During the first quarter of this year, several markets in the former Yugoslavia are poised to be among the top ten fastest growing in terms of added capacity. Meanwhile, one market in the region is expected to experience the most significant contraction on the continent. Despite Wizz Air scaling down operations from its Skopje base on its original plan due to engine issues on new aircraft in Q1, Macedonia is anticipated to be Europe's second-fastest growing market, boasting a 64.9% increase in seats compared to the same period last year. In a show of continuing recovery, Slovenia will boost its capacity by 35% in Q1, adding just over 95.000 seats.
Serbia holds the title of being the largest market in the former Yugoslavia during the first quarter, adding the most overall capacity with an extra 711.284 seats, or up 29.9%. This is despite the recent reduction in flights by Air Serbia and Wizz Air during the winter period on its originally planned schedules. Montenegro will be the fourteenth fastest growing market in Europe, growing 16.2% or adding an additional 65.699 seats for a total of 469.630. Croatia will come in at number 25 in Europe, offering 1.272.505 seats, representing an increase of 12% on the January - March period of last year, with an additional 136.167 seats. This includes the reductions made by Croatia Airlines recently to its network in February when compared to its original plan.
Top ten fastest growing aviation markets in Europe, Q1 2024
Bosnia and Herzegovina will buck the trend, with its market contracting during the first quarter of this year when compared to 2023 and positioning itself behind sanction-hit Russia and Belarus. The decline in capacity is the result of Wizz Air’s base closure in Tuzla in September last year. Despite Lumiwings launching a number of routes from the city in lieu of the low cost carrier, it is nowhere near enough to cover the void left by Wizz. Overall, Bosnia and Herzegovina has 514.147 seats on the market in Q1 2024, down 17.3% on the same period last year. The country will have 107.356 fewer seats.
Capacity changes will inevitably continue throughout the first quarter as airlines adjust operating equipment and frequencies, however, these will have little to no bearing on the overall level of change on last year, barring any extraordinary circumstances.
Wow I did not expect such an impact on Bosnia from Wizz.
ReplyDeleteThe genius strategy of Tuzla by relying on one airline for all your traffic.
DeleteIt is not a strategy, it was their only choice. No one else wants to fly there.
DeleteTZL did very little to attract any other airline and even less to keep Wizz.
DeleteYes promises of runway lights, new gate that never came didn't help.
DeleteLet's hope this agreement with Lumiwings will work.
DeleteWhile I agree management should have done more too keep Wizz and look for alternatives while Wizz was there, at least they were rather quick in finding Lumiwings. It ain't close to Wizz's level but at least it is something.
DeleteDo remember though that TZL found Ryanair and it would have been a different ball game if Ryanair stayed in Tuzla but the directorate decided to enforce a stupid tax which is now no longer even enforced. The directorate singlehandedly destroyed TZL if you ask me.
Delete10:02 Absolutely agree.
DeleteWhere is all the capacity growth in Macedonia coming from?
ReplyDeleteLufthansa and Sun Express (didn't fly this time last year), Wizz Air has grown on last year plus growth from Pegasus and Chair.
DeleteMacedonians have extra money nowadays from the booming economy and they are spending money like crazy on travel :)
Delete@9.10 thanks
DeleteI wonder Ohrid will recover this year. I assume this growth in Q1 is coming from Skopje.
DeleteMaybe admin could tell us for Ohrid if there is any difference on last year?
DeleteOhrid's capacity growth in Q1 2024 is 6.7%.
DeleteThank you! Good to see some growth for OHD too.
Delete@09:10 Chair is operating the same numbe of flights ( 7 weekly ) for years together with Edelweiss ( 3 to 4 weekly ). The difference is that we have Lufthansa now and 6 planes of Wizz, even though we will have 4 till early March. I guess most capacity was in the beggining of February and from mid March till the end of the month. Still 1M seats on sale is wonderful and i hope SKP will handle 3.5M this year. As of 5th May Freeberd Airlines will start to operate six weekly charter flights from Antalya to Skopje.
Deletewhat about Anadolou?
DeleteCongrats to most
ReplyDelete2024 could be the year that TIA surpasses BEG as the busiest airport in western Balkans!
ReplyDeleteDream on.
DeleteYeah until Air Albania collapse and then Ryanair leaves Albania or stays but Wizz Air reduces its operations from there because of the competition. They are just competing now by addining more and more capacity and offering cheap tickets until one of them decides to leave. Then, all of the increase in Albania will stagnate.
DeleteAnonymous 10:21
DeleteDream on.
I dont have to dream in order to know the reality.
DeleteThe reality is that TIA continues to grow and airlines are adding destinations and seats. Cope harder.
DeleteWizz Air has 1.25 million departing seats from TIA this winter, with Tirana being now its fourth-largest airport out of the 174 it serves in Europe, Africa and the Middle East!
DeleteTirana keeps winning!
@Anon 10:33 +100
DeleteI really do hope TIA will overtake BEG, they deserve it!
DeleteOf course they do. When you give handling, parking and landing for free which only extends the more passengers you bring you deserve to get flights
DeleteWell, Albania is also turning into a tourism powerhouse, do not forget that!
DeleteThere is no possibility of TIA overtaking BEG. As BEG is a hub and and actual destination as part of poin to point/ transfer/business and tourism. TIA is more like SPU or IBZ. only ability for summer tourism and only if it remains cheap. Both airports have different passangers and the reality is that destinations for cheap summer tourism which is what TIA will have a natural limit. With future growth opportunity BEG, especially with long-haul. it has the ability to comfortably grow much closer to BUD which TIA can never do.
DeleteI agree that TIA won't surpass BEG. But to say TIA is like SPU or IBZ.... Christ
DeleteBasically everyone is growing expect for BiH.
ReplyDeleteBiH will grow in Q2 when SJJ and OMO flights are launched. 3 airports will grow by a big margin and TZL will drop
DeleteSlovakia with more capacity than Slovenia yet Bratislava is next door to Vienna....
ReplyDeleteSlovenia has more or less only one functional airport to put in the statistic (LJU), when Slovakia has more than just Bratislava (Košice, Poprad)
DeleteSlovenia could have more functioning airports too if it didn't have so many incompetent people in charge of aviation.
DeleteFyi, Bratislava had more traffic than Slovenia 2022 and likely 2023 as well
DeleteOh really? And which one do you have in mind? MBX? Of course, because we've all seen how brilliantly this worked in the past.
DeleteYes, I think Maribor could have developed into an LCC airport. It had Ryanair at one point which left when local companies didn't want to subsidise it. But it is likely that the investment would have paid off through the increased traffic and work opportunities.
DeleteOk, so you land with Ryaniar in MBX. And then what? MB itself is not a tourist magnet for 100.000s. Going anywhere else (ZG, LJ, Adriatic, Vienna, Budapest...) takes time and is already served by LCC well enough. MBX just has a massive location problem, its only option is as a maintenance or freight base. No matter how much you subsidised LCC there would not be enough demand to make MBX a profitable destination. And finally, why should a whole country subsidize a faild investment endlessly?
Delete@ 9:24
DeleteOr more people that actually flew somewhere sometimes to realise that there are more leisure destinations than just Croatia by car.
@10:00 bravo!
DeleteI'm not sure why Qatar and FlyDubai didn't announce their return to the pearl of the Balkans yet, hopefully in March, Qatar Airways will announce their return and make Skopje the first 737 operating flight in Europe
ReplyDeletePearl of the Balkans? lol
DeleteI dont think that Qatar will return to Skopje. Their main transfer market was Australia, and they already have restrictions there. They cant fly more then 28 times per week to the continent. Meanwhile people used TK to return in Macedonia last summer via Bankok, Singapore, Jakarta…and all of those are served by Qantas which is what Australia wants.
Delete@09:18
DeleteLOL, the stuff we read here!
Hahahahahahaha
Deletewell your laughs tell more about you then him
DeleteHonestly SKP or MK fans, just take a break.
Delete@16:07 We are taking a break, but our airport's growth isn't :)
DeleteAt first I thought he was talking about Dubrovnik or Split, lol! Nah...Skopje. Without any self-irony either.
DeleteVery interesting info
ReplyDeleteit can actually give you a good sense of what the passenger growth will be like.
DeleteVery good growth for all of them.
ReplyDeleteExcept Bosnia
DeleteOnly difference is in degrees
DeleteNow it will be interesting to see how big of a load factor each market has on its flights.
ReplyDeleteUsually the moor LCCs the bigger the average LF
Delete* more
DeleteNot necessarily, as evidenced in Tirana
Deletehttps://airserviceone.com/overcapacity-ryanair-wizz-air-achieve-just-a-73-lf-on-tirana-routes-where-they-are-head-to-head/
73% year round load factor is not bad actually. Especially if you take in to consideration how many new routes were launched last year.
DeleteProbably that's why the airlines continue increasing destinations and capacity in Nene Tereza airport.
73% and in one of the weakest months of the year
DeleteAnonymous 10:36
DeleteTrue dat!
I thought the 73% figure was for the whole year but it is indeed for November.
since when 73% LF is good for LCC???? even in the slowest moments. double standards by some
Deletewait til the support ends
DeleteNo one said it's good. But how can you make any conclusion based on the first month of operations in November? You're trying too hard.
DeleteGood to see Slovenian aviation recovering.
ReplyDeletewhere is capacity coming from? probably LH group?
DeleteWizz has new route from Skopje, Luxair is flying (not present in first quarter 2023), Transavia France will be flying in Q1 unlike last year (https://www.exyuaviation.com/2023/12/transavia-france-to-grow-ljubljana.html), British Airways is flying in Q1 unlike last year, and then Flydubai, Swiss, Lufthansa and Air Serbia all have more flights.
Deletethey had 200k pax in Q1 23. average LF was 76%. if they keep same LF they will have 270K pax in Q1 24 or in other words 35% growth.
DeleteNot bad
ReplyDeleteLooks like the decline in BiH will continue until third quarter. I don't think the new flights in SJJ will be able to cover Wizz's exit from Tuzla. We will see.
ReplyDeleteThey should be able to, there will be 6-7 additional carriers with 4+ rotations, more than enough
DeleteFrom where have taken such statistics?
ReplyDeletethey said multiple times it is from gds data.
DeleteHad JU and W6 not cancelled so many of their planned flights growth in Serbia probably would have been over 30%.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteMacedonia would have had even more increase in that case as well.
DeleteTrue
DeleteLet's hope that both are better prepared for this summer season than they were last year.
DeleteWhy both? I didnt have any problems at SKP last year.
DeleteW6 had issues all over Europe due to lack of crews to fly their announced schedule.
DeleteThey didnt have any issue in SKP at least, new cabin crew members were hired and new will additionaly be hired on the open day this summer.
DeleteSo if there are 400k plus seats for Macedonia this year, that means that last year there were 600k seats, and SKP airport welcomed 457k pax during the Q1 which is 72% of the total seats offered ( some 20-30k handled were additionaly handled in Ohrid ). If the 72% continue this year, SKP will welcome nearly 750k pax during the first three months, and hopefully 1M by the end of April. Wonderful.
ReplyDeleteTuzla won't be seeing recovery from Wizz leaving anytime soon. The problem with fog there and airplanes being unable to land/takeoff is serious. I'm assuming Wizz payed lots of money for landing in another airport everytime they couldn't land in Tuzla. Lumiwings will leave very soon as well so fingers crossed for their future plans.
ReplyDeletePs. Instead of investing in improvement of existing airports, they decided to start a construction of airport in Bihac? Make it make sense
+1
DeleteI am surprised by how big is the Hungarian market, given that they have no transfer airline and they have just one airport. The magnet of tourism.
ReplyDeleteSame! But it kind of makes sense
DeleteHungary has done an amazing job in marketing itself with what it has available. Most people in BUD speak decent english for tourists. its a nice city/weekend break for tourists. not like the cheap and seedy vacations that many western europeans look for to just get drunk and violent.
Deletethe city is fairly well organized even though their ticket and entry system for their metro makes no sense to me. Hungary is in the EU so quick and easy entry for travellers, Wizz has its main hub in BUD which provides it with a cheap connection to everywhere in europe and lastly Hungary kept its own currency which is much weaker than the euro or the British pound. So they have used all the factors in their environment very well to their advantage.
At least it's good to see Slovenia not at the bottom of these aviation rankings for once.
ReplyDeleteSKP in 2024 will have its most successfull year when saying for growth , pax numbers and routes. This year they will have around 50 regular routes and plus the summer charters , for a country of less then 2m people this is great results. I expect more routes and airlines enter the Macedonian market soon , and better connections to europe main hubs.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that there are just 257k more seats avilable for whole Croatia is stunning.
DeleteYes it is a hugeee growth !!! And imagine if Doha and Dubai return ....
DeleteWe dont need them if TK starts Australia flights.
DeleteLast year BEG was ahead of TIA for every month somewhere around 50,000, 70,000 to 100,000 passengers, in November BEG was ahead of TIA by only 6,000 passengers, while in December TIA surpassed BEG with 4,000 passengers, this was due to the introduction of market of Ryanair, I believe that this year TIA will pass BEG, becoming the largest airport in the Western Balkans.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet in Q1 there are more seats in Serbia than Albania.
DeleteIf JU introduces two new long haul routes, as planned, I think BEG will stay ahead of TIA
DeleteThe difference between BEG and TIA actually grew in 2023. in 2022 it was about 460k and in 2023 the difference was 690k. while TIA was having so much more traffic. this year the difference will only grow.
DeleteWow well done Albania!
ReplyDeleteWould be interesting to see LJU capacity data for 2018 and 2019…
ReplyDeleteyou must be fun at parties, I can imagine
Delete^???
DeleteHi EX YU, I had a request for you. Can you do an article on the rivalry expected this year between BEG and TIA?
ReplyDeletewhy? nonsense
Deletethere is not even articles about "rivalry" among exyu airports and good so
I have been visiting this site on a daily basis, and the amount of tribalism and cheerleading that goes on for everyone's favorite airport/country never ceases to amaze me.
ReplyDeleteits like football
Deleteso its ok
Delete@POPO
DeleteHave you met slavic people before? if this blog was expanded to include all aviation of Slavic nations then the only tribe that wouldnt be so vocal are the Slovenians and Czech.
@popo
Deleteand yet you keep visiting daily.... the balkans is fun, isn't it?
Serbia has 3 millions available seats??? Wow!!! That is like...what...2.8 millions for BEG? Thats around 11 millions available seats for 2024. Just WOW
ReplyDeleteNo Macedonia, Skopje. TAV is makeing Ohrid: zadnja rupa na svirali.
ReplyDelete