Zagreb to scale down terminal project
Zagreb Airport’s new terminal will be smaller than originally planned and will be missing several key components from the original design project, the head of Zagreb’s City Assembly, Darinko Kosor, said at a press conference in the Croatian capital yesterday. Mr. Kosor criticised Zagreb Airport International Company (ZAIC), a primarily French led consortium, which runs Zagreb Airport. According to Mr. Kosor, the planned new terminal building will be significantly smaller than originally planned. It will not feature a curved glass roof and will not have an underground baggage processing area as intended by the initial design. Mr. Kosor says that ZAIC allegedly justified these measures by claiming the airport will see a passenger decline in the coming period. Under the recently signed concession agreement, the operator of Zagreb Airport is obliged to boost passenger numbers compared to previous years and has estimated growth of 8% in 2014.
Mr. Kosor also criticised the airport’s operator for hiking passenger taxes. On March 5, the airport increased its security tax from three to 6.5 euros. Starting March 30, passengers travelling on international flights out of Zagreb will pay a 15 euro tax instead of the current ten euros while travellers on domestic flights will be charged seven euros on tax instead of four. “They are mocking Croatia because the concessionaire has transferred its fees onto passengers in order to finance construction work”, Mr. Kosor said.
In addition, the head of Zagreb’s City Assembly claims the airport is putting pressure on Croatia Airlines by increasing its costs and competition which will, in turn, lower the airline’s value. ZAIC has not responded to the allegations made by Mr. Kosor. Preparation work on the future site of Zagreb Airport’s new terminal has been ongoing over the last few months with construction set to begin this spring and scheduled for completion in 2016. This autumn, work will also begin on the upgrade and reconstruction of the current terminal building, to be carried out during night time so as not to affect passengers and traffic at the airport. The upgrades will include the expansion of the duty free area and lounges.
That is way too big for zagrab.
ReplyDeleteWhats too big for Zagreb??
DeleteAnything more than 8 air-bridges is too big for Zagreb while fancy buildings are too expensive.
Delete@AnonymousMarch 11, 2014 at 1:24 PM
DeleteU've never been to Zagreb, how da fuck you know what's good for Zagreb, first go to Croatian Embassy, apply for Croatian visa and visit Zagreb, than stay in Zagreb for 3-4 days, go around the city and explore it, and if you hate it, and I know you'll hate it, but suppose you like it you'll understand Zagreb isn't a small city, in fact area wise its larger than Belgrade, has more to offer and is becoming rightfully so a major tourist destination and a city year round destination.
For good reasons!
U as a Serb might hate Croatia, and that is fine, but most Europeans love Croatia, in fact Croatia is top 8 foreign travellers destination in Europe, soon to be top 5 as things go.
Foreign travellers, means only foreign travellers count in overall tourist numbers, no domestic tourists included, as places such as Turkey, Greece, Portugal, Germany, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, the UK,... have large domestic tourist segment in some cases 70% of the market share are domestic travellers.
In Croatia's case its only 11.5%, foreign tourist account for 88.5%.
@AnonymousMarch 11, 2014 at 1:24 PM
DeleteOh btw, just in case, you do need a visa to enter Croatia,
U need to prove to have means to remain in Croatia for what ever period you plan to visit Croatia, normally $150 per day of stay + return ticket and hotel booking, if you fail to provide these and you're turned at the border you won't be able to enter the EU or apply for EU visa for minimum of 1 year (entire EU) or duration of your passport, if you get a massive X on your entry stamp.
Yep,so apply for visa and make sure you have enough funds for your 1 week stay in Zagreb, and we appreciate your money. ;)
Wow... it seems to me that you are still stuck in the period of Tudjamnism and the 1990s if you believe Serbs still need visas to enter Croatia. lol
Delete@Anonymous March 12, 2014 at 4:59 AM
DeleteAre you on mushrooms?
I rarely comment but WOW this (Anonymous 5am) is bloody brilliant! Mate, where did you buy that time machine?
DeleteCroatia is in the EU, must apply EU norms, and you think you can waltz in to Croatia without proper documents and valid reasons you got another thing coming.
DeleteHilarious...LOL...
DeleteAs a matter of fact, i have a French passport and therefore do not need a visa to enter Zagreb, as far as i know (so do Serbian citizens). So let me share with you my first-hand experience of the place you praise so much. Let's get real: Zagreb is a small-time, nothing-to-do provincial city. We've visited it with my girlfriend from South America and therefore not involved in any way with Ex-Yu problems and stories. For her we had to get a visa though at the embassy and the process was hilarious, the staff were complexed and arrogant, speaking with a forced German accent. On arrival - the airport was tiny, like a mail-handling facility at any medium-sized airport. When we arrived at Trg Bana Jelacica she couldn't believe it was actually the main square so tiny it was! Few hours was enough to visit Zagreb, we went around by rented car. Another impression of ours was that people were artificially trying to mimic Germans and do everything like them. Obviously, they're not successful at it. As for your comparison with Belgrade, please get real. Belgrade is much larger than Zagreb, no matter how far the villages around Zagreb stretch. It is an essentially different type of a city, a European 2 million city-capital, that i advise you to visit. Since you're so fond of advising others to visit Zagreb (what we already did, multiple times in my case), i guess you should take back your own advice and get a real peace of comparison. Hopefully afterwards you'll wake up from your somnambulist-state and stop writing BS together with other things you spread that i recognize by your 'style' of writing or the absence of it.
Delete+1
Deletesounds more like barking lol
"has more to offer and is becoming rightfully so a major tourist destination and a city year round destination."
DeleteI guess that's why people from both Zagreb and Slovenia flood Belgrade on New Year's eve ;)
Have sweet dreams.
@Anonymous March 12, 2014 at 4:59 AM
Delete(I rarely comment - but this really deserves one.)
I am afraid you have it exactly backwards - in 21st century, it is up to any country, especially one that considers itself a tourist destination, to attract visitors, not vice versa. Making a tourist uncomfortable is therefore not a good idea - they will just go spend their money elsewhere.
Good news is that people who actually earn their living in Croatia from tourism get it - I was in Dubrovnik last May with friends, with a variety of passports (Serbian, French, US), and everybody was doing their utmost to make us feel comfortable, so we would spend money and come back. That includes the border officials, who immediately switched into friendly banter in Croatian/Serbian upon noticing Serbian passports; the only problem, in fact, was with my (US) passport, because the scanner they had could not read the RFID tags, so they had to manually process it (they were VERY apologetic about it). Average time to process a Serbian passport was about five seconds.
For the record, I have traveled extensively in the past few years, and the only time I was asked about the purpose of my visit was in Zurich - and let me put it this way: I did not consider that a welcoming gesture! As for having enough money, really - in the age of credit cards, I do not know ANY place that requires that.
Finally, congratulations to Croatia and Croats on entering EU - with hope that the rest of ex-YU will join soon. But it is worth pointing out that Europe, EU, is based on free traffic of people and money and goods - thus your post is very anti-EU in its tone. Along the lines of the old proverb, 'you can take the man out of the trailer park, but you can't take the trailer park of the girl' - I have to say: Croatia is in EU/Europe, but you, my dear friend, have a looong way to go.
The entire concession has been a big dissapointment
ReplyDeleteThe worst thing is that the former operator Zracna Luka Zagreb continues to exist. It had only a few employees (CEO and board of direcors) and all are paid salaries fro doing absolutely nothing!
ReplyDeleteETIHAD Expands Air Serbia Codeshare Service from late-March 2014
ReplyDeleteby JL
Update at 0500GMT 11MAR14
ETIHAD from 30MAR14 will be gradually expanding codeshare operation with Air Serbia once again, which sees additional 9 routes operated by the latter displaying EY-coded flight numbers. Planned new codeshare routes as follow. The number of Air Serbia routes carrying EY code will be expanded to 23 by June 2014.
Belgrade – Amsterdam
Belgrade – Athens
Belgrade – Budapest
Belgrade – Copenhagen
Belgrade – Kiev Borispol
Belgrade – London Heathrow
Belgrade – Sofia
Belgrade – Thessaloniki
Belgrade – Warsaw
http://airlineroute.net/2014/03/11/eyju-codeshare-s14/
superb news...
DeleteWhen are they going to start a codeshare on JU's Abu Dhabi flight?
DeleteJU has the EY code on their Abu Dhabi flights. EY has the JU as well as the VA (Virgin Australia) codes on their Beograd flights.
DeleteI must laugh when Mr. Kosor says that with the business plan of current airport management it is causing Croatia Airlines value getting lower by the day . NO Mr. Kosor this is thanks to it's own Ceo Mr.Kucko. stop blaming third parties or is this typical Croatian.
ReplyDeleteSo how small is that airport terminal gonna be? Somehow I expected it but still disappointment is here.
ReplyDeleteGood thanks we have JU BEG, SKP and PRN. At least some progress to enjoy :-)
Same size, All according to design plans, only things where new operator was cutting the costs were number of bridges from 12 down to initial 8 and now revised 10.
DeleteGovernment can still step in and demand all contracts to be honoured of they can terminate this contract and still be with in legal rights. We need to wait and see designs or any alterations to it before making assumption.
No, it's not. Read the article. It's gonna have 8 air-bridges max if not less. You can also count the number of air-bridges on the pic.
DeleteLet's hope they don't downsize it further.
Delete@AnonymousMarch 11, 2014 at 1:21 PM
DeleteWhat are you talking about, 8 is a proposal ZAIC came with, OU demanded 10, 2 extra, to which ZAIC agreed, as to this article its just what was posted yesterday in Croatian newspapers I've seen the pics of the original design proposed by ZAIC which was turned down by minister of transport and delays in signing of the contract.
There are some truths to what Darinko Kosor is saying, but there are clear stipulation in contract, what needs to be built and by what date from start of construction, Croatian government can still take over entire project if it deems current operator braking agreed terms.
ZAIC did remove underground garage as part of the deal, not the luggage sorting facility, they deemed that having an underground garage would be too costly to maintain due to underground water table, so they'd have to install water pumps and extra power units to deal with that, instead a multistory car park will be built across the road from new terminal, at first only 1200 cars, but with plans to expand it 3000 cars as terminal grows.
However, underground luggage sorting facility remains, it'll be only one level under terminal not 2 levels as original plans envisaged, car park was meant to be 1 level under luggage sorting facility or around 14.4m underneath terminal. Terminal in fact will be built entirely above ground due to water table issue and light metro/tram station will be adjusted accordingly, in original plan it was meant to be 22m underground, new plans it'll be around 8m underground avoiding water table by 7-8m,
Poslovni had more extensive article.
http://www.poslovni.hr/hrvatska/uprava-mzlz-a-informacije-o-radovima-na-novom-putnickom-terminalu-smatramo-nepotpunima-266121?utm_campaign=Partnerski+portali&utm_medium=Widget&utm_source=Vecernji
Here is a proposed terminal by ZAIC under phase 1, was rejected by Ministry of Transport btw. New Terminal will be built according to original architect's drawings with 2 underground levels removed due to underground water table being very high and risk of flooding during flood season (November to late March), costs associated with keeping underground garage flood free are too high for investment to work out in a long term.
http://danas.net.hr/2013/12/27/0440007.48.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/pGrCTah.jpg
Vecernji list article in full.
Deletehttp://www.vecernji.hr/zg-vijesti/novi-terminal-bez-staklenog-krova-i-dijela-za-prtljagu-926099
Works are under way as we speak, with old terminal getting $4 million investment starting this month, all the ground works should be finished by late April with official laying the cornerstone in late April or early May. With photos from groundwork I'm sure freely and readily available from there on the internet.
Are these lies making you feel better?
DeleteYou do understand that nothing special is gonna come out of it, do you?
DeleteThanks man. Appreciated!
ReplyDeleteSomething sounds fishy about it..Why wait for the Spring when Ex Yu had a mind Winter. I bet there is more to come on this fiasco.
ReplyDeleteIt seems so,
DeleteNo snow in Zagreb for over a month and has any real work begun yet?
The next excuse for the delay would probably be that they need time to finalise the new architectural plans.
I hope I'm wrong.
Q400, you're wrong, works have been under way for sometimes now, loads of ground works have been done, was at the site last week, only time they didn't do much of anything was when flood warring was up and mid feb when there was a bit of snow.
DeleteTook some pictures with my Nokia 800 but its a mobile phone not a camera so I didn't bother to post them online, poor picture quality, but if you have a car, if you drive on a road to petina from selnica you can see all the works, when i was there, they already started to clear the forest and all the buildings where torn down, this was on March 8th. U should go and check it out at the weekend, should be sunny and good for a nice walk, if you have time take some pictures, but bring your best camera, I'll go there again in early April, might bring my camera along to take some better pictures.
"Zagreb will pay a 15 euro tax instead of the current ten euros while travellers on domestic flights will be charged seven euros on tax instead of four. “They are mocking Croatia because the concessionaire has transferred its fees onto passengers in order to finance construction work”
ReplyDeleteHahaha, let's hear them now about how bad the Etihad deal was, hahaha...
U're a moron, pathetic hater and a troll. No Croat gores around posting shit about Air Serbia, but as soon as some news about Croatia come, you and other bunch of Serb nationalist scum comes waltzing in with hate, you should just kill yourself for this is all you're useful for.
DeleteThat is really pathetic... what Etihad deal has to do with ZAIC? Mentality! Mentality!!!!
DeleteIt has nothing to do with the new concessionaire, or with the Etihad deal, or with new terminal, or EU, or whatever.
DeleteThe issue is the following : Police is not in charge of security control at the airport any more. Like in all normal countries, security officers are taking over security checks. Police was paid by the state. Private security companies are not paid by the state, but by the company they work for, and it's Zagreb Airport.
The airport is charging those who are checked.
Which part of the "SECURITY TAX increase" is so difficult to understand?
Concerning Darinko Kosor, and the entitr topic today : Kosor is a POLITICIAN, from the opposition, and whole article is about his opinion, without a single proof for his statements. I wonder how many OPINIONS of oposition politicians in Serbia who were talking critically about Air Serbia, and there are plenty, were published here? NONE.
That much about the same criteria of bad and good news from entire ex-Yu published here !
Very true, but nothing new. It"s a fact that the blog is mostly visited by Serbs.
DeleteKosor is politician, but in this case he is protecting Zagreb property! Zagreb is 25% owner of ZLZ. So it is his obligation! Thank god he is doing that.
DeleteHow it can be that after several official appeals Zagreb as 25% owner of ZLZ can not get 2nd annexes of contract which are questionable? I can not agree that contract is secret, but to make it secret from owner????
Concerning police in ZLZ. It is still there. And police will be in Zagreb airport for security reason like in every airport. But they will not make body check. Now, is that really cost 15 EUR per passenger? For 3 minutes (that is ZAIC published calculation) they will charge 15 EUR? Not even 5 years old can believe that!
wait when croatia joins the eu hahahah
ReplyDeleteDarinko Kosor nije nitko drugi nego najobičniji populista iz HSLSa koji pokušava skupiti političke bodove prije izbora u HR, tako da sve ovo njegovo izlaganje treba uzeti sa velikom zadrškom i pustiti koncesionare da odrade svoj posao do kraja.....
ReplyDeletethumbs up - absolutely true. As a matter of a fact, I have been driving around the airport site, and visible signs are there: construction site fence, number of white barracks for the construction personnel (this has been arriving for the past 30 days), a huge 6 km long crater... (sustav odvodnje otpadnih kemikalija)... and at least 1/3. of the woods have been knocked down to make space for the terminal building. bunch of equipment laying around too. Concessionairre had never said they'd start with the construction of the terminal building itself before spring of 2014, but what they did say is that they'll prepare the construction site, which is what they seem to be doing.
DeleteMr. Kosor is a typical duche-type of politician collecting small points...so dissappointing that papers are writing about this...
Petar, are you going to go again, if you do, can you take a camera with you, i am in Nederlands at the moment, and will be back in Zagreb in 3 weeks time, but if you can take some pictures would be nice. My smartphone wasn't made for taking pictures, or is crap at it, or I might be crap it as all the pictures I took came out dark or out of focus.
DeleteThis looks like a disaster year for zagrabanko
ReplyDeleteBy the way, what will happen with OU's fleet in the future? Will they be getting those Embraer birds or did they change their mind?
ReplyDeleteEmbrer birds are only speculation, Kucko boasting, if OU gets new aicraft itll be 4 A319s on order in 2017 and there's a likellyhood of a lease of up to 4 aicraft in summer season, perhaps E195s but only over summer,
DeleteLonger term OU will go for fleet of CS100s/A319/Dash 8s, but notthign before 2017 and nothing before privatisation of the fleet, Kucko can fuck off, odjebati u picku iz koje je dosao, i mose uzeti svinje koje je postavio na fotelje u OU.
Sorry for my little rant, but I hate Kucko and his cohort of thieves.
Untill OU is privatized there'll be little changes for the better OU can be such a profitable airline if it wasn't run by thieves and crooks.
What birds? The one admin made up... Please! This was the only website that mentioned Embraer aeroplanes.
DeleteI see, thanks for the clarification! :)
DeleteImpressive rent seeking capabilities. Bribe a few politicans, get a concenssion on false promises, forget about those promises and then increase the prices to finance the construction project, leaving pure profit for the company. It's like a textbook case of corruption.
ReplyDeleteIs the concession agreement between Croatian Government and French Consortium public? Is it possible to see it, and if yes where?
ReplyDeleteit is public and published online, look on wiki Zagreb airport follow links in reference and just search under ministry of transport. reason why we had media talking about so much is cause the contract has been made public.
DeleteNo, it is not. Most important parts are missing, anex 1 and anex 2 are missing, and those change contract in favor of French. Even Zagreb as 25% owner can not get anex 2. Business was conducted by Minister (Croatia is just 50% owner) and 2nd the biggest owner with 25%, so 1/2 of Croatia ownership can not have anex 2.
DeleteSo it's the same thing as the Serbian deal with FIAT. The contract is public but the most important parts are blackened. lol
DeleteIf Zagreb is still keeping it's old terminal, I do not see why people complain , if the new terminal is somewhat smaller. I thought that I read that the old terminal will strictly be usde for the LLC.
ReplyDeleteyeah old terminal might be used for LCC, there are plans to expand it at one point, add 5700sqm and than perhaps might be possible to use it as a terminal with 3.5 mill pax capacity but strictly for EU/Domestic LCC, no other LCC or flights due to EU Schengen, Croatia will enter Schengen in 2015/16, 15 at the earliest, 16 at the latest. so new terminal will be split on two sections for non-EU and EU travellers as is the case elsewhere, but as old terminal is too small and French are unlikely to invest more than what was agreed (up to around 12 million euros in to expanding old terminal), but this won't happen before new terminal is fully running.
DeleteOld terminal as it is has around 15500sqm, could be slightly more, 17000sqm give a take, not sufficient for major pax traffic, sure it can handle 10 million if need be, but terminal is designed to handle up to 2 million pax, with bit of expansion it can handle around 3.5 million but that is it.
The facts are:
ReplyDelete- There won't be any 'big airport'
- Zagreb won't become any 'transfer hub'
- OU is about to go bankrupt especially under the new conditions
The truth is:
- Flying from Zagreb will get more expensive
- Even less passengers flying from ZAG
- The only new airline arrivals will be mostly LCC (at the expense of OU) with a mini-BUD scenario being very likely
- The terminal will be small and simple in design
- There won't be any 'airport train'
There'll be 8 gates max.
DeleteHow can that be facts? Predictions are not facts!
DeleteAnd let me remind you that most of people predict that Etihad-Jat deal will never happend!
Of course you can predict whatever you want, of course you can colour your prediction subjectivitly with national colour, so it is you wish "nek crkne susjedova krava" but for sure that black scenario will never happend and for sure it is not fact!!!
@AnonymousMarch 12, 2014 at 2:54 AM
Delete+2
Zagreb Airport’s new terminal will be smaller than originally planned and will be missing several key components from the original design project, the head of Zagreb’s City Assembly, Darinko Kosor, said at a press conference in the Croatian capital yesterday. Mr. Kosor criticised Zagreb Airport International Company (ZAIC), a primarily French led consortium, which runs Zagreb Airport. According to Mr. Kosor, the planned new terminal building will be significantly smaller than originally planned. It will not feature a curved glass roof and will not have an underground baggage processing area as intended by the initial design. Mr. Kosor says that ZAIC allegedly justified these measures by claiming the airport will see a passenger decline in the coming period. Under the recently signed concession agreement, the operator of Zagreb Airport is obliged to boost passenger numbers compared to previous years and has estimated growth of 8% in 2014. Mr. Kosor also criticised the airport’s operator for hiking passenger taxes. On March 5, the airport increased its security tax from three to 6.5 euros. Starting March 30, passengers travelling on international flights out of Zagreb will pay a 15 euro tax instead of the current ten euros while travellers on domestic flights will be charged seven euros on tax instead of four. “They are mocking Croatia because the concessionaire has transferred its fees onto passengers in order to finance construction work”, Mr. Kosor said. In addition, the head of Zagreb’s City Assembly claims the airport is putting pressure on Croatia Airlines by increasing
Deleteits costs and competition which will, in turn, lower the airline’s value. ZAIC has not responded to the allegations made by Mr. Kosor.
Can anybody explain why there isn't a flight Belgrade - Zagreb, because of political reasons or anything else? There are flights from Belgrade to all capitals of former Yugoslavia, but except Zagreb, why?
ReplyDeleteNeither Jat/Air Serbia and Belgrade Airport nor Croatia Airlines and Zagreb Airport are big companies/transit airports. Both countries are relatively poor. Both countries are relatively small. Beg airport is tot he west from Belgrade, Zag airport is to the east from Zagreb, road is excellent, most often border is crossed in 5 minutes and total time by car city center to city center is 3-3,5 hours. If it was political, then there would be no flights to other cities in Croatia (SPU,DBV), but it's not, under these conditions there is simply no demand. Probably it will change in the future, and I hope soon!
DeleteThis was discussed here many times. You are probably right, not a lot of P2P demand to justify daily Q400 or ATR flight. On the other hand if JU is seriously after transit pax I wouldn't be surprised to see one in the near future.
DeleteWell, it was reported on here that Zagreb airport was negotiating with Air Serbia/Etihad to get some new flights. If Ljubljana gets a fair share of connecting passengers then I do not see why Zagreb wouldn't too. Especially when it comes to the Balkan market which is currently underserved.
DeleteBut Banja Luka is closer for Belgrade than Zagreb, and people on drive on the same highway to Zagreb and to Banja Luka. But Banja Luka is a small city whith a population of 150 000 people, by comparison Zagreb whith a population of 800 000 people. and there is a flight to Banja Luka from Belgrade and at the same time there isn't flight Belgrade - Zagreb. How is it possible? I can't understand it.
ReplyDelete1. Banja Luka flight is subsidized. Without subventions, Air Serbia would not start that route, I guarantee it.
Delete2. Zagreb is already connected rather well. Besides Belgrade, it is by far the best connected Ex-Yu airport.
3. JU is lacking ATRs to even fly their existing routes. They can't take on another new destination right now.
I think that the potential for the flight BEG - ZAG without subventions is higher than the flight BEG - BNX with subventions. I am right or not? Smaller cities then Zagreb like Skopje, Sarajevo (Skopje by highway too) are connected with a Belgrade, but Zagreb not. And Sarajevo, Skopje aren't very far from Belgrad too. In your comment I see one serios argument that JU is lacking ATR's but Croatia Airlines can use its Dash 8-Q400 for this route or OU also is lacking Dash for existing routes?
Deletenice.!
ReplyDeleteToo high airport tax rates! It's not a good plan to increase that much the taxes, for example: Security tax jumped off from 3 euros to 6.5 euros, that is 100% tax increase, whoah! It is really too high. How about if they will cut 25% on that matter, so then the tax would be 5.75 euro for security tax rate. Well, It is then be a justifiable one if these revenues from collected taxes will be used for the passengers security inside the airport.
ReplyDelete