The former Yugoslavia’s 24 commercial airports handled 2.773.787 passengers during the first two months of the year. Brač is the only one to have not welcomed a single traveller so far. Notably, Ljubljana’s strong performance during February saw it overtake both Sarajevo and Tuzla. Rijeka’s poor showing during the first two months resulted in it slipping behind both Portorož and Kraljevo. Slovenia’s second busiest airport handled over 1.300 passengers so far this year, despite having no commercial flights. Kraljevo was close to welcoming 1.000 customers on Air Serbia’s two weekly rotations to Istanbul.
In February itself, two airports from the former Yugoslavia were within the top 100 busiest on the continent. Belgrade positioned itself as the 72nd busiest in Europe, just behind Cologne and Keflavik in Iceland, but ahead of Riga, Malta and Stuttgart. During February, the Serbian market saw the third largest passenger growth rate in Europe when compared to the same month in 2019. Zagreb just made it on the list, placing 100th. It was behind the likes of Larnaca, Vilnius and Tbilisi, but ahead of Salzburg, Hanover and Pristina. Pristina itself was 108th on the list, ahead of Tallinn, Chisinau and Verona. However, during the month, Zagreb overtook Pristina, which was busier in January than its Croatian counterpart. Skopje and Podgorica were the only other two airports to make it within the top 150 busiest in Europe during February, which is considered the slowest month in the aviation industry.
During the first two months of the year, the Slovak market saw the biggest decline in passenger figures in percentage terms in Europe (excluding Ukraine) when compared to the pre-pandemic era and was just ahead of Slovenia which saw the second largest decline, down 41.3%.. On the other hand, Albania saw the fastest growth, according to Airports Council International Europe, and was just ahead of the Kosovo market, which had the second fastest growth rate. Notably, Russia handled more passengers so far in 2023 than three years ago with 5.4% growth. Overall, London Heathrow Airport is the busiest so far this year in Europe, handling 10.7 million passengers and overtaking Istanbul’s main gateway, which was second. They are followed by Paris Charles de Gaulle, Madrid, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Barcelona, Istanbul Sabiha Gocken, London Gatwick and Lisbon, Ex Yu a
Aviation news portal reports.
