Swiss International Air Lines will suspend services between Zurich and Zagreb just over a year after launching operations on the route. The development comes days after the carrier confirmed it was also discontinuing flights from Zurich to Sarajevo, Istanbul and Izmir this winter. Swiss will operate its last service to the Croatian capital on Friday, October 28. Currently, it maintains four weekly flights between the two cities, which are codeshared by Croatia Airlines. In return, the carrier also codeshares on Croatia Airlines' flights between Zagreb and Zurich. Swiss says it is uncertain whether the route will resume next summer and run on a seasonal basis. A decision concerning its summer operations for next year will be made at the start of 2017.
Swiss' move to terminate flights to Zagreb will be welcomed by Croatia Airlines which will retain its monopoly on the route. The carrier will run double daily flights between the two cities throughout the winter. Croatia is Switzerland's second largest trading partner in Southeast Europe and is popular with Swiss tourists. Furthermore, Switzerland boasts a large Croatian diaspora. In 2015, a total of 154.717 passengers travelled between Zurich and Croatia on 2.489 flights. As a result, it was Switzerland's third largest former Yugoslav market following Serbia and Kosovo. Belgrade, Skopje and Pristina will remain the only cities in the former Yugoslavia still served by Swiss on a year-long basis, following the Zagreb suspension. Earlier this year, the carrier terminated services from Zurich to Ljubljana, as well as from Geneva to Sarajevo and Belgrade. Furthermore, its subsidiary Edelweiss Air has cancelled flights from Zurich to Podgorica.
Zurich - EX-YU passenger numbers (all airlines), 2015
| Market | PAX | No. of flights |
|---|---|---|
| Serbia | 328.884 | 2.654 |
| Kosovo | 260.536 | 1.818 |
| Croatia | 154.717 | 2.489 |
| Macedonia | 148.828 | 1.140 |
| Slovenia | 122.627 | 2.196 |
| Montenegro | 29.550 | 432 |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | 20.526 | 324 |
Despite the suspension, Zagreb Airport has welcomed three new carriers so far this year with LOT Polish Airlines from Warsaw, ČSA Czech Airlines from Prague and Air Transat from Toronto introducing services to the Croatian capital during the first half of 2016. Meanwhile, Beijing Capital Airlines has announced its plans to start flights to Zagreb next June. The General Manager of Zagreb Airport, Jacques Feron, recently said, "We are currently in talks with a number of airlines to introduce new routes, which is one of the ways we are preparing to transition into a new phase of our business operations, which will begin with the opening of our new terminal in March 2017".
What the hell is going on with SWISS?
ReplyDeleteThe Lufthansa effect.
DeleteSame happened with Austrian when Lufthansa took over. They cut a lot of routes and usually the new ones are the first to go especially if they are not performing well.
DeleteThe only thing is that these routes were introduced after LH tookover.
DeleteSwiss(Edelweiss in this case)is increasing Skopje in the winter season to 6 weekly
DeleteGood news for SKP.
DeleteWell, they could be back once more C-series arrive.
DeleteSwiss has expedited the phase out of the Avro RJ100 and consequently has to cut some Avro routes as CS100 will not all arrive in time to replace the RJs on a 1 to 1 basis.
DeleteSwiss is coming back in March 2017. They're just cutting winter.
DeleteThis is old news, at lest 3 weeks now.
^ I have not read this anywhere else. In fact I googled it and can't find this anywhere not even 3 weeks ago. Your assumption that they are coming back, presented as fact, is false. Read the text. They have not decided on that and will decide early next year.
DeleteSays a lot about the market if Swiss can't make it work from Zurich to a capital of an EU member state 3x per week throughout the year
Don't be so lazy, just open the airline's web page and book the flight anytime after April.
DeleteDon't be arrogant and realise that sales will be terminated in the next few days. They did the same with other cities they are suspending.
DeleteAnd no I'm not lazy at all. I took the time to search where was this piece of news published before, three weeks back. Could not find it.
FYI guys they did the same with Geneva-Belgrade. They left tickets on sale for over 2 months even though it was announced they were ditching the route. I guess they do this until a formal decision is made for the following year.
Delete"...Says a lot about the market if Swiss can't make it work from Zurich to a capital of an EU member state 3x per week throughout the year."
DeleteOU is doing a great job on their route to Zurich, twice a day.
wow at the travel volume between Zurich and ex-Yu. That's over 1 million passengers per year,
ReplyDeleteLike someone said before, couldn't they have tried these routes with Edelweiss instead?
ReplyDeleteI'm quite surprised at how badly they performed on all these ex-Yu routes seeing as their ticket prices are generally low (usually lower than the competition) and they have good transfer options.
ReplyDeleteThey probably waited a year to use up incentives for new carriers offered by Zagreb Airport and then packed up and left.
DeleteOn a much more positive note, today Wizz Air launches Memmingen and Eindhoven to Nis flights. :)
ReplyDeleteOld news
DeleteHow is it old news that first flight arrived this morning? o__O
DeleteMus be celebrating over at OU :D
ReplyDelete* Must
DeleteSjekira u med za OU.
DeleteSo, Macedonia has 6k fewer pax than Croatia, but also 1400 fewer number of flights? I guess, Swiss should be sending a A321...
ReplyDeleteMacedonia is doing great in proportion to the number of flights. Obviously a prmising market.
DeleteGermania Flug,Helvetic and Belair are also operating ZRH-SKP not just Edelweiss/Swiss.
DeleteI don't think it will affect ZAG's numbers too much. BTW July was another record breaker for them.
ReplyDeleteNot until November. Swiss stops only then.
DeleteHm, 183,5 pax per flight ZRH-Macedonia? That number of flights (811) could be incorrect.
ReplyDeleteYes. Seems like it's been corrected now.
DeleteOT: Seems that ECA has "operational" problems this summer season!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.tportal.hr/vijesti/hrvatska/438433/Hidroavioni-kasne-prijevoznik-se-brani-Previse-je-teskih-muskaraca.html
Is Zurich a common transit hub for the region? Whenever I have looked at flights to Croatia, via Zurich seems to always be among the more expensive.
ReplyDeleteProbably depends which market is in question. Here in Serbia Swiss is used a fair bit by transfers.
DeleteFor me from California, Swiss almost always has by far the highest prices but the best connection times.
DeleteExcept for today. I found to BEG round trip for $778 travelling in nine days.
Turkish was $750, but it would be a slightly longer flight (even though the connection was equally as good), and also I don't wan't to be in Istanbul right now.
That's a really good deal you got their Aleksandar.
DeleteI know. As soon as I saw it I immediately bought it. I have never flown for so cheap.
DeleteIt makes sense if they continue to codeshare with OU, which has much lower cost base.
ReplyDeleteThis is simple capacity optimisation within Star Alliance (read: Luftalliance) .
my2cents
+1
DeleteAnon. 10.17 So much effort to persuade people that Star Alliance is much more than Lufthansa and you now had to ruin everything! ;)
DeleteOn a more serious note, I think that OU should ditch the dream that if it pleased LH for enough long time, LH would eventually marry it into LH harem. It is too obvious that OU wet dream is to be bought by LH. LH sees it and counts on it. The fixation on LH stifles OU. Instead OU should build boldly its own destiny. It has still so many advantages that are not used. There are also so many other potential partners in the world. A girl that appears desperate is not sexy.
+1
DeleteAre there any new airlines on the horizon for Zagreb?
ReplyDeleteValjda ti je jasno da nema nikoga pola teksta iza Despite sluzi da se opravda ovaj veliki fail Zagreba. Novi terminal prc kad nema putnika.
DeleteThere are rumors that Etihad is talking to ZAG to start flights.
DeleteHighly doubt it. Etihad would rather serve OTP, SKG or SOF before launching ZAG, a destination that is well covered by the code-share via BEG.
DeleteApparently Emirates actually are seriously considering Zagreb next year.
DeleteBeen mentioned on Airliners.net by someone who works at Zagreb.
Actually, I spoke with a friend who works in their revenue department and EK is not considering any destination in ex-YU. The market is simply not there and the little there is taken care of by flydubai.
DeleteThat said, they did evaluate the market.
DeleteNaravno, svako zna da nema leba za EK u Jugi.
DeleteNemjee, Etihad does not codeshare with Air Serbia to Zagreb or to any other destination in Croatia. It is one of the few EU countries which has not allowed EY codeshare on JU flights
DeleteTrue, my bad. It's a shame that politics got into way of business.
DeleteOU should never be allowed to fly into the UAE as a result and as far as things look, they're very far from it.
DeleteI think OU knows well enough that ship has sailed long ago. They just couldn't compete with flydubai and Qatar, not in terms of price or product quality.
DeleteI doubt that EK will serve ex yu together with FZ. Only if FZ leaves and/or moves ex yu services to DWC, then there might be some option imo. Until then you can more expect FZ frequency increases.
DeleteEtihad has codeshare to CROATIA. For example, look at DBV timetable. Flights to BEG are listed by JU and EY
DeleteDamn Swiss
ReplyDeleteOT: Sta se desava u Sarajevu, vec duze vreme avioni kruze oko grada. Fly Dubai, Turkish, Adria, i Lufthansa nikako da slete!?
ReplyDeleteLQSA 011030Z 29011KT 250V330 9999 TS FEW030CB SCT055 24/18 Q1015 TEMPO 4000 TSRA
DeleteOk am not a professional but doesn't the 9999 stand for the visibility? With TS and CB and clouds that low how can visibility be unlimited? Or am I mixing sth up?
DeleteOT: OU had 2 A319/320 flights to and from SJJ lately on OU341 (normally Dash)
ReplyDeletehttps://flightaware.com/live/flight/CTN341/history
Is it more pax so planned or Q400 fleet shortage?
Steta sto je bila ovo lose procena od strane LX posto cisto sumnjam da je zbog odlaska Avro-a i kasnjena CS 100.
ReplyDeleteBilo bi dobro da ovo ostane sezonska linija makar.
Ili se nisu mogli izboriti sa OS na ovom trzistu.
INN-NS
LH group needs to match the cost base with the yield (and optimise the capacity at the same time), something that LCCs have done much better with multiple bases. CityLine or Eurowings will always have much higher cost than local airline (Adria, Croatia, AirSerbia). Therefore, long-term they need to consider more code-sharing and/or opening of local subsidiaroes/bases or even franchising.
ReplyDeletePros and cons for each approache.
Swiss/KLM/AF took the code-share approach in ZAG/BEG.
my2cents
Star Alliance is doing quite well in BEG.
DeleteI don't dispute this, however they can always do better.
DeleteI haven't flown in a while with LH group, do they have Serbian/Croatian speaking crew?
OT
ReplyDelete'Prema Memingenu jutros je iz Niša odletelo 160 putnika, dok je iz Memingena u Niš doputovalo 162 putnika. Na prvom letu za Ajndhoven je bilo 135 putnika, dok je iz Holandije u Niš doputovalo 172 putnika.'
With such loads INI should make some nice, additional cash.
Sarajevo
ReplyDelete109.141 +22,2%
Wow, this is fantastic!!!
DeleteLX has a terrible on time record in BEG lately...surprising knowing the Swiss...they are worst than JU! Maybe they will terminate BEG as well wich would be great news for JU!)))
ReplyDeleteThey will terminate JU because of bad on-time performance... LOL. As you can see from the table Switzerland-Serbia market is the largest. There are currently 4 different airline flying between Serbia and Switzerland - LX, JU, W6 and U2. And 5 airlines if you include Awex with Belgrade-Portoroz-Zurich service.
DeleteSwiss (and JU to ZRH) tends to be late because of a lack of gate space in Zurich.
DeleteSwiss should learn from Serbs about airport on time performance.
Delete