Skopje seeks flights to former Yugoslavia

Macedonian authorities are looking at ways to boost connectivity between Skopje and other points in the former Yugoslavia. Skopje Airport currently offers nonstop services to Belgrade and Zagreb operated by Air Serbia and Croatia Airlines respectively. Over the past decade, the airport has also boasted links to Ljubljana, Sarajevo, Podgorica and Split, however, there are no longer airlines able to run most of those routes. In 2020, Ljubljana emerged as Skopje Airport’s twelfth busiest unserved route following the collapse of Adria Airways. In 2019, 40.293 passengers flew between the two capital cities, although this was up until late September when operations ceased. Ljubljana Airport’s management has stressed that Skopje is an “extremely important” route and that it would attempt to find a replacement for Adria. Ultimately, the onset of the coronavirus pandemic has delayed any chance of services being restored soon. Wizz Air, which boasts a base in Skopje, is a potential candidate for the route.

Based on OAG data, during the last normal year for commercial aviation, in 2019, over 4.000 passengers flew indirectly between Sarajevo and Skopje. Bosnia and Herzegovina's former flag carrier, B&H Airlines, maintained flights between the two cities on an off-and-on basis for several years between 2006 and 2015. At one point, services operated via Podgorica as well, although the airline had no fifth freedom rights between the Montenegrin capital and Skopje. In 2019, over 1.400 passengers flew indirectly between Podgorica and the Macedonian capital. In 2017, the governments of Macedonia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina drafted an agreement which called upon foreign carriers to operate subsidised flights between the three countries, however, the initiative never took off.

TAV Macedonia’s Marketing and Revenue Manager, who is also the President of the country’s Chamber of Tourism, Vladimir Gramatikov, recently noted, “Connecting Split and Dubrovnik with Macedonian airports will be our key focus in the coming period together with our partners in Croatia”. In 2019, over 3.000 passengers flew between Skopje and Split. The route was briefly served by Croatia Airlines in 2015. Initially planned as a seasonal summer operation, it was cancelled after just two rotations.

Skopje Airport's top unserved destinations in the former Yugoslavia in 2019