Croatia Airlines, Air Serbia face Sarajevo challenge

Croatia Airlines and Air Serbia are facing growing competition in Sarajevo after the airport began proactively courting foreign carriers and Wizz Air established its base in the city. Sarajevo Airport has for years relied on network carriers to provide it with connectivity to most parts of the continent. Wizz Air has already become the largest single airline in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capital in terms of frequencies and capacity. Furthermore, Lufthansa’s new route from Frankfurt, which will grow to double daily next summer season, as well as Swiss’ entry onto the market, is also expected to hamper Croatia Airlines’ and Air Serbia’s performance in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capital. Swiss has now upgraded the initially seasonal service to year-round operations, with flights to be maintained twice per week over winter, increasing to six weekly during the Christmas and Holiday peak.

Croatia Airlines carries a significant number of transfer passengers on its flights to and from Sarajevo. It has capitalised on the airport’s lack of connectivity to major European cities in the past. However, the airline has slowly begun losing its market share of connecting passengers to and from Sarajevo, now at just 6% of all airport transfers. Based on OAG data, points to major cities in Western Europe dominated as the most popular connecting destinations on the carrier’s Sarajevo flights, among which were Frankfurt, Zurich, Amsterdam and London. In 2020, there was a significant reduction in passenger flow, however, points in Western Europe remained most popular with transfer passengers. This summer, Lufthansa and Swiss launched operations from Frankfurt and Zurich, respectively, which are Croatia Airlines’ most popular destinations to and from Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capital.

Croatia Airlines' top O&D points to/ from Sarajevo in 2019

Croatia Airlines' top O&D points to/from Sarajevo in 2020

Air Serbia has managed to increase its share of transfer passengers on its Sarajevo flights from 3% in 2019 to 6% last year, primarily due to fewer airlines serving the city as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. European destinations dominated Air Serbia’s connecting traffic to and from Sarajevo both in 2019 and 2020. Within the top twenty, New York was the only non-European city, coming in sixteenth two years ago and thirteenth in 2020. The arrival of new carriers is also expected to impact Air Serbia, most notably its Zurich service due to Swiss’ operations, but it also faces strong competition from Wizz, which will be covering major points in Europe, albeit mostly via secondary airports. However, the airline could be more immune as it offers a wider network with more destinations which are not served from Sarajevo.

Air Serbia's top O&D points to/from Sarajevo in 2019