Montenegro Pulse contains affiliate links and is a member of the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you make a purchase using one of these links, I may receive compensation at no extra cost to you. See my disclaimer for more information.
Finding cheap flights to Tivat is not always straight forward, but you can do it! There are more and more flight options to Tivat, making it faster and cheaper to fly there than ever before. With a little time and a few tools you can find cheap flights to Tivat that will make your trip to Montenegro easy and stress-free.
If you’re staying along the coast in Montenegro, Tivat Airport is the most convenient airport to fly into. It’s centrally located on the coast, close to the most popular coastal resorts:
Another reason I love flying into Tivat is it’s a small airport and you can get through customs and get your luggage in about 20 minutes.
So, you can land in Tivat and be relaxing by the pool with a cocktail in less than an hour!
The downside about flying into Tivat is that planes can’t land there at night. So if your flight is delayed for some reason and needs to land after dark, you’ll be diverted to Podgorica Airport, a two hour drive away.
Flying into Tivat may not be the cheapest airport to fly into. If it’s not, you have to weigh up your options and decide whether it’s worth the extra expense. When you’re considering other airports you’ll also have to factor in the time and cost of transferring to your accommodation.
If you are staying anywhere south of Budva ie. Petrovac, Bar, Lake Skadar, Ulcinj or anywhere in the north, you should consider Podgorica Airport as a better option.
The flights into Tivat Airport are highly seasonal. You’ll have many more flight options between May and October than you will from November to April.
If you want cheap flights to Tivat and you're you can travel any time of year, the shoulder season is the cheapest time to fly. This means April, May and October are the cheapest times to fly here. July and August are the most expensive because that's peak season.
Public holidays are also more expensive times to fly. If you're coming from the US but you have a stopover in England, check the date you're flying out of England isn't a bank/public holiday to avoid paying higher prices for your tickets.
Here is a list of airlines that fly into
Tivat:
Finding cheap flights to Tivat is getting easier. Until recently, low cost airlines like Easy Jet and Ryanair didn't fly into Montenegro. Now Easy Jet has cheap flights to Tivat from both London and Manchester. And Ryainair offer cheap flights to Podgorica all year round.
Because we love to travel and fly to New Zealand regularly, we’ve become very good at hunting out the best flight deals for our trips.
Less money on airfares means more money for fun right?!
I always check with a travel agent and ask them to find me the cheapest flights they can. Travel agents can save you a lot of time if they find you a good fare.
Then I do my own
internet research. This can take time, but an hour invested here could save you
big bucks. On our last trip I managed to save us €400 per person on our flights
by doing this.
These are the websites I use to check flight options:
I also use:
You might have heard that airfares go up over time. But do you know when the ideal time to book is?
CheapAir analyzed 1.3 billion fares to answer just that question. The answer is anywhere between 112 and 21 days before travel. 112 days is 4 months before travel, so you'll want to start looking for cheap flights to Tivat at early as you can.
If you can't find cheap flights to Tivat, there are two other international airports you can use:
Podgorica Airport – Montenegro
Dubrovnik Airport – Croatia
Whenever we travel I always check flights from all three airports. You might find one is a lot cheaper, has better flight times or better connections than another.
Podgorica Airport is Montenegro’s other international airport. It’s a two hour drive from Tivat. Podgorica is a better airport to fly into if you’re staying anywhere in the north, at Lake Skadar, Bar or Ulcinj.
This airport is worth looking into if you’re looking for the cheapest flights. There are more options and Ryanair flies from London-Stansted to Podgorica year round. Their flights can be as low as €35 each way.
The other airport you can fly into is Dubrovnik-Cilipi. Cilipi is just across the border in Croatia and a 20 minute drive from Montenegro.
There are a lot more flights into Dubrovnik than there are into Tivat. You’ll also find the flights are generally cheaper than even cheap flights to Tivat. You’ll have to calculate the cost of a transfer or rental car prices from Dubrovnik to see whether it’s worth flying into Dubrovnik instead of Tivat.
Another big consideration when flying into Dubrovnik is the border crossing. Although close, Dubrovnik airport is in another country so you’ll have to cross two borders – one exiting Croatia and another entering Montenegro. During the peak months of July and August the wait at this border crossing can be anywhere from 20 minutes to several hours. Something you need to think about when you’re leaving – you don’t want to miss your flight back home because you were stuck at the border crossing!
There is an alternative border crossing that’s smaller and a very slightly longer route. This crossing has become busy too though and isn’t guaranteed to be any faster than the main border crossing.
Once you've found your cheap flights to Tivat, you'll need to arrange to get to your accommodation. Booking an airport transfer is one of the easiest ways to get to your hotel on arrival. No haggling with local taxi drivers, no stress. Viator has the biggest choice of airport transfers and you can book them online in advance.
The only transfer I wouldn’t
recommend here is their transfer to Kotor, it’s way overpriced. You can grab a
local taxi from Tivat Airport to Kotor for around €10. You can either negotiate
with a driver when you arrive or call a metred local taxi from the airport on: 19729
(from a local phone) or +382 67 635 209.
If you plan to do a bit of sightseeing around Montenegro, I do recommend taking car hire. The public transport links here are fine between cities, but don’t cover the whole country or many interesting tourist spots. The buses also don’t have air conditioning, which can make things uncomfortable in 40 degree summer heat.
Local’s Tip: Have you heard of the dreaded ‘promaja’? Here in the Balkans there’s a deadly threat called ‘promaja’. It’s responsible for everything from headaches to sore backs to even death! Wherever you go, the locals will help to protect you from this danger.
When you sit on a bus in the middle of summer with no air conditioning and wonder why all the windows are tightly shut, it’s to protect you from ‘promaja’.
When you go to a café and they have the air conditioning on instead of enjoying the breeze coming off the sea, it’s to protect you from the ‘promaja’.
You see, here in the Balkans a draught - the 'promaja' - is a danger akin to snakes and wet hair. Sit in a draught at your own peril! And whatever you do, don't open a window on the bus!
If you hire a car from one of the major rental agencies like Budget, Sixt or Avis you can pick the car up at any of their offices and drop it off at any other. So you could pick up a car at Tivat Airport and drop it off at Podgorica Airport and vice versa.
But if you pick up a car at Dubrovnik Airport, you can’t drop it off in Montenegro. This is something a lot of people want to do as they tour both countries, but because they’re different countries you’ll pay around €350 if you want to do this.
Read More: Rent A Car in Montenegro
Finding
cheap flights to Tivat might involve a bit of research, but it can be worth it for
the convenience. And with two other international airports to choose from,
there’s no shortage of flight options for your trip to Montenegro.