Skopje struggles to surpasslast year’s growth

In the month of September the total number of passengers transported at Macedonia’s main hub, Skopje Alexander the Great Airport, stood at 59.457 passengers, which is an increase of 2.8% in comparison with same month of last year. From the beginning of the year to the end of September the airport has seen an increase of 6.7% in passenger numbers. It is still questionable if Skopje Airport will manage to surpass its last year’s growth of 15.5% by the end of the year. At the moment it is highly unlikely as flights to 3 destinations – Amsterdam, Berlin and Hamburg will be ceased as of October 26 by the national airline MAT. Total number of aircraft operations in September stood at 1159. Commercial aviation (scheduled, charter and cargo flights) had increased by 2.3% compared to last year and for now the airport authorities do not expect a fall in the number of operations.

The most frequent lines travelled by passengers from Skopje are Vienna and Zurich, with the biggest increase in passenger numbers to Ljubljana, Istanbul, Budapest and Zagreb and the greatest decrease compared to last year on flights to Zurich, Belgrade and German destinations Dusseldorf and Hamburg/Berlin. On direct charter flights to tourist destinations in Turkey, Egypt, Spain, Tunisia and Sicily in the period from June to September, 29.112 passengers were transported or 62.1% passengers more than last year, and represents 10.2% of total passengers numbers.