Slow September growth for Zagreb

Sluggish growth for Zagreb as Dubrovnik closes in on 1987 record

Following its busiest August on record, Zagreb Airport welcomed 243.566 passengers in September 2012, an increase of only 0.8% compared to the same month last year when a total of 241.575 travellers were welcomed through its doors. However, the modest growth was seen despite a significant dip in the number of operated flights to Croatia’s busiest airport. A total of 1.773 departures and arrivals were recorded at Zagreb, down 14.8% on last year. So far in 2012, Zagreb Airport has handled 1.809.653 passengers, down 0.1% on 2011. During the upcoming winter season, the airport looks forward to welcoming new customers including SkyWork Airlines and British Airways.

Recently, Zagreb Airport selected the local IGH project consultancy and design firm to work on the project documentation for the airport’s new multi million euro terminal. The company will be paid nine million euros for its services. It is expected for work on the much anticipated terminal building to commence mid 2013. According to the concession contract, signed with the Croatian government, the airport’s new operators are obliged to begin construction by April 11, 2013. However, operator Aéroports de Paris insists that the original time frame outlined in the contract was “too optimistic”.

Meanwhile, Dubrovnik Airport is chasing its 1987 all time passenger record. In September alone, Dubrovnik welcomed 231.418 passengers, a surge of 12.4% compared to the same month last year. In the first nine months of the year the airport handled 1.296.745 passengers. If strong growth continues over the next three months, Dubrovnik is on course to surpass its 1987 record and position itself as the fourth busiest in the former Yugoslavia.

Comments

  1. Anonymous09:06

    Dubrovnik <3 It is a shame OU is wasting its time in ZAG, they should be concentrating where the real money and market is!

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  2. Anonymous09:09

    But than no propaganda ZAG vs BEG.

    Btw it took six years to complete VIE skylink. Lets see how long for ZAG.

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  3. Anonymous10:01

    DBV is low cost haven whereas ZAG is for full fares airlines, hence money making and why BA return in December.

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    1. Anonymous15:08

      It is not true, you are just jealous that DBV will soon overtake ZAG! Then again Zagreb people are always jealous of Dubrovnik!

      Delete
    2. Anonymous15:24

      Exactly!

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    3. Purger22:44

      If you think Zagreb people are jealous of Dubrovnik than for sure you are not from Zagreb, Dubrovnik or Croatia. Zagreb people are proud of Dubrovnik, and so happy that any parts of Croatia flourish.

      Zagreb people fight for Dubrovnik freedom, and lot of them died in that war. Because they were jealous? Don't be funny!

      Delete
    4. Anonymous23:52

      Croats are so full of hatred, even among themselves...

      Delete
  4. Anonymous10:33

    When Zagreb this, when Zagreb that...

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  5. Anonymous10:35

    As usual, depressive news from Zagreb...

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  6. Anonymous10:37

    Common rich&wealthy Zagreb citizens, fly, fly Purgers, raise those numbers...

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  7. Anonymous10:44

    Even QR reduced the metal back to A320...bad, bad...

    ru.flightaware.com/#live/flight/QTR947

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  8. Anonymous11:22

    Why such morons on here? Zagreb is having a good year and more airlines like BA and Skywork will start to operate. Once in the EU i'm such traffic will pick up more. QR was always supposed to fly an A320 so it shows the use of A321 on certain days meant numbers were up on expectations. Croatia is a multi airport country, SPU and DBV take there full share of passengers and PUY and ZAD also contribute.
    For a country (Serbia) with twice the population BEG does not have a huge passenger throughput and the likes of AF will cut completely rather than reduce service.
    As always nationalistic hatred comes to the fore on here.
    Get a life guys

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    1. Anonymous13:43

      You don't have to be from Serbia to see that Zagreb is doing really bad... So you've kind of failed your argumentation since you're the one who took the nationalistic card.

      "Once in the EU i'm such traffic will pick up more." - You forgot the very word: sure. Hence indirectly proving the point, you're far from being sure about that, but hope always dies the last :)

      Delete
    2. Anonymous23:53

      Zagreb is doing rather well, considering terrible recession that is going on across the entire continent of Europe and much of traditional markets for Croatia.

      The fact that Zagreb has only slight growth in September is encouraging and promising that 2013 might be a good year for Croatia and Zagreb.

      Don't forget guys, in 2011 Zagreb recorded highest growth of all major airports in Croatia, only for 2012 to be a bit of a let down, Wizz air, and few other airlines where chased off Zagreb airport, considering poor quality of service Wizz Air is well known its good riddance to them, I only hope Ryan Air doesn't come knocking, they are another really crappy low cost con-air I'd never fly with, even if tickets where only 1 pound.

      I see 2014 and 2015 very good years for Zagreb and Croatia in general, 2009-2013 was band to be bad period for most of Europe, its a Europe-wide recession not seen since great depression of 2029-2034.

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    3. Anonymous23:56

      Ups I mean 1929-1934, lol, I ain't no futurologist, honestly.

      Delete
  9. Anonymous11:42

    I guess you are one of those you are trying to belittle. If you paid close attention Air France is not axeing Belgrade they are merely suspending it until 2014. That is why they are going to be leaving their office open.
    On the other hand Belgrade's growth in 2012 has been 10%, what about your precious ZAG? Serbs have a lot to be proud of BEG, something we can't really say about people in ZAG.

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  10. Anonymous12:10

    Which Serbs? That one from Belgrade? You are so centralised country, I was in the south part of Serbia and they are living as if it is 19th century.. Belgrad this, Belgrad that, who fuck the rest.. Same was in Yugoslavia, all the money from the tourism in Dalmatia was sent to built Beograd.. That is the reason why it happened, and you didn't learn anything from that.

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    1. Anonymous15:06

      AHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH!!! Riiiiiight, becuase it wasn't the Serbian money who industrialized Croatia. All the industry just fell from the sky.

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    2. Anonymous15:22

      That is the stupiest thing I ever heard!

      Delete
    3. Anonymous17:51

      Which Serbian money? Look now when Croatia and Serbia are independent where are better salaries? Average salary in Serbia 350 Euros, in Croatia 700 Euros.. In ex Yu Slovenija was always 1. in economy and the best place to live, but Croatia was 2... Serbia was far down before and now even more without money from ex Yu republics.

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    4. Anonymous17:57

      Perfectly put and so true, but dont expect Serbs to take the truth that well. You may set off a bloodbath

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    5. Anonymous22:51

      Croatia was several times richer than Serbia when we enter into Kingdom SHS. Unlike Serbia, which was poor Turkish province, Croatia was rich part of the highly developed Austro-Hungarian Empire. Of course that makes Croatia in better possition for develop in Yugoslavia.

      Delete
  11. Anonymous12:33

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  12. Anonymous13:06

    If Serbia would have the rest of its airports with at least a few flights per day, Belgrade would not be this busy. Seems that Serbia builds airports but won't go after the traffic ie Nis, Kraljevo. The airports are there now they hope someone will just come and knock on the door. Once JAT collapses ( no one seems interested in JAT either ie fleet modenization),so will the traffic..

    As for Zagreb, the modest increase in passenger traffic 0.8 % compared to the decline in arr/dep of 14.8 % only helped the airlines in that the load factors were better than last year. Still a good sign.

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  13. Anonymous14:31

    So, you're suggesting the Admin should rename the topic into "Great year for Zagreb due to 1% growth and 15% in flights decrease?". I'm sure the Admin must be a Serb because he dared to say something negative about Zagreb.

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    1. Anonymous15:00

      I am absolutely NOT suggesting that at all. More flights are going directly to the Coastal Airports which in turn means less transit passengers at Zagreb. If you are a person who use to live in say Split, and there are direct flights to Split, I am sure that person would chose to fly direclty rather than transfer.

      Delete
  14. Anonymous15:25

    Guys, you should stop comaring Serbia and Croatia - both are devloping countries and both are highly centralized. However, Croatia is a tourist powerhouse, something Serbia simply will never be, as Croatia has the most beautiful coastal line in Europe, and that's a fact, nothing to argue about.

    But this is the reason why SPU, ZAD, DBV, RIJ and PUY are recording significant pax numbers and absolutely nothing else. Just take a look at SPU numbers in February. That's the most a Serbian regional airport (say INI) could expect in high season, as there is no and there will never be high demand from tourists and foreign pax.

    Sure, locals in SPU and DBV profit from it as they get direct flights, but if there wasn't for tourists, and a huge number of tourists that is, these flights would never happen. Simple as that.

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  15. Anonymous16:20

    Yes,aviation in Croatia depends on foreign tourists.
    But someone raised the question about Jat-
    fleet problems.
    What happens when Jat planes get grounded because of security reasons?
    EU could ban Jat from entering airports in EU like they did with Garuda because of bad state of aircraft?
    We all know this day will come...
    this problem will not go by sitting around and doing nothing !
    And without Jat,BEG will fall really deep and hard!
    So its very possible for ZAG to become Nr.One in the next years ...
    even with only 2.7million pax a year !

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    1. Anonymous00:12

      I doubt the EU would ban JAT from flying, I also think its not a race thing, who's got higher numbers, its a long term thing, currently Zagrbe airport is rather small and current terminal is rather basic and built to handle max 3 million pax, with a new terminal things will change dramatically for Croatia and Zagreb, also Air France will play significant role in Croatia's I mean Zagreb's future, only question is will Croatian Airlines try to somehow stall Air France
      's arrival.The company that owns Zagreb airport is close with Air France and they normally have deals on all airports they own with Air France.

      Another return quite soon to Zagreb Airport might be SAS, KLM and Finnair, as early as 2014 I think you'll see Zagreb Airport picking significant traffic, and 2015 with completion of new terminal things will take off really fast. I think Zagreb Airport could reach 5.75 million pax by 2020 or even 7 million pax if things take off really as I predict they might.

      Dubrovnik and Split Airports will also do well, but I do not see them exceeding 2.5/3.0 million pax by 2020.

      Ljubljana Airport might hit 3.2 million and Belgrade Airport 6.5 million pax.

      Sarajevo might reach 1.5 million pax and Skopje 2.5 million pax.

      This is what I predict.

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  16. Anonymous16:31

    Beg will fall apart with Jat grounded,the only thing to do is to pursue wizzair to become the carrier of Serbia....only hope Obi wan

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  17. Anonymous16:44

    EL AL starts to fly Tel Aviv - Zagreb - Tel Aviv every tuesday on flight number LY5181/82

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    1. Zagreb service operated by israeli carriers has been going on for some 5-6 years. Until year or so ago it had been operated by charter airline Sun d'Or on B757, and then it was taken over, always tuesdays, by EL-AL, using B757/B767 equipment, sometimes non-stop, sometimes via Bratislava. So one can hardly say El-AL starts flying to ZAG. And just to remind you that EL-AL used to fly to ZAG, not to BEG even during Yugoslavian times, as well as Air Canada (B767/L15 to/from) Toronto did, and ex-PAN-AM nonstop on A310 to/from JFK, compared to one-stop with eqipment change on BEG flights. Just to remind you as well, that KoreanAir operates charters from/to ZAG on B777, Malaysian used to operate ZAG to KUL vv, QR came to ZAG first, not to BEG, and with higher frequency, ZAG is served by Iberia seasonally, TAP all-year-round, Air France is not withdrowing from ZAG as is the case with BEG, at least temporarily, British Airways starts daily LHR in a month, and so on and so on. So, please, don't reffer to ZAG as to the "second league" compared to BEG, because they are in the same league, and with the new government in Serbia, everything that is happening during last days, and announcement of possible reintroduction of EU visas, HR about simultaneously joining EU, I definitely wouldn't say that prospectives for ZAG are not bright. On the contrary...

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    2. Anonymous23:54

      pozdrav iz Rijeke, until now i didn't notice that you was such a moron.

      Delete
  18. Anonymous17:12

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  19. Anonymous17:30

    ZAG figures will increase dramatically with no doubt starting 2014. BEG will also continue the growth but will not maintain these figures in 1-2 years due to the fact that currently there is a high emigration percentage in the country unlike Croatia.

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    1. Anonymous17:42

      Are you kidding? Again with the "high emigration percentage"? Just how many people do you think is emigrating? Millions? We are talking about 3.5 million pax per year (that's half of the country's entire population), so the emigration rate would have to be HUGE in order to impact airline pax numbers in any way.

      Plus, I would argue that emigrants actually increase demand, as they want to visit their homeland, relatives and friends. It is highly unlikely that FQTs would suddenly leave the country.

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    2. Anonymous17:47

      http://aerocroatia.blogspot.com/2012/10/novi-tip-zrakoplova-na-aeroflotovoj.html?spref=fb

      Stiže nam Superjet 100 u Zagreb :)

      Delete
    3. Anonymous23:58

      I'm happy for ZAG if they're happy with Suhoi, honestly. I would rather stick to the Airbus, I don't even like the idea that Jat is looking into SJ100s...

      To quote an illustrious FT member, "if it ain't Airbus, I ain't going" :)

      Delete
    4. Anonymous00:01

      Stize jos manji avion i to samo 4 puta nedeljno... Zagreb je tako vazan, za malo da nisu poslali AN-148...

      Delete
  20. Anonymous20:06

    The western empire crippled Yugoslavia in order to create centralized banks and profit from all countries but that's a separate topic.... Beograd has overachieved the passed few years in my eyes...

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  21. Anonymous21:30

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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