After 2 severe years of crisis at Rijeka Airport caused by the COVID
19 pandemic, which led to a drop in passenger traffic of a 86% in 2020 and 70%
in 2021 compared to the record 2019, at Rijeka Airport in 2022 a significant
recovery of air traffic was achieved. Traffic of 164,086 passengers was
achieved, but also a historically record profit of the company in the amount of
over HRK 3.6 million, which compared to the realized revenue of HRK 21.6
million gives a huge profit margin of almost 17%. Namely, after a number of
years of making business losses and receiving state subsidies, as well as
positive business since 2014. without government subsidies until the onset of
the pandemic, according to the achieved business result, in 2022 for Rijeka
Airport, it is significantly better than all the previous ones with almost 50%
higher realized profit compared to the previous record profit from 2018, and
the achievement of a positive result is expected until the end of 2023.
Namely, despite bad expectations at the beginning of the year due to
the cancellation of flights from Poland by the airline LOT Polish Airlines, as
well as a significant shortening of Ryanair's flight period on all routes
(Brusselsless Charleroi, London Stansted and Stockholm) due to insufficient
demand in the pre-season 2022 from the entire summer season (April-October) to
only peak of the season
(June-September), the traffic at Rijeka Airport, after achieving only 72% of
the traffic in the first 5 months of 2023 compared to 2022 significantly
improved in June. During June, the traffic of Rijeka Airport was 26,702
passengers, which represents an increase of 3% compared to June 2022, i.e. 85%
of the traffic of the record 2019. At the same time, it is important to
emphasize that on June 24 2023 due to the strong wind bura 7 regular lines
(Lufthansa routes from Frankfurt and Munich, Eurowings routes from Hamburg,
Berlin and Cologne,Air Serbia's route from Belgrade, Ryanair's route from
Brussels Charleroi) were diverted to Pula and Zagreb airports, while the total
was lost traffic of over 1,200 passengers.
The above good result in June is the result of the fact that all
airlines that operated in 2022 continued to operate (with the exception of the
mentioned LOT Polish Airlines) and most of them slightly increased the number
of operations. Especially its traffic during 2023 plans to increase the airline
Eurowings on the routes to Berlin, Hamburg, Duesseldorf, Cologne and Stuttgart,
by a significant 25%. The biggest increase in traffic in June 2023 compared to
June 2022. recorded easyJet on the routes to London Gatwick and Berlin, by as
much as 626%, then Transavia by 90%, while Ryanair and Air Baltic recorded
almost 5% higher traffic in the mentioned period.
We are approaching the peak of the season, which according to
announcements should also be significantly better than last year, and as a
result of all the above, in 2023 it is planned to achieve a 2% higher traffic
than in 2022, to achieve a positive business result as well as further growth
and development of turnover.
