March the 12th, 2026 – All Croatian airports saw growth during the otherwise traditionally quiet month of January in 2026, with the exception of Rijeka Airport.
As Fiuman writes, Croatian airports successfully served an impressive 365,000 passengers during the month of January 2026. This figure is representative of an 8.8% increase compared to the same month last year. Unsurprisingly, the majority of these passengers (or 295,000 of them in total) passed through Zagreb Airport, which is up 6.4% year-on-year, according to the latest data issued by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS).
In addition to Zagreb Airport, other major Croatian airports also saw growth in terms of an increase in the number of passengers recorded in January 2026 compared to January 2025. Despite growth being recorded across the board, they all served significantly fewer passengers than in Zagreb. Much of that is due to more extreme trends of seasonality across the country, something which Zagreb Airport suffers less of.
The largest increase for the month of January 2026 of 24% was achieved by Split Airport, with 42.3 thousand passengers served. 23 thousand people were served in 2026’s maiden month down at Dubrovnik Airport, which saw an increase of 16.3%. Just over 1590 passengers were also served at Zadar Airport, which is a solid 14% increase when compared to January 2025.
The far smaller and much less busy Osijek Airport in eastern Croatia also saw an increase in the number of passengers in January of almost 19%, with around 1400 served. In Istria, 1.7% more passengers (a few more than 1300) were recorded as having passed through Pula Airport.
As is typically the case, Rijeka Airport was the only one out of all Croatian airports to see a decrease in the number of passengers served during January 2026 compared to January 2025. The airport recorded a 17.2% drop, with a mere 423 passengers having been recorded there.
Looking at international passenger traffic, Croatian airports were mostly connected to airports in Germany, Turkey and France throughout January 2026, with which there was also an increase in the number of passengers. Despite there having been more passengers served, aircraft operations (meaning landings and take-offs) at Croatian airports in January 2026 were slightly lower (by 5.6%) than back in January 2025, totalling about 5,000.
Total cargo traffic at all Croatian airports was also 14.3% lower, with 609 tonnes processed during January this year.
