Low-cost airline Transavia will start operating flights between Amsterdam and Skopje next March. This will mark the first scheduled flight service between Schiphol Airport and the Macedonian capital since September 2008. Air France-KLM subsidiary will start operating flights to Skopje on March 2, 2025 and maintain twice-weekly service. Ticket sales are scheduled to begin later today. In January, both Transavia and Transavia Holidays will offer competitive promotional prices on new routes. The budget airline has no direct competition between the two cities, although Wizz Air has four weekly flights to Eindhoven, about 125 kilometers south of Amsterdam.
Transavia has long been active in the Macedonian market and has been operating charter flights to Ohrid since the 1970s. It has also chartered several flights to Skopje. In September 2008, MAT Macedonian Airways launched its last scheduled weekly service between Skopje and Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, before the airline folded later that year. At that time, service was maintained by an 81-seat CRJ900 aircraft. Previously, the company flew to the city on Boeing 737-300 jets. Based on indirect traffic flows, Amsterdam and Brussels are the busiest unserved European destinations outside Skopje, and rank second and third overall. Austrian Airlines and Lufthansa currently transfer the majority of passengers between these two cities, followed by Croatia Airlines and Air Serbia.
Transavia’s Dutch and French subsidiaries both plan to increase total business to the former Yugoslavia by 12% next summer, while seat capacity will increase by almost 17%. In addition to the new Skopje route, the airline has so far announced new flights between Paris Orly and Belgrade starting in April next year. It will also increase frequencies to Montenegro, with flights from Paris Orly to Podgorica increasing from two per week to four per week during the peak summer travel period, while flights from French airports to Tivat Flights will increase from four times per week to four times per week. In addition, the airline will increase its Orly-Split service from six flights a week to one daily.
