Zagreb Airport set for busy winter

Zagreb Airport is preparing for a busy winter season, which will see it handle more flights than ever before, following on from what is set to be a record summer. A number of carriers have already committed to increasing both frequencies and capacity to the Croatian capital when compared to last winter, with El Al Israel Airlines recently announcing it will extend its seasonal summer flight programme between Tel Aviv and Zagreb by a month, until the end of November. Services will be maintained once per week. Furthermore, as previously reported, Croatia Airlines has upgraded its seasonal flights to Barcelona and Lisbon to year-round operations, while Qatar Airways is expected to uphold its two daily service throughout the winter, up from last year's ten weekly flights.

Carriers that will be operating to Zagreb Airport this year, but were not present last winter, include Emirates, with a five weekly service from Dubai, Monarch Airlines, with services from London Gatwick and Manchester, as well as Norwegian Air Shuttle, which will maintain its recently launched flights from Stockholm to Zagreb throughout the winter. Furthermore, Lufthansa's low cost unit Eurowings will add its fourth destination to the Croatian capital, from Dusseldorf, starting October 31. Sales for the new route have been encouraging, resulting in the airline's decision to run the service three times per week instead of two, as initially scheduled. Monarch Airlines recently said its decision to extend its seasonal flights to Zagreb over the winter was down to strong loads and bookings over the summer months. "The summer flights and city breaks to Croatia have been selling well and we are always looking for new routes that we can offer all year round, so we are happy to be adding Zagreb as another city break to our winter programme”, Monarch's Chief Commercial Officer, Ian Chambers, said.

Elsewhere, LOT Polish Airlines will increase frequencies on its Zagreb flights over the winter. The airline will maintain eight instead of six weekly services from Warsaw, all of which will be run by its 82-seat Embraer E175 aircraft. Furthermore, ČSA Czech Airlines will add an extra weekly flight from Prague over the winter for a total of three with its ATR 72. At this point, the carrier has not scheduled a stop-in-service during the slow month of February, as was the case this year. Czech Airlines recently said that more than a third of travellers who began their journey in Zagreb continued on from Prague towards other destinations served by the carrier and its partners.

Zagreb Airport is targeting passenger growth of 8% in 2017, although it is expected to surpass this figure. During the first half of 2017 it handled 1.335.942 passengers, up 9% on last year. Recently, its General Manager, Jacques Feron, said that attracting new airlines was one of the management's key goals which will, in turn, transform the airport into a true hub. "An airport such as Zagreb cannot decide to become a hub on its own. It is airlines which make the airport a hub. At our concessionaire level, we shall accompany the airlines, and especially Croatia Airlines, in their strategies by being efficient and flexible". Mr Feron said.