All capital city airports in the former Yugoslavia have seen passenger numbers on their London flights improve in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the pre-pandemic 2019, with Ljubljana being the notable exception. Four years ago, the Slovenian capital had the largest share of London passengers among the former Yugoslav capitals with Ljubljana handling 50.017 travellers in Q1 2019. However, by 2023, that figure had declined by 54.7% to 22.667, behind Zagreb, Belgrade and Pristina. The figures were not impacted by Adria Airways’ demise, as it did not fly to London in 2019. On the other hand, Zagreb added over 23.000 passengers on services to and from London. The growth was fuelled by Ryanair which launched flights between the two cities in 2021. Notably, Ryanair, operating out of Stansted Airport, has overtaken both Croatia Airlines and British Airways, which maintain services to Heathrow. Although Croatia Airlines has seen its passenger numbers to London plummet compared to 2019, the difference was made up by Ryanair. In total, the budget carrier handled 28.838 passengers between Zagreb and London, compared to 25.506 travellers welcomed on board by Croatia Airlines and British Airways.
Belgrade Airport’s figures improved on 2019 despite having the same number of flights, however, Wizz Air has increased capacity on the route by deploying its Airbus A321 aircraft instead of the A320. The budget carrier outperformed Air Serbia by handling 23.777 passengers during the first quarter, compared to Air Serbia’s 15.303. Pristina saw a notable 60% increase in passenger numbers to London, with all its customers on the route handled by Wizz Air. Both easyJet and British Airways, which maintained flights between the two cities in 2022, have discontinued their operations, although they both operated outside of the first quarter making no impact on existing figures. Podgorica’s strong growth on the London service is also attributed to Wizz Air, which commenced flights between the two cities during the summer of 2022.
Skopje’s London figures increased slightly, with Wizz Air being the sole operator on the route. On the other hand, Sarajevo Airport had no flights to London during the first quarter of 2019. In contrast, during Q1 2023, two carriers maintained services between the two capitals. This included Wizz Air’s service to Luton, as well as TUI Airways’ new seasonal winter operations from Gatwick, catering for British skiers. TUI’s flights commenced in January and were maintained once per week until the end of March. The airline plans to restore services to Sarajevo on December 31. Wizz Air suspended operations between Luton and Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capital in late March, with flights scheduled to resume in September.
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It's about time BA to return back to Skopje...
ReplyDeleteReturn back? Did they ever fly to SKP?
DeleteThey did in the late 90s
DeleteIn 2010 they were interested in Skopje. They even held talks with the government. But it didn't work out.
DeleteBA never operated to SKP.
DeleteIt did around 25 years ago.
DeleteHistorical Information
DeleteYes, British Airways operated LON to SKP flights during the 2000-01 period.
A significant number of their passengers were members of the UN Mission in Kosovo and many NGOs. I flew the route several times. I was scheduled to fly on this flight in the late summer of 2001, however due to the insurgency in the country British Airways suspended the route. Interestingly, British Airways then switched the service to PRN and operated LON to PRN from 2001 until 2012 when it was "pushed out" by Limak, the PRN airport operator. Limak cancelled (with little or no notice) the contract with BP for the supply of fuel at the airport and brought an unknown entity that was not in the BA list of approved suppliers, resulting in refuelling stops in Dubrovnik on the return leg.
British Airways kept the same flight numbers on their PRN route as those of the SKP route: BA2880 LGW-PRN and BA2881 PRN-LGW.
If I am not mistaken British Airways operated the route to SKP out of London Gatwick, but I am not 100% certain. The PRN route was certainly operated from London Gatwick and American Airlines codeshared.
@Visit Kosovo
DeleteThanks! Great details!
Do you have any official source for BA flying to SKP?
DeleteWell, I don't know what qualifies as an official source for you. However:
Delete1. I personally flew this route, so I have first hand information;
2. I should be able to take a screenshot of my BA Executive Club Flightpath that lists by flights with British Airways to Skopje, but that service is down at the moment. But whenever it resumes I should be able to get it; and
3. Here is a link to a news item from 2009 from the Macedonian Information Centre referring to the resumption of flights by British Airways to Skopje *and* specifically mentioning 2001 as the year when the route was dropped:
https://www.thefreelibrary.com/British+airways+to+fly+to+Skopje.-a0205988062
It was definitely Gatwick as Visit Kosovo said
DeleteBA Executive Club Flightpath never works.
DeleteSo why did passenger numbers on Ljubljana route crash so badly? It’s not because of Adria bankruptcy. So who is to blame? Ryan in Zagreb? Fraport management?
ReplyDeleteThose flights were heavily used by Croats and people from Zagreb. Now that Ryanair arrived this is no longer the case.
DeleteFraport management said 2 years ago they were completely unfazed (direct quote) by Ryanair opening a base in ZAG. Guess they should have been more concerned and done something about it. Can't believe this airport is being run by a German company.
Delete^ crazy
Delete@09.15
DeleteIt's a lie. Croats don't travel, especially by plane.
And it's the other way round, Slovenes only use ZAG, not Croatians LJU.
😃😃😃
In the Q1 2019 there was still Adria. We all know what happened the following fall.
Delete+1000
Delete@11.02 had you bothered to read the article you would have found out that Adria didn't fly to London.
Deleteback then there was operations easy jet 5-7x a week to both gatwick and stansted aswell as wizzair around 5 weekly rotations as well. There was also BA with daily flights and I even remember that Adria and Easyjet used to fly to London Southend for some time so there was much more flights than now.
DeleteeasyJet had way more than 5-7 flights a week. It flew multiple times a day from THREE London airports!
DeleteBut British Airways never had daily flights. Adria used to fly to Gatwick.
If Croats were flying enough, CA would be in better shape…now they are starting flying more (looking for jobs elswhere) but Ryanair recognized it and kicked in…
DeleteThose are fantastic numbers for Zagreb. Basically, Ryanair generated over 20,000 new passengers on the route. Good work!
ReplyDeleteThey took over passengers from Lufthansa.
DeleteEven more impressive is that growth was achieved despite FR launching Manchester. I assume many transferred via London to get there in the past.
DeleteOh dear, LJU what's going on?!? :(
ReplyDeleteAccording to the numbers above, ZAG is crushing LJU like crazy.
DeleteI know but how did it fall back so behind? It's being crushed by Pristina too.
DeleteAnon 09:12 I guess you don't know this region geographically well. ZAG and LJU are located close to each other and their catchment areas overlap. LJU had big capacity by low cost carriers to London before the pandemic and ZAG had not. After the pandemic, ZAG became a low cost base and passengers started to gravitate there, therefore low cost carriers did not resume LJU ops.
DeletePRN is quite far from these two airports and its catchment area overlap with SKP.
So LCCs rule London-ex-Yu markets.
ReplyDeleteLCCs generally rule most ex-Yu markets regardless of the route.
DeleteLCCs generally rule most European markets
DeleteIt will be interesting to see how Pristina will perform this year considering it has a huge reduction in London flights.
ReplyDeleteWhy has PRN suddenly lost both British and easyjet?
DeletePassenger numbers might have been good but yields were probably not there.
DeleteDue to restrictions at LHR last year it was close to impossible to buy tickets on the BA LHR-PRN route. Passenger numbers were capped, so I imaged long haul routes were prioritised. This has not stopped BA operating thrice daily flights to TIA though, so yields must be a factor too.
DeleteForgot to add that Wizz Air now flies daily on the LTN-PRN route with A321 aircraft (on odd occasions with A320 or A21N). Last summer it operated the route with 5 weekly flights. These extra flights with A321 should fill in most if not all of the capacity following the withdrawal of BA with seasonal twice weekly A320 flights and easyJet with seasonal thrice weekly A320.
DeleteIn short, it's not correct to declare that there is a huge reduction. It might not even be a capacity reduction at all, but I do not have precise capacity figures in hand.
TIA has to be top of that list. They got 5 airlines in 4 different London airports!
ReplyDeleteI don't know if you don't know but Tirana nor Albania were never part of the former Yugoslavia. So it it's difficult for it to be on top of this list.
Deletelol exactly.
Delete@09:08 hahaha. if the guy wants to start adding random countries i think budapest would be top. they have 11 flights a day to london.
DeleteExcept Budapest is a city.
DeleteWhat about other UK destinations? We hear visas are issue for non-EU members but the growth is nice even in those markets. That being said, as a response to some petition, UK officials announced there's no plan to change visa policies for the region.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, what about the numbers from SPU and DBV to LON for a good comparison's sake?
DeleteAny future growth to London will be driven by Ryanair and Wizz increasing capacities it seems. Can’t see easyJet with their fleet challenges and the same for BA expanding or having new routes in the region. I guess the most obvious for them is a Gatwick service in the summer to Tivat, however I think they are missing an opportunity to Belgrade but I guess expansion would come with a loosening of visa rules but unfortunately can’t see that anytime soon with the present British government, which is stupid as they should drop the visa requirements for the remaining ex-yu countries that are still in place.
ReplyDeleteIt's good to see all of them growing, except LJU although granted that the base number was low for Podgorica, Pristina, Sarajevo...
ReplyDeleteWizz doing really well against Air Serbia on this route
ReplyDeleteCorrect but the positive is that Air Serbia's passenger numbers are increasing on this route too. So both are growing
DeleteTrue
DeleteI am not sure that figures for Belgrade are correct. As per those figures LF on WizzAir flights is above 100% and Air Serbia below 60 %.
DeleteThe numbers are correct. It's from UK CAA. JU load factor on the route sounds about right for first quarter which is the slowest. JU's numbers are seasonal on this route due to transfers from US/Canada (JU has interline with Virgin). Wizz also sounds about right due to lots of families with infants taking the flights.
Deleteit shows how much room for improvement there is for air Serbia, and how they are not planning it well.
DeleteIt shows more people want to fly to belgrade since Wizz is using a bigger plane. If Marek was smarter he could have introduced a fleet of embraer 175 to directly compete on routes against wizz air at those cheaper airports that wizz flies to. Even if they held a 70% passenger load that would force wizz to stop using the a321 and go back to the A320.
LJU management not doing enough to keep those easyjet flights
ReplyDeleteRemember that the Slovenian government didn’t want to give any money to easyjet in form of subsidies while it gave it to all other airlines. In fact they disqualified easyjet from the tender.
DeleteIts high time for BA to return to BEG
ReplyDeleteI don't think the numbers give a strong enough case for them to return. And you need a visa to transfer via LHR.
DeleteNot if your final destination is USA or Canada.
DeleteYou don't need a visa to transfer at LHR if going to the US (if you have US visa) and US flights are the vast majority of LHR transfers
DeleteBut transferring to France, Ireland, Caribbean or Norway you do need a visa first? That doesn't make much sense
DeleteLjubljana NEEDS a carrier based in LJU, nothing else.
ReplyDeletePeriod!
DeleteVery interesting numbers! Thanks
ReplyDeleteLondon route is a good example, that the biggest problem of Ljubljana in not Adria collapse but Fraport
ReplyDelete+100
DeletePlus: Ljubljana is not so cheap getaway for British citizens as it once was.
DeleteBecause they run the other airports well. LJU seems to be a major exception.
DeleteMaybe that has to do with LJU rather than Fraport? Have you thought of that?
DeleteRyanair should definitely increase Zagreb-London to 10x weekly.
ReplyDeleteShows that LCCs are driving growth.
ReplyDeleteLogical
DeleteBravo Fraport!
ReplyDeleteWhere else in ex-Yu did British fly to in the past besides Belgrade. I remember they flew to Sarajevo too.
ReplyDeleteThey used to fly to Pristina year round until about 2009.
DeleteBritish Airways operated the LGW-PRN from 2001 to 2012.
DeleteZAG stole passengers to LJU. We slovenes just love to drive a few hours to other airports (also 600 km to Milano) to catch 20€ cheaper flight, that you could also fly from LJU (not including me). And yes, I know a lot of people from Slo who were very proud of how cheap they flew to London from ZAG.
ReplyDeleteSadly this is true even though it makes little sense in my opinion
DeleteIt's going to keep happening on more and more routes unless there are some serious changes at JU.
DeleteI meant *LJU
DeleteThe market to London was always bigger in Zagreb than in Ljubljana. But Ljubljana had more flights so people used it instead of Zagreb. I flew from Ljubljana to London and back two months ago to get to Croatia. It was cheaper than flying from Zagreb. People still do it.
DeleteIt is a real shame that Ljubljana's potential is not being used on this route to its full potential.
ReplyDeleteCroatia Airlines selling their slots at Heathrow came back to bite them.
ReplyDeleteI don't think they could care less. They are not concerned about anything. They will get enough money to live another year and keep losing market share
DeleteAnother year ? You mean another century ..
DeleteWho are primarily passengets on ZAG-LON-ZAG? Croats, British tourists, diaspora?
ReplyDeleteMostly diaspora, Croats from my previous experiences.
DeleteWow well done Zagreb!
ReplyDeleteDespite many "hearsay" opinion that ZAG is very limited market and that "there is no demand", but still on the top for the biggest European city. Just imagine if Croatia Airlines try to do something.
ReplyDeleteWhat you mean, 'on the top for the biggest European city'?
DeleteHe meant ZAG leads, or tops, the growth list of ex-yu airports to London, the biggest european city. It's what the entire article today is about. One doesn't have to be genius to get it
DeleteGreat news. Hope BA will expand more in the region.
ReplyDeleteDoubt it
DeleteZagreb-London flights are totally packed
ReplyDeleteMontenegro keeps winning!
ReplyDeleteAny chance Air Montenegro will start flights to London?
DeleteAir Montenegro should fly London - Manchester.
DeleteEven better Liverpool - Manchester 😃
DeleteThing is, ZAG and LJU need more connections to more London airports being EU capitals and no visa-free policy. At least 3.
ReplyDeleteIt's also worth mentioning that OHD lost its Luton flights. Maybe time to subsidise the route.
but it gained two other UK routes
DeleteSeasonal and with smaller planes, but ok.
DeleteLondon is not a EU capital anymore tho
DeleteConsidering the UK's visa policy to most ex-Yu countries, I'm surprised by how high some of these numbers are.
ReplyDeleteThat is true. Also it is shameles for GB to have visa for these countries.
Deletewhy did easyJet give up on LJU all of a sudden?
ReplyDeleteThis Sunday , 21st May, SPU alone has 8 flights to LON, 3 of them by BA to LHR and I assume that neither of these capitals has at least a half of this figure
ReplyDelete