Wizz Air Base Drives Bratislava Growth

FRANKFURT—Bratislava Airport (BTS) has surpassed four million passengers in a calendar year for the first time, boosted by Wizz Air’s expansion and additional capacity from Ryanair.

The milestone represents a sharp increase from 2025, when the Slovak capital’s airport handled a record 2.4 million passengers. Traffic is expected to reach approximately 4.3 million by the end of 2026.

“Handling four million passengers in a single year is a historic achievement for Bratislava Airport,” airport CEO and Chairman Dušan Novota said. “Just a few years ago, this milestone seemed a distant goal; today, we are reaching it as early as October.”

During the first nine months of 2026, Bratislava handled 3.69 million passengers, up 99% year over year. Monthly traffic exceeded 500,000 for the first time in June, before rising to 619,902 in July and reaching a record 625,742 in August.

OAG Schedules Analyser data shows airlines offered approximately 1.9 million departure seats from Bratislava during summer 2026, up 118% from about 872,400 a year earlier. The number of scheduled destinations increased from 65 to 92, while departures almost doubled to 9,200.

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Wizz Air accounted for most of the additional capacity following the opening of its Bratislava base in November 2025. The airline offered approximately 783,400 departure seats during summer 2026, compared with just 25,900 a year earlier. Its network included Barcelona, Kosice, Palermo, Naples, Malaga, Rome Fiumicino, Alicante, Tirana, Athens and Warsaw.

Ryanair also expanded significantly, increasing summer capacity by 64.1% to approximately 736,300 seats. Together, Wizz Air and Ryanair provided almost 80% of Bratislava’s summer capacity and accounted for more than the airport’s entire net increase, offsetting reductions by some other operators.

“Four million passengers at Bratislava Airport is excellent news not only for the airport itself but also for Slovakia as a whole,” Slovak Transport Minister Jozef Ráž said. “This historic result confirms that Bratislava has the potential to become a significant aviation hub in our region.”

Capacity is set to remain higher during winter 2026-27. OAG data shows airlines are scheduled to offer almost 899,500 departure seats, up 36.3% year over year, while the network increases from 57 to 59 destinations.