Sarajevo International Airport, as a public company that is 100 percent owned by the Government of the Federation of BiH, plays a significant role in the development of the country’s economy, especially traffic as a special economic branch. In accordance with the vision, of maintaining a dominant role in air traffic in BiH, the airport is on a constant mission of strengthening capacity, attracting new companies and improving the quality of service.
This year has been very good for Sarajevo Airport, and it broke the record in September for the number of passengers compared to 2019. Also, the number of passengers for 11 months of this year was more than 1.3 million, which is 21 percent more compared to the same period in 2019. The total number of air operations in the mentioned period was 14,622, which is an increase of 14 percent, the total number of airlines was 28, i.e. 47 percent more than in 2019, and flights to 40 destinations from the Sarajevo International Airport, which is by 110 percent more compared to 2019, the Airport announced.
As it was said, the Airport will end the year 2022 on a positive note, which is an encouragement and a kind of confirmation of the good business strategy made by the administration in the past period.
Although the low-cost airline Wizz Air closed its base in Sarajevo and suspended most of its routes in November, despite the excellent flight load factor, citing inflation and rising costs as the reason, the departure of this airline did not have much impact on the performance of the Sarajevo Airport. Traffic in the last quarter of this year, compared to the same period of reference 2019, increased by nine percent both in terms of the number of passengers and the number of air operations.
Many factors in the past year have affected the operation of the Airport in some way, from the war in Ukraine, travel restrictions, the expansion of low-cost airlines, and the increase in ticket prices.
However, some other factors had a direct impact on the operations of the Airport in 2022, such as the necessity to expand capacity to provide a high-quality response to increased traffic, as well as a response to increasingly strict regulations that are more harmonized with EU requirements, and the necessary adaptation of the Airport for not only the provision of handling services, i.e. the infrastructure for servicing airlines but also development in the segment of the so-called non-aviation services.
This year, the airport also received a certificate under the ACA (Airport Carbon Accreditation) program for level 1 – Mapping, making it one of 155 airports around the world that are certified for level 1 and monitor their carbon footprint.
Sarajevo International Airport is the first company in Bosnia and Herzegovina that adopted the Gender Equality Plan and implements activities to apply the perspective of gender equality in all company policies, processes and activities.
Following the example of numerous European and world airports, Sarajevo Airport joined the ACI-ASQ program (Airport Service Quality), as part of which it regularly researches the quality of the services it provides. Also, the airport implements the DANOVA project to adapt the airport infrastructure to the needs of blind and partially sighted people.
