Skopje Airport targeting new destinations in Western Europe

Airport operator TAV Macedonia is working on establishing new flights from Skopje Airport, with an emphasis on services to Western European capitals, as well as additional destinations in Eastern Europe. General Manager, Nejat Kurt, said, “TAV's marketing team visits aviation and tourism fairs and has meetings with airlines and tour operators, to convince them to open new desired and attractive destinations from the two Macedonian airports. Our current network of airlines from the Macedonian capital is geographically concentrated mostly in Northern Europe. We would like to expand our network of airlines to the main centres and capitals of Western Europe, as well as routes to Eastern Europe”.

Skopje Airport welcomed Norwegian Air Shuttle’s inaugural seasonal service from Oslo this Friday. It follows on from Lufthansa’s launch of its new year-round Frankfurt flights this April. “These two are of great importance to us because they will contribute to greater competition, which is one of the accelerators for market growth”, Mr Kurt said. He added, “As an airport operator, we are working very hard to attract new airlines that will start flying from the two Macedonian airports and to open new destinations that will be useful for Macedonian citizens, as well as flights to desired leisure destinations. Currently, we have a total of 54 destinations and 21 airlines from Skopje”.

Year after year, Brussels and Amsterdam have topped the list as some of the busiest unserved destinations from Skopje in Western Europe, despite Wizz Air serving the likes of Charleroi and Eindhoven. Other cities seeing significant indirect traffic to and from the Macedonian capital include Paris Charles de Gaulle, Prague, Dusseldorf, Munich and Ljubljana, with the latter to be launched by Wizz Air this September. Some of Turkish Airlines’ busiest Skopje transfer destinations include London Heathrow and Madrid. On the other hand, LOT sees considerable feed on its Skopje operations to and from Oslo, Amsterdam, Vilnius and Copenhagen. Austrian is the number one transfer airline between Macedonia and both Brussels and Amsterdam with a market share of over 40%.

The two national carriers from the former Yugoslavia also see significant transfer traffic on their Skopje operations. Air Serbia has benefited greatly from the demise of Adria Airways on its services to the Macedonian market, becoming the number one carrier for passengers traveling between Skopje and Ljubljana. It also sees notable traffic to Rome, Amsterdam, Zurich and Paris originating or destined to Skopje. Its Croatian counterpart has excelled in offering connections to other Star Alliance hubs, primarily Frankfurt. It also sees feed between its Skopje operations and Brussels, Amsterdam, Munich and Zurich.