Ohrid St. Paul the Apostle Airport is soon expected to become a whole lot busier as local authorities have decided to provide subsidies to Wizz Air and Adria Airways to launch services to the lake side town next year. The Mayor of Ohrid, Nikola Bakračeski, says a total of 200.000 euros will be allocated for the subsidised services, with the nearby town of Struga also set to participate in funding the flights. Statistics show some 30% of passengers using Skopje Airport come from western Macedonia.
Wizz Air has identified northern Italy, Switzerland and Germany as potential destinations from Ohrid. Furthermore, the airline believes it could attract passengers from Albania as well due to the town’s close proximity to the Albanian border. The new flights from Ohrid mark yet another expansion for Wizz Air in the region and Macedonia which will base a second aircraft in Skopje next summer. Adria has also expressed its interest to launch services from Ljubljana to Ohrid. The Slovenian carrier once operated the flights on a seasonal summer basis before they were discontinued due to cost cutting measures. It has been confirmed that Air Serbia will maintain its seasonal summer flights to Ohrid next year.
Ohrid is currently served only on a seasonal summer basis by Jat Airways with flights from Belgrade, Jetairfly from Brussels and the Turkish-Dutch charter company Corendon Airlines which will operate flights from Amsterdam and Eindhoven to the town until at least 2015. The airport was once much busier when MAT Macedonian Airlines maintained year long scheduled flights, prior to its bankruptcy. In August 2013, Ohrid Airport handled 16.463 passengers.
