Skopje loses Warsaw and Paris–Orly winter services as LOT and easyJet pull out

After Lufthansa withdrew from Skopje in May, the capital will also lose direct winter flights to Warsaw operated by Poland’s LOT and the seasonal easyJet service to Paris–Orly will be cancelled from November.

According to LOT’s reservation system, all flights to Warsaw are removed from Skopje’s schedule for the winter season running until 28 March; the carrier’s last scheduled departure from Skopje to Warsaw is 23 October. easyJet’s final Skopje–Paris–Orly service is listed for 24 October. Wizz Air continues to operate to Paris via Beauvais.

Impact on connections and network

The disappearance of flights to Frankfurt (Lufthansa) and Warsaw (LOT) removes two major European hubs that provided one-stop connections to dozens of destinations worldwide. Both Lufthansa and LOT are members of the Star Alliance and used their Frankfurt and Warsaw centres to feed a wider network of connecting services, reducing the number of single-connection travel options available to passengers from Skopje.

easyJet had received a government subsidy for the Skopje–Paris route in 2025 under the transport ministry’s second call. Under the contract with the Ministry of Transport and Communications, easyJet was supposed to operate the Orly service twice weekly for three years — until April 2028 — but at present the airline flies the route only once a week. Subsidies amount to nine euros for each arriving passenger in Skopje. Because the Orly route is being cancelled before the contract term ends, easyJet will be required to return the subsidies it received over the past year.

Within the same public tender easyJet also won subsidies for Skopje–Geneva; that route remains listed in the reservation system and continues to operate twice weekly.

Despite a record rise in traffic at both Macedonian airports — reported increases of 32.4% and 1.2 million passengers in the first four months of the year — and Wizz Air placing a seventh A321neo at its Skopje base (more than 230 seats), the pullout of Lufthansa and LOT represents a significant blow to air connectivity and choice for travellers.

The government currently subsidises 16 routes: 13 on Wizz Air, two on easyJet and one on Turkish Airlines. From Skopje the subsidised services include Wizz Air flights to Barcelona, Stuttgart, Madrid, Stockholm, Bari, Cologne, Prague, Naples and Budapest, and easyJet flights to Paris–Orly and Geneva. From Ohrid’s St. Paul the Apostle Airport, subsidised Wizz Air services include Mulhouse, Katowice, Wroclaw and Milan, while Turkish Airlines operates the Ohrid–Istanbul route without subsidy.

Seasonal changes also affect Ohrid: the Bratislava route will be removed from the winter schedule — a service introduced after a Wizz Air base shift in Austria redirected capacity to neighbouring Slovakia. Austrian Airlines’ seasonal Vienna–Ohrid service is operating without subsidy, and Air Serbia continues a summer Belgrade–Ohrid link also without state aid.

Transport Minister Aleksandar Nikoloski emphasised the growth in passenger numbers: "The figures came out today and are excellent. We have two million passengers in the first six months of this year, which is an increase of over 30 percent compared to last year. When this Government was elected, we had slightly over two million passengers per year, and now we have two million passengers in only half a year. Both Skopje and Ohrid airports are the fastest-growing airports in the region and that will continue to be the case. We have 28 new destinations and I am really very proud of this policy," Nikoloski said.

Photo: ТАВ)