Commercial airports across the former Yugoslavia handled a combined total of 14.949.672 passengers during the first half of the year, with 3.95 million travellers in June alone. Among them, during the sixth month of the year, three airports stood out for their high growth rates. They include Sarajevo with a year-on-year increase in June of 51.2%, Zadar with 29.5% growth, and Tivat, which had a 27.4% boost in numbers. On the other hand, several regional airports underperformed during the month, including Tuzla, which saw an 78.9% slide in figures, Niš, which had 21.7% fewer passengers than in June 2023, and Ohrid, which shed 16.4% of its travellers year-on-year. A number of other airports also saw their figures decline compared to last year, among which are Skopje, Osijek, Rijeka and Kraljevo.
Passenger performance by airport, June 2024
During the January - June period, Belgrade Airport ranked as the 72nd busiest on the continent, just behind Palermo, Sofia, and Glasgow but ahead of Reykjavik, Ibiza and Larnaca. Zagreb positioned itself as the 103rd busiest, behind Tbilisi, Trondheim in Norway, and Wroclaw, but in front of Stavanger in Norway, Rome Ciampino, and Leeds. Pristina took 108th place. It was just behind East Midlands but ahead of the likes of Santiago de Compostela, Nuremberg, and London City. Skopje ranked 127th, with the Macedonian capital behind Cluj, Cork, and Chania but outperforming Tromso, Olbia, and Ponta Delgada. During the first half of the year, the Slovenian market was the fastest growing in the former Yugoslavia in percentile terms, increasing its overall figures by 21.5%. The market in Kosovo grew 20.5%, Croatia saw a 19.2% increase, Montenegro 15.6%, Serbia 11.2%, Macedonia 9%, while figures in Bosnia and Herzegovina declined 11.2%.
Passenger performance by airport, H1 2024
European rank of select regional airports by passenger numbers
The majority of European markets saw year-on-year growth during the first half of the year. The exceptions were Russia (-16.8%) and Armenia (-1.8%). London Heathrow was once again Europe’s busiest airport over the six-month period, with 39.848.511 passengers, while Istanbul’s main gateway was second with 38.111.703 travellers. The pair saw growth of 7.4% and 6.9% on 2023 respectively. They were followed by Paris Charles de Gaulle with 33.189.584 passengers, Amsterdam with 31.801.387, Madrid with 31.695.441 travellers, Frankfurt with 28.753.818, Barcelona with 26.074.756, Rome Fiumicino with 22.566.014, London Gatwick with 19.923.345, and Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen with 19.835.915 passengers. Out of Europe’s top ten busiest, four are still below their pre-pandemic 2019 records. They include Paris Charles de Gaulle (-8.7%), Amsterdam (-7.9%), Frankfurt (-14.5%), and London Gatwick (-10.4%).
Largest airlines by scheduled seat capacity across the former Yugoslavia, June 2024
Interesting that British makes it into top 10 by capacity.
ReplyDeleteAnd no Swiss
DeleteBecause BA flies to Croatian coast.
Delete@9.09 Swiss barely flies anywhere in ex-YU. Only Belgrade and Ljubljana. So don't know how you expected them in top 10
DeleteAlso Swiss and Edelweiss count separately here, so they're split
Delete@10:38 Prishtina too! But only from Geneva
DeleteSkopje would have had a lot more passengers if corrupt government individuals did not block the deal with Ryanair which I negotiated back in 2015/2016. 120mn dollars, a new aircraft base and 2.86 mn passengers/tourists were guaranteed by them for the country. One of those crooks is now a government minister and the other an advisor to the PM.
DeleteWizz Air thretened to leave SKP, that is why Ryanair deal did not happen.
DeleteBravo Fraport!
ReplyDeleteWhat is the point of Kraljevo airport?
ReplyDeletePoint is that this airport needs two investments to finally operate normally:
Delete1. a refueling facility
2. adequate runway so that heavier planes can land
Once these two issues are resolved KVO will start growing. That area of Serbia is quite wealthy and it serves several large cities such as Kosovska Mitrovica, Novi Pazar, Kraljevo, Cacak and Uzice. Lot's of diaspora potential in this region especially to Germany for passengers from southern Raska district (esp. Novi Pazar and Tutin).
Wizz Air or Ryanair could easily operate gasto routes from KVO if the airport could handle their planes. Just look at bus departures from Novi Pazar and you will see where the market is.
Throwing money away
DeleteYou do realize that KVO is a military airport that was there for decades? It wasn't a greenfield investment.
DeleteThis. KVO being built into a civilian airport was a pretty cheap project. If they manage to attract some LCC traffic to places like Vienna, Berlin, the Ruhr, Zurich, and Sweden, it would do wonders for that part of Serbia
Deleteisnt KVO too close to INI? seems that the airport of KVO is distracting away from INI. which itslef could serve all those of southern serbia, and parts of bosnia, montenegro if it was well marketed and flights planned.
DeleteIt was probably driven by local politics. A complete white elephant. Money should have been used to build the new INI terminal sooner. Trstenik/Vrnjacka Banja was a lot better situated given proximity to future motorway (right next to it), A1 motorway, Kopaonik, Vrnjačja Banja, Kruševac, Jagodina, Paraćin, Ćuprija etc. it was also a pure civilian airport with an existing 1900m runway that would be easier to asphalt because it would not disturb the defence requirements for a fully operational runway at Ladjevci at all times.
DeleteKVO is requierd by foreign investors as a cargo bay. Passenger terminal is invented by a local politicians
DeleteCouldn't they offer that service in INI?
DeleteThis blog also reported that they would do that in INI for Africa air cargo
Maybe is required also for INI. For KVO is required by factory owners within 70-100km maximum distance. Doesn't matter that they still don't use it, but that was requirement for their green field investment
DeleteVrnjacka Banja makes no sense especially since it's closer to INI. KVO on the other hand is closer to the road from Novi Pazar, Kos. Mitrovica, Tutin etc.
DeleteAlso, don't forget that someone from Cuprija or Paracin will not go to VB when INI is literally just down the road.
However, someone from Cacak or Uzice or even Valjevo will gladly use KVO to fly. So by moving the airport to VB you are just making it more of a competition to INI. Also terrain is scarce there and it would be right next to Ibar which tends to flood that area when heavy rain falls. Not to mention their issues with fog.
People working at Kraljevo, Brac and Maribor must be very busy... 1300 at Maribor for the first 6 months, that's like 200 passengers per month... how do they manage? real heroes!
ReplyDeleteSuch airports generally little to no staff working at stuff like check-in desks, security, border, etc. Sometimes the same person is also in charge of multiple things
DeleteWow, Croatian aiports are doing great. Nice.
ReplyDeleteAnd the top 3 out of 4 are all seeing big growth because of Ryanair. And before someone attacks me I don't mean that in a bad way.
DeleteYes, Croatia is doing really fine.
DeleteEveryone wants to visit beautiful Dalmatia.
DeleteThat was always the case. The Adriatic has been a cash cow for 60 years.
DeleteI expect BEG growth to speed up from September when JU introduces E95 and Wizz boosts their network.
ReplyDeletePoor Tuzla. Such a shame. Hopefully numbers improve a bit with Ajet and Pegasus starting flights.
ReplyDeleteBut you know Belgrade is not good conected, as said by “analitičar”
ReplyDeleteDon't forget how airlines are doing badly in LJU because of a two week sale.
DeletePuno previše loše konektiran.
DeleteYes, he's right. Belgrade have no connection to Stansted, Gatwick, Dublin, Orly, Domodedovo. Poor Serbs and lucky Croats
DeleteDon't forget Mineralnye Vody
DeleteEasyjet is launching Stansted-BEG later this year.
DeleteStill, ZAG has a lot better indirect connections then BEG
DeleteHow so?
DeleteDon't know. That's a famous analiticar's metrics. Artificial intelligence
DeleteOnly because there are a million flights per day to LHG hubs. That's all. He also refused to write that the difference was just 6%
Delete@admin is there a reason why there is no Portorož statistics...
ReplyDeleteI think it was mentioned a few times that Portoroz has some very weird way of accounting passenger numbers. Not sure if that's the reason.
DeleteLošinj as well.
DeleteLjubljana seems to be stuck in 160th place for the last 2 years.
ReplyDeleteTo get some perspective VIE had 14,386,331 passengers during the same period and ATH had 14,012,474.
ReplyDeleteNow compare those airports to let's say ORD or ATL, you know to put things into perspective.
Delete^^^
DeleteI'm comparing airports in our neighborhood with all ExYu airports combined!
Try to understand how much distance collectively we still have to cover.
Not compareable ! ATH and VIE are strong tourist destinations . Why do you think US airlines fly there and do not prefer BEG ? It's obvious.
DeleteIt wouldn't be comparable if we were to compare single airports in our region with VIE and ATH.
DeleteBut I'm comparing ALL ExYu airports with them the conclusion is unavoidable, we still have a great distance to cover in order to catch up to the rest of Europe.
Both ATH and VIE have relatively big carrier there which is A3 and OS. Those transfer pax are counted twice.
DeleteAnd Belgrade doesn't have transfers?
DeleteUnfortunately for VIE, OS recorded massive losses in H1 of this year. Ouch.
Delete@12:49 BEG has as well but less then VIE, i thought this was clear. Half of the JU fleet is 70 seaters turboprops, while OS has 60+ Airbus and Embraer jets. Not comparable.
Delete22 airports from 7 countries COMBINED and we have similar traffic as Vienna, a city of less than two million people...
DeleteTotal passengers numbers matter a lot less than finances. As long as an airports is making money and growing operations employing people. than that's all that matters.
DeleteWhat's the point to have huge numbers of passengers but the airline or airport is losing money? Croatia on its own can have 15 million passengers at this point if the country let the low cost carriers fly and land there for free (or for pennies like certain other airports do)
Considering the current decline in numbers at SKP, what is the prediction for the end end of the year? Can the losses be made up for the very strong first quarter? Will number begin recovering by the end of the year?
ReplyDeleteUnless the Pratt engine situation at W6 (and other airlines) improves greatly ion the next weeks we won't have any major recovery in capacity during the end of the year.
DeleteThe end of the year will be even worse cause Wizz will remove one jet from SKP and will only operate with four A320s this winter season. However, thanks to the increases that other airlines made this summer to SKP, the decline is not that big at least now.
DeleteTivat is on fire! ❤️🇲🇪
ReplyDeleteIsn't the Montenegrin riviera reaching its limit? I saw something about it in the news, that the coast itself in Budva is almost completely full during peak season
DeleteSource? Limit in what? Troll.
DeleteWell there is hardly any room to swim there if that’s what you mean especially in Budva
DeleteMontenegro is far above it's limits last decade. Except for accomodations, there's barely any needed infrastructure. This year they had electricity restrictions during heat wave. No proper roads, railways, parkings, beaches, hospitals, shops, shopping malls...
DeleteAnd raw untreated sewage being dumped into the Adriatic
DeleteFilthy
DeleteSource: 24ur.com
DeleteHa ha ha
DeleteWow, Sarajevo, well done! Closing in on Skopje!
ReplyDeletePRN expanison coming just in time. They will definitely reach 4 million this year. I Hope that wizz air will have a come-back in 2025
ReplyDeleteCan someone explain to me why SKP is with low numbers. I live in Stockholm and I won't be able to fly from Stockholm to SKP in the winter, I feel penalized.
ReplyDeleteIt is because Wizz Air has a problem with their fleet because of another problem with the P&W engines which is causing problems to airline world-wide. Due to this, Wizz Air has had grounded 50 jets which is causing network reductions. In SKP they have five planes instead of six this year, and all of them are A320s with a 180 seats each, unlike last year when they had A321s in SKP with 230 seats each. This winter season they will further reduce operations from SKP by removing another jet, leaving the base with only four A320s. Some routes had to go, those are Skavsta, Copenhagen and Bremen.
DeleteYou could pay a realistic price and go via somewhere.
ReplyDeleteFly via PRN or INI?
DeleteAlthough a small difference, PRN numbers in this article do not match the ones published by the airport's media team.
ReplyDeleteJan-Jun: 1,839,112
The numbers listed in the article are sourced from Air Council International Europe, which obtains the figures directly from the airport itself.
DeleteBelgrade wins gold medal in the Ex Yu region.
ReplyDeleteAnd Croatia wins as a country in the exYU region.
DeleteYou both are right! Anyway, hope for more connections in the future for whole region.
DeleteI think in the next 5 years BEG will overtake all of Croatian traffic especially since Vinci said they expect the airport to handle 15 million per year. This year we should pass 9 million so not bad.
DeleteCroatia has much more traffic than Belgrade itself.
DeleteFour tables in the article displayed airport and airline rankings. Comparing airports and countries defies common sense.
Delete