In the past year, there was a complete recovery of air traffic in Bosnia and Herzegovina and a return to the air traffic volume in pre-pandemic times. The recovery started gradually in 2022, and we achieved over 99 percent of the air traffic volume from 2019, even 20 percent more than planned, said the Director of the Agency for the Provision of Air Navigation Services (BHANSA), Davorin Primorac.
He said that almost 95 percent of the air traffic volume consists of flights that passed through BiH airspace, while only 5 percent of flights land and take off from our airports. Primorac stated that data show that over 440,000 flights used the airspace of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2022. He makes optimistic announcements for this year as well.
“In the coming period, we expect a significant increase in the air traffic volume, primarily due to the growth of traffic between Western Europe and tourist destinations. The development of traffic will be significantly affected by the expansion of the capacity of the new airport in Istanbul, and by the establishment of additional connections with Western Europe. We see a growth of 13 percent in January of this year compared to 2019 and even 33 percent more traffic compared to last year,” Primorac explained in a statement for FENA.
He cites high inflation and uncertainty due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine as the main risks for the increase of traffic in the coming period.
Such good results are primarily a consequence of the fact that several years ago, BiH, meeting demanding conditions, took control of its airspace. Primorac also announces significant capital investments this year that will further improve the quality and safety of air traffic over BiH.
