Airlines in the country are noticing real boom. Low cost companies have turned the air transport into new bright spot of the Macedonian transport sector. The number of passengers is growing, the offer is enriched with new destinations, increased number of flights, new airlines, analyze Lider.mk.
All the facts indicate that 2014 will be record year in which through the two airports will be transported over million passengers.
According to the Agency for Civil Airtransport, in the first five months of this year, the number of passengers was increased by 18.6 percents compared with the same period last year, while at goods shipping was registered an increase of 22.4%.
From both airports “Alexander the Great” and “St.. Paul the Apostle “in Ohrid, were transported 433.349 passengers. 96.8% used the services of the airport in Skopje, while 3.2% in Ohrid. If we keep this momentum, and if we consider that in January were canceled many flights due to fog, then it is quite obvious that we will overcome million of passengers.
This year grows the number of passengers using low-cost flights and services offered by low cost companies. “Wizz Air” is again the leading airline.
When analyzing the data, then we can conclude that the low cost carriers and state subsidies are the cause of the positive developments in aviation. If we take as relevant data from all 2013, out of the total number of passengers, 440,127 flew with aircrafts of the low cost companies, which is increase of fantastic 240% compared to 2012.
Services used by regular airlines were used by the 481 809 passengers, although per company, there is no one that can be compared with “Wizz Air” in relation to the number of passengers. Leader is the regular company “Turkish Airlines” with 127,855 passengers in 2013.
Overall, “Wizz Air” has share of over 36%, followed by “Turkish Airlines” with 13% and 10% Austrian.
Three years ago, the low cost companies were not sufficiently familiar to domestic passengers, but by subsidizing this was changed, together with the previous crash of visa regime for Macedonian citizens, as well as placing the airports under the umbrella of “TAV” were created set of favorable conditions for the development of domestic air traffic.
“Since 2010, the number of passengers is increased by 44 percents. In the last three years we have noted average growth of 10 percents, which is very high, especially given that the highest average growth in Europe is five percents”- explains Deputy – Director of “TAV Macedonia”Alper Ersoy Tungaj.
The full analysis can be read at Lider.mk.
