Croatian airports are preparing for the upcoming peak travel season with the country to see an increase in the number of nonstop flights and airlines. A total of 517 routes to 133 cities in 41 countries operated by seventy airlines will be on offer to travellers. As a result, there will be a double digit increase in the number of available routes. "The significant increase in the number of airlines serving the county is the best indicator yet that Croatia continues to maintain its position as a safe and attractive tourist market. Numerous airlines have recognised the increased demand for travel to Croatian destinations, which is why they have expanded their operations, and we are particularly pleased with the increasing number of flights to distant markets, which are having a growing impact on the overall results of Croatian tourism", the head of the Croatian National Tourist Board, Kristjan Staničić, said.
Croatia is expected to have 13.285.641 seats on scheduled flights for the duration of the summer season, representing an increase of 18.6% on last year, or an additional two million seats, and an improvement of 19.9% on the pre-pandemic 2019. The largest volume of flights this summer is expected from Germany, followed by the UK, Italy, France and Poland. During the peak summer period, Croatia will be linked to 41 countries, mainly within Europe, however, others include the United States, Canada, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. A completely new market this summer will be Iceland with low cost carrier Play to commence seasonal operations between Reykjavik and Split.
Croatia’s largest airlines by scheduled seat capacity
This summer season, Croatia boasts some eighty additional routes on last year, primarily as a result of Ryanair’s major expansion in the country. The low cost carrier will be Croatia’s largest airline this summer, adding an extra 1.4 million seats on last year. Zadar will see the largest percentile growth in available capacity as Ryanair expands its seasonal base in the city and grows its network to over fifty destinations. Dubrovnik also anticipates a strong summer, with Ryanair recently launching a base in the city and introducing seventeen new routes.
Projected capacity at Croatian airports on scheduled flights
There is definitely greater potential for long haul in the summer. Hope the tourist board works on it
ReplyDeleteAnd for more routes outside Europe. If Montenegro can have Air Astana flights, flights from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and more, then Croatia should at attempt to get them
DeleteI think visas are an issue
DeleteThey have been for last 30 years
DeleteI agree, it would be great if they worked more on flights from far away destinations. I think the previous government did this rather well. I know tourism minister was personally involved in bringing Emirares to Zagreb.
DeleteYes, the previous government really did their best and had they stayed in power I think even more would be done. Let's hope Milanovic wins the next election as they also took greater care of OU.
DeleteJapan charter by ANA will come back in 2025.
Delete@"Anonymous09:02"
DeleteI am sure they' are looking at it, problem so far is that Asian markets are just about recovering, still slow on pre-pandemic year. 2025 for this reason is when we can expect full recovery of Asian and Australian market. Before pandemic, over 1.7 million visitors from Asia and Australia in Croatia. In 2023, only 800 000 visitors from that part of the world visited Croatia, well bellow 1.7 million figure of 2019.
2024, should see some recovery, especially in Japanese, Chinese and S Korean market, which could see 40% improvement on 2023 emitting from these markets. Australia will probably fully recover this year when around 255000 Australian visitors are expected to visit Croatia.
North American markets are still recovering, but I expect with introduction of A321 XLR among noumber of North American airlines in coming years, will almost guarantee year round direct links to Zagreb and perhaps even Dubrovnik. By 2027, I expect there'll be noumber of new long hull destinations out of all 3 major airports in Croatia, New York, Chicago, Toronto and perhaps even Boston, Montreal, Philadelphia....
South America is slowly recovering, Brazil 59000, Argentina 36000, Mexico 25000, Chile 16000 visitors in 2023. Hopefully in 2024 we could see double digit growth from these markets. Especially when considering large Croatian émigré community in Chile and Argentina.
In 2023, Croatia was visited by 20.7 million visitors, in 2024 we could see slight increase in that figure, I expect at least 9% overall growth on that, generating nearly€ 15 billion in revenue. In 2025 I expect more robust growth from Asian markets and potentially return of Emirates, Korean and JAL, we'll see how 2024 pans out, but would be nice to see these airlines back in Croatia, even seasonally.
Milanovic appointed Kucko as OU CEO who was his childhood friend. Milanovic is just as bad as the rest of them.
DeleteWell done. Great summer for almost all Croatian airports.
ReplyDeleteThis is impressive. Nobody could even dream about 500 routes. Congratulations!
ReplyDeleteor 70 airlines
DeleteThe development of Zadar, Split and Dubrovnik is insane. Who can tell me why Rijeka is doing so badly?
ReplyDeleteI think reason is because places around Airport are not as popular to tourists as they are around Pula, Zadar, Split and Dubrovnik. Rijeka is not a popular place to stay or even Krk/Cres. It is just my opinion, might be wrong.
DeleteRijeka is also more car destination
DeleteIt is what happens when you rely on Ryanair for too long. Other Airports should be aware!
DeleteRyanair was never strong in Rijeka. Zadar was also an auto destination less than 10 years ago. And look today
DeleteAnyone know how ZAD is doing in terms of financials?
DeleteYou are all wrong. The wider Rijeka area has more tourists than any other part of Croatia, including Split. But they come by car because there is now no border control and you can drive there easily from Austria and Germany. Also for the person who mentioned Krk - this is Croatia's biggest and most visited island, but it has a bridge and everyone comes by car.
DeleteSecond, Rijeka was never reliant on ryanair and even now barely has any routes from there. @09:56 is making up complete nonsense.
Kvarner region is very popular tourist destination year round in fact, problem is that Rijeka isn't very popular as a destination, it is a city port, not much to see there other than industry and few historic palaces. However, Croatia is building his speed link between Rijeka and Zagreb, initially limited to 160kmph trains will be able to travel between Zagreb and Rijeka with in 1 hour, train speeds of up to 250kmph will be possible eventually when there's market demand, (extra power to power overhead pentagraphs limits the speed, otherwise infrastructure will be built for high speed trains). Add to this Rijeka - Tirest link that will be also built with the EU money from Jurdani (Rijeka suburbs) via Slovenia to Trieste on onward to rest of Italy. So things will be much easier after 2028 when both links should be completed.
Delete@10:15 we’re good ;-)
Delete12.17 - 2028 :) your dreaming design just been dealyed to 2028, start after finish when your grandkids get car license
DeleteKrk Island should do better marketing about that fact that Airport Rijeka is actually on the island of Krk. It is not immediately apparent if one is not from ex YU.
DeleteCongratulations Croatia.
ReplyDeleteThis just shows how much potential Croatia has
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteCroatia needs to reduce seasonality, especially at Zagreb Airport. So I think ZAG and SPU should work on this.
ReplyDeleteBS
DeleteDon't worry, OU is waiting on global warming to reduce seasonality for them.
DeleteAny idea how many passengers all Croatian airport could handle this year?
ReplyDeleteOver 13 million
DeleteCapacity is around 13.9 million. I think something around 12 million total is feasible
Deleteon one side its great news and amazing that they have the biggest market out of the Jug nations and that its gorwing. but still a bit sad that OU dont have such a dominant position. if they had 50% of that 12 million it wouldve benefited the country so much more.
Delete"Anonymous09:12
DeleteAny idea how many passengers all Croatian airport could handle this year?"
"Croatia is expected to have 13.285.641 seats on scheduled flights for the duration of the summer season"
Based on this data and if you include Zagreb and Osijek, summer season from April 1st and October 31st, I think it is easy to predict this year's anticipated result if you look at seats offered last summer season and then extrapolate actual realized load factor. I think in 2023 it was around 85% overall from seats offered in 2023.
So this year could be the same, by adding Zagreb, you'll end up with around 13.77 million seats offered on all routes to Croatia during this summer season. 80% of that figure is 11 million on the dot, 85% would yield 11.7 million. However this is just the summer season, April 1st to October 31st.
All 3 main airports in Croatia, Zagreb, Split, Dubrovnik had improved numbers on the last year. I expect Croatian airports combined apart from Zagreb, will handle around 500 000 passengers between November 1st to March 31st. Zagreb has handled around 795 000 in first 3 months, very likely in November and December it'll handle around another 700 000. If you all all these up, you'll end up between 13.1 and 13.7 million passengers through all Croatian airports in 2024. 13,7 million if 85% yield, during summer season along the coastal airports.
That 13.28 million figure includes Zagreb and Osijek. I don't know how you concluded that the two are excluded.
Delete@Anonymous12:01
DeleteIf you look at table bellow "Projected capacity at Croatian airports on scheduled flights"
You add up all seats available, you come to 13.77 million but that figure is for April 1st to October 31st. Year round, no idea for rest of Croatia, but for Zagreb it is 5.673 million seats, this excludes charters and new routes added after Jan. 1st. Data posted by this blow btw. So you can easily calculate possible total capacity for all of Croatia for 2024, and conclusion would be about similar to one I posted above. 13.1 million to 13.7 million, Of course we'll know for sure at the end of this year.
@Admin
DeleteDo you have total seats for all of Croatia's airports for entire 2024, I guess what ever data you might have would be appreciated, I presume it is around 16.2 million but I'd like to know exact figure if you could provide us with? Also same for entire 2023, I presume in 2023, figure was 14 million or there about? thank you.
Total seats on scheduled flights in Croatia for this year stands at 16,392,783, however, this is not precise as many airlines are yet to file their winter schedules and are missing flights. For example, Ryanair is yet to schedule its winter operations from Dubrovnik, while Pegasus Airlines filed its winter operations from Zagreb just last week. Also, some airlines that maintain seasonal flights file zeroed out capacity for the winter in the GDS, despite having no intention to run flights, and only remove them later on in the summer season but they still get calculated at this point. However, the figure should give you a general idea and final capacity should be close to that figure.
DeleteAs for last year, the figure on scheduled flights stood at 13,129,112 seats.
Thank you, helps a lot when doing calculations and gives me some idea what to expect in terms of traffic this year.
DeleteGiven this information, Croatia should have around 13.5 million passengers this year.
Delete@Michael08:55
DeleteYep, this is what I figured out, between 13.1 and 13.7 million, before knowing full figures. In 2023, we had 13.2 million seats, and actual noumber of passengers through all of Croatia's airports in 2023, was around 11.3 million, give us 11.3/13.2 = 85% ratio. If we assume the same for 2024, apply same ratio, 16.4 million x 85% = 14.0 million. Now this is a long stretch, sort of all stars align sort of scenario. More likely outcome is between 13.1 and 13.7 million. Which is still a lot.
If 13,7 million, I am trying to figure out most logical passenger traffic distribution applying same %g share from last year to this. Interesting to say the least. I reduced Zagreb, but increased Dubrovnik slightly cause of Ryan air effect.
Zagreb - 4350
Split - 4100
Dubrovnik - 3000
Zadar - 1500
Pula - 510
Rijeka - 200
Osijek - 40 000
How come such the decrease for Lufthansa?
ReplyDeleteThey transferred some routes to Discover Airlines.
DeleteAnd as for Austrian, they reduced capacity on ZAG route due to ATR usage.
DeleteIs it me or is OS using the ATR more and more? I think it was supposed to be one weekly but now it's more common from what I saw on FR24.
DeleteBased on the info on ex-Yu aviation, 3 weekly are planned for Zagreb with ATR
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2024/02/austrian-to-deploy-atr72s-on-belgrade.html
Can someone explain how the CLose on Sunday law will affect the tourist summer season?
ReplyDeleteMore shops open during Sundays at the height of the summer season
DeleteNo affect
DeleteNever had any effect in Greece.
DeleteI understand it from an aspect of worker's rights but I find all shops being closed on Sunday really inconvenient and kind of odd in the 21st century.
DeleteThat being said, which tourist on earth is going to check if shops work on Sundays before visiting a country and decide whether to go there over that.
DeleteOnce upon a time easyjet used to be the biggest during the summer.
ReplyDeleteAmazing that easyjet is the third largest airline yet they don't have a single flight to Croatia in winter
DeleteNothing surprising there. easyJet goes where the money is. Western tour operators are stimulating demand to Croatia in summer as western Balkans become more and more popular.
DeleteIn winter Western tour operators organize ski charters or flights to the Carribean so that people can escape the cold. What will someone from Birmingham or Hamburg do on the western Balkan coast (from Istra all the way to Peloponnese) in winter time? Literally nothing to do.
100% + right
Delete"Literally nothing to do" is exactly the mindset that makes Croatian seasonality so bad. There is plenty to do, winter and especially early spring can be a great time to visit the castles, museums, monuments and natural wonders all along the coast (including islands & wineries in Istria & Dalmatia). I've been to SPU myself countless times in Feb/Mar and always had a blast. 10-12 degrees when the rest of the Balkans is hovering around 0, with almost no tourists, queues etc. anywhere.
DeleteWith a bit of investment by the tourist board & some tax incentives for businesses and hotels to stay open in shoulder months, the Croatian coast could easily extend its season from early March to late October. Sadly, there seems to be neither the vision nor the political will to make that happen.
You say it: "with almost no tourists". And there is a reason for that. The same goes for seaside resorts in Italy, e.g. Rimini or on smaller Greek islands that are not so well known. It is better to use your holiday days in winter for a skiing holiday or where the weather is better, like Andalusia or the Canary Islands, etc.
DeleteAh yes the museums and castles on the coast... why should someone go to Berlin, Munich Amsterdam, Paris etc when they can go to Split or Zadar and do it there... in the middle of winter as the wind blows your skin away.
DeleteLet's be honest, 99% of the tourists that go to the Croatian coast do that because of the sea and the beaches.
"Let's be honest, 99% of the tourists that go to the Croatian coast do that because of the sea and the beaches."
DeleteThat is exactly why Croatia needs to work on attracting tourists that are not interested in the sea and beaches as such.
And comparing Istria & the Dalmatian coast with Rimini is frankly insulting.
But why does Croatia "need" to do this? What about the impact on the environment, the congestion on the roads, the water and food infrastructure etc? Locals are very happy that they get a break for more than half a year.
DeleteVlad: why? Rimini is much bigger town than many Citys in Croatia
DeleteWhy is comparing Dalmatia and Rimini and insult? Rimini is much better and Italy has a much better organized tourism.
DeleteVlad is absolutely right.
DeleteIt would and could be much more impressive if OU were strong carrier that built proper network and real hub in ZAG.
ReplyDeleteWould, could, should, Bla...
DeleteThe Ryanair effect
ReplyDeleteDefinitely the biggest contributor to this year's growth.
Deletegreat picture (SPU), thanks
ReplyDelete+1 new terminal looks beautiful
DeleteThe problem is not just that winter is dead on the coast, the shoulder season has very little open. Locals in tourism only seem to want to work June to September before having a winter break. I was in Park Plaza Arena Pula last September, the weather was great, hotels nearly full yet all the local restaurants nearby had shut up for the year.
ReplyDeleteThat's because tourism on the coast will be as good as the West wants it to be. Locals are not doing much to stimulate demand outside the summer. Why? Because they made enough in season so they are relaxing in autumn, winter and spring.
DeleteAnd what's wrong with that? People are very happy to take time off because they make enough money in the summer and they get to relax for six months of they year each year. It's the dream.
DeleteAnd that is why that dream means the cost is dead outside the three summer months. Don't complain about it.
DeleteImpressive
ReplyDeleteRijeka is the disappointment this year.
ReplyDeleteIt's the case most years.
DeleteTrue unfortunately.
DeleteCroatia is becoming more and unaffordable for a vacation. If inflation isn't put under control, tourism will start to decline before long.
ReplyDeleteInflation is high BECAUSE the tourists are coming and paying high prices. A US citizen can easily shoulder higher prices that current levels.
Delete@anonymous!09:58
DeleteThere are loads of awful people who are profiteering and price gauging, driving up the inflation which atm is around 4.5% way higher then is should be. Corrupt government doesn't help one iota with controlling these issues, €20 000-300 000 fines should be levied on anyone found doing it. You'd end up prices falling dramatically. Croatia is now more expensive than most southern EU countries, italy, portugal, spain or greece. The only positive thing out of all this if you can call it that, is increase in average pay which is now around €1240 per month.
Interestingly Eurowings which had so many plans to launch new routes and increase frequencies in Croatia a few years ago has done nothing. Is there an explanation why?
ReplyDeleteEurowings is a mess and Lufthansa has no clue or strategy what to do with it.
DeleteEurowings is not a mess. It's even profitable
DeleteAfter how many years of losses?
DeleteGood article. This just shows how much potential Croatia.
ReplyDeleteAgree. For a relatively small country it is impressive
DeleteWhat does the size have to do with anything?
DeleteExactly... Iceland says hello.
DeleteWell it is a small country with a lot of airports.
DeleteBravo Hrvatska!
ReplyDelete2024 will be a huge year for tourism which = great year for airports.
ReplyDeletePlus the tourist season is extending more and more each year.
DeleteEffectively tourist season now starts in early May ends in late September. Although April can get very busy when Easter is in April and October still has decent noumber of tourist. Year round tourism in Croatia at same level as summer tourism isn't possible, potentially Zagreb in Conjunction wit Ljubljana and Varazdin might become attractive tourist offer as in city break destination year round. Varazdin is a small town north of Zagreb, with 40 000 inhabitants, town offers baroque architecture, castles and history. Samobor as well to west of Zagreb, add Ljubljana, and there's a potential for year round visitors in Zagreb. Zagreb had 1,4 million visitors last year, perhaps this can be doubled if efforts are made in that direction.
DeleteI'm surprised Volotea has such a presence.
ReplyDeleteYes
DeleteGreat job Croatia
ReplyDeleteFR should think about maintaining a few routes from Zadar in winter.
ReplyDeleteDone this, not enough demand. Not even in SPU
DeleteI'm pretty sure 1-2 routes could work from both in winter.
DeleteIf it can't work from SPU how are they going to run 3 routes from Dubrovnik this winter?
DeleteDubrovnik has most 5* hotels so it can be done.
DeleteTo make money in order ti finance debt based financial system you have to squeeze the profit in 3 months of the summer in you safest markets hence total gong show in june, july, august in Spain, Croatia, Greece if we are talking about beach types of holidays.
ReplyDeleteOkey Turkey is there too but you never know when Turkey will explode in due to inflation of over 70%.
So the result is stampede of flights and tourists in this 3 months of summer.
Croatia must stop rely on unreliable scammers like FR !! We must go back to time with Air France and Lufthansa, real airlines that help the people
ReplyDeleteIs this real? FR is driving Croatian growth while LH struggles to maintain its schedule. I say Bravo Hrvatska!
DeleteCroatia needs both especially from Zagreb because full service carriers carry business travelers and people visiting while FR has given thousands of Croatian the chance to travel
DeleteWhat is the budget of this year's udruzeno oglasavanje?
ReplyDeleteRijeka needs a management change in my opinion. It was a very promising airport years ago when Easy Jet started flights there.
ReplyDeleteBig Problem whilst everyone who is slapping themselves on the back is this !!! Last year the roads and infrastructure in all Croatian major cities were at bursting point. And now they say 20% more... Watch this space...it's ridiculous overkill. Old saying... We like tourists money...but do they have to come ! 😲
ReplyDeletejust seen that Croatia Airlines one way RJK to MUC on 14.05 was over 330 euros one way.. for flight of 1 hr 25 mins and a glass of water. Who would do this..? Thursday and Sundays too. crazy prices.
ReplyDelete