Travel date: July 20, 2021.
Airline: Croatia Airlines and Turkish Airlines
I was flying yesterday from Sarajevo to Istanbul via Zagreb. My first flight was on Croatia Airlines Dash 8-400 (reg. 9A-CQA), the second one on Turkish Airlines Airbus 321 (reg. TC-JTG). Early morning at Sarajevo Airport was kind of busy with three flights leaving in one hour time: Wizz Air to Dortmund, Croatia Airlines to Zagreb and Austrian Airlines to Vienna. While I was waiting for my flight, I had a chance to talk to a agent who was working on Dortmund flight, she informed me that Wizz Air flight to Dortmund was almost full with only 5 empty seats. My flight to Zagreb was surprisingly empty!? I took this flight many times in the past and usually this flight was always full of transfer passengers to the USA and Canada. It looks like Turkish Airlines and Austrian Airlines are doing majority of transfer to North America now. Our Zagreb flight OU341 had only 17 passengers, only a small bottle of water was served, which is okay for such a short flight (it took us 35 minutes from Sarajevo to reach our gate at Zagreb Airport). This was my first time visiting new Zagreb Airport terminal, compared to the old one is huge improvement. I was surprised how empty the whole airport was, barely any passengers! While I was waiting at the gate for my flight to Istanbul, next to us Ryanair was boarding the flight to Milan-Bergamo, I counted 95 passengers boarding that flight. Our flight to Istanbul was on Airbus 321 aircraft (TC-JTG) with 103 passengers.
Sarajevo Airport
Zagreb Airport
Istanbul Airport
Source: Flying Bosnian