As 2025 draws to a close, almost all airports in the former Yugoslavia will increase their available capacity during the first three months of 2026 when compared to the previous year. Skopje and Belgrade are set to record the strongest growth in the region, each adding over 200.000 seats. A resurgent Wizz Air is driving the expansion in both cities, boosting capacity by 286.124 seats in Skopje and 141.905 in Belgrade.
Q1 2026 capacity compared to Q1 2025
Zagreb Airport completes the top three, with Croatia Airlines acting as the main driver of growth. The flag carrier is adding 65.678 seats in the Croatian capital as it expands its fleet and network while transitioning to a single type fleet. Ryanair, which was responsible for a significant portion of Zagreb Airport’s growth in recent years, will see a more modest increase over the first quarter, adding 11.960 seats, which is fewer than Turkish Airlines with an additional 13.006. On the other hand, Ryanair’s rival Wizz Air is also driving growth at several smaller airports in the former Yugoslavia over the first three months, including Tuzla, Niš, Banja Luka and Ohrid.
Overall, the former Yugoslav markets will offer 7.514.798 seats on scheduled flights during Q1 2026 across 48.428 operations, up 20.9%. When considering the entire region collectively, the busiest international destination is Istanbul Airport, with 278.839 seats, followed by Zurich with 242.623 and Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen with 207.556. Some of the routes operating during the first quarter, which were not available the previous year include Tbilisi, Astana and Grenoble from Belgrade, Gran Canaria from Ljubljana, as well as Larnaca and Prague from Skopje, to name a few.
