by London Heathrow, Paris Charles de Gaulle, Amsterdam, and Madrid. The first, among the busiest airports, to have handled more passengers in 2022 than the pre-pandemic 2019 was Charleroi, ranking 56th in Europe with 8.260.095 travellers or 0.6% more than in 2019. Commenting on the results, Olivier Jankovec, Director General of ACI Europe said, “The surge in passenger traffic last year has been phenomenal. Kicking off in early spring when most travel restrictions were finally lifted, it boomed over the summer and remained resilient afterwards. All of this despite geopolitical shocks, deteriorating macro-economics, fast-rising air fares and Covid still being with us”. He added, “There is still a lot of uncertainty about 2023, not least because of geopolitical tensions and the fact there is no end in sight for the war in Ukraine. But the traffic outlook is getting better thanks to demand headwinds easing somewhat with the reopening of China, recession fears for Europe subsiding and inflation softening. This should help in reducing the current traffic gaps and getting more airports closer to their pre-pandemic volumes. However, supply pressures are likely to remain significant given the structural capacity reductions made by most airlines during the pandemic, their strong focus on increasing yields through higher air fares rather than market share, aircraft delivery delays and labour shortages still being an issue in some markets”.
Busiest airports in 2022
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Timisoara with more passengers than Ljubljana? Jeez
ReplyDeleteLJU has some very serious catching up. It has not even reached the 1 million mark in 2022. If I were an EU capital of a quite visited country, I would be very concerned.
DeleteSlovenia is visited primarily by road.
DeleteOf course, Slovenia build those roads in 2019 and effect is seen immediatelly :)
DeleteSlovenia doesn't have gastarbeiter populations in the UK, Ireland, Scandinavia etc.
DeleteFortunately the country is the wealthiest in the Balkans after Greece and its people didn't have to look for work abroad.
And it has good road connections with Central European countries and Italy.
It also doesn't have much of a coast for summer season tourists.
It also has many people flying from other airports. So for starters you try to do something so those people don't drive to other airports.
DeleteNot if costs are larger than the benefits you don't.
DeleteMore people travel from other airports than LJU. Ah but to bring those passengers costs so we won't do it. Great logic.
DeleteSlovenia does have diaspora, especially in the UK. It's just that the population of Slovenia overall is small, so consequently the diaspora is small as well and generates significantly less traffic than other Balkan diasporas.
DeleteSlovenians, in proportion, are flying a lot more than other exYugo: mostly for leisure and departing from nearby airports outside Slovenia.
DeleteAnd I suppose you have facts/statistics to support this claim? or is it the usual "Slovenes have more money than the rest"?
DeleteKada bi politika prihvatila produzenje piste aerodroma Portoroz, povecala terminal i ostale objekte tog potencijalno sjajnog aerodroma, komercijalna avijacija Slovenije bi bila zapazena. Mnogo snaznija.
DeleteOvako "jare i pare" ne mogu biti. Ni u Sloveniji.
Taff luck. Dok se ne promeni. Bar za daleka neka pokolenja... Sve je do ljudi. Uvek bilo i svuda.
Rod.✈🌐🛫
Taff??
DeleteAnon 17:35. Znacenje Taff luck moze se prevesti kao,
Deleterdjava sreca. Dok se ne promeni politika o aerodromu Portoroz... dali vam je prihvatljivo znacenje?
Prijatan vikend. 😀🛫
Značenje je jasno, ali način kako to pišete nije.
DeletePostovani Anon 20:43. Ucinio sam koliko znam.
DeleteOcigledno da nemate iskustva sa Australijskim sleng izrazavanjem. Oprostite zbog moje nesmotrenosti.
I neprijatnosti koju ste imali zbog nacina mojeg izrazavanja. U nadi da sam se malo opravdao,
svako dobro Vam zelim.
R.✈
Poštovani, niste me niti najmanje povrijedili, a sa slangom sam vrlo dobro upoznat. Svako dobro i lijep pozdrav!
DeleteIt is kinda odd that Rodney from Sydney doesn't really speak English. And when he tries then it's po Vuku: čitaj kako piše, piši kako govoriš, haha!!
DeleteTako tough ispada taff. Dobro da nije taf lak, lol!
BEG could be within 70-80 spot this year.
ReplyDeleteYes that seems realistic.
DeleteMeanwhile January figures for most Croatian airports are public. Zadar, Pula, Rijeka, Osijek combined have around 4000 passengers. Would be interesting to understand how this is economically sustainable.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile Zadar is ahead of Ljubljana, in total, Jan thru Dec. Understand that.
Delete+1
DeleteSo prestigious!
ReplyDeleteBelgrade is late in publishing data for January? Normally they are vrry quick
ReplyDeleteNo, no need to go into conspiricy theories. They publish it between 15-20th of the month each month. That's when VINCI releases figures for all airports. So you are wrong.
DeleteFRA used to be top 3.. now not even top 5
ReplyDeleteWith recent cuts to LH's global network they are definitely not going to be climbing any time soon.
DeleteIt probably will be this year.
Delete2022 traffic was still 44% bellow 2019!
There aren't any cuts to Lufthansa's global network.
DeleteThere was a post here about cuts to ex-yu.
Yes there are. And that post mentioned there are cuts to LH's long haul network.
DeleteThis is their European network out of FRA and MUC for northern summer 2023:
DeleteWeek of 16 – 22JUL23 comparison from Frankfurt
as of 02OCT22: 2738 flights / 429123 seats
as of 11DEC22: 2465 flights / 386828 seats
as of 18DEC22: 2542 flights / 399109 seats
Week of 16 – 22JUL23 comparison from Munich
as of 02OCT22: 2138 flights / 286515 seats
as of 11DEC22: 2043 flights / 274210 seats
as of 18DEC22: 2101 flights / 283712 seats
MUC seems to have fewer fluctuations which could be caused by LH having a better relationship with them than with FRA.
https://www.aeroroutes.com/eng/221220-lhns23eu?rq=Lufthansa
Mind you, these changes were reported before the cuts in their network were made. I suppose now they should be offering less than 390.000 seats from FRA for the same period.
It’s probably because business travel is nowhere near 2019 levels yet.
DeleteHadn't FRA been overtaken by AMS in 2019. already?
DeleteThis year the race between BEG and SOF should be fun to watch. Sofia had a solid January with 516,865 passengers while BEG should be around 420.000.
ReplyDeleteWinter months are always strong at SOF due to it being the main gateway to the skiing resorts. Spring and summer should be interesting as that's when BEG's numbers start picking up.
Oh wow, that's a strong start. I checked on FR24 that El Al are sending their Dreamliners on Fridays to SOF. And many charters it seems. Yep, summer usually is quite strong in BEG.
DeleteDemand to Israel from both Sofia and Bucharest was always strong, much stronger than it is from Belgrade.
DeleteLike I wrote many times before, for BEG the most important task is for airports like TSR and OSI to stagnate and for BUD to struggle. Mind you, January numbers at BUD are everything but impressive.
Israel market is quite important for BEG as well. Have no idea why there are very few flights in general. Even Arkia are launching summer flights to Plovdiv for the first time this year. And yeah from OTP there are at least 3 daily flights to TLV.
DeleteBut, JU for sure will launch TLV this is my opinion and El Al should be restored.
Arkia resumed BEG flights last year but ended up suspending them in winter. I think they should be resuming them soon.
DeleteJU can make TLV work due to transfers. Arkia on the other hand has to rely on O&D demand which is obviously not that big.
Arkia flights are in the system for 2023 summer (to BEG).
DeleteTrue dat. And what do you think about BUD? Why did OTP surpass it for the first time I think. I read that FR cut various routes last years because they increased the fees in BUD, could that be the reason? Economy in Hungary not in the best shape it seems. One of the highest inflation rates in EU.
DeleteHungarian economy is really not doing well. On the other hand, BUD has a lot more competition than OTP. When you look at BUD's catchment area you have VIE, BTS, KSC, DEB and even BEG.
DeleteBEG's growth has surely affected them to a certain extent. People from the north of the country used BUD on a regular basis for flights that were not offered from BEG. With a growing list of destinations offered from Tesla this is slowly starting to change.
Let's be honest, FR would not have suspended those flights out of BUD if they were making them money. They used those taxes to complain and to place their brand in many domestic and international news outlets. This is a typical ploy by FR, nothing new.
OTP on the other hand has Constanta and Craiova as main competitors. Neither airport can act as any real threat in the catchment area they share. OTP's position was further consolidate when the second airport in the city was closed and everything was focused on them. If you are heading to southern Romania, OTP is your likely entry point. Bucharest has no real alternative airport that could act as a threat.
The Economy of Hungary has produced record low unemployment of below 4%.
DeleteSerbia is also experiencing record low unemployment yet that doesn't mean our economy is doing well. Hungary is in both the EU and Schengen meaning all those who are without a job can pack up and leave ... something many have already done.
DeleteI agree that Hungarian economy is not doing great. Also check Debrecen airport it became quite downsized. Hefiz lost all flights last December with no scheduled flights. As for Romania, the economy is mainly focused in OTP and CLJ in reality, but OTP is booming. What is interesting is that Bulgarian airports are generally doing well with a more conservative growth.
DeleteActually Nemjee Hungary is one of very few European countries who did not experience population decline over the past decade.
DeleteAnd migration to other countries usually means higher air traffic. ;-)
Hungary did experience population decline. Acutally they have since 1981 a negative natural population growth. However their economy seems to grow.
DeleteThe Hungarian Statistics Office has produced a record 4% unemployment rate. They could easily do 2% rate too, but looks like this time Orban decided that it should be at 4%.
DeleteBEG - 81
ReplyDeleteTIA - 84
Now that is pretty interesting. What is also curious is that TIA are securing Portugal charters to LIS and OPO! Traffic has literally doubled during the last 5 years or so.
TIA has certainly boomed and I think their pax will be around 6.0 -6.4 millions.
DeleteSOF will probably be around 7.0 - 7.4 and BEG around 6.8 - 7.2. Why? It's all about the new routes announced (scheduled and charters) so far: BEG has about 30 new routes, SOF about 20 new routes while TIA only 10-12 so far. I just think BEG will get closer to SOF and widen the margin with TIA.
Don't forget that TIA is slowly losing flights to the UK partly because of the economic crisis in England and partly because of really bad political ties between the two countries.
DeleteI agree with you, BEG will most likely pass 7 millions this year.
Albania was one of the hottest travel destinations on TikTok last summer and I expect the numbers to continue booming for at least 2-3 more years. Youngsters are discovering the Albanian coast as an inexpensive Mediterranean getaway with terrific sea and beaches, so with the looming recession in the EU, TIA will probably get some of the traffic that would otherwise go to Spain, Greece and Croatia in the years to come.
DeleteTIA is indeed booming, they are even going to be connected with Iberia and receiving more Polish connections. I also think they can easily achieve 6 million this year.
DeleteI disagree, also TIA is not an ex-you place so let’s keep that out.
DeleteWell, article today includes other airports and one of them is TIA. Just because you disagree is because you probably dislike it based on the theory that it's not ex-Yu.
DeleteIt's a fact, not a theory.
DeleteTIA needs a major expansion, airport was made for 3 million pax they are going to get double this year (last summers expansion was a joke) and VIA wont be done for a long time. If Air Albania was a serious airline they could do soo much better. If they get transatlantic flights (NY mainly, possibly DTW due to diaspora) they could theoretically overtake BEG. Doubt it will happen. Having a great national airline is really key.
DeleteBUD, OTP and SOF are not ex-yu either and yet people are discussing them, so why should TIA be the exception??
DeleteThe airport is booming and it will likely continue to do so because as Vlad said; folks are discovering Albania as a cheaper alternative to Greece and even more so Croatia...since Croatia is ironically more expensive than Greece.
Also Albania isn't particularly well connected with the rest of Europe via road network, while being in the far south. TIA is the main international airport of the country, very close to the coast, so it'll be interesting to observe the pax numbers between SOF, BEG and TIA as they'll probably be very close.
In my whew Belgrade Airport will be about in first fify airports in Europe. In next seven years. Development, tourtourist, cargo and business travel is new objective in land of Serbia.
ReplyDelete🇷🇸🛫🌐✈
SMFH
DeleteПоштовани Родни, слажем се са вама. Београд је већ кренуо у том смеру. Прошле године је једини у регији остао у топ 100 а у јануару већ бележи двоцифрени раст.
DeleteШто би англосаксонски народ рекао: BEG's time is only coming now!
+1
DeleteDrago mi je dragi Anon 10:37, sto prihvatate pozitivna predvidjanja. Red je vec jednom da i Aerodromi Srbije,
Deleteprvenstveno Aerodrom Nikola Tesla Beograd uzlaze
u vertikali. Dosta decenija prolazenja kroz glib tegoba.
Za mesec dana imacu srecu da Osamdeset osmi put poletim sa Nikole Tesle Beograd prema Kingsford Smith Airport Sydney. Ostajte u dobru.
Srecan Vam i svima ostalim Dan Srbije, Sretenje Gospodnje! ✈🇷🇸🛫🌐✈🇦🇺✈😀🛫
Nice pic. Good view of airport complex.
ReplyDeleteACI seems quite upbeat about their prognosis for this year. Compared to the gloom and doom some people are writing in the comments here daily about what will happen this summer at European airports.
ReplyDeleteWell major airlines are cutting their summer timetable. Do you think they are doing it for the fun of it?
DeleteDoes that list counts turkish airports from the Asian side ?? Because according to wikipedia busiest airports in Europe BEG is at number 75 .
ReplyDeleteYes ACI counts whole of Turkey within Europe, as well as Armenia and Georgia. I wouldn't take Wikipedia as credible source.
DeleteWiki's list counts as European airports only those that are actually on Europe.
DeleteThe wiki list also has incorrect numbers for many airports.
Delete^^^
DeleteWhich ones?
Antalya 31M ???
ReplyDeleteYep, crazy traffic. However, if you take the island of Mallorca it registered more than 28,5 million! I find this even crazier given its small size and population.
Deletehttps://www.aena.es/es/prensa/el-aeropuerto-de-palma-de-mallorca-recupera-en-2022-el-961-de-los---pasajeros-registrados-en-2019.html#:~:text=El%20mes%20de%20diciembre%20cerr%C3%B3,en%202019%2C%20%C3%BAltimo%20a%C3%B1o%20prepandemia.
"Estadisticas:
El Aeropuerto de Palma de Mallorca finalizó el año 2022 con un total de 28.573.364 pasajeros, cifra que supone una recuperación del 96,1% si se compara con los viajeros contabilizados en 2019, último año prepandemia.
"
Hopefully the codeshare with QR brings more pax to BEG
ReplyDeleteZürich, 500,000 citizens, over 22 million passangers. Geneva, barely over 200,000 citizens, 14 million passangers. Three Swiss airports - 45 million passangers. Shows nicely how weak this region still is.
ReplyDeleteYes, we were not fortunate like the Swiss to have not seen war in hundreds of years, to have collected all that Jewish gold from the Nazis and so on. You can't compare apples to oranges.
DeleteAnon 11:45, absolutely agree with your comments 100%.
DeleteAnon 11:45 +1000 - plus they now use a lot of transfer flights to BEG from YYZ. But since they have a ton of money they also have a HUGE Ex-Yu gasto population of low-level workers
DeleteNot having a war in over 400 years has nothing to do with luck and has got everything to do with brains. Albaight, comparing Switzerland with any other country in the world, except for Sweden, is rather immature.
DeleteYou improve by comparing yourself with the best, not mediocrity.
Delete@Anon 8:33 "Not having a war in over 400 years has nothing to do with luck and has got everything to do with brains."
DeleteYou nailed it!
Sadly, your comment compared to others, emphasizes or rather puts the balkan mentality even more into focus. War in the balkans is either bad luck, or some conspiracy against us. Just like with everything else...nothing is ever our fault. Even our own politicians we vote for, or more often don't even bother to vote, aren't our fault. It's always someone else that's to blame.
Meanwhile, coffee shops and bars are always full, even during work hours on work days, and with that comes coffee shop politics, naturally. :)
I had some free time on my hands so I looked at what major foreign carriers are going to be offering in BEG from 06.03 to 12.03 - less than one month from today.
ReplyDeleteTK IST 21x
FZ DXB 14x
OS VIE 18x
LX ZRH 16x
LH MUC 14x
LH FRA 13x
LO WAW 9x
KL AMS 7x
Not bad for the slower part of the year.
+1
DeleteZagreb behind East Midlands and Santiago de Compostela. Maybe those hailing Bravo Hrvatska could only try to understand while I LOL them reading this
DeleteThat's the reality
DeleteI always understood Bravo Hrvatska as being sarcastic.
DeleteBelgrade took over Riga nice
ReplyDeleteRiga has a population of more than 600 thousand and they still manage to generate a huge traffic. Example of a good leadership
DeleteBesides Riga, is there any other civiilian airport in Latvia?
Deleteon the flight radar app there are 2 more but they dont have flights
DeleteSummer timetable starts in just over a month and a half. Will new roadway system at Belgrade airport be fully functional by then?
ReplyDelete