"Air Montenegro" almost caught up with "Air Serbia"

In its second year of operation, the new national airline "Air Montenegro" managed to regain a significant part of the market share in the total traffic at Montenegrin airports last year, although it has still not reached the share of traffic at the airports in Podgorica and Tivat that the former Montenegrin national air carrier "Montenegro Airlines".

This is shown by the data published in the report on the operations of the Airport of Montenegro 2022, from which it can be seen that last year "Air Montenegro" had a total of 2.091 rotations of its planes at the airports in Tivat and Podgorica, which achieved a share of 18,9% in the total volume of physical of aircraft traffic in those two airports during the past year.

Last year, "Air Montenegro" almost equaled ACG's largest business partner - the Serbian national airline "Air Serbia" in the number of rotations achieved at Montenegrin airports, which last year had 2.137 rotations, i.e. achieved a share of 19,3 percent in ACG's total traffic. For the sake of comparison, in the record 2019, "Montenegro Airlines" was first in the ranking in terms of volume of traffic and had a share of 27,8% in the total number of aircraft rotations realized in Tivat and Podgorica.

Since the collapse and grounding of "Montenegro Airlines" at the end of 2020, "Air Serbia" has become the most dominant airline at Montenegrin airports with the largest share in the number of aircraft rotations and the number of transported passengers during the next two years. Although "Air Serbia" continued its growth last year, when it transported a total of 388.329 passengers through Montenegrin airports, which is almost 45,5 percent more than the record 2019, "Air Montenegro" managed to grow significantly last year (in its first full year of operation). approaches the performance of the Serbian airline. Namely, the new Montenegrin national airline carried a record of 359.383 passengers at domestic airports last year, which is a share of 18,7 percent of the total passenger traffic at Podgorica and Tivat airports.

For the sake of comparison, "Air Montenegro" flying from domestic airports last year had an average load factor (passenger cabin occupancy percentage) of 66,5 percent, while "Air Serbia" had a load factor of 76 percent. It should be borne in mind that "Air Serbia" from Montenegro almost exclusively flies on the very popular and sought-after route to Belgrade and occasionally in the summer on seasonal routes from Tivat to Niš and Kraljevo, where there is also a relatively good demand. On the other hand, in addition to the route to Belgrade, last year Air Montenegro also flew on several regular routes to Western Europe, where passenger demand is not so strong, and it was also developing the now fully established and successful Tivat-Istanbul route, which inevitably must have reflected their somewhat lower average load factor compared to "Air Serbia".

By the way, the highest load factor of even 92,4 percent last year from Montenegrin airports was achieved by the Moldovan-Romanian low coster "Hisky" on the seasonal route to Chisinau, while the Bulgarian "Bulgaria Air" which performed four flights from the Bulgarian market was by far the worst. , had an average load factor of only 44,3%.

After "Air Serbia" and "Air Montenegro", in terms of the number of realized rotations and transported passengers, the Irish and Hungarian low-cost carriers "Ryan Air" (788 rotations and 249.959 passengers) and "Wizz Air" with 691 rotations were leading the airports of Montenegro last year. and transported 231.996 passengers, and according to which they achieved a significantly better performance last year than in 2019, a record year for ACG. Long-term partners of ACG, "Austrian Airlines" and "Turkish Airlines", which belong to the so-called legacy carriers also achieved growth in the number of rotations and the number of transported passengers at our airports last year.

During the summer IATA season of 2022, in addition to regular flights from Podgorica, "Turkish Airlines" operated 55 flights on the Istanbul-Tivat route, and carried 15.225 passengers on that seasonal route. Last year, "Turkish" had a total of 673 rotations at Montenegrin airports and transported a total of 175.662 passengers, with which the Turkish national airline achieved a share of 6,1% in the total aircraft traffic and 9,15% in the total passenger traffic of ACG in 2022. a 30% increase in aircraft traffic compared to 2019 and a 34% increase in passenger traffic compared to that year.

"Austrian Airlines" with 570 rotations achieved last year and 135.274 passengers transported, has a share of 5,1% in aircraft traffic in 2022 and 7% in passenger traffic at ACG in 2022. Last year, that company achieved an increase in the number of transported passengers at Montenegrin airports by as much as 2019% compared to 130, while the number of rotations of its planes increased by 77% compared to that year last year.