Commercial airports across the former Yugoslavia handled a combined total of 19.902.692 passengers during the first seven months of the year, with 4.95 million travellers in July alone. Among them, during the seventh month of the year, three airports stood out for their high growth rates. They include Sarajevo with a year-on-year increase in July of 37.2%, Tivat with 33.8% growth, and Zagreb, which had a 17.2% boost in numbers. On the other hand, several regional airports underperformed during the month, including Tuzla, which saw a 74.6% slide in figures, Niš, which had 27.1% fewer passengers than in July 2023, and Banja Luka, which shed 18.3% of its travellers year-on-year. A number of other airports also saw their figures decline compared to last year, among which are Skopje, Ohrid, Osijek and Rijeka.
Passenger performance by airport, July 2024
During the January - July period, Belgrade Airport ranked as the 70th busiest on the continent, just behind Basel, Reykjavik, and Larnaca but ahead of Glasgow, Sofia and Thessaloniki. Zagreb entered the top 100, positioning itself as the 99th busiest, behind Vilnius, Tbilisi, and Wroclaw, but in front of East Midlands, Leeds, and Bodrum. Pristina took 106th place. It was just behind Trondheim and Stavanger in Norway, as well as Menorca, but ahead of the likes of Corfu, Rome Ciampino, and Nuremberg. Skopje ranked 127th, with the Macedonian capital behind Memmingen, Cork, and Treviso but outperforming Kos, Ponta Delgada, and Santorini. With over one million additional passengers by the end of July compared to last year, Croatia is the fastest growing market in the former Yugoslavia in 2024 based on the number of added travellers.
Passenger performance by airport, January - July 2024
Number of added year-on-year passengers by market, January - July 2024
European rank of select regional airports by passenger numbers
All European markets saw year-on-year growth during the first seven months of the year. The exceptions were Belarus, Russia (-2.1%) and Armenia (-1.9%). London Heathrow was once again Europe’s busiest airport over the seven-month period, with 47.830.031 passengers, while Istanbul’s main gateway was second with 45.716.192 travellers. The pair saw growth of 6.9% and 5.9% on 2023 respectively. They were followed by Paris Charles de Gaulle with 39.852.446 passengers, Amsterdam with 38.102.445, Madrid with 37.825.412 travellers, Frankfurt with 34.795.519, Barcelona with 31.454.477, Rome Fiumicino with 27.550.990, London Gatwick with 24.479.101, and Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen with 23.660.247 passengers. Out of Europe’s top ten busiest, four are still below their pre-pandemic 2019 records. They include Paris Charles de Gaulle (-9.0%), Amsterdam (-7.7%), Frankfurt (-14.2%), and London Gatwick (-9.2%).
Largest airlines by scheduled seat capacity across the former Yugoslavia, July 2024
Good results
ReplyDeleteWhat happened with Sofia? I notice it's 85th in Europe now!
ReplyDeleteTheir summer is not performing that well. Thessaloniki is in a bigger problem since their numbers fell in July. Not good.
DeleteBut why? Is it the Wizz Air capacity cuts that are causing the issue in SOF?
DeleteIt could also be that they are reaching their limits. There is only so much O&D demand a certain market can generate. In order to go beyond this they have to start working on creating new demand either through transfers or by attracting more tourists.
DeleteOne thing I noticed when I was in Sofia is that for the first time in three years, hotels were offering major discounts and there were barely any Greeks in the streets. Naturally it's all based on my observation, I could be wrong. I tried to find some info online but all I could find is Sofia planning a tax hike for tourists starting from January 1st 2025.
FR just based its 4th aircaft in SOF and it will expand this winter, so those figures are still not "updated". It will not reach 8 million, but perhaps next year.
DeleteJust because FR is basing another plane there doesn't mean new passengers will come. They can take them from FB and W6.
DeleteWell done Croatia! Ryanair was the winning combination this summer - extra plane in Zagreb, new base in Dubrovnik and new routes from Zadar
ReplyDeleteThank God for Ryanair to save us from useless Croatia Airlines.
DeleteNext year we could expect 5th Lauda plane in Zagreb, but also new Croatia Airlines routes with new A220 which will arrive in December.
DeleteEveryone wants to visit beautiful Dalmatia!
DeleteHighly unlikely. Croatia Airlines is useless and won't launch any new routes (maybe one or two, but then it will decrease frequencies somewhere else) and Ryanair doesn't have enough Lauda planes to add yet another one to Zagreb. It would have to remove some from Vienna
DeleteIt is not unlikely because Croatia Airlines airlines announced that they plan to launch new routes out of ZAG with new A220s, just like they launched this year 3 new routes.
DeleteI am sure, the second 220 will not arrive this year
Delete^
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2024/08/croatia-airlines-second-a220-enters.html
I know, but how often was reported, the first will arrive in first quarter 2024c then second quarter, then July and final in august….i believe it will be the same game with the 2nd…and so on…. So long Jasminica is one the top, nothing will happen how it’s published
DeleteDelivery of new aircraft depends on the manufacturer, not on the company ordering it. We all have that much common sense, unlike the people using every reason for trashing.
DeleteThey promised to open new routes with A220 - they opened them. No reason to doubt it will happen again next year with new A220s when fleet will be bigger than now.
DeleteBut all routes they opened are ending next month.
DeleteLOL
DeleteAnon 12:11 You do not know if those are seasonal routes or year round.
DeleteI think September will be good for BEG. Lufthansa just changed my seat on BEG-MUC in a few days since they replaced the A320 with A321. Their third daily can't come soon enough. Unlike Marek which promises things, Lufthansa actually does its job to meet demand in BEG.
ReplyDeleteIt is extremely strange to me that JU chooses not to fly to MUC when there is so much demand.
DeleteThey don't have a problem flying to the other LH group hubs like FRA, VIE, ZRH, BRU but Munich they avoid as if their planes will be shot down by anti aircraft missiles or something.
They avoid it because there is likely no use in competing. P2P market is probably not that huge and Lufthansa uses these flights to shuttle passengers onto transfer flights.
DeleteI would disagree, I think O&D demand between Serbia and Bavaria is quite large. There is a reason why Wizz Air operates 9 (or was it 10) weekly flights to FMM and why LH manages to fill double daily A320/321 to BEG.
DeleteAlso, don't forget that JU also flies to NUE and SZG (overlapping catchment areas). Unfortunately Air Serbia has failed to position itself in both of these markets so I don't see how they would succesfully challenge Lufthansa at their fortress hub in Munich. Even their FRA flights aren't performing as phenomenally as they probably expected.
There are other marekts on which JU should focus before wasting its limited resources on MUC. From the top of my head, boosting CDG to 21, BCN to 14 and MAD to 7 should be higher on their list of priorities.
AS should double its Salzburg rotations. Since they dont fly to MUC entire south bavaria could use salzburg instead. Also Salzburg and other Austrian regions like Linz and Upper austria could use SZG. And LF on its SZG flights is quite good.
DeleteTo attack LH on MUC, JU needs E195 with 2-3 rotations per day and prices almost like W6@FMM. And they still don't have enough spare Ejets for this kind of battle. They can utilize them much smarter
DeleteFantastic results. The airports of VIE and ATH had only 17.7 and 17.6 million passengers during the same period.
ReplyDeleteWe beat them, great success, high five!
LOL, so true!
DeleteWhat is the point of comparing any ex-YU airport with ATH which enjoys a complete monopoly when it comes to continental Greece? What other choice does a tourist have if he wants to visit Athens? He can either pay what they are charing at ATH or travel by road (not a option for most). Same applies if someone is going on a cruise that is starting in Athens.
DeleteOne should not be surprised at how well Athens does especially given how popular Greece has been since covid ended.
And in that period ATL had more than 60 million passengers. So what?
DeleteThese comparisons are pointless. Vienna, a city of 2 million also has economy that's larger than all of the ex yu countries combined. And it is a tourist powerhouse on top of that.
DeleteVIE, a city of 2 million has almost as many passengers as all 23 ExYu airports combined!
DeleteSame goes for ATH.
^And Amsterdam, a city of 900k has twice as many passengers as all 23 ex yu airports combined. So what?
DeleteIt goes to show how far behind our region still is compared with the rest of Europe regarding air travel.
DeleteWow 1+ million additional passengers at Croatian airports. Well done!
ReplyDeleteImpressive indeed. FR had a lot to do with it. I'm glad DBV came to their senses. And apart from having a summer base there will be winter flights too.
DeleteBaš lepe vesti. Koliko su učinili u Juga a koliko bi još više mogli da učine ako su JU, OU, 4O I FB zarađali zajedno. Mogli bi još 10 miliona.
ReplyDeleteIs 13 mil. realistic for Croatia in 2024.?
ReplyDeleteI think it can be achieved this year
DeleteCapacity in summer alone was 13 million seats. So with winter period I think it can make it passenger wise
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2024/04/over-500-routes-and-70-airlines-to-fuel.html
That would mean that Tirana could catch up to all Croatian airports combined next few years?
DeleteLikely this year, given the high season is almost over and the current gap of 1mln will even out.
DeleteCurrently TIA has 5.9mln PAX vs. CRO Airports 6.9mln.
TIA 5.9m vs 6.9m Croatian Airports
DeleteAnd you think TIA is going to have 13 mil.? Sure.
DeleteThis year more like 11mln in TIA
DeleteThis year TIA would have around 11.5 million pax.
DeleteNext year it will definitely be over 13 million.
Just to mention that Croatian cities are much closer to Central and Western Europe by car than Tirana.
DeleteAnd from Croatia there are no borders. From Tirana there are two.
DeleteIs this a new development for TIA?
DeleteBecause back in 2019 it had only 3.3 million pax.
Croatian airports had 7.26 million passengers in the first 7 months, not 6.9 million, but yes TIA has been experiencing an air travel boom over the last few years - post covid. Partially this is due to a large diaspora that flies from/to central and western Europe, because driving really isn't practical, and partially due to tourism. Albanian riviera has been a new discovery for the western tourists, since it's a beautiful and much more affordable alternative to Croatia in the Adriatic. Those tourists also mostly fly to Albania because of the distance, borders and the lack of proper road & rail infrastructure.
DeleteThat terminal in SPU on the photo looks lovely
ReplyDeleteAgree, but would be nice if it got a new control tower that matched the building.
DeleteThank you ex-Yu for these details monthly reports!
ReplyDeleteDo codeshare flights also count in the table of largest airlines by scheduled seat capacity or only flights actually flown by the specific airline?
ReplyDeleteNo, only flights flown by the specific airline.
DeleteWow Sarajevo!!! It came so close to Skopje in July, thats crazy! Impressive growth! Cant wait to see August figures for SJJ, the airport is very good with publishing the statistics first few days of each month :)
ReplyDeleteMy thoughts as well, SJJ growth is impressive!
DeleteWhy isn’t ryanair interested in PRN at the moment, while wizz reduced flights they could get all their passengers, especially to Germany, UK, Sweden and Norway. Could Prishtina overtake Zagreb this year?
ReplyDeleteAlways teasing with Zagreb but never mentioning that 4 Croatian airports are on the top. Croatia is very wide country with long distance between cities and with a looong coast.
DeleteI mean, Zagreb is the only comparable Airport to Prishtina. The other Airports in Croatia only have these large numbers in Summer. But ZAG and PRN have good all year around numbers.
DeleteNot just Zagreb, Split and Dubrovnik as well are comparable with Priština in year number of passengers.
DeleteBravo for Croatia! Wow!
ReplyDeleteWhere is this beautiful sea on the photo? Probably Croatia?
ReplyDeleteSplit
DeleteThank you, my friend.
DeleteApart from the ex-Yu numbers, I enjoy the last paragraph about biggest airports in Europe. I'm really interested to see if the Olympics will help Paris CDG close the gap on pre-pandemic numbers. From what I've heard the Olympics turned out to be a disaster for French aviation.
ReplyDeleteGreat results! And one of the few times Croatia deserves a bravo without sarcasm. :)
ReplyDeleteIt’s fun how we hate on Zagreb and Croatian Airlines, while Croatian market as a whole breaks records.
ReplyDeleteI don't think anyone hates either. Most people are irritated by Croatia Airlines because it could be doing so much better and so much more and this record has nothing to do with them (they have not even reached pre Covid passenger levels). As for ZAG, I really don't see anyone hating on it.
DeleteIn the greater scheme of things within the global air-travel industry, Croatia is an insignificant contributor. We just make a big hoohaa about 19.9 million for the entire region, which is less than the annual total of some secondary airports in Western Europe.
Delete