Former Yugoslav airports welcome 22.2 million passengers

Commercial airports in the former Yugoslavia welcomed a combined total of more than 22.24 million passengers between January and August, with Belgrade ranking among the 75 busiest airports in Europe. A total of eleven airports recorded their best-ever passenger performance during the eight-month period. These include Belgrade, Zagreb, Pristina, Skopje, Podgorica, Zadar, Tuzla, Banja Luka, Niš, Osijek and Kraljevo. On the other hand, two of them saw their figures fall compared to last year, still impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. These include Sarajevo and Rijeka. Additionally, a handful of airports are still lagging behind their pre-pandemic figures, including Dubrovnik, Ljubljana, Tivat, Pula, Ohrid, Mostar, Brač and Mali Lošinj.

Between January and August, Belgrade Airport ranked 73rd among the continent’s busiest airports, just behind Keflavik (Reykjavik), Seville and Malta, but ahead of Sofia, Glasgow and Thessaloniki. Zagreb ranks 112th among the busiest cities. It was behind Wroclaw, Trabzon and Split, but ahead of Paphos, Verona and Tbilisi. Pristina was 118th on the list, behind Olbia and Santiago de Compostela but ahead of London City, Cluj and Treviso. Skopje ranked 127th, behind Santorini, Tallinn and Cork but just ahead of Memmingen, Chisinau and Rotterdam.

In the first eight months of the year, the Slovenian market saw the second largest drop in passenger numbers in Europe (excluding Ukraine), behind sanctions-hit Belarus, compared to the pre-pandemic era , with a drop of 34.9%. On the other hand, Albania recorded the fastest percentile growth of 107.7%, according to the Airports Council of Europe International, and is ahead of Armenia with an increase of 65.3%. The market of Kosovo grew by 42.1%, that of Bosnia and Herzegovina by 33.2%, that of Serbia by 24.7%, that of Macedonia by 15.1%, that of Croatia by 9 %, while the Montenegrin market saw its figures drop by 7.3% compared to the same period in 2019. markets in Europe have not yet returned to their pre-pandemic figures with the United Kingdom, l Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Moldova and Lithuania. , Latvia, Estonia, Russia and Switzerland are all below pre-Covid levels. Overall, London Heathrow Airport was Europe’s busiest between January and August, with 52.3 million passengers, ahead of Istanbul’s main gateway, which came second with 50 .6 million travelers. Next come Paris Charles de Gaulle, Amsterdam, Madrid, Frankfurt, Barcelona, ​​London Gatwick, Rome Fiumicino and Istanbul Sabiha Gocken.