Is there any chance they will keep any of these routes over the winter too?

Good luck, think these flights will prove to be successful, at least during summer. Hope they will keep them throughout the year.

I think Stockholm has the most potential out of the new routes. But if they want to decrease seasonality like they have said, they will have to keep some routes on board for winter too.

Unlikely because they are returning both CRJ1000s at the end of October.

Gubite pare i na Londonu zimi.

Tko to mi? To su Kučkove gluposti kojima je opravdao prodaju slotova na LHR.

Well if you are looking at which cities can be kept over the winter it is those that will not primarily shuttle passengers to the coast via Zagreb. So I think Bucharest has the biggest chance out of these, especially since it is being operated by Q400. The majority of the traffic from Scandinavia will be generated towards Dubrovnik and Split. I can guarantee that the majority of those passengers flying from Finalnd last year were on Finnair's flights to the Croatian coast.

Congrats to Croatia Airlines! They now have a good choice of destinations and have been following the trends from the beginning with a good hard product, nice cabins with Recaro slim seats, friendly check-in and cabin staff as well all the benefits offered by Star Alliance membership. With the new state of the art terminal in Zagreb they can develop their product even further and offer a solid good product to its customers.

Kučko je izjavio da će neke od novih linija od prošle i ove godine ostati tijekom zime. Iako se CRJ vračaju, zimi CTN ima više nego dovoljno vlastitih kapaciteta jer je prizemljeno 3 A319/320, od koji je jedan potpuno prizemljen, a ostatak flote se koristi manje od 40%.

It is already announced, they will promote some of last year seasonal routes to year round (PRG, LIS, MXP, LED).

While we are on the topic of Croatia Airlines can anyone explain what has been happening with them the past few days. A lot of flights have been heavily delayed. Has an aircraft gone tech?

Interesting about demand for Kiev and Riga. Perhaps air baltic could consider ZAG.

Good news. Will be interesting to see which ones are kept.

think it's a good collection of destinations and with the other 4 launched last year they now have a pretty good spread. The only thing I am dissapointed about is the fleet. They promised between 4 to 6 regional planes and none of this has materialised yet again.

I bet, LIS and MXP.

Yep pretty bad few days. Yesterday there was cancelled flight again, F100 from Trade Air taken to operate some flights... A plane or planes must be out of service.

I wonder if they also used the money from the LHR slots to lease the CRJ.

You are probably right. CSA already flies to PRG during the winter.

Probably OSL and ARN, both could be served two times per week, ARN maybe even three.

It says in the text that the quoted 18000 pax from/to Finland were only between ZAG and Finland. Thereof approx. 16300 travelled only between ZAG and HEL.

Alene,
ako je takvo stanje kako opisujete (u sta ne sumnjam), zasto se ne rese viska airbus flote i nabave nekoliko 100 seatera kojima bi bolje pokrili trziste i uvecali broj dnevnih frekvencija.

I'm still happier with the CRJ 1000 then the old Fokker. A step in the right direction and it is good for them to test the plane if they ever actually think of something to fill that gap between the Dash's and Airbuses.

Od kojih para?

BCN could work too, maybe 2pw

Remember that Stockholm and Oslo (to a lesser extent) are Star Alliance hubs which is also important when deciding on where to fly since a lot of OU's traffic could be generated by connecting passengers.

Could be. I'm not sure how much two five month wet leases could cost.

^ +1

You are getting boring! What is your problem what they spend their money on? Other companies in the region don´t pay their employees and use that money to pay leases or fuel.

I am boring because I am asking a question regarding today's topic?
Expansion or not, OU is in a precarious position. They are facing increased competition n all fronts while their finances keep on worsening. What will happen next year when there are no more slots to be sold?

What about A320neo orders? When will be delivered?

Good news!

Bravo Hrvatska!

LHR is a fancy airport but a very expensive one. Unless you have a strong business demand, where people are willing to pay 700€ return as for instance from FRA/GVA/ZRH/MXP or you can generate a lot of business class demand you won´t be getting rich here. The point is that most people between Croatia and London travel for pleasure and are price sensitive. Even those transferring in LHR fly Eco Saver and the amount of a proration between OU and it´s Star partners is minimal. From 500€ for a return fare ZAG-LHR-NYC OU gets 50€ for two sectors, where they pay more taxes and handling fees than they receive from the pax. Demand between Croatia and London is huge and can best be catered for by LCCs. Monarch is full on all flights and they fly from LGW. So the change to LGW makes sense for Croatia, as they can still cater for the LONDON demand, but reduce their expenses tremendously. I have been working in revenue management for a while now. For big carriers like LH/SK/LX/OS the LHR results are not that shiny either, especially if they do not go through its hubs where they feed long Haul destinations or have a high business demand (banking Cities like FRA/GVA/ZRH/MXP).

From last week's article

"The first two jets are scheduled to arrive in Zagreb in 2021, while the other two are due a year later. However, sources claim the carrier is considering an interim lift before the delivery of the A320neos, meaning it could lease aircraft from Airbus prior to 2021. "

http://www.exyuaviation.com/2017/04/croatia-airlines-takes-first-crj-1000.html

Shvati da imate pogresne avione za kompaniju i da akumulirate gubitke zimi. Prodao ih je, jer imate teske poslovne gubitke koje ne moze da pokrije kratka dobra letnja sezona.

Anon 10:01, ne lupetaj!

The CRJ1000 is wet leased for the high season but in all honesty I think that's all they need at the moment. Taking more aircraft in at the moment would be expensive. Potentially they could expand or make a more radical change to the fleet next year when the Dash contract is up.

One of the problems is that one plane was stuck in FRA overnight two days ago because the airport was closed because of bad whether. Lufthansa also cancelled a lot of flights so this caused some disruption back in the network. But it does seem that one plane is indeed not in service.

Kad budete prodali ostatak slotova dodji pa mi pricaj da ne lupetam. Dotle se zahebavajte sa param hrvatskih poreskih obaveznika kao i ASL.

I hope they start Dublin next year. I think that route would have great potential.

Pare hrvatskih poreznih obveznika? Nije točno, kao dio EU, Hrvatska ne smije subvencionirati nacionalnu aviokompaniju, osim domaćih letova i to u točno određenom iznosu.

Potential in what sense? Financial or Pax- number wise? I think they could fill the planes but not make enough money on the route unless the yield goes to around 140€ one way at a Load factor of 80%. Hard to achieve i believe.

Moze. Po odredjenim uvjetima. Kao AZ na primjer.

A 10:43 tko je taj vi? Pa nisu gradjani RH OU.

Air Baltic flies to Rijeka twice weekly on 737. Doubt they can fly both RJK and ZAG, and RJK they keep for sure because of tourists, and ZAG is just an hour and a half away on good highway

No competition to DUB. No Ryanair flying there for cheap money. Also no competition from LJU. Ireland has one of highest net income in whole Europe so the market itself is high yielding.

Who would have thought that within one summer they would cover entire Scandinavia where they had 0 flights. Good luck OU.

I must say they haven't really scheduled some of these flights very well. For example Helsinki arrival misses Split by 5 minutes and the next departure is six hours later.

I don't think they would consider Prague during the winter. Remember CSA also suspended flights for all of February and March to Zagreb.

I never understood why Croatia Airlines didn't do ACMI during the winter if it has a plane grounded.

They will stick with Dash. Kucko already said that but they also want to introduce a third aircraft type into the fleet.

Would be great if they could get the neos earlier and retire the existing A319/A320s.

Thanks. Maybe it could work with a smaller aircraft? Can the Dash make it between Riga and Zagreb?

Aha ok thanks. One plane broke down in Split yesterday but managed to return back into service later on in the day.

Kiev is really interesting. No air links whatsoever yet a Ukranian airline is starting flights to Ljubljana and last year there were charters between Kiev and Maribor. So perhaps there is potential for Zagreb line there.

You know what else would be great? If OU could make money.

I think OU still has no money for that

@11.34: According to their financial report, they are making money.

not enough for a320neo

This expansion was necessary for OU. It is obvious that competition is heating up in Zagreb and it will become even more competitive in the next few years. OU had so many unversed markets only 2 years ago that if it did nothing everyone else would have stepped in. For example CSA announced Prague-Zagreb just a few days before OU and Norwegian also announced Stockholm-Zagreb a few days before OU.

Why did TAP stop LIS-ZAG?

pa de si care

There is no need for direct air-links between Zagreb and Ukraine. Who wants to travel can use OU-OS via VIE, OU-LH via MUC or LO via WAW.

Cool, then let them use all this cash to get regional jets ;)

OU simply fabulous airline. Nice pic of the crew too. Congratulations OU on your achievements and expansions for the forthcoming season

Kad će Ryanair da objavi nove letove iz Nisa ?
Ima li kakva novost ?

will be there some new routes announced for zag?

lol i suggest you fly with them more often.

Yes, there will, please be patient :)

this summer or?

Ne zezaj ga, nije lijepo.��

By the end of the year, the announcement for 2018

two A320 plus twelwe CRJ-700/900/1000 will be much suitable for operator like OU is. in that scenario they could lease back problematic Q400 fleet and also provide fresh money from lease of remaining Airbus fleet.

ATCO

Yeah but airBatic operates RIX-RJK only one or two times per week and price is very high (for my dates was about 380€). So I've bought ZAG-IST-RIX with TK for 230€.

OU to start ZAG-DUS from 28 June! Flights already on sale!

It is strange, since it is only ZAG-DUS direct, return flight is always via SPU.

There is no return flight and there are only 4 flights from ZAG to DUS until 19th July. It stops afterwards.

Ownership changed and new management tried to consolidate the network. And of course it turned to be a mess.

Zagreb-Kiev through OS or LH hubs are always above (whenever I searched) 250 EUR return. KLM is offering much cheaper 150 EUR or so but still flying 2 hours there and 3 to Kiev is taking some time. Therefore 100 seater would be the best for this route and would be wise for OU to announce it for the next summer if they want to capture the market and offer connections...

OT Dreamliner at BEG ? Could anybody confirm ?

http://www.aviatica.rs/dreamliner-na-putu-za-beograd/

OT: JU nudi YU-APG na trzistu za lizing u zimskim mesecima, tacnije od oktobra 2017 do marta 2018

Anon at 11:22 - they are doing heavy maintenance during winter and therefore from what they say don't have when to lease it to someone. Don't know if it is completely true but some checks take couple of weeks (C,D) but they are also done every 2-6 years so there is space for ACMI lease from what I think. A and B checks are done in the couple of days so that shouldn't hold them...

i to je poznato vec dva meseca, osim sto su navijaci ASL to nazivali hejtom.

Good work OU. 2 million passengers will be easily surpassed this year.

They can't now since they spent the money from the LHR slots but maybe when they sell the remaining ones next year they can introduce KBP as well.

Really odd. What is the point of this flight? I can't find the return. Not even via Split.

I think LHR must stay despite being fancy, Croats deserve it.

I fly regularly and prefer them over LH on the route to Germany, as their product is really good.

It will land in about 15 min in BEG.
https://www.flightradar24.com/N2DEER/d54b0c5

An. 2:24
O malo smo nervozni :) Ajmo zato po hiljadu i prvi put o famoznim slotovima! Pa ljudi prodali 5 pari slotova pa sta, velika stvar. Ali cirlidersi u nedostatku pravih argumenata o OU koji se siri, ima novije avione a vrlo skoro i (ponovo) bolji ukupni proizvod, uporno nas dave ovde sa prodajom slotova, ne bi li skrenuli paznju sa totalne katastrofe koja je vrlo izgledno pred JU, i prema kojoj je prodaja 5 pari slotova "mala beba"

^ a na kraju samo dokaz da ste i jedan i drugi isti.

Ovo je nova informacija, rec je o drugom po redu avionu APG, ranije je ponudjen i APD

ZAG numbers will increase sharply with these four routes. Any guesses for May growth?

We can't ignore the Easter effect for April so anything above 10% for May will be an excellent base to build off. It Zagreb gets at least 10% for May than I would agree that we could start to see some decent percentage increase for the rest of the year.

Charter maybe??

does anybody have information what exactly is this flight?

Executives from the airline.

Which airline?

haha, there he is

Hainan Airlines

Ne može ni AZ, ni OU. Nije mogao ni Malev, ni Estonian, ni Cyprus. Ako Italija to napravi ozbiljno riskira i vjerojatno će snositi sankcije.

All European airliners want to ACMI lease during winter (even Ryanair and Lufthansa). Because of that prices are so low that it is better to stationed plane than give it on those prices.

For years I repeat as parrot that they should have more RJ on fleet. They should build fleet up to

4 A320
6 CRJ-900 or similar
6 Q400

After that they should buy just CRJ.

Nije se lako "rješiti" Airbus flote i nabaviti CRJ. Sve je pitanje matematike, a tu OU baš i nije doma, zar ne?

Italija je to upravo napravila. 600 miljona eura.

Sure Anon. 10AM. That is why so many companies fight to buy slots for 70+ million EUR and than on top of that huge investment they will loose even more money on LHR flight.

Luckily there are experts like OU to show them how it should be done

@AnonymousMay 9, 2017 at 9:31 AM

Even with daily flights between Zagreb and Helsinki, during 26 week schedule OU will barely cover potential demand.

16300, imagine there was actually a route between two countries year round and flights were promoted!

Finnair flies to Dubrovnik and Split, 6 months of the year, bringing in 80 000 Finish holidaymakers, so market between the countries is strong, just establishing year round service might take time.

For Zagreb bringing in Finnair, SAS, Air Baltic, EasyJet, FlyBe, Aer Lingus, TAP, Aegean and Alitalia is somewhat a priority. However it might take time for these carriers to return. In case of Alitalia, nobody knows if that airline will be around beyond 2020.

I jos nesto: Europska Komisija je javila Italiji da to moze napraviti jer je zadnji put drzava pomogla AZ prije 10 godina. Citam talijanski tisak pa znam.

And Airbus will just say:

OK, no problem, thank you for cancel our order, can we help you with CRJ order?

Now, really....

Not true. They had 7 flights per week to Copenhagen for years now.

They should, as we have in May
- routes to LED, MPX, LIS and PRG to start earlier in May than last year

- 4 new OU routes to start in May

- 14 new flights (12 on new routes + 2 on old routes) per week on OU

- Monach 5pw flights with A320/321

- CRJ1000 with more capacity instead of some Q400 routes

- more flights on ČSA, LOT, Iberia routes

- bigger planes than last year on some routes like LH to FRA

- Air Transat to start at the end of May (last year in June)

OT - James Hogan is out of Etihad with no offical role as of 01 July. Basically they can't get rid of him fast enough and are desperate for a strategic shift. This is different to what the airline was saying before that Hogan would stay on in some reduced capacity. Interesting development but probably expected too...

Actually that is not true. When they announced in February he was leaving in the second half of 2017 they said quote "Mr Hogan will join an investment company". They made no mention it had anything to do with Etihad.

My son and me have took some photos today, tomorrow I will send a link to some of them.

Pardon, have taken :-)

We'll know soon enough, I was projecting 265 000 for May, but now I'll leave this open to any possibility. Could be 275k if all goes well. Anything above 275k would be outstanding. However, June will be 300k+. July & August 350k+, September 320k+.

For the rest of the year we'll see. Projected 3.15 million this year, however 3.3 million is quite possible too.

Soo many? ever wondered which exactly? EY,EK, QR or Delta connecting the biggest economical centres in the world where First and business class are always full.
You certainly pay 10.000 Dollars to get to NY via LHR from Zag. Then it pays off and of course there are 30 daily flights between LHR and NYC. EVER wondered why?

Not sure what the point of your comment is... he announced he is leaving and this is simply part of that process ie. making sure that someone will have a handover with him before he departs.

Why does that sound odd ? if they wanted to see the back of him, he would've been gone the moment he announced he was leaving - which wasn't the case as he has stayed on for some 4 mths

OT - Purger, perhaps you know as i have not been able to get an answer frm anyone on this topic.

Why is it that ZAG maintains a monopoly on ground handling, as it is against EU rules which says airports with more than 2M pax must have at least 2 ground handlers ?

This is a big problem for airlines and contributes to extortionate prices on handling.

Croatia is in the EU and is in breach of this regulation. People on here are predicting pax numbers in excess of 3M pax and still only 1 ground handler and no one seems to be saying or doing anything about this ...

Hainan will soon announce the timetable for PEK - BEG flights. First flight will be with 787-8

Maybe they are shuttling some Middle Eastern immigrants to Germany given that both Slovenia and Hungary have a fence now. lol

Who says it will be from Beijing and not from Shanghai ?

I am sure in due course the airport will open market to more ground handlers, but for small market of only 3 million pax there's little need for more than 1, once airport exceeds 5 million pax, yes there'll be more handlers. Once airport hits 10 million pax, there might be even 4 handlers. As is, there's little need for it. Zagreb airport has only 60 landings per day on average, you really need at least 120 for one more ground handler, ideally 200 operations per day is where things could be justified for several ground handlers. EU rules are also aimed at larger airports not small regional airports or airports with less than 5 million pax. All smaller airports in the EU have only one ground handling firm, normally one that belongs to the airport itself.

OU might start its own ground handling firm soon once it is firmly in the black, however for now this is all done by airport's own company for now. And yes competition is good, and price is bound to fall, but airport is still too small for two players in such small market.

Shangai yes but maybe in 2018. not this year.

Many airlines are trying to get their hands on LHR slots. Last year Oman Air broke the record when they paid $75 million to AF-KL. Many airlines are not flying to LHR because they can't afford the slots, the market is there.

Look at Air Serbia, despite Serbs needing UK visas and there being almost no economic ties between the two countries, LHR remains as one of the top performing routes.

It's usually failing airlines that decide to sell their Heathrow slots. I am sure OU was making money on this route. The thing is that they needed fresh capital and this was the easiest way to get it.

novih aviona? Kojih tacno? ovaj sto ce biti tri meseca u zagrebu? ili si mislio na arhaicni foker koji iznajmljuju od trade air-a

What airlines? Even SAS sold some of their slots. And I never heard that e.g. Ryanair, the biggest European airline, paid any $$$ for the LHR slots. LON, not just LHR, is the market for European airlines.

Sorry, but EU rules are very clear. More than 2M pax and there must be at least 2 ground handlers. That is very clear, so why is the monopoly being protected ?

BEG has 3 ground handlers and has had 3 for the past 2 years, when pax numbers were well below 4M

Just because Ryanair has not done it already doesn't mean they will not do so in the future. Look at their expansion in FRA.

The thing with LHR is that slots are being sold only by the most desperate airlines such as MA, CY, SK, OU... and so on.

Slots are not sold every day because they are valuable so airlines decide to sell them only when they are desperate for money. You mentioned SK, well they were on the verge of bankruptcy and shortly after the sold their slots they immediately upgauged their other flights.

Other London airports might be attractive but LHR is the 'IT' airport.

Da, postoji pravilo da se to može napraviti jednom u 10 godina. Ali pod određenim uvjetima, tj. da kompanija sudjeluje sa jednakim udjelom (prodaja aviona, prodaja slotova, komercijalni krediti, racionalnizacija, rezanje linija, povratak aviona u leasingu...).

Upravo to je bilo naglašeno kad se radilo o Croatiji.

OU needs

4x A320 Neo for London, Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Brussels, Vienna and Rome.

10x CS100 for all other major European destinations

6x Q400 for regional and domestic routes.

OU Network needs to expand from current:
Amsterdam, Brussels, Copenhagen, Dubrovnik, Frankfurt, London–Heathrow, Munich, Paris–Charles de Gaulle, Pula, Rome–Fiumicino, Sarajevo, Skopje, Split, Vienna, Zadar, Zürich Athens, Barcelona, Bucharest, Brač, Düsseldorf, Helsinki, Lisbon, London-Gatwick, Milan–Malpensa, Oslo–Gardermoen, Prague, Pristina, Saint Petersburg, Stockholm–Arlanda,

By adding, Lyon, Manchester, Edinburgh, Dublin, Valencia, Seville, Marseilles, Bordeaux, Nice, Sofia, Kiev, Hanover, Krakow, Riga, Tallinn and Vilnius. Most of these are seasonal destinations with exception of Dublin and Edinburgh.

This should keep OU quite busy throughout the summer and numbers at Zagreb would go through the roof in very short space of time.

SAS was one of the companies with biggest number of slots to LHR in world. They sold some but sill have number of daily flights to LHR.

There are 94 companies flying to LHR. I think that is argument which show how many companies find this airport profitable.

Ryanair is LCC which fly to secondary airports and for sure LHR is not secondary airport. But even that is changing (Frankfurt example). For sure that is not an argument, not even for 10 year old kid who knows what is different between LCC and legacy carriers and why Ryanair is flying to Stansted, Luton and Gatwick but not to Heathrow.

A320 to Vienna and Rome?

OU to Edinburgh, Valencia, Sevile, Marseilles, Bordeaux, Nice, Krakow, Vilnius...?

Now, I am sure you are joking. Thanks for this, in a moment I have impression that you are serious. :-)

They should have at least 2 as they have more than 2 million passengers by EU rules. But that is not a fact not in ZAG and not in SPU also.

Ok all your arguments are directed at 'why do other have it and not me'. Croatia is not Scandinavia or is it NY or can afford slots because of prestiges. Oman Air is sponsored by someone. WIZZIR is profitable with its base in LTN and serves Eastern Europe very well

Wizz Air is LCC. If you don't know the difference you should not be on this blog.

Aegean,
Aer Lingus,
Air Algerie,
Air Astana,
Air Malta,
Azerbaijan,
Bulgaria Air,
Egypt Air,
Eurowings,
Finnair,
Flybe,
Icelandair,
LOT,
Middle East,
TAP Portugal,
Turkemnistan,
Uzbekistan,
Vueling...

are not NY or Scandinavia or huge companies.

Odlicno sto ce imati letove za Skandinaviju.
Samo je steta sto pojedine kompanije sa ovog prostora ignorisu neka trzista koja bi im donela dosta novih putnika.
INN-NS

@Alen Šćuric PurgerMay 9, 2017 at 8:50 PM

Why not ????

Did you look at numbers and visitors from all these places ????

We need seasonal destinations if we're to become even bigger destinations. Direct connection is what is needed, if there's no one else. than OU must do it themselves.

All these destinations are larger cities, all exceeding 500k, exception for Tallinn, and Vienna A320 once a day is possibility, perhaps @ busiest time. I know Vienna is only 280km away and many drive there.

Anyhow 4 A320 need to be used on most demanding routes. London, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Frankfurt and perhaps Munich.

OK, please do study trends in air traffic today and how modern air companies work, and than we can discuss more.

I thought they were keeping him on but at a reduced capacity. The Bloomberg article I got this from made it sound like they were happy to see him go asap.

Of course, and Xia'men, Urumqi and Chingchonq in 2019, Guanghzou and second daily Pudong in 2020, how yes no

They are probably not going out of their way to find other service handlers but if someone approached them, they'll need to consider it.

Jealous much?

Jao sto bole Crj stari godinu dana , q400 stari nekoliko godina i potvrdjena narudzba za 320neo a sa druge, butik strane, letaju pretpotopni atr i 733 a ono nesto malo novijih 319 ode pod kiriju, evo vec i drugi oglasen, uskoro ce i treci, trt. ..

Please forgive me for my arrogance but after reading headline after headline about croatia airlines assett sales, bankrupcy etc... They are now expanding! What sort of black magic is this?!

It's a survival move for Kucko... he needs to do something to try to show that he is actually doing something positive so that he somehow survives the chop

When it comes to our region there is also Tarom which flies into Heathrow and they seem to be doing fine. Just like OU they are facing financial difficulties in addition to which they are forced to operated aging Boeings and a fleet of 4 random A318s. Despite all this they seem to be doing fine in Heathrow.
You make it sound as if LHR is some club for the rich where 'poorer' members are gradually kicked out.

At the end of the day, OU sold its slots because they needed cash. Personally I think it was a stupid move as they will never get them back. I am sure this winter they will sell the remaining ones after which they will completely withdraw from the London market.

My question would be. When will they replace the current management including the Ceo Kucko.Only then Croatia Airlines will move forward