Skopje passengers seek connectivity with primary airports
Skopje Airport has seen rapid passenger growth over the past decade, driven primarily by low cost carrier Wizz Air which has five aircraft stationed in the city, maintaining operations to numerous European destinations, albeit mainly secondary airports tens of kilometres away from central hubs. This has resulted in the majority of Skopje Airport’s busiest unserved destinations being major European cities and capitals. Network carriers operating to the city, including Turkish Airlines, Austrian Airlines, LOT, Air Serbia and Croatia Airlines, have benefited as a result, shuttling a considerable number of transfer passengers to their final destinations within Europe.
Year after year, Brussels and Amsterdam have topped the list as some of the busiest unserved destinations from Skopje, despite Wizz Air serving the likes of Charleroi and Eindhoven. Other cities seeing significant indirect traffic to and from the Macedonian capital include Paris Charles de Gaulle, Prague, Dusseldorf, Ljubljana and Munich. Some of Turkish Airlines’ busiest Skopje transfer destinations include London Heathrow and Madrid. On the other hand, LOT sees considerable feed on its Skopje operations to and from Oslo, Amsterdam, Vilnius and Copenhagen. Austrian is the number one transfer airline between Macedonia and both Brussels and Amsterdam with a market share of over 40%.
The two national carriers from the former Yugoslavia also see significant transfer traffic on their Skopje operations. Air Serbia has benefited greatly from the demise of Adria Airways on its services to the Macedonian market, becoming the number one carrier for passengers traveling between Skopje and Ljubljana. It also sees notable traffic to Rome, Amsterdam, Zurich and Paris originating or destined to Skopje. Its Croatian counterpart has excelled in offering connections to other Star Alliance hubs, primarily Frankfurt. It also sees feed between its Skopje operations and Brussels, Amsterdam, Munich and Zurich.
Popular nonstop flights from/to Skopje in 2021*
* Traffic volumes were heavily impacted by restrictions resulting from the coronavirus pandemic during 2021. Data provided by Eurostat
The operator of Macedonia’s two international airports, TAV, has said that adding new destinations and expanding Skopje’s connectivity continues to be one of its main priorities. “In the ten years leading up to the pandemic, we managed to increase traffic at Macedonian airports fourfold, to 2.7 million. During the same period, the number of destinations served increased from fifteen to 44. As part of the largest global airport management platform, we will continue our marketing efforts to re-establish suspended routes and add new ones”, the operator previously told EX-YU Aviation News.
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