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| Croatia Airlines prepares for fleet renewal, more flights and fresh capital |
Croatia Airlines is planning for a busy 2016, as it comes out of a four year restructuring process, which has seen the carrier return to profitability but also limit its opportunities for growth. Speaking to EX-YU Aviation News, the airline is up-beat on its future prospects with an expansion of both its network and fleet planned. "The measures of strategic, financial and operational restructuring have been successfully implemented in this last year, with the aim of further increasing the company's competitiveness in the European and global aviation market. At the same time, conditions for profitable and sustainable operations in the future are being created". The airline adds, "Following the completion of the restructuring program, we will be able to freely modify our schedule, with an increase in the number of operations compared to now. To this end, we also plan to redesign the existing fleet, which includes, first and foremost, the introduction of an aircraft to our fleet with a capacity to seat 100 passengers".
PRIVATISATION
The Croatian government is currently in the process of privatising its national carrier. The airline sees this as an opportunity to expand in 2016 as a result of fresh capital and expects for the process to be finalised soon. "As is already known, the government of the Republic of Croatia has launched a recapitalisation process of Croatia Airlines and expects to select a strategic partner in the near future, which would allow the company to perform faster in terms of fleet renewal and expansion of all transport networks", the airline explains.
SUMMER 2015
Croatia Airlines is satisfied with its performance during the current summer season. "Given this year's traffic effects, as well as positive financial indicators, we are satisfied with the continuation of the positive trends that have been recorded for a third year in a row. During the January - August period, Croatia Airlines carried 1% more passengers than in the same period in 2014". The airline expects to see a 3% passenger increase by the end of the year, compared to last. "It is worth mentioning that, as part of the restructuring program, in the spring of 2013, the company had to ground an aircraft (an Airbus A320), and, as a result, has been operating with reduced capacity for a third season", the carrier says. This summer, more than a third of all tourists visiting the country flew with Croatia Airlines. In terms of turnover and revenue, the carrier has positioned itself as the fourth largest exporter in the country.
WINTER 2015/16
With just over a month left until the start of the 2015/16 winter season, the last under its restructuring process, the airline says it will respond adequately to demand and adjust its network to match current passenger needs. "Croatia Airlines operates within a highly seasonal market due to the fact that the majority of the demand is tourism related. During the summer, there are 75% more flights compared to the winter schedule", the carrier says. It adds, "During the winter period, when there is less air traffic, maintenance is carried out on all aircraft in order to sustain fleet reliability during peak season".
COMPETITION
Asked to comment on how it is dealing with increased competition, both from further abroad but also closer to home, Croatia Airlines told EX-YU Aviation News, "Croatia Airlines has been operating under competitive conditions within a strong market since 2005, when the liberalisation of the Croatian aviation market and its opening to EU carriers, particularly to low cost airlines, began. This season, we competed with almost 100 foreign airlines. A average cabin occupancy rate of almost 70%, in combination with our affordable market prices, are key to the company’s profitable operations, and at the same time, a sign that the market recognises the quality of the existing model of such a network carrier, which Croatia Airlines has been developing in collaboration with members of Star Alliance and other partners". It concludes, "It is worth noting that throughout the year, Croatia Airlines connects Croatia to both European destinations, as well as to destinations throughout the entire world, unlike most foreign airlines that fly to Croatia only during the tourist season".
Whst will become with their order with Airbus?
ReplyDeleteThey are still negotiating that but it has been delayed indefinitely. They need cash and will probably wait for a new owner to solve that issue.
DeleteThe 100 seater will surely be an Embraer
ReplyDeleteProbably from MGX
DeleteOr Star-Aliliance partner CLH - they still got 7 E195 and 9 E190 to be replaced by other a/c in 2016. AUA is only taking 17 of their 24 E195.
DeleteWhat is going to replace those E - Jets?
DeleteCRJ900s from the "old" Eurowings
DeleteZamenice ih A320 koliko sam ja cuo ,
DeleteINN-NS
Quite a downgrade from 116 to 86 seats...
DeleteTrue. But as the new EW will become the main LCC daughter of the LHG using A320 family, they are in need of a subdidary that will then be able to serve "thin" routes with appropriate metal.
Delete@last anon: Looking fwd to hear another explanation from you that would actually make sense. (Highly doubt you are capable of that). I am sure for you it makes sense serving little markets such as Rostock, Muenster, Dresden, Friedrichshafen etc. with an all-A320 fleet... Lmfao!!
DeleteHope next year will be better for OU than 2015! Hopefully with a brand new management!
DeleteNext year will be really exciting for Croatia Airlines. Also hope they start flying more in Eastern Europe.
ReplyDeleteNext year they will not exist as the new government will not throw any more cash in that black hole and there will not be any buyers.
DeleteSo it will sure be exciting for the employees to look for jobs in other government agencies, where they can sit and do nothing all days
I hope not to Eastern Europe. That market is doing rather badly at the moment compared to Central and Western Europe, which are also higher yield markets. Just look at the route developments of LO, OS, OK recently.
DeleteIt'll be especially exciting, starting your journey on OU in their brand new lounge at their brand new terminal and then being able to use their brand new wifi product as you fly to Eastern Europe ....
Delete+1
DeleteMay be adding Bucharest, Bratislava, Sofia, Kiev and St. Petersburg...
Which new owner .Nobody will invest in Croatia Airlines with it's current management.
ReplyDeleteCroatia Airlines Privatization Fail
DeleteMoscow is most surely doable at least thrice weekly.
ReplyDeleteWhy Moscow? Its not a short hop, and Croatia does not have great relations to Russia, unlike Serbia and in general countries with cyrillic writing. LH cancelled 12 of 14 routes to Russia the last few years, U2 will stop flying to MOS. Finnair, Austrian, Cathay Pacific, Air Berlin are all scraping routes as well. Etihad stopped their plan to use the 787 to MOS. Huge Transaero carrier went bust, just to be saved by Aeroflot which - without strong government aid - would also be dead by now or 2016. Practically every single airline is at least reducing frequencies. This is just a short selection of what happens on the Russian market. I don't see any reasonable airline to open new routes to Russia (or Ukraine) at the moment.
Delete10:04
DeleteAnon, which relations you are talking about?
Stop mixing politics and money.
Sorry for OT: Adria will take another CRJ700ER from Lufthansa Cityline (D-ACPM c/n 10080). The plane is alreday at LJU. It's on maintenance in Adria Tehnika.
ReplyDeleteAmong people in the OU, there are rumours that Munich-Rijeka will be year-round line and Frankfurt-Dubrovnik will be launched soon. Prague is in talks too.
ReplyDeleteIt seems a bit too ealy to speculate about new routes in 2016 as long as it is unclear what happens to the fleet. Will 100-seaters be added as additional machines - or will they only replace 1:1 the larger A319/A320 - and/or a few smaller Q8-400s as well?
Deleteyou can add them to the fleet and
Delete"replace" 32X at the end of the summer season 2016.
For summer season 2017 you could lease 320s on short term basis and so on.
Does anyone know why has AirSerbia increased prices extremely on e.g. Belgrade - Vienna route? E.g. The whole October, 2 day trip 31000 and more RSD.
ReplyDeleteAnd this has been followed 1:1 by Austrian which is a clean sign of duopol on route.
DeletePrices over 30,000 come up only with 1 or 2-day trips. That's three day / Saturday night rule working for you. Try a longer trip, or stay for the weekend, this way revenue management targets you as a potential business customer who looks for a flexible schedule, rather than an affordable ticket.
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DeleteYes, clear, until 7 days ago I could buy a 1 day return ticket for 24-27000rsd every time a week in advance. I fly ever 2 weeks and this just makes me stop being a frequent flyer (Silver) - will start driving ( which costs me around 19000rsd there and back all inclusive).
DeleteThe only other possibility is that I will think of buying 2 tickets, 1 from Beg other from Vie and combine them for my 2 week trips.
Kad nece Wizz da otvori Bratislava Beograd liniju.
Delete@niko
DeleteSome airlines actually state explicitly in their T&Cs that such practice is forbidden - AZ for example. I don't know about JU, though. I did it twice with FCO flights back when they had two dailies and it worked like a charm, but I would go through T&Cs just to make sure...
W6 nje ljeti Bratislavu.
DeleteThere is only one direction where Croatia Airlines is going-to.
ReplyDeletehttp://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ot2LqehBUQk/Ve6JiJpz2wI/AAAAAAAATOc/Vo8_NU8Dtlo/s1600/3%2B%25281%2529.jpg
Want to know how JU will end soon: http://blog.seattlepi.com/aerospace/files/library/etihad.jpg ;))
DeleteIs that jet back in the fleet?
DeleteThe jet was written-off, it's a training center for Virgin Atlantic.
DeleteJust call them Serbs ;)
DeleteWhy aren't they starting flights to North America?
ReplyDeleteSerbia with a lot less tourism than Croatia will be linking BEG with USA and Canada soon.
LH.
DeleteThose flight won't last long anyway, the LF will be terrible
Deletewhen Air Serbia?
DeleteGreece has even more tourism than Croatia and yet they don't have scheduled flights to North America. Those flights only make sense in the summer season which further means they are suitable for seasonal carriers or charters rather than legacy carriers such as OU.
DeleteKako da ne.
DeleteAir Serbia will be using transfer passengers from all the Balkan states, Eastern Europe and Middle East to fill its flights to North America.
DeleteNo need for other airlines in the ex-Yu or the rest of the Balkans doing the same.
Greece and Croatia might not have those direct flights to USA or Canada but LOT does and they are always 80-95% LF, so what is your point when saying that Serbia is not tourist destination? Is Poland a tourist spot? Remember some days LO flys 2x YYZ
DeleteIs Poland a tourist spot? 16 million tourists in 2014, what do you think?
DeleteBeautiful Serbia will become a bigger tourist spot than Poland with North American flights!
DeleteSerbia will using transfer passengers from all Balkans states and Eastern Europe and Middle East to fly to USA...
DeleteAnd Aegean can not use those passengers? As far as I know they have much more routes to connect. But still they don't fly to USA. Not to mention much bigger nations with much more passengers, much more tourists... that don't have connection to USA.
Those flights from BEG to USA is nothing but political. It does not have any business logic!!!!
ASL will be getting transfer passengers to US from all the universe LOL
DeleteIt is interesting to read in the above narrative, of OU's aim "of further increasing the company's competitiveness in the European and global aviation market". Network aside, which is not so easy to recalibrate, especially when you have a small fleet and are then feeding into the LH Group's key hubs; about the only way left for the airline in which to truly increase its "competitiveness in the European market", is to innovate its products and services, to differentiate itself from its competitors.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading what Air Serbia and Adria plan to do with wifi options on board, what is Croatia Airlines planning on doing ? No word whatsoever on this. Also, no word on what innovations it will implement in the brand new terminal currently being built.
Will they have self service kiosk checkin, self baggage drop etc etc ? What about a dedicated business class lounge ?
These customer service initiatives are how you increase your European competitiveness ....
Yet, complete silence in regards to these areas ....
maybe they need someone like vucic in there pr campaign
DeleteNot even his spin doctoring would help .... they need action and concrete plans - BIG TIME !
DeleteJust when you hope the news feed on OU will help this blog achieve one single day without anti-Vucic political activism, comes the Anon 11:53 to fix that and kill the hope...
Deleteit is extremely disappointing to read no new product developments/enhancements from OU. Seems that they have not used this forced period of consolidation wisely at all..... This reflects very poorly on their management. Meanwhile, regional rivals - Adria and Air Serbia - continue to move forward, while OU goes into reverse
ReplyDeleteThey are in urgent need of new management, or else, this period of opportunity will pass them by
DeleteZAG-DUS; ZAG-BER and SPU-VIE year-round would seem to make sense. So does the above mentioned FRA-DBV service.
ReplyDeleteFor year-round MUC-RJK and ZAG-PRG I am rather sceptical, could perhaps work if they'd e.g. use a W-scheme for RJK: ZAGMUCRJKMUCZAG with a Dash8-400.
But there are not too many other routes that immediately come to my mind in terms of making sense, meaning most likely being economically viable.
Kompanija nece naci kupca to sam vise puta rekao i trenutno j bez vizije sto je steta zbog potencijala na moru .
ReplyDeleteINN-NS
Kompanija će imati bolju reputaciju od Srbije svakako, jer je kompanija koju je napravila država, dok su ASL napravili arapi
DeleteImace sigurno sa sve ekonomskoom klasom i bez wi fi i to samo do Star hubova ;)
DeleteA sad ste vi bolji kao od Arapa dobar vam je vic.
INN-NS
7:11 aj još jednom pročitaj šta si napisao majke ti???? Kakvu bre reputaciju???
DeleteOU је пре свега направила Немачка а JU је направила Србија давне 1927-е пре него што су арапи уопште почели да лете.
DeleteИсту ону JU која је направила дугове од више стотина милиона еура током година?
DeleteО каквом бре wi fi-у причате? На ком авиону се он користи.
JU је направљена уз помоћ српског капитала, али ASL или Air Serabia су направили арапи.
OT: Turkish A330-300 TC-JOE at LWSK :)
ReplyDeleteOT - zasto niko iz regiona ozbiljno ne razmatra CS100/200/300 flotu. pretpostavljam da bi prvi kupci mogli racunati na povoljnije uslove kupovine. bila bi to prilika i za mro da postanu regionalni centar za odrzavanje ovih letelica,
ReplyDeleteZato sto kao i sa novim modelom kola - svi cekaju da prodje jedna serija da se uvere da dobijaju stvarno ono sto placaju - 787 je tipican uzor toga. Embraer je tu daleko iskusniji i ima dosta dobre proizvode - E2 ce biti stvarno odlicna letelica.
Deleteto bi resilo dosta JU problema. fleksibilnost u izboru posade, zamenu starih B737 i nesto mladjih A319/320 sa novim CS200/300 i konacno zamenu profitabilnih ali za imidz losih ATR 72 sa CS100. sansa i za jat tehniku itd
DeleteEvo ja cu da narucim CS 200 i servisiracu je u JAT tehnici
DeleteTipicna lupetanja za ovaj blog Embraer iskusniji od Boinga, menjane turbopropova idealnih za low yield market za jetove, menjanje masine od 144 mesta za manje za cartere a kukali ste na Aviolet jer uzima pare Turcima i ima male avione.
DeleteOt- авијакита.рс пише да им је шеф Ер Канаде рекао да нема шансе да лете за Београд, јер немају локалног партнера који ће им пунити авионе. Па сад најавише Праг и Будимпешту, ког локалног партнера тамо имају? Не знам да ли је авијатика лоше превела или им то човек уопште није рекао, али овако како је написано нема резона.
ReplyDeleteBelgrade isn't in the same league as Prague and Budapest.
DeleteThe purpose of those big airlines is simply to make money and they make the most by routing all BEG-North America traffic through large European hubs.
Whatever reason the CEO of Air Canada gives as why AC doesn't fly to BEG is just PR.
Vrlo je jasna izjava. lepo kaze čovek da im treba parter tamo gde nema tražnje. ja to shvatam da im je neisplativo da avione na toj ruti pune samo putnicima iz Beograda, jer njih ocigledno nema dovoljno. To je sasvim razlicito od Praga i Budimpeste. Tamo ima putnika, pa im nije potreban regionalni partner
DeletePrag i Budimpesta su imali putnike za Kanadu, CSA sa A310 a Malev sa 767, i obe avio kompanije su imale svoje regionalne letove koje su punile te rute, pa su ipak obe linije propale.
Delete