Commercial airports in the former Yugoslavia handled over 32.5 million passengers in 2023, adding some five million additional travellers on the year before. Just over half of all airports managed to register their busiest year on record, while a number of them are still lagging behind their pre-Covid passenger levels.
Notably, two airports also fared worse than last year – Rijeka and Sarajevo – although the latter is still performing above its pre-pandemic figure. During 2023, Tivat overtook Ljubljana as the slowest-recovering airport in the region, shedding over half a million passengers on 2019.
Its decline is primarily attributed to the war in Ukraine, as the majority of its passengers were made up of Russian travellers, with a notable number of customers from Ukraine and Belarus as well.
In 2023, Skopje overtook the traditionally busier Dubrovnik for the first time, while Podgorica surpassed Sarajevo, which performed better than its Montenegrin counterpart last year. Ljubljana Airport took the lead over Zadar, which fared better in 2022. Banja Luka and Niš both outperformed Pula, which, until last year, was traditionally busier than the pair.
Kraljevo Airport, which opened in December 2019, added some 200 additional passengers in 2023 on the previous year, boasting exactly the same number of departing commercial flights – 158.
Overall, Belgrade Airport retained its position as the busiest in the former Yugoslavia. It added the most passengers on the pre-pandemic 2019, welcoming an extra 1.8 million travellers. Pristina was second in terms of the number of passengers handled, with an additional one million customers.
Skopje Airport saw an extra half a million passengers on 2019, followed by Zadar Airport with an additional 400.000 customers. Wizz Air was the largest carrier operating to and from the markets of the former Yugoslavia based on available capacity, adding an extra 1.8 million seats,
Ex Yu Aviation news portal reports.
