Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport has so far recorded its busiest year on record. Following an extremely strong first three months of the year, growth slowed during the second and third quarters, primarily as a result of Wizz Air’s wide-scale capacity cuts, which had an impact on almost all routes operated by the budget carrier, data from the statistical office of the European Union, Eurostat, show. Between April and October, Wizz Air removed 14.2% of its total year-on-year capacity at Belgrade Airport, or over 156.000 seats, as a considerable portion of its fleet continues to be grounded for engine inspections. The drop in passenger numbers on Wizz Air flights occurred during these two quarters, when the airline decreased capacity and cut frequencies, while the first three months of 2024 were its best on record at Belgrade Airport on most routes.
Istanbul was Belgrade Airport’s busiest destination during the first nine months of the year, with a combined total of 466.041 passengers between the Serbian capital and the Turkish city’s two airports. Services to and from Istanbul’s main gateway accounted for 351.798 passengers, slightly down on last year as Air Serbia reduced its number of flights, while the remaining 114.243 travellers flew to and from Sabiha Gocken Airport. Air Serbia saw fewer passengers on its New York service after it operated fewer flights to the Big Apple compared to the same period last year.
The table below, provided by Eurostat, indicates passenger numbers for the majority of Belgrade’s scheduled destinations, although not all. The figures in the table account for just over 80% of Belgrade’s total passenger numbers in the first nine months of 2024.
Belgrade Airport's passenger performance for select routes, Q1 - Q3 2024
Lisbon seems to be doing excellent. Who would have thought.
ReplyDeleteYes. And on top of that there are flights to Porto.
DeleteThey should think about increasing Lisbon to daily
DeleteAnd to codeshare flights to South America (with TAP). Also, it would be nice to see TAP in BEG
DeleteJU and TP already interline in LIS
DeleteAnon 12:43
DeleteThey wanted to increase LIS to 7pw, but they didn’t get slots.
LIS was scheduled 4 per week in summer schedule, and put on sale, now its down to 3, in the newest updating of summer schedule
DeleteLIS is one of the longest A320 routes. JU does not yet have the capacity or the crews to afford to have a plane be away for this long for a single route. It can probably send an A320 to Montenegro and back 3 times for the time a roundtrip to LIS takes.
DeleteA320 isn't exclusively sent to LIS though. I just checked FR24 and the A319 is sent quite often over there. Unfortunately I think this cancellation had more to do with them not having enough crew to operate these extra rotations.
DeleteI came from LIS to BEG few weeks ago on A319..Not only LIS has been reduced, but many other routes
DeleteTreshnja
DeleteLIS was never scheduled 4pw. It was always 3pw as they cannot get more slots.
I am surprised about the drop to VIE. I wonder if JU is to blame.
ReplyDeleteFlew BEG-VIE-BEG on OS yesterday. Going there LF was 70% while on the way back it was around 90%..
We were slightly delayed as we waited for 9 passengers from HAM. I saw at least 5-6 passengers with SN boarding cards. I found this interesting as both BRU and HAM are served no stop from Belgrade. I guess OS is profiting from the low number of frequencies to both markets.
Do remember that OS used ATR72 on one of its flights this summer. That's like 40 seats less than an Embraer.
DeleteTrue, forgot about that. Good to see the E95 back on this route.
DeleteYes, they chose not to use in winter on BEG route. So I don't think they will use it next summer again.
DeleteI guess they are doing well in Belgrade as I noticed that they occasionally send the A320 as well.
DeleteGood to hear
DeleteYou can''t control the whole market. You will find also on Austrian flights to Pristhina people who came from Zurich.
DeleteRegarding Austrian, remember they had quite a lot of strikes in the spring a lots of cancelled flights.
DeleteDuring summer flew on the OS 320 40% LF. Also flight was late by an hour.
DeleteMaybe the flight in the other direction was full or they replaced the E95 due to a technical reason. Could be a number of things. However I doubt OS would be flying so often to BEG if they weren't making money. Both flights yesterday had business class passengers, I 5 in the morning and 3 in the evening.
DeletePersonally I am not a fan of VIE, looks a bit sterile and impractical but it seems like it enables OS to offer short connections.
Barcelona and Larnaca in top 10. wow
ReplyDeleteI'm actually finding it most surprising how well Oslo is doing.
DeleteAnd Barcelona grew despite all the other Spanish destinations being served.
DeleteDon't forget that BEG has a large catchment area. That demand to Spain doesn't have to come from Belgrade alone. Yesterday at the parking there were quite a few car plates from Timisoara as well as from Croatia.
DeleteAntalya with over 115,000 with just charters is crazy.
ReplyDeleteNo wonder Air Serbia does not want to make it part of engotiation with Turkish.
DeleteToo right, the liberalization of frequencies on the Istanbul market surrendered it to TK.
DeleteNo reason to give them Antalya too.
I wouldn't say it got "surrounded". JU flew 3 times per week to Istanbul before frequencies were liberalized. This winter it flies 13 per week. It is natural that TK is going to have more passengers since it has a network of over 300 destinations from Istanbul. That's over 300 transfer opportunities.
DeleteJU market share to IST was way bigger than it currently is.
DeleteSurrendered, not surrounded.
DeleteFrankfurt on 4th place, ahead of Podgorica!
ReplyDeleteIt has never been the case.
It makes sense since Lufthansa has become even more popular now that JU and W6 are not growing.
DeleteJU did grow last WITT in FRA. From 6 to 10 weekly.
DeleteAnd summer to 13.
DeleteYes but with E90 which is too small for such impressive growth.
DeleteIt is not too small at all. It means extra 1,296 seats per week just in summer on this route.
DeleteMoscow is a true winner here and a real cash cow. 200k passengers and JU is the only operator. And that is just for 3 quarters.
ReplyDeleteBy far the most profitable route by margins but unfortunately the one they operate with least respect with regards to service quality and punctuality. Honestly once Aeroflot returns they will have little loyal passengers left as many will remember the way the were treated.
DeleteThey might never come back.
Delete@10:01 Highly unlikely, even JAT made a come back after sanctions so why would not Aeroflot which is flying now extensively to all areas except W Europe? Ok unless there is a III WW that might change everything but then BEG figures in the table above are not important anymore and become irrelevant.
DeleteTotally uncomparable, as right now, the world is being split.
DeleteRussian flights are terrible. Overbooking and delays are always.
Delete@09:56
DeleteI wouldn't say with least respect. JU have, despite all difficulties maintaining their Russian routes, not only remained on the market but have increased frequencies and routes where possible. Passengers in our part of the world will almost always choose price and schedule over brand loyalty.
SU will definitely be back at some point as the SVO-BEG route has had a significant drop in capacity and frequencies since 2019. SU's market doesn't completely overlap with JU so there is more than enough room for both.
@ 11:06
DeleteWith JU?
You are forgetting that only few JU planes may enter Russian airspace. So they have to be scheduled carefully and if there is any technical problem, delays are imminent
DeleteSplit is the last on the list and even that small number has been decreased comparing to 2023.
ReplyDeleteAnd we hear from some self proclaimed analyst that JU should fly to SPU during the winter. Utter nonsence!
Well the article says the table and destinations accounts for 80% of BEGs total numbers. So there are several roues that are not listed. Also placement on table is irrelevant. Of course SPU is going to place lower since it operates seasonally only, and not from the start of summer. Not saying SPU should be served in winter, I don't think it should actually but the placement on the table really has no bearing on anything.
DeleteSPU has decent traffic for a seasonal route. 6 pw and on a mix of A319/A320 so demand is there. For a start, JU could bring forward the season to have it operate the full summer season rather than having it start in May.
DeleteJU also has a decent network on offer via BEG to make a couple of ATR flights a week during the winter viable. Split isn't an insignificant city in Croatia.
Decrease in number of passengers clearly shows there is no room for more flights during the season no matter what is the position of that airport on this list.
DeleteIf Split is so significant why don't we see any other legacy carrier there (except KL and subsidized OU with PSO for dometic routes) during the winter? No Lufthansa, no Austrian, no Air France, no Swiss, no British, no LOT, no Aegean... and all of them have much bigger networks in their hubs comparing with JU in BEG. Mind you, all of them fly to SPU during the summer, but obviously there is no demand there in winter.
That "insignificant" Split had only 30.000 passengers last February or around 1.000 passengers daily. Each bus station has more than that.
And the person who desperately needs flight SPU-BEG in winter can drive 2 hours and get to Mostar where he could fly to BEG three times weekly.
The decrease in itself doesn't say much about the route. 6% is how many passengers? What caused the decrease? Smaller aircraft throughout the season (ie A319 over A320)? A couple of cancelled flights? Missed connections via BEG resulting in rerouting?
DeleteThe table above suggests roughly 1.200 less pax compared to last season. 15 flights being downgraded from the A320 to the A319 is enough to produce the lower numbers. Was JU short of A320's this summer?
Also its worth noting that JU uses the ATR to all Croatian destinations except for SPU.
JU's advantage over LH, KLM, LX is the ATR fleet and a relative shorter flight time to BEG. We all know how much more economical the ATR is over jet operations so it should be easier for JU to make SPU winter ops sustainable. You will definitely not see turbo props operating flights from SPU to MUC/FRA/ZRH/AMS.
There is also an O&D market that should alone be able to sustain a smaller winter presence on the ATR, if not the full winter season at least partially, reducing seasonality issues JU experiences.
Lastly, how many pax did SPU handle in November, December, January, March, April? February isn't the only month JU isn't operating flights to SPU.
Insignificant SPU 1000 daily pass, is more than twice as much as Morava airport has in A YEAR, or about 500 times more than Morava monthly paxs.
DeleteNo more words needed....
What's the point of comparing Morava and Split? Let's start with the fact that KVO is limited by its runway, Split not so much.
DeleteAnyway, JU did its homework and the only seaside destinations they tried in winter were RJK and PUY. For RJK they actually got subsidies, go figure. Maybe SPU could work at some point later on when their winter network (JU) becomes much stronger.
And this table from Eurostat shows that Chicago is a big flop !
ReplyDeleteThere is no data available for Chicago.
DeleteIs there any info on the Chinese routes performance?
DeleteAlso no, interesting routes selected...
DeleteRoutes have not been 'selected' as you have implied. All routes which have data available have been published. They have not been cherrypicked or chosen. Data is provided by the European Union's statistical agency.
DeleteDubai at 2 daily for 2 years and still growing pax numbers. Well done Flydubai.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteI hope BEG becomes one of the first FZ B787 destinations.
Deletetrue dat Nemjee! is there an info when could we expect FlyDubai to start 787 on 1st routes?
DeleteI am not that familiar with the airline but I just Googled it and it seems they will start arriving from 2026. Let's see what FZ does until then and if they decide to add a few more weekly departures.
DeleteVery unlikely because FZ has huge aircraft shortage. They haven’t received a new MAX in a while and it is going to stay like that for a while.
DeleteUnless they start trimming their network by cutting some routes that are underperforming. They could redirect some capacity to BEG in such a way.
DeleteIt's a pity what an impact Wizz Air's engine issues have had this year. It goes to show that they have a big role in BEG and perhaps more should be done to find an LCC alternative.
ReplyDeleteThe last thing the ministry wants is another low cost carrier starting a major operation in BEG, let alone to open a base.
DeleteLCC's such as FR would want significantly larger subsidies than that currently on offer and BEG has no reason to do so.
DeleteI doubt FR is getting any subsidies, let alone significant for flying to VIE, OTP, SKG, ATH, FCO, PRG, BUD etc. etc.
DeleteMost of the airports you listed are two or three times larger than BEG. I saw an ad yesterday that VIE welcomed 30 million passengers. Obviously there is room for several players when the market is that big.
DeleteBEG just handled 8 million. I fear the market is not yet mature for a FR base.
That said, I would love to see Ryanair launch several destinations out of BEG. I think Paris, Paphos, Barcelona... could use a third player... or even fourth in the case of Paris.
Well in London three players on the market could not live.
DeleteLondon is a special case. Don't forget that on top of visas, it took Belgrade and London almost a year to sign a new trade agreement after Brexit. It meant that most, if not all, goods that arrived to Serbia were slapped with a 20%+ tariff. This surely didn't help in promoting business ties.
DeleteThat is exactly what BEG is doing.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2024/11/belgrade-airport-targets-flights-to-new.html
Thessaloniki is a nice surprise. It has great growth compared to last year and 2019 even though there is no new airline on the route. Wonder where that growth came from.
ReplyDeleteI don’t understand anything. How is it that Wizz Air is expanding its flights across its network, yet there aren’t enough planes for Belgrade and Niš? Does anyone have an answer to this question?
ReplyDeleteNis is too insiginificant for them and in Belgrade they do not have FR competition so they can do whatever they want.
DeleteOn other airports where they have FR competition they are not reducing so much their flights.
Wizz Air has this year decreased capacity compared to 2023 in Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Finland, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Sweden and United Kingdom.
DeleteAnd where have they increased capacity?
DeleteAlbania, Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Moldova, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Turkey.
DeleteWizz Air is growing in certain markets only by shrinking in other.
DeleteDoes anyone know when Wizz Air's engine inspection issues are expected to be resolved?
DeleteAnother claim by self proclaimed analyst that Wizz is growing everywhere but in Serbia has been debunked.
Delete^the difference between having actual data and no data.
DeleteSo in austria they decreased and increased at the same time. Miracle
DeleteNo one takes that guy seriously. Look at how small the number of comments is. Plus every day it's the same people writing the same thing.
DeleteAdmin, do you have figures for Zadar and Pula?
ReplyDeleteOverall BEG performance is astonishing. The demand is there for easily 10m pax. Just surreal having in mind size of Serbia. I guess the position of Belgrade plays a huge roll as well as significant increase in living standard of Serbian citizens.
ReplyDeleteSKP with the 45k is performing really good 👏
ReplyDeleteHow is it performing really good? They are literally in the bottom 3..
Delete^ you do realize that passenger numbers are dependent on frequencies and actual capacity. The list isn't ranked by success of the route or performance. Although ultimately a route's success is defined by its financial performance.
DeleteThe data highlights how dependent the airport is on specific routes and carriers. Diversifying and attracting more airlines could help mitigate impacts like Wizz Air's cuts in the future.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteWow. When you put together LHR and LTN that’s above 200k which is making London 6th on the list despite the visa regime
DeleteWhy Zurich is second?
ReplyDeleteOne of the biggest Serbian diaporas in Europe is in Switzerland.
Delete*diasporas
DeleteStrange that GVA fails.
DeleteSo who in the world forbid them to rebuild the old runway further left or the new one further right? 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
ReplyDeleteIncredible stupidity.
International regulations which specify how far a runway must be from the terminal to be considered safe. But I'm sure you know better.
DeleteI don't see a terminal on the left of the old runway.
DeleteAny data for the Belgrade-Madrid?
ReplyDeletePretty sure data would be publish if there was data.
DeleteSorry if I have missed the info. Does anyone knows what is happening with YU-ATB? According to the FR24, it is in NAP since December 6th. Is it some planned maintenance? Flight number to NAP was JU4040, which seems to be often used for repositioning and MRO flights.
ReplyDeleteScheduled maintenance.
DeleteAre any JU aircraft being maintained by Jat Tehnika-Avia Prime at all?
DeleteYes they do, but Jat Tehnika does not have permits to maintain Embraers or A330s.
DeleteNew York has 8% less than in 2023. What is causing this drop? Doesn't sound like route is ready for 10 times a week or more.
ReplyDeleteThey fly to Chicago and there is more competition from KLM and LH.
DeleteThey flew to Chicago since mid May 2023, so ORD is not the reason for the drop. LH Group and other indirect competition existed when they started JFK in 2016 and ever since, so that's hardly a surprise.
DeleteDon't worry, they will cut those announced frequencies by the time summer schedule starts..like they already did with short haul summer schedule that was planned and put on sale
DeleteI too wonder as to why JFK had a reduction in pax. More expensive tickets maybe made some people to choose a connecting option?
DeleteOr connections were reduced for the shame reason and now these pax choose to fly to NY via some other hub?
I strongly believe that had JU maintained flights to TLV, CAI and BEY (if the situation improves) it would get a serious number of connections from these markets to JFK and ORD as well.
Just my2cents
TLV, BEY and CAI schedules didn't allow much convenience for transfer traffic for the N American routes. Outbound yes, inbound no. More frequencies at different times would be needed to provide those kind of connections.
DeleteMy friends who live in Chicago have stopped exclusively flying on JU from ORD. They did not enjoy flying on Pupin so often. One of them just arrived on Swss with like an hour connection in ZRH. Her cousin flew to Chicago the other day on JU and they were 115 in economy.
DeleteI think JU needs to do a better job promoting and improving sales in markets that are underperforming ... like ORD does in winter.
Also don't forget that JU flies two to three times per week to ORD (and a bit more to JFK than that). LH Group and even AF-KL offer a lot more flexibility. That could also be a factor.
@Nemjee Your friend was brave, puchasing ticket with just one hour connection is not something I would do these last few years, regardless of the company I'm flying with..There is more than 50% chance of losing the plane..and then waiting 5 hours in the best case, for the next one
DeleteAnon 15:35
DeleteAir Serbia flew to JFK since 2016 just 5 days a week during peak season with far smaller destination network to draw feed from. They had only one widebody with only 18 seats in business in outdated reverse-herringbone config. They had no US codeshare partner, no interline with AA, they were not established name except within diaspora. Yet they managed to fight competitors, survive and grow both cargo and passengers in the tough market.
Now they have 8.2% less than last year. What a shame.
Do you even realize how much they increased their passengers on this route compared to 2016? How is it relevant to a year-on-year decrease? Some of you are out of your minds.
DeleteLooking at passengers numbers right now, for every year since 2016. Air Serbia grew JFK passenger numbers when they were lacking additional widebodies, needed more feed, bigger hub etc. Now with eight years of longhaul experience and everything else they wanted, passenger numbers are going down. And I am out of my mind?
DeleteYes, completely and utterly out of your mind. Do you think every route every single year has continual passenger growth? Have you considered that the number of flights was reduced impacting capacitym Has it crossed your mind that yields may have increased? That other market factors may be at play? Of course not. And of course you made a false remark that numbers were larger each year. In 2019 they had less passengers on JFK route than in 2018. 2018 number was only surpassed last year.
DeleteAnother factor to consider is price. Air Serbia tends to be quite expensive to North America. Meanwhile other players had many, many promotions.
DeleteI wouldn't rule out generally there being less demand from the US. After all, many carriers have cut flights and have complained about it openly.
Berlin?
ReplyDeleteYes both JU and W6 fly there quite successfully.
Delete