wow at the minister's comments. Why didn't he do ANY of that while he was in power? Instead it was his government that named Kucko as CEO. Love how politicians are full of wisdom after they loose power.

meni nikako nije jasno kako neko moze da posluje sa gubitkom na hitrou aerodromu? ne verujem da je slaba potraznja, vec nesposobnost kroatije..

The company was restructuring and now "There are some problems with the business" less than a year after that restructuring ended. How come?

Same with Adria. They restructured for years and then had a loss again in 2015 and had to be sold urgently for peanuts so they would not go under.

So they were talking about LHR route being unprofitable even back in 2013. Maybe it was.

So why is it such a big deal if the move from LHR to LGW. They will still serve London.

So are they seriously buying regional jets and basing planes around the Balkans if they are selling slots to stay liquid?

Codeshares on the route and transfer passengers. LGW will rely only on P2P and believe me Monarch will take those. I give them 1 tops 2 years before they pull out of London for good.

So when can we expect them to move to Gatwick? This winter? Next summer?

Adria moved to LGW and they survived on the route.

Not really they fly there seasonally.

I think all of that falls into water now unfortunately :/

The management needs to be replaced ASAP.

Ovo je vec postalo smjesno a i zalosno. Upropastili su firmu. Svaka im cast.

Let them go bankrupt.

+1 as they would say "naknadna pamet"

Al ce na Getviku da procvetaju....

Finally the truth about this Kucko figure which is a joke for the airline business

They will serve London p2p yes, but no transfer passengers anymore. And they will have to fight for those p2p passengers with Monarch who will start the ZAG-LGW route. So the entire LON prospect looks very bad for OU if they withdraw from LHR.

Well at least they didn't choose Luton or Southend :D Would not be surprised if they did

I'm really disappointed, Kucko is an idiot, but Hajdas Doncic had an opportunity to do something and he did nothing, now he's trying to be smart! Yeah, sell the slots at LHR and shut down Croatia airlines! Some other companies will come but you'll lose a national carrier forever!

upravo tako, nema veze, ja ću koristiti British na liniji do Heathrowa, zbogom Croatia airlines!

What time is the Ryan media conference at INI?
I`m really excited about it. I hope admin is on the way and we get the info in flash news quickly after the announcement.
Big hug for the admin :)

I think they will do it during winter at the start of next year,

I think the same will happen with OU. They will start Gatwick and it will eventually turn seasonal.

Ok ending Heathrow is not ideal but I think some people here are getting ahead of themselves. It does not mean they are going bankrupt.

it's at 12:30. I don't think they will announce new routes but we will see.

Of course it doesn't mean they are going bankrupt, but what else they can do, no strategy at all, just selling assets in order to show profit, same CEO for years doing absolutely nothing, no new routes...

Mladi djecace budes ovde dve godine i posmatras ponasanje kompanja i vidis da sve isto rade Malev, JAT, MonteA.,Adria, i sad Croatia A. Nesto je do trzista a nesto do lopovskih ekipa koje vode kompanije. Za razliku od Ceskih energana ceski avioprevoznik se ponasa kao i balkanska mu sabraca. Sve to ide pod led i opstaje samo nekoliko mega kompanija.

Just wait!

They won't go bankrupt BECAUSE they sell their assets. Do you think that's a good move?

They are destroying the brand this way...

Mislim da nije nemoguce da ostanu code-shareovi jer ionako ima dosta avioprijevoznika koji voze do Gatwicka pa imaju transfer dalje do Heathrowa. Koliko mi je poznato postoji vlak koji povezuje Heathrow i Gatwick, samo ne znam kome bi se dalo tako zezati s time, uzeci u obzir da OU nece imati nista nizu cijenu od BA koji leti za Heathrow, cak je i sada jeftinije letiti do Londona sa BA nego s OU.

Ali nadam se da su svjesni posljeeice prodaje LHR da nema vise povratka natrag - NIKAD. Ako ovako nastave nece OU jos dugo...nadam se da ZAG nece vise imati razumijevanja za OU, pa neka dopuste ekspanziju low cost kompanija.

OT:

Just registered for flydubai's new loyalty program ahead of my trip to Dubai, and on the Preferences page they have a drop down list of favourite destinations... all appear to be current or future FZ points - but also include LJU and MBX! No TGD or TIV. ZAG still there.

There was a bus service from Ljubljana and Maribor to ZAG to shuttle passengers onto the FZ flights.

Disaster that we find ourselves in the same position with Croatia Airlines like we did 2-3 years ago.

True... and we were promised all sorts of things after restructuring

I am deeply disappointed at the state of OU, its leadership and direction. When will the incompetence and poor decision making end??

It's very strange that this line is unprofitable, most of time the flight is full, can't understand why they are loosing money !!!

Profitability of any route can be calculated and presented in different ways. So you can represent a profitable route as loss making and vice versa. I'm sure Lufthansa will be happy. Some of OU's passengers will go with British Airways for sure but others (especially those Star Alliance frequent flyers - and there are many) will just migrate to LH and fly via Frankfurt and Munich to LHR. Also LHR route had quite a few premium passengers.

A touristic country like Croatia needs an airline, needs an airline that brings loads of tourists. Even if this airline is not a big profit maker the overall economical (indirect) impact is huge through the receipts of tourists. Foreign airlines fly only when they are 100% full and this in peak season.

Lufty a.k.a. Eurowings will take care of all the tourists, no problem there.

I think OU would make a terrible mistake quiting Heathrow! I do wander whether British Airways have been bribing OU to pull out of the uk market, cos as they started adding flights to Dubrovnik and Split, OU reduced flights to split and pulled out completely London and Manchester to Dubrovnik. It seems very strange lots of other airlines now fly UK to Croatia and yet Ou have reduced their flights.

Ex-yu, you used to write frequently about alleged code-share agreement between ASL and MGX. And now, as W16 is approaching, there's total silence on that topic. So what happened or what is happening ?

I would not call it an "alleged" agreement as both companies have issued press releases confirming the pending deal. According to the latest information available, the two are yet to agree when the codeshare will come into effect and how revenues will be divided from ticket sales. A review of Montenegro Airlines' current winter operations (which will be published here in the days to come) indicate that the CS will not come into effect on October 30. Also, Montenegro Airlines has not applied for US DoT approval for the codeshare with Air Serbia to New York yet. Of course when new information comes to light it will be shared and published.

No major developments. A presentation of the 2017 summer timetable which features the same routes which have already been launched or will be launched in the next few days.

OU has so much potential. It is so unfortunate it is not living up to it.

Singapore Airlines and Air Canada codeshare on the flights from/to LHR. Shame they will cancel it.

There is a pretty decent network from Gatwick to across the pond.

+1

Not even close to LHR. If LGW was such an easy replacement for LHR the carriers would not be paying tens of millions of dollars for a single daily pair of slots on the latter.

Croatia has much potential. OU has none.

OU is making operating loss with substantially lower fuel cost from 2014 onwards. Therefore they need to sell assets to keep the cash flow. Hajdas is now a smart ass but he forgot to mention then during his period 2 A320 NEO are ordered and prepayment is to be done in 2017 plus the overhaul of the engines on current fleet. So, selling LHR slots is only a cash flow issue. I forecast the existance of OU for now longer then 2 years from now.

No, they will go bankrupt after they invest the received cash in fixing the created loss and not in development.

I hope this deal doesn't come through. Air Serbia doesn't need YM.

Sta bese sa Press Conference u Nis'u?

Refer to comment at 12.50 PM.

This does not give me much confidence that Croatia Airlines will be expanding its network next summer.

I totally support OU´s move. LHR is an expensive airport and now has other substitues such as LGW, STN, LTN and even SEN. If OU have O&D trafiic, then it´s quite logic to operate to a cheaper airport such as LGW. Many airlines have sold their slots because of their super expensive price. They can use this money, as mentioned in the article, to maintain aircraft. Bravo OU!

"Bravo OU"? Irony at it's finest...?

They should use money for market development plans if they had a clear vision of future strategy, fleet and markets. To use it to cover the operational costs is just extending the agony and means they have been operationally totaly unsuccesful so far.

Nope, not at all. It´s called savings and cost-cutting. If a route is not making enough money, try an alternative. KQ, OK, SK, AF/KL, SA, AZ and the list goes on, are just good examples. Besides, LGW is a very cool airport and well communicated.

OU has a chance on P2P on LGW in summer schedule. I doubt there is enough demand to operate LGW in winter at least not daily...

Ne znam koliko im je pametno da prodaju bas sve slotove trebali su 4 pridati ostatak ostaviti za sopstvene potrebe .
INN-NS

Nece izgubiti codeshare mogu da ih nastave dalje u FRA,MUC,ZRH i VIE.
INN-NS

I love their logic - they are losing money fling to/from Heathrow, but are going to shift to Gatwick where they have to compete against an LCC - Monarch - which is going to start flying to ZAG frm the same airport.

And they think they can do better from Gatwick in competing against an LCC ???

Wow, gimme some of that stuff that they are smoking !!!

Why nobody is writing about new terminal in Zagreb, the way ot is constructed to nail down OU completely. It is outrageous...
Tango 6 portal is telling partial stories together with Alen Scuric and are non objective and not helping in any way to support the development of civil aviation in Croatia

I am a travel agent based in Zagreb and I sell air tickets. Move from LHR to LGW is not a bad idea if they can earn some money and invest it in something else. I am not talking here about OU going bankrupt or not. There is certain number of P2P pax between ZAG and LON. For them it does not matter if it is LHR or LGW. These pax prefer OU timings to LHR at the moment over BA ("early" BA dep from LHR). BA with its timings targets transfer pax and they are not doing excellent on the route generally as per info I got from BA rep. OU has codeshare agreements to LHR with number of airlines. If LHR route is cancelled these will be directed through ZRH, CPH, AMS since OU has codeshare with them on these routes as well. Generally, pax do not like transferring at LHR (and CDG by the way) since it is huge with lots of terminals and often it requires transferring within terminals (for example between OU and VS). Pax will pay little more if they can transfer in VIE, ZRH, FRA or AMS (AMS, VIE and MUC are their preferred choice as per my experience). It is worth mentioning that OU had much better performance on route to LGW while it flew there than LHR. The thing is that they had to quit two very profitable destinations few years ago since European Comission ruled that way when they decided that government gave irregular cash injections. Unfortunately these were LGW and IST (back in those times IST was great, planes were full). These are info I got from OU sales staff. I would say that quitting LHR is not apocalypse if it will help them to continue restructuring. As far as I am concerned LGW will do better than LHR. LHR taxes are horrible (I know as I refund taxes on daily basis :-)

I forgot that there is a large number of airlines serving Gatwick that OU can continue code share agreements and maybe even consider some new code shares or special interlining agreements like with VS.

I agree there is a chance to operate LGW instead, the question is if they will invest the money in new strategy, new destinations, or just cover the loss produced in last two years. SInce start of the restructuring program the sold 2 or 3 engines and now LHR slots, so I do not see any recovery in business...

You are right and I agree. The problem is what they will do with the money. However replacing LHR with LGW can be a good a scenario in a different perspective.

They write regularly about ZAG terminal on this site. There was an article about it just a week ago.

U proteklih 3 godine prodana su dva para slotova na LHR!!!! Ne govori li to dovoljno kolik je interes za njega i da ljudi ne odlaze na jeftiniji LGW.

Orly je bitno jeftiniji od CDG. Zašto kompanije ne odlaze tamo? I Hahn je jeftiniji od Frankfurta. Hoće li Croatia i tamo preći.

50% putnika se konektiraju na LHR. Ti će preči na British ili druge hubove. Dakle svaki let za LGW ima u startu 50% manje putnika jer nema konekcija. Uz to Monarch leti na Gatwick. Kako će Croatia konkurirati LCC-u?

Em će imati manje potencijalnih putnika, em će morati letjeti za bitno manju cijenu. Pa sad neka mi netko normalan kaže kako će na koncu LGW biti profitabilniji od LHR gdje postoje konektirani putnici (njih 50%) i gdje se može postaviti bitno viša cijena.

P.s found the link
http://www.exyuaviation.com/2016/10/zagreb-airport-prepares-for-terminal.html

Let's wait for the final decision, hope Croatian Ministry for transport won't allow this to happen. They should definitely remove Kucko as a CEO before he ruins everything.

Slažem se, Anonymous 6:39, izvrstan post!

1. They will not spent money in investment but in costs, to make red numbers smaller!

2. I am also travel agent based in Zagreb and I have data also. LHR number of pax in last 10 months were huge. More than 95%. Even in October planes are full!!!! In same time those two LGW flights are empty. LGW flights did have smaller prices than LHR but still plane was empty back in 2012.

3. LHR flights have 54% of transfer passengers, LGW not even 10%. I rest my case.

First comment: Travel agent???? Sure... I heard for your agency:

Kucko travel!

That is exactly what I am saying, LGW was never good idea as many airlines in the past tried to operate from ZAG ( Easyjet, Wizzair and OU ). No success. On the other hand LHR was always making loss due to too low value of transfer passengers.
They need to do prepayment for order of new A320, overhaul of engines and cover the settlement of law case with US. No money for that expenses in 2017. If they are not making profit overall now when jet fuel prices are still low, how can they expect to make money in future ? I give them max 2 years before final termination, slow and painfull death...

Although I like their livery, when (if) they solve other things, they should definitely change it into something modern, something for 21st century! Since they have no money, this is hard to expect, among other, more important things. Still, hope they won't fall apart, it's important for Croatia to have a national carrier, hope someone will realize it before it's too late.

P.S. Is there an official announcement about selling LHR slots from Croatia airlines? All we've heard was on tv/newspaper but not from the officials!

Well read the article above where Kresimir Kucko, CEO confirms the slot sale.

Sorry, but this deal will be capital punishment for MGX. Hopefully, this deal won't become alive.

OU and JU both have 18 LHR slots, with JU request for 10 slots (5 pairs) still outstanding as of Summer 2016:

http://www.acl-uk.org/wp-content/uploads/pdf/LHR%20S16%20Start%20of%20Season.pdf

Flew today ZRH ZAG SPU. Not one single pax fm ZRH on SPU flt except for me. ZRH ZAG 72 out of 76 pax booked. Most Swiss Tourists on ZAG city trip. ZAG SPU DH8 with 65 pax
All good. Makarska Riv awesome. Croatia is like miracle. What they ve done past 20 years, unbelievable! Not seen such a positive change elsewhere than here and in China
Good night fm Brela

Guys Gatwick is becoming THE favourite airport in the UK - chill out.

Very well said travel agent. People just think that selling slots at LHR and moving to LGW is a downgrade and can assure you that most of them haven´t even been in both airports. Very well said btw, congrats on your speech.

Does that mean JU wants to increase from 9 to 14?

YM's management is the airline's capital punishment, not JU.

U proteklih 3 godine prodana su dva para slotova na LHR!!!! Ne govori li to dovoljno kolik je interes za njega i da ljudi ne odlaze na jeftiniji LGW.

Orly je bitno jeftiniji od CDG. Zašto kompanije ne odlaze tamo? I Hahn je jeftiniji od Frankfurta. Hoće li Croatia i tamo preći.

50% putnika se konektiraju na LHR. Ti će preči na British ili druge hubove. Dakle svaki let za LGW ima u startu 50% manje putnika jer nema konekcija. Uz to Monarch leti na Gatwick. Kako će Croatia konkurirati LCC-u?

Em će imati manje potencijalnih putnika, em će morati letjeti za bitno manju cijenu. Pa sad neka mi netko normalan kaže kako će na koncu LGW biti profitabilniji od LHR gdje postoje konektirani putnici (njih 50%) i gdje se može postaviti bitno viša cijena.

no one here believe you are travel agent. You are PR of Croatia, nobody else would make such a statement. And please can you write at least 20 more „other“ persons to support your funny statement.

Ask JU, they never explained what they want to do. Actually no, ask Etihad, they own JU LHR slots according to contract.

On this route the only competition was British Airways, which usually costs $50-100 more. On Gatwick flights, they'll be competing with Monarch, which will definitely be cheaper. This is just ludicrous.
Ultimately, it wouldn't be hard to launch a successful strategy if they found a strategic partner, all of these operating costs aren't such a big issue. Mostly, it's about $10 million of unpaid taxes in the US and covering the reservation costs for the new planes until 2022. The real issue, as I understand it, is; there isn't enough money for stategic investment, which is why the whole restructuring process must end in privatization. It is a risk, I know, but there's just no sense in a company like this remaining fully in government's hands. Especially since they aren't allowed to take credit. An investor is needed.

Prodaja slotova je samo trenutno gašenje vatre. treba im keš pod hitno, nema više baš puno za prodati, i eto ti slotova. S tim će preživit 2017. a šta će prodavati 2018.? I to bi sve bilo ok kad bi oni imali neki plan. Prelazak na LGW je očito glupost, možda čak to ni ne planiraju, ne vjerujem da su tolko blesavi. I još kažu da su u minusu na LHR. Samo me zanima dal je ta informacija točna.

Last Anon,

Can you quote the exact contract article that transfers the ownership of JU's LHR slots to Etihad?

Većina kupaca nije zainteresovana za 4 nedeljna slota već traže najmanje 7 kako bi mogli da lete svakog dana.

Sure, that's why no one even thinks of leaving LHR except for deeply troubled airlines that need urgent cash injections. And that's why some pay 75M USD for a pair of daily LHR slots - because Gatwick's time has finally come.

True. I was in Makarska, Tučepi and Cavtat the last days and returned yesterday from DBV - the Makarska riviera and area south of Dubrovnik till just after the Cilipi airport have developed incredibly!

Btw, OS DBVVIE A320 w 168 seats had 171 booked (fully booked plus 3 infants). Plane and airport were crowded.

Ostaje još tehnika, što će biti dostatno za dvije godine. Ako uspiju prebaciti hipoteke nastale NAKON restrukturacije na "samo" dva aviona sa svih preostalih, a što se svojski trude, ostat će još 3 aviona i nekih 3-4 motora za sell and lease back.

Dakle, ima se prodavat do 2019. I inercijom na odgodi plačanja dugova preživjet će još 2020. A onda piši kući propalo je!

Morate znati još jednu stvar. Poslovanje Crotatije je sve skuplje i skuplje nakon što prodaju obiteljsku srebrninu (leasing aviona kojeg su sell and lease back je vrlo skupa stvar posebno ako prije niste imali ovaj trošak jer je avion bio vaš). A do sada nisu uspjevali biti pozitivni, zamislite tek kako će biti sada kada su im troškovi poslovanja skuplji.

Wasn't Monarch near bankruptcy recently?

That's a next step, in 2-3 years :)