Belgrade airport among the top 55 busiest in Europe
Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla Airport welcomed more than two million passengers at the end of August, positioning itself in the top 55 busiest in Europe, as it continues to recover from the effects of the pandemic of coronavirus. In August itself, it welcomed some 578,000 travelers, down 23.7% from the same month before the 2019 pandemic. Commercial aircraft movements fell 16.1%. Air Serbia was the largest carrier, with a passenger share of 52%, an increase of nine points compared to the same period two years ago. Apart from summer charters, the most frequent connections to and from Belgrade Airport in August were Tivat, Zurich, Podgorica, Vienna, Istanbul and Paris.
Between January and August, Belgrade Airport welcomed more than 2,044,000 travelers. As a result, the airport achieved 49.6% of its pre-pandemic traffic, which is in line with its target for this year. The airport plans to handle some 2.9 million passengers in 2021, or about 50% of its pre-pandemic traffic. Based on its estimates and models, the airport is expected to accommodate five million travelers through its gates in 2022 and will operate at 2019 levels in 2023, when it expects to handle 6.1 million passengers. The airport estimates that the numbers are expected to reach 6.9 million in 2024, 7.3 million in 2025 and 7.7 million travelers by the end of 2026. The airport’s record year remains 2019 when ‘it recorded 6,158,897 passengers, of which 2,733,304 were carried by Air Serbia. and 3,425,552 by foreign airlines. In 2020, hit by the pandemic, the airport welcomed 1,903,540 passengers, of which 865,121 were handled by the national carrier and 1,038,399 by the rest.
During the eight-month period of this year, Belgrade Airport was among the top 55 busiest on the continent, surpassing those in Sofia, Budapest, Helsinki, Venice, Riga and Manchester. Commercial aircraft movements decreased by 35.1% compared to the same period in 2019. Air Serbia offered the largest capacity of the airport so far this year, with a share of 55.2%. It was followed by Wizz Air with 12.4% of all seats, Lufthansa with 6.1%, Turkish Airlines with 4.7% and Swiss with a capacity share of 4%. Belgrade Airport has several new routes lined up in the coming months, including Nordwind’s service from Rostov-on-Don, starting today, as well as new Wizz Air operations to Hahn, Billund , Barcelona and Vaxjo. In addition, KLM is preparing to introduce five additional weekly rotations from Amsterdam during the winter for a total of twelve weekly flights, while Flydubai will double its operations to two daily services. Qatar Airways is also considering the possibility of adding three additional weekly flights for a total of ten, if the current strong demand continues.
