Commercial airports across the former Yugoslavia handled a combined total of 11.061.657 passengers during the first five months of the year, with 3.33 million travellers in May alone. Among them, during the fifth month of the year, three airports stood out for their high growth rates. They include Zadar with a year-on-year increase in May of 106.4%, Tivat with 54.2% growth, and Dubrovnik, which had a 31.2% boost in numbers. All three recorded their busiest May on record. On the other hand, several regional airports underperformed during the month, including Tuzla, which saw an 81% slide in figures, Ohrid, which had 24.1% fewer passengers than in May 2023, and Niš, which shed 19.8% of its travellers year-on-year. A number of other airports also saw their figures decline compared to last year, among which are Banja Luka, Kraljevo, Rijeka and Mali Lošinj.
Passenger performance by airport, May 2024
During the January - May period, Belgrade Airport ranked as the 73rd busiest on the continent, just behind Stuttgart, Palermo, and Sofia, but ahead of Glasgow, Reykjavik, and Larnaca. Zagreb positioned itself as the 103rd busiest, behind Tbilisi, Trondheim in Norway, and Rome Ciampino, but in front of Stavanger in Norway, Wroclaw, and Pristina. The airport in Pristina itself took 106th place. It was just behind the abovementioned but ahead of the likes of Santiago de Compostela, London City, and Leeds. Skopje ranked 127th, with the Macedonian capital behind Cluj, Cork, and Tromso in Norway but outperforming Poznan, Menorca, and Ponta Delgada. During the first five months of the year, the Slovenian market was the fastest growing in the former Yugoslavia in percentile terms, increasing its overall figures by 23.5%. Croatia saw a 22% increase, the market in Kosovo grew 21.6%, Montenegro 15.7%, Serbia 13.7%, Macedonia 12.7%, and Bosnia and Herzegovina reversed its downward trend and grew 6.6%.
Passenger performance by airport, January - May 2024
European rank of select regional airports by passenger numbers
The majority of European markets saw year-on-year growth during the first five months of the year. The exceptions were Russia (-17.7%) and Armenia (-0.9%). London Heathrow was once again Europe’s busiest airport over the five-month period, with 32.415.464 passengers, while Istanbul’s main gateway was second with 31.056.963 travellers. The pair saw growth of 7.9% and 7.4% on 2023 respectively. They were followed by Paris Charles de Gaulle with 26.918.783 passengers, Madrid with 25.901.750, Amsterdam with 25.843.073 travellers, Frankfurt with 23.122.176, Barcelona with 21.023.610, Rome Fiumicino with 17.927.352, Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen with 16.223.545, and London Gatwick with 15.710.436 passengers. Out of Europe’s top ten busiest, four are still below their pre-pandemic 2019 records. They include Paris Charles de Gaulle (-8.6%), Amsterdam (-7.8%), Frankfurt (-14.6%), and London Gatwick (-11.3%).
Largest airlines by scheduled seat capacity across the former Yugoslavia, May 2024
Dubrovnik could end up as number 3 airport in exyu this year.
ReplyDeleteIt's possible, especially since DBV will have a strong winter season too.
DeleteIt's not possible ,Split will be ahead Dubrovnik without doubt. Split will have much stronger summer and also there are new winter increases there.
DeleteDubrovnik will have a new route, lot to Warsaw twice per week for 3,5 out of 5 winter months
DeleteSure. Split also got KLM increase to 3pw, and new edelweiss route to ZRH, 2pw.
Delete"Anonymous09:01
DeleteDubrovnik could end up as number 3 airport in exyu this year."
I've been doing some calculations and based on current trend it'll be 5th largest at the end of the year.
My estimates:
1. Belgrade 9.1 million - 90% (not sure cause WizzAir)
2. Zagreb 4.35 million - 97%
3. Pristina 3.96 million - 96%
4. Split 3.72 million - 98%
5. Dubrovnik 3.1 million - 97%
6. Skopje Airport 2,9 million 90% (not sure cause WizzAir)
Data is based on this blog's published data of available seats for each airport. Uknowns are unscheduled flights and Wizz Air which is going through some serious fleet shortages.
Wow, just 3 airports of Croatia will have more than 10.000.000 passengers. And there are Zadar, Pula, Rijeka, Osijek, Brač, Mali Lošinj as well.
DeleteHrvatska has always been the pioneer in ex-Yu due to its large number of airports and well developed tourism. The trend is likely to even become higher in 2024 after having more Ryanair planes based in the country. BWK should work on attracting more regional carriers.
Delete@Anonymous12:14
Delete"Wow, just 3 airports of Croatia will have more than 10.000.000 passengers. And there are Zadar, Pula, Rijeka, Osijek, Brač, Mali Lošinj as well."
We need to wait and see the final figure, but again based on this blog's figure for total noumber of seats available for entire 2024, (no charter and other unscheduled flights included) there are 16.45 million seats available, based on 2023 data when 13.1 million seats where available but all airports managed 11.35 million, you can extrapolate these figures and you get potential traffic through all of Croatia's airport around 13.2 to 14.0 million passengers.
This is likely traffic at all of Croatia's airports in 2024, again based on available seats.
1. Zagreb 4.35 million - 97%
2. Split 3.72 million - 98%
3. Dubrovnik 3.1 million - 97%
4. Zadar 1.62 million - 95%
5. Pula 500 000 - 92%
6. Rijeka 200 000 - 90%
others: 50 000 total.
Grand total: 13.54 million passengers for all of Croatia's airports.
Bravo Hrvatska!
DeleteI though Sarajevo would already have like 50k more passengers than Ljubljana
ReplyDeleteIt will probably after this month :)
DeleteYeah it's quite likely, June, July and August will set new records. It should finish ahead of TGD and ZAD
DeleteI think BEG will do very well in Q4 of this year. Wizz Air is already boosting BEG from September/October and JU should fix their fleet issues by then. Furthermore, foreign carriers have already boosted winter flights to BEG while we expect JU to do the same.
ReplyDeleteGood thing is that CAN is already selling very well with the first flight (in both directions) filling up quite nicely. Hopefully this trend continues so JU adds a third weekly flight in summer. Their only real competitor is TK which flies daily with their biggest plane (B77W). Such strong advance bookings should also encourage China Southern to speed up their own flights to BEG. It's good that JU is putting a lot of focus on China, with their exports going strong, there is no doubt demand will only keep on increasing.
“ Wizz Air is already boosting BEG from September/October”
DeleteWhat?
Wizz has recently added more frequencies from BEG starting from September and October. Some holiday destinations such as LCA or NCE were boosted over the summer. I guess they had to react since demand is crazy. Two people I know are flying from LCA today on JU and there are 4 business and 170 in economy.
DeleteThe 4th weekly flight with Wizz from LCA to BEG will be operated by Larnaca based crew. It's crazy how stronger demand is than the actual offer.
Nice!
DeleteI like how AirSerbia is playing the China card, took the luckiest numbers for the flight (big deal in their culture), introducing menu in Chinese, and Chinese speaking personnel. Not bad, not bad at all. Step by step.
DeleteKako to Dubrovnik ispred Splita?
ReplyDeleteBaza Ryana?
Ryanair
DeleteJa oni sve rade
DeleteBome rade
DeleteLess than the number of pax VIE had alone...
ReplyDeleteSo? VIE is based in a high density, high income area. On top of that, Bratislava is just down the road and the offer from BTS is such that everyone prefers to fly from Vienna. It should not come as a surprise that we are seeing such results. That is why we compare airports of similar sizes and socio-economic backgrounds.
DeleteJust like BEG compares itself to SOF, TIA or SKG, VIE should compare itself to WAW, PRG, MUC or ZRH.
Vienna is a city of less than 2 million people, it has good road and rail connections to all of central Europe, it gets direct low cost competition from BTS and yet it manages to have more passengers than all the ex-yu airports combined.
DeleteWhat low cost competition from BTS,please ?
Delete09:54
DeleteRyanair and Smartwings.
And tell us how many passengers does BTS have?
DeleteQuite a few Austrians in fact.
DeleteHow many passengers Vienna had in the same time period?? I doubt its more
Delete@10:34
Delete11,365,482 passengers.
Source: https://www.viennaairport.com/en/company/investor_relations/news/traffic_results_1?news_beitrag_id=1716319687585
Funny how you shared VIE numbers but not BTS.
DeleteHere it is: 1,813,660
And a lot opf those are Austrians.
DeleteSource last anon?
DeleteWake up Fraport!
ReplyDeleteFraport fans here will say it's an amazing result.
DeleteZagreb, Split, Dubrovnik, Zadar rock!
ReplyDeleteEveryone wants to visit beautiful Dalmatia!
DeleteYeah we know, you keep on writing the same thing over and over again.
DeleteThe difference between Prishtinë and Skopje is not almost half a million of passengers! Both airports used to have the same traffic and neck to neck for many years. The visa liberation surely showed its effect in PRN. Kosovo numbers are just insane.
ReplyDeleteNot only visa free for kosovo , Macedonian people have very big struggle to get new passports since January to May , now the situation is little bit better , plus the Wizz cuts ans the results was expected. I honestly expect even worse numbers. But now summer starts SKP will get more numbers with the charters , this is summer with most charters destinations , and from next year Wizz will rerurn on the same stage and even better.
DeleteWhy such a huge decline in Ohrid?
ReplyDeleteWizz Air
DeleteOhrid used to have around 12 routes , now have only 2 ...
DeleteSad :(
DeleteGenuinely surprised how much capacity Chair Airline has.
ReplyDeleteand they only fly to three cities in ex-yu
DeleteGood results for most
ReplyDeleteSPU terminal s beautiful on that photo
ReplyDelete+1
Delete