November 4, 2020 - The three largest Croatian airports, Zagreb, Split, and Dubrovnik, released their monthly statistics for October. All airports recorded a decrease in the number of passengers compared to September.
Croatian Aviation reports that the drop in passenger numbers in October was actually expected for several reasons. First, we traditionally have fewer seasonal lines in October, especially in Split and Dubrovnik. This year, due to the pandemic's impact, several lines stopped operating in late September, a month earlier than usual in previous years.
Zagreb, Split, and Dubrovnik combined did not reach 100,000 passengers in October
In addition to the earlier cancellation of routes, aircraft operating to and from the three mentioned airports had low passenger cabin occupancy. In addition to the pandemic itself and the crisis it causes, there is the fear of traveling by plane due to frequent flight cancellations and uncertainty about frequent changes in rules at state borders. All of the above resulted in record low numbers - the three largest Croatian airports in October together did not have even 100 thousand passengers (specifically, there were 95,432)!
Zagreb Airport in October this year recorded 55,289 passengers, by far the most of all Croatian airports. Still, there is a noticeable decrease in the number of passengers than in September (more than 10 thousand fewer passengers than the previous month).
In October 2019, Zagreb registered 330,598 passengers. In total, from January 1 to October 31, 840,610 passengers passed through the main Croatian airport (2,957,109 in the same period last year). Thus, it is clear that Zagreb Airport will not reach the millionth passenger this year. From January to October, Zagreb recorded a drop in passenger traffic of over 71% compared to the same period last year.
Split Airport recorded 25,796 passengers in October, while in October 2019, 247,172 passengers passed through this airport. Split lost its chance for the millionth passenger a long time ago; by the end of October, only 657,570 passengers passed through Split Airport, which is actually an excellent result considering that there was almost no significant traffic by May. Hence, most passengers passed through Split at the height of the season. Namely, from June to October, Split generated over 600 thousand passengers!
This airport had more passengers from January to October last year than Zagreb - over 3 million (3,214,702).
Dubrovnik was far from famous this year in air traffic, and October was another modest month. Only 14,347 passengers passed through Dubrovnik Airport, while in the same month last year, there were almost 300,000 passengers (299,532).
At Dubrovnik Airport, slightly better traffic monthly was achieved only in August (almost 120 thousand passengers).
From January to October, 321,296 passengers passed through this airport, while last year in the same period - 2,804,478.
One thing is for sure, the decline in the number of passengers will continue in the last two months of this year, but the problem is that the market recovery is not in sight, almost certainly not until the spring of next year. Detailed statistics of other Croatian airports (Pula, Rijeka, Zadar, and Osijek) will be published soon.
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