Prague’s Václav Havel Airport has published its 2025/26 winter timetable and, for the first time in its history, will offer non-stop links to 127 cities on five continents. Effective from 26 October 2025 through 28 March 2026, the schedule adds 15 new destinations, welcomes 12 first-time carriers and lifts overall seat capacity by 12.6 % compared with last winter. Newcomers include Etihad Airways with daily Abu Dhabi flights, Air Arabia’s debut to Sharjah, and Ryanair’s launch of Amman, giving the Czech capital direct access to the Levant for the first time. European network growth is equally robust: easyJet and Volotea will share Bordeaux, Aer Lingus returns with Cork, while Wizz Air introduces services to Iași, Yerevan and Skopje. On more than 20 existing routes—among them Athens, Dublin, Reykjavik, Paris and Málaga—airlines are adding frequencies, pushing daily London departures up to eleven and Paris up to nine.
The winter growth spurt is led by home-carrier Smartwings, which alone is adding more than 260,000 seats and a string of new links to Brussels, Bucharest, Bilbao, Porto and Rome. Airport CEO Jiří Pos projects 6.4 million passengers this winter, calling the timetable “a record offer for both business travellers and leisure customers”. The expanded network positions Prague as a more credible one-stop alternative to Western European hubs for travellers originating in Central & Eastern Europe.
For multinational companies with regional headquarters in Prague, the larger schedule reduces travel times and improves redundancy during the high-season Christmas and February trade-fair peaks. The fresh Middle-East connections—in particular Etihad’s Abu Dhabi service, timed for onward links to India, South-East Asia and Australia—open up same-day itineraries that previously required lengthy detours via Vienna or Frankfurt. Cargo belly-capacity also rises, offering exporters faster routes to Gulf and Asian markets.
Nevertheless, HR and mobility managers should prepare employees for congestion at passport control. The EU’s new Entry/Exit System (EES) goes live on 12 October, and airport officials warn of longer queues for non-EU nationals until travellers and border guards adjust. Companies are advised to factor in an extra 30–45 minutes for departures during the initial roll-out phase.
In strategic terms, the record winter schedule underscores Prague’s ambition to consolidate its position as the primary air gateway for the Visegrád region. If airlines can sustain the additional capacity through the off-peak season, the city’s attractiveness for future foreign direct investment—and the global mobility programmes that support it—will rise in tandem.
The winter growth spurt is led by home-carrier Smartwings, which alone is adding more than 260,000 seats and a string of new links to Brussels, Bucharest, Bilbao, Porto and Rome. Airport CEO Jiří Pos projects 6.4 million passengers this winter, calling the timetable “a record offer for both business travellers and leisure customers”. The expanded network positions Prague as a more credible one-stop alternative to Western European hubs for travellers originating in Central & Eastern Europe.
For multinational companies with regional headquarters in Prague, the larger schedule reduces travel times and improves redundancy during the high-season Christmas and February trade-fair peaks. The fresh Middle-East connections—in particular Etihad’s Abu Dhabi service, timed for onward links to India, South-East Asia and Australia—open up same-day itineraries that previously required lengthy detours via Vienna or Frankfurt. Cargo belly-capacity also rises, offering exporters faster routes to Gulf and Asian markets.
Nevertheless, HR and mobility managers should prepare employees for congestion at passport control. The EU’s new Entry/Exit System (EES) goes live on 12 October, and airport officials warn of longer queues for non-EU nationals until travellers and border guards adjust. Companies are advised to factor in an extra 30–45 minutes for departures during the initial roll-out phase.
In strategic terms, the record winter schedule underscores Prague’s ambition to consolidate its position as the primary air gateway for the Visegrád region. If airlines can sustain the additional capacity through the off-peak season, the city’s attractiveness for future foreign direct investment—and the global mobility programmes that support it—will rise in tandem.
