Korean low cost carrier T’Way Air, which will launch its first European service to Zagreb next month, is satisfied with ticket sales on the route so far. Flights from Seoul to the Croatian capital will operate with a technical stop in Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan on the outbound leg and nonstop on the inbound, with a 347-seat Airbus A330-300 aircraft. “The average reservation rate per departing flight out of Seoul is around 83%. Considering the flights are yet to launch, forward bookings are going well. Once the route becomes operational, we expect it to become better known and for word to spread among travellers. Therefore, we expect for sales to improve”, a spokesperson from T’Way Air said.
T'Way’s Zagreb flights, which will be inaugurated on May 16, will also serve as a test run for the budget carrier’s upcoming new destinations in Europe. The airline plans to commence a four weekly service to Paris in late June, five weekly to Rome in August, daily to Barcelona in September, as well as a daily rotation to Frankfurt from January of next year. "Zagreb's advantage is that there is no direct competition, but the proportion of passengers travelling though tour operators and holiday packages on this route is high, so collaboration with travel agencies will be important”, T’Way Air said.
In 2019, when flights between the two cities were last operational, Korean Air captured almost the entire Seoul travel market to and from Zagreb. The absolute majority of its customers on the route, over 95%, were point to point passengers and almost all originated from South Korea. The only other South Korean city with sizeable traffic to Zagreb is its second largest - Busan. In 2019, almost 5.000 passengers travelled indirectly between Busan and Zagreb on a single itinerary. The overwhelming majority of Korean travellers enter Croatia on a separate ticket via other European markets after spending several days at their original destination.
Bravo Hrvatska!
ReplyDelete347 seats on an A330? I guess their business class must be very basic. Does anyone know how many seats are there on Air Transat's A330-300?
DeleteHmm 83% is not bad but it's not good either for an LCC flight with a technical stop. I expect this route to do well during three months but to struggle during other months. Don't forget that operational costs are very high on such a route.
ReplyDeleteAnd you know better than airline?
DeleteOh I am sorry, I didn't know we are not allowed to be critical ofanything related to Croatia.
DeleteYou aren't being critical to anything. You are just trying to make Tway official stupid in comparasion to you. If they are happy with the resuly tha means route is working.
DeleteIt's highly unlikely an official will say they are unhappy with the result. The official himself says they hope figures will improve.
DeleteI don't understand why you are angry? The person expressed their opinion without insulting anyone. If you have a counter argument why not write it.
If results were bad, officals would not comment them, and route would be reduced.
DeleteAlready having 83% LF is AMAZING for every long haul LCC.
Well thank God Tway will only operate the route during the 3 summer months where they don't struggle
DeleteFor an LCC like Tway 83% might be ok but it most definitely is not amazing. Amazing would be 95%. Emirates also praised their performance in zAG and then they turned it into a seasonal route before completely terminating it and they will most likely never return.
Delete83% is the advance bookings. Some of those flights are months away.
DeleteAnd still Emirates stayed up until the pandemic.
DeleteSeems someone is jealous.
@Anonymous11:24
DeleteEmirates had good loads on Zagreb route, they cancelled it like many other routes due to covid, slow recovery of Asian markets makes Emirates return harder, but I wouldn't be surprised if Emirates returns in 2026 at the latest in 2027. Zagreb has 1.3 million foreign visitors in 2023, 2.54 million nights. In 2024, I expect Zagreb will fully recover and hit pre-covid figures of 1.45 million foreign visitors, 3 million nights. Large chunk of these were Asian visitors, in 2025, I can see full recovery of Asian markets and 2026 could see significant growth of Asian tourists in Croatia. Massive change however is that Croatia is in the Schengen and in Eurozone, so prices have gone up, and visa requirements for where there were was none before.
Anon 11.34
DeleteNothing about jealousy, I am stating facts. EK started cutting ZAG before the pandemic so the honeymoon phase was over before aviation collapsed with covid.
That was also before FZ flew to LJU where they are recording phenomenal results and where on certain occassions they have more flights than to ZAG. Passenger numbers from DXB to LJU and ZAG are almost the same.
Does FZ even have daily flights to ZAG at this point?
@13:48 - FZ flights to ZAG are daily and with much better LF than in LJU, as it has been reported here. Pls don't compare ZAG to puny market in LjU that is at 70% pre-covid traffic. Zadar will even surpass LJU in 2024. So please...
DeleteThat "puny" market you called has airBaltic, Finnair, easyjet, wizz, swiss.. Why don't these airlines fly to ZAG if it has such enormous market and cancel LJU? Finnair canceled ZAG and will fly to LJU instead. Even airbaltic that will fly to literally every village skipped ZAG. Analiticar is not happy.
Delete@Anonymous13:48
DeleteWhen you say started cutting? You mean turned year round flights in to seasonal flights? If so, yes, but from March to November Emirates was flying daily often with a full planes to and back. Even though in 2019, Emirates turned Zagreb in to a seasonal route, it carried 98000 passengers, perhaps only seasonal route that generated so many passengers. Problem was, the airline was sending B777 300ER instead of opting for smaller planes, in form of B777 200 ER, thus less expensive, although Emirates needs B787s as these would be ideal for Zagreb route, and we know Emirates has order book for at least 35 B787s and 60 A350s, all of which can be deployed on Zagreb route. B787s will be configured with ~280 seats and ideal for Zagreb year round and A350 with 310 seats ,best for summer season April to October. Both aircraft can be deployed on Zagreb route and I am sure there'll be more than enough market for Qatar and Emirates. After all, before Covid struck, 1.76 million Asian visitors to Croatia, most arrived via Zagreb airport.
@15:10, less competition? Slean slate? No action? Big fish in a small pond? All answers are correct.
DeletePetar you should also mention that all passengers that travel from LJU are Croats who love to travel.
DeleteAnd all who are travelling from ZAG Slovenes who like to travel.
DeleteDo you think they use the full runway when taking off?
Delete@15:10 - perhaps due to literally no competition? Clean slate, underdeveloped... Where is Qatar, Air Transat, Austrian, Tway... normal BA and IB frequencies...? Why did FR open up a base in ZaG, rather thanin LJU? And despite ZAG has a based national carrier?
DeleteWhere is Finnair, airbaltic, Air Montenegro, easyjet, Luxair, Swiss, Brussels, Transavia, Wizz, all charters.. ? ZAG is the biggest market in EX-YU so where are these airlines? Why do they fly to tiny puny LJU instead of metropolis like ZAG? Also if daily is not normal frequency for you then we don't need to discuss anymore.
DeleteBased on what is Zagreb the largest marjet in ex-Yu? It does not have the most passengers.
Delete@19:12 - ZAG 3.7 mil vs LJU 1.2 mil, what's not clear?
DeleteClearly CEOs of airlines that fly to LJU are dumb enough not to see huge potential that ZAG holds and fly to tiny puny LJU.
Delete@20:09, silly comment. There is market for every niche. More diverse number of airlines make sense in markets that have no based airline. LJU has respectable demand, ZAG has greater. Some airlines compete and see presence of other airlines as a sign of demand, others feel they'd be better off in a market with less competition. It's all relative. And good job to LJU for having respectable airlines. However, in great part this has to do with a fact that LJU does not have reached optimal network and it's a good time to work the market before it gets to be competitive again. Other airlines come to ZAG as LJU is too small for them. All I am saying, it's good and expected that LJU is growing, after dropping so much in 2019-2022. Difference in market sizes is clear. Adria grew most aggresively during the 90s. After Croatia recovered, this short term dominance of LJU over ZAG corrected itself. Look at historical figures. When ZAG had 1.7 to 2 mil, LJU was never over 1 mil in 1970s and 1980s.
Delete@14:41 ZAD overtook Ljubljana in 2023.
DeleteGood job on Franjo Tudman airport attracting and maintaining flights to Korea.
ReplyDeleteNo other airport in the Balkans was able to do that.
Haha LCC with 1 stop? 😂
DeleteIndeed, Franjo is slowly becoming a major LCC airport, from Transat to Tway to Ryanair and flydubai.
Delete@09:30 yes, that's more connections to South Korea than any other airport in the region!
DeleteZagreb has more flights to Korea than the rest of ExYu combined
DeleteLOL, trolling here is amazing, starting with the first post and continuing on being lcc base, amazing how much resentment there is between certain groups.
DeletePay attention to the last sentence of today's news article: The overwhelming majority of Korean travellers enter Croatia on a separate ticket via other European markets after spending several days at their original destination.
DeleteThat means Zagreb is not a primary attraction for tourists from Korea, just a secondary add-on after visting the original, main attraction outside of Croatia. Official statistics confirm Zagreb is not in the Top 3 most visited cities in the region:
https://nitter.poast.org/pic/orig/media%2FGMLzK7JXYAAtu36.jpg
Wrong, ZAG is the biggest market in EX-YU.
DeleteFacts prove otherwise.
DeleteYour link said international tourist and not Korean
Delete@Anonymous17:56
DeleteThat data set you posted, has nothing to do with reality, I can come with similar data sets and present them as official. https://dzs.gov.hr/en - Croatian data here, very accurate using EU methodology and not some propaganda make believe nonsense posted by you.
If you have issues please contact the person who created it. Seems like professional with more than 3k followers on linkedin, quick check confirms those are legitimate numbers and fair approach:
Deletehttps://www.linkedin.com/posts/darko-%C4%91ikanovi%C4%87_tourism-tourismindustry-balkans-activity-7181205968511234050-UxmI
@Anonymous22:29
DeleteIf he had billion followers, his data is inaccurate and wrong, and I gave you Croatian statistics. His data has no basis in facts or reality.
Prove it
Delete"Anonymous23:39
DeleteProve it"
I don't have to, you just go to Croatian Statistics office website and you'll find his data for 2023 totally out of sink with data published by Croatian statistics which use EU methodology and standards, i/e beyond repute/above/beyond reproach. His data, no idea taken out his own arse perhaps ?
You have to prove it as you claimed in a disrespectful way they are incorrect. Croatian office does not publish data for other countries so your reference is invalid. Methodology used and source he used was displayed below the chart, if you cared to read it. EU methodolgy is beyond reproach? LOL with so many examples of errors by EU bureaucracy on a regular basis. Ball is in your court.
DeleteI've said, his data is not in sink with the Croatian data, he supposedly used national data, but I doubt he bothered to look at Croatian statistics office, so his data is flawed, he purposely underreports Croatian figures, to a point that is laughable.
DeleteSome people just can't handle the truth that Belgrade has more international tourist arrivals than Zagreb. Sad.
Delete@15:30 - OK, but only in 2022 and 2023. Between 2011 - 2019, Zagreb continually had about 10% more tourists than Belgrade. This year or next year at the latest, things will be back to normal. Relaxed visa regime & fake tourists (read: immigrants) will not be enough to keep this temporary trend of inflated numbers active.
DeleteGood luck T'Way!
ReplyDeleteWould be cool if they could sell tickets from Bishkek to Zagreb.
ReplyDeleteHow long is the stop in Bishkek?
Delete1 hour
DeleteExcellent, another wide-body operator at ZAG
ReplyDeleteSecond one with Transat
DeleteWell Qatar and Turkish also send their widebody from time to time.
DeleteThat's a very high density cabin with 347 seats
ReplyDeleteHense the need for a fuel stop.
DeleteVery happy they found someone, if Korean Air couldn't return. Good luck
ReplyDeleteKE never flew to ZAG
Delete^ What are you talking about? Yes they did, as we can all remember. And even if you didn't know, you just proved you didn't even read the article.
DeleteHope they will be able to sustain it for next year too.
ReplyDeleteIf these flights go well, I hope other Asian LCCs will consider Zagreb - Zipair or Air Japan or Scoot.
ReplyDeleteScoot has too few widebody aircraft and others are too small to consider Zagreb ... ANA and Korean will probably re-start some form of flights to Zagreb in 2025 or 2026, we'll see, Same goes for Air Canada and potentially another operator perhaps Singapore airlines, on top or Emirates and potentially some other Asian carrier.
DeleteNo one in their right mind would tell their load factor to the world. Unless it's bad and they need some publicity to sell more tickets.
ReplyDeleteJust wait three more weeks and you’ll see the result 😉
ReplyDelete