Former Yugoslav airports handle 28.9 million passengers

Commercial airports across the former Yugoslavia handled a combined total of over 28.89 million passengers during the January – October period. Among them, Belgrade positioned itself within the top 75 busiest in Europe, with the remaining airports outside of the top 100. A total of twelve airports registered their best passenger performance on record during the ten-month period. They include Belgrade, Split, Zagreb, Pristina, Skopje, Podgorica, Zadar, Tuzla, Banja Luka, Niš, Osijek and Kraljevo. Notably, during October, Tuzla Airport continued to be impacted by Wizz Air’s base closure, and is now unlikely to surpass its passenger record from 2019.

During the January – October period, Belgrade Airport ranked 73rd busiest on the continent, just behind Malta, Seville and Keflavik (Reykjavik), but ahead of Glasgow, Sofia and Thessaloniki. Split positioned itself as the 109th busiest, between Stavanger in Norway and Rome Ciampino, while Zagreb took 114th place. It was behind the likes of Trondheim, Wroclaw and Paphos but ahead of Tbilisi, Olbia and Santiago de Compostela. Pristina was 118th on the list, behind Verona but ahead of Kos, London City and Cluj. Skopje ranked 129h, trailing Poznan, Chisinau and Cork but immediately ahead of Memmingen, Dubrovnik and Ponta Delgada.

During the first ten months of year, the Slovenian market saw the third-largest percentile decline in passenger figures in Europe (excluding Ukraine), behind only sanctioned-hit Belarus, as well as Finland, when compared to the pre-pandemic era with numbers down 29.6%. On the other hand, Albania recorded the fastest percentile growth, amounting to 111.8%, according to Airports Council International Europe, and was ahead of Armenia with a 66% increase. The market in Kosovo grew 44.3%, the Serbian market registered 25.3% growth, the market in Bosnia and Herzegovina was up 29.9%, Macedonian 15.6%, Croatian 1.8%, while the Montenegrin market saw its figures decline 7% on the same period in 2019. Notably, many markets in Europe are yet to recover their pre-pandemic figures with the United Kingdom, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Russia and Switzerland all below pre-Covid levels. Overall, London Heathrow Airport was the busiest in Europe between January and September, handling 66.3 million passengers, ahead of Istanbul’s main gateway, which was second with 64.4 million travellers. They were followed by Paris Charles de Gaulle, Amsterdam, Madrid, Frankfurt, Barcelona, London Gatwick, Rome Fiumicino and Antalya.