The analysis showed the great growth of Air Montenegro

Last year, the new national airline Air Montenegro managed to regain a significant part of the market share in the total traffic at Montenegrin airports, although it has not yet reached the share that Montenegro Airlines (MA) once had in Podgoirca and Tivat.
This was shown by the data published in the report on the operations of the Airport of Montenegro for last year, according to which it can be seen that Air Montenegro had a total of 2.09 thousand rotations of its planes at the airports in Tivat and Podgorica, which achieved a share of 18.9 percent in the total volume of physical aircraft traffic in those two airports.
Last year, in terms of the number of rotations achieved at Montenegrin airports, Air Montenegro almost equaled ACG’s largest business partner – the Serbian national airline Air Serbia, which had 2.14 thousand rotations, i.e. achieved a share of 19.3 percent in ACG’s total traffic.
For the sake of comparison, in the record 2019, MA was first in the ranking in terms of volume of traffic and had a share of 27.8 percent in the total number of aircraft rotations achieved 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 transported passengers during the next two years.
Although Air Serbia’s growth continued last year when it transported a total of 388.33 thousand passengers through Montenegrin airports, which is almost 45.5 percent more than the record 2019, Air Montenegro managed to significantly approach the performance of the Serbian airline.
Namely, the new Montenegrin national airline carried a record of 359.38 thousand transported passengers at domestic airports last year, which is a share of 18.7 percent in 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 of 66.5 percent, while Air Serbia had 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 flies seasonal routes from Tivat to Nis and Kraljevo, where there is also 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-cost carrier Hisky on the seasonal route to Chisinau, while the Bulgarian Bulgaria Air, which performed four flights from the Bulgarian market, fared the worst, average load factor of only 44.3 percent.

Sign up for business news updates & special reports.