Commercial airports across the former Yugoslavia handled a combined total of 1.833.699 passengers during the first month of the year. Belgrade and Pristina managed to rank within Europe’s top 100 busiest, taking 65th and 91st place respectively. Compared to the same month last year, Belgrade maintained the same position, while Pristina improved by six. The airport continued its growth streak, registering its busiest January on record, which is traditionally a busy month for Pristina on the back of increased demand in the Visiting Friends and Family segment due to the holidays. A number of other airports in the region were impacted by Wizz Air’s ongoing aircraft engine inspections, which have led to significant cuts in capacity across its network.
Passenger performance by airport, January 2025
In January, Belgrade Airport ranked just behind Venice, Naples and Sofia but ahead of Bristol, Fuerteventura and Tenerife. Pristina was preceded by Bilbao, Katowice and Tbilisi but in front of Gothenburg, Chisinau and Funchal. Zagreb positioned itself as the 103rd busiest, behind Trondheim, Pisa and Newcastle but ahead of Tromso, Stavanger and Wroclaw. Skopje took 118th place. It was immediately behind Cluj, Verona and Ibiza, but ahead of the likes of Billund, Nuremberg and Poznan. Sarajevo ranked 144th, with Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capital behind Bodo, La Palma and Shannon but outperforming Bremen, Kaunas and Montpellier.
European rank of select regional airports by passenger numbers
Istanbul’s main gateway was Europe’s busiest airport during the first month of the year with 6.433.071 passengers, while London Heathrow was a close second with 6.324.053 travellers. The pair saw growth of 23.4% and 6.7% on 2024 respectively. They were followed by Paris Charles de Gaulle with 5.328.718 passengers, Madrid with 5.190.027, Amsterdam with 4.804.060 travellers, Frankfurt with 3.939.476, Barcelona with 3.691.842, Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen with 3.667.516, Rome Fiumicino with 3.228.313, and Munich with 2.578.853 passengers. Out of Europe’s top ten busiest, four are still below their pre-pandemic 2019 records. They include Paris Charles de Gaulle (-0.7%), Amsterdam (-4.0%), Frankfurt (-15.3%) and Munich (-16.6%).
Largest airlines by scheduled seat capacity across the former Yugoslavia, January 2025
Trieste now comfortably in front of LJU...
ReplyDeleteYep they had 84,570 passengers in January.
DeleteRyanair effect
DeleteLJU being behind Timisoara and Trieste is shameful at best. People saying no market while Trieste is growing 30% per year right next to them lol
DeleteThey have had more passenger now for a few months. They will be way in front of LJU by the end of the year.
DeleteNothing special will happen in Ljubljana without national carrier...
DeleteSo why are special things happening in Trieste without the flag carrier having a base there? ITA even discontinued Linate flights
DeleteTrieste increase: that so was fast!
DeleteThere's this gem from 17 years ago here:
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2009/01/airport-results-2008.html
The most hilarious part is LJU had more passengers back then!
Fraport fans here will say it's an amazing result.
DeleteSurprisingly a lot of decreases
ReplyDeleteIt's somewhat concerning to see that despite the subsidies and promotions, many airports in our region are still struggling to attract more carriers.
DeleteBecause you can't just throw money at the problem. You have to actually work to fix it.
DeleteAviation grows when the economy grows or when people start travelling more. It should not be the objective to grow aviation because that's just pointless.
DeleteNumbers are generally low and more and more airport are below last year
Deletewow fantastic result by Pristina. And in front of Zagreb too
ReplyDeleteThey are usually busier than ZAG in January. But it increased a lot.
DeletePRN is always ahead of YAG at the start of the year. The diaspora traffic is super strong in Kosovo
DeleteIt is still impressive with almost 20% growth. February will also be strong because of the elections although this probably won't generate such a huge increase as before because voting was permitted in foreign countries for the first time.
DeleteIt goes to show how strong the PRN market to Europe is.
DeleteLast summer PRN also had more passengers than ZAG during some summer months. I think PRN might overtake ZAG this year. Let's see.
DeleteWhy isn’t ryanair interested in PRN? They could get passengers to Germany, UK, Sweden and Norway.
DeleteBecause the fees at PRN are expensive and are set by government not airport operator.
DeleteLimak airport management with contract charge high fees!! Former government Thaqi while ago made a contract with Limak for 20 years ends in 2028! Limak contract doesn’t allow Kosovo to open different airports for low cost carriers. WizzAir is very interested to open base in Kosovo, but because of Limak contract Kosovo is stuck :(
DeleteWhat caused such huge growth at Istanbul and for to surpass London Heathrow? Very interesting.
ReplyDeleteLjubljana and Belgrade lost Heathrow.
DeleteHahaha
DeleteThere are daily BEG-LHR flights...
DeleteThey meant with BA :D
DeleteAlso interested to know what caused this huge increase in IST
DeleteGreat to see numbers for all airports. Thank you
ReplyDeleteYes I really like this monthly update.
DeleteAgree. Very comprehensive
DeleteFinally some growth at Rijeka. But it won't last long unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteI'm shocked that in the month of January Ibiza has more passengers than Skopje.
ReplyDeleteSeeing the comparison between ex-Yu and other airports gives a good perspective on things.
DeleteOther than Iberia with domestic flights, which airline even flies to Ibiza year round??
DeleteAir Europa, Lufthansa and Transavia. But even with such low number of airlines they managed to have more passengers than SKP. Not to mention LJU, TGD, SJJ etc.
DeleteOne thing Exyu airports don't have is the immense domestic market that Spanish islands have. Iirc top 5 busiest air routes in Europe are all domestic routes in Italy, Spain and Norway
Delete^ true that
DeleteGreat to see Sarajevo performing better, but it's clear that we have a long way to go compared to other European capitals.
ReplyDeleteBravo Fraport!
ReplyDeleteThe fanboys will tell you the recovery has been fantastic.
DeleteNot fantastic but not terrible either. Ljubljana has no national airline.
DeleteCan someone explain what happened in Kraljevo. They had 300 passengers more than last January! Where did these people come from considering the very small number of flights.
ReplyDeleteI guess people are finally learning that these flights exist and they are so much cheaper, especially IST.
DeleteMeans much better loads
DeleteAmazing how far behind covid numbers Frankfurt and Munich are.
ReplyDeleteForget the pre covid numbers, they are actually pre inflation numbers.
Delete@9.25 because domestc flights in Germany are -40% compared to 2019
DeleteWhy are domestic flights down so much?
DeleteWow the growth in Sarajevo is insane!
ReplyDeleteor: Wow they only had 58k last year!
DeleteTrue. Base number is low. That's why the percentile increase is big.
DeleteNever heard about Chair Airlines, but they are in the top 10.
ReplyDeleteThey fly from Switzerland to Pristina and Skopje. Airline for Albanian diaspora.
DeleteI think the reason may be because GP Aviation go approval to fly between PRN and Switzerland. So it may have taken over passengers so they decrease capacity? Just a guess.
Deleteare GP Av. even considered a scheduled airline or airline at all? its very unclear
Delete1.8 million passengers across 22 airports is terrible
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteATH alone had more than 1.8 million passengers in January!
DeleteAnon 10:58
Delete+1000
ATH: 1.834.686
22 ex-yu airports : 1.833.699
And that's realy sad .
ATH is tiny compared to PEK or ATL, so what. Topic is ex yu aviation, and ATH, PEK and ATL are not part of it.
DeletePodgorica barely with growth. They are stagnating. What happened?
ReplyDeleteDidn't Ryanair suspend all routes except London?
DeleteYes they did and that is why the growth is so low.
DeleteIt seems Air Montenegro benefited from this. They have big growth in January.
DeleteWhy did so many airlines in the top 10 have less capacity than last year?
ReplyDeleteEngine issues I suppose.
DeleteInterestingly, despite JU cutting capacity, they had more passengers than last January and actually a record January.
DeleteIt means they had better load factor which is good.
Deletesome of them have Wizz as their busiest airline so the answer is engine issues as @9.42 said
DeleteFantastic start for Croatian airports.
ReplyDeleteNice photo of PRN.
ReplyDeleteWith the European economy struggling I expect 2025 to be difficult for many airports.
ReplyDeleteand I expect record results for most airports.
DeleteI really hope so but it's not looking that way.
DeleteGerman economy is in recession so it will impact the aviation market in ex-Yu.
Delete@9.55 also german data for summer early bookings are on record level
DeleteSomeone always comes here to say that German numbers are fantastic, that the economy isn't in recession and yet every piece of actual data proves them wrong. Oh and there is also always the obligatory "you come from a poor country, how dare you comment the financial performance of the other".
DeleteWell done PRN. Excellent result.
ReplyDeletePegasus is slowly but surely stealing Istanbul capacity from Turkish.
ReplyDeleteThey don't just fly from Istanbul to ex-Yu markets.
Delete%97 ex-yu to Istanbul. Only 3 weekly from SKP to Izmir.
DeleteBoth BGD and JU have registered drop, while both ZAG and OU have gone up. Interesting.
ReplyDelete"Air Serbia handled 276.198 passengers during the first month of the year, representing an increase of 2.4% on 2024."
DeleteHope dies last I guess.
Pegasus ahead of Lufthansa. WOW
ReplyDeleteLH used to be so powerful in the region. But now it just seems to slipping.
DeleteImpressive increase from Prishtina! 🇽🇰
ReplyDeletePristina is performing extremely well!
DeletePristina is doing extremely well! Big numbers already in January2024, even bigger in January2025.
ReplyDeleteBelgrade plus Pristina alone nearly 50 percent of all ex Yugo.
DeleteThe data is incorrect. For example, Chair Airlines had a capacity of 70K seats in Jan 25, which is higher than both Easy Jet and Austrian. That's 10% increase compared to 24.
ReplyDeleteThe data is correct. The airline had 50,256 seats on its 292 scheduled flights in the region, down 21.1% on January 2024.
DeletePlease add Graz and Klagenfurt numbers :)
ReplyDeletePretty impressive to see VIE at number 19 in Europe.
ReplyDeleteWake up Fraport!
ReplyDeleteTivat still struggling
ReplyDeleteIt is always amazing to see how SPU is so low during a large part of the year, but 2nd for the summer (high) season, what a massive difference.
ReplyDeleteI think Skopje is reaching the plateau
ReplyDelete