Star Alliance members Adria Airways and Croatia Airlines will strengthen their operations this coming winter season, beginning October 29, with additional frequencies and new routes. As previously reported, the Slovenian national carrier plans to add over thirty additional flights each week from its Ljubljana base when compared to last winter. Although some of the frequency upgrades are yet to be listed in global distribution systems, Adria plans to boost services to Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Moscow, Paris, Podgorica, Prague, Pristina, Sarajevo, Skopje, Tirana, Vienna, Warsaw and Zurich. The biggest increase in operations will be to Zurich, with an additional five weekly services for a total of twenty, followed by Podgorica, Pristina, Copenhagen and Tirana.
In addition to strengthening its network with extra flights on existing routes, the airline will also introduce a new three weekly service to Kiev. "We believe that with this new service not only do our passengers gain better connections to Kiev, but we will also be connecting Ukraine to other European destinations via Ljubljana", Adria Airways' CEO, Arno Schuster, said. He added, "We believe that with the introduction of this new service, which will enable faster and easier travel between Ukraine and Slovenia, our two-way economic cooperation will grow even stronger. Ukraine, the largest country in Europe, is also considered one of Europe's richest and oldest cultures. Its major cities, headed by Kiev, are also becoming increasingly interesting to tourists, thanks to their rich architecture, music, and art".
Croatia Airlines will extend its seasonal flights from Zagreb to Barcelona and Lisbon into the winter months. Services to Barcelona will be maintained twice per week, each Tuesday and Sunday, while Lisbon will operate on Mondays and Fridays, until January 8, after which both will be suspended until the start of the 2018 summer season. The Croatian carrier introduced seasonal flights to Barcelona in 2009, while operations to Lisbon were launched last year. Both have proved solid performers for the airline, which will utilise one of its Airbus A319 aircraft on both routes during the winter months. Furthermore, Croatia Airlines plans to strengthen its service between Zagreb and Copenhagen for a second consecutive year with the addition of another weekly flight for a total of seven. On the other hand, the carrier will reduce its operations to London Heathrow Airport from nine to four per week. It comes following the sale of its five weekly slot pairs at the UK's main airport to Delta Air Lines this January. The airline leased back the slots (free of charge) from Delta over the summer through a Slot Use Agreement.
Croatia Airlines initially planned to offset its sharp seasonality by leasing 100-seater aircraft on a year-round basis, however this is unlikely to materialise with the two wet-leased Bombardier CRJ1000 jets to be returned to their owner in mid-October. The carrier previously noted it would use 100 seat jets during the winter instead of the larger Airbus aircraft on a number of routes and, in turn, this would allow it to offer its surplus Airbus capacity to the ACMI market. The airline has also called on the Croatian National Tourist Board and local authorities to follow Zagreb's lead and help draw in tourists during the winter months, as the airline alone cannot achieve this.
EX-YU Aviation News will bring you detailed network changes for the 2017/18 winter season for each national carrier from the former Yugoslavia in the lead up to October 29, as is the case each year.
Comments
... and I thought that was Russia- silly me
added flights:
- Monarch 2pw MAN
- Monarch 3pw LGW
- OU 2pw LIS (Nov + Dec)
- OU 2pw BCN (Nov + Dec)
- OU 1pw CPH
- DY 1pw ARN
- DY 1pw CPH
- LOT 2pw WAW
- EK 5pw DXB
- LH 6pw (Nov only)
- El Al 1pw TLV (Nov only)
- Charters: 6 x flights to Marrakesh (Nov/Dec)
still "in the grey":
- BA 1pw extra LHR (Wednesday, BA 852)
- Monarch 3pw extra LGW (Nov + Dec)
Less flights:
- OU 5pw LHR
- Czech airlines 2pw PRG (seems like they stopped the winter sales)
Anyway, the expression "competitive" in this (and often other) sense(s) has a lot of meanings. Examples: It refers to a low enough pricing so that pax use JP via LJU, that the transfer times in LJU are attractive (enough), that their cabin/service product is attractive enough (well, JP has nothing to brag about here), but also from the airline's perspective means that prices for whole trip (KBP-LJU-xxx) must not be loss making in average over the whole year, hence negatively effecting yields, etc. However - furthermore, there are always more positive effects when opening a feeder/transfer route on the whole of an airline's network as the new route will create more pax for other routes. The "hub" airport will profit as well with earning more revenue as well do the retail shops at LJU and so on.
Obviously, JP believes that the sum of all costs and earnings will (long-term) equal in a benefit. I, personally, am also not so sure about that, but it seems they want to give it a try as their market and route pre-opening (or however you call it) analyses must have proven that there is enough potential.
and the large chunk of Russia before the Ural Mountains is on which continent exactly?
I just hope Arno's business acumen is better than his geography knowledge.
As for Croatia Airlines, nothing much. They basically are only increasing CPH by one flight. 5 weekly cut from London and 2 seasonal routes just extended for 2 months.
Transavia to double its BEG flights from three to six starting from February
NO, Moscow is covered by Aeroflot well, with 6 weekly flights if I am not mistaken.
Aeroflot has good occupancy rate, but Russia has strict visa regime on Croats and all EU nationals, so there's little demand for extra flights beyond Aeroflot.
Aeroflot's occupancy rate on the route is around 85-90%.
OU also has no planes to start the route. OU is short of 4 planes to cover 37 routes in winter, and this is when they need to do A, B, C and D checks on scheduled aircraft.
OU is negotiating with Bombardier in converting some of the Q-400s in to CS-100, or getting a good deal on 4 CS-100. It would be lease to own if the deal can be reached.
http://www.croatiaairlines.com/About-us/Financial-information/Financial-reports
Croatian Airlines has been paying off debt of around 489 million kuna from 2011/12 @an rate of around 80 million kuna per year. There's only 47 million kuna left to pay off, all interest. So 2019 Croatian Airlines will have extra 85 million kuna that it can use to buy new planes or lease to own.
2019 is most likely year when they'll lease to own either CS-100s or some other 100seat aircraft.
A320 NEOs won't join the fleet before 2021. These are also being purchased on lease to own, Price for all 4 is 960 million kuna.
Also, don't forget that ASL has done well in AMS. Despite Transavia and Wizz Air they have kept 10 weekly flights.
And many Greek islands are served by charters in the summer.