Croatia Airlines will make several modifications to its operations this coming winter season, which begins on Sunday, October 29. The Croatian carrier will extend its seasonal summer flights from Zagreb to both Barcelona and Lisbon into the winter months. Services to the Spanish and Portuguese cities will run twice per week until January 8, after which they will be terminated until the start of the 2018 summer season in late March. Furthermore, Croatia Airlines will add an additional frequency to Copenhagen for a total of seven per week. It marks the second consecutive year that the carrier has been strengthening its operations to the Danish capital. This year it will face competition on the route from Norwegian Air Shuttle which has extended its seasonal operations between the two cities into the winter months, albeit only once per week.
On the other hand, Croatia Airlines will reduce operations between Zagreb and London Heathrow to four per week as the sale of its five weekly morning slot pairs to Delta Air Lines this January for 19.5 million US dollars comes into effect. Although the transaction was completed earlier this year and Delta received ownership of the slots in March, the Croatian carrier leased back the departure and arrival times (free of charge) through a Slot Use Agreement with Delta over the summer. Croatia Airlines faces competition on the route from British Airways, while Monarch Airlines, which launched services from London to the Croatian capital this summer, has ceased all operations as of this morning. Elsewhere, the Croatia Airlines will maintain the same number of operations as last winter season.
Apart from the operations listed below, Croatia Airlines will continue to maintain six weekly flights between Pula and Zadar. The number of frequencies on the route remains unchanged compared to last year. The 2017/18 winter season runs until March 25, 2018. Please note that the changes listed below are preliminary and based on current availability in the Global Distribution System (GDS). Furthermore, the table below displays the peak weekly frequency on each route during the course of the winter season. EX-YU Aviation News will bring you Montenegro Airlines' winter season modifications over the coming two weeks. In the meantime, you can also review changes made by Air Serbia and Adria Airways.
Departing Zagreb
| Destination | Frequency W16/17 | Frequency W17/18 | Change | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amsterdam | 7 | 7 | - | - |
| Brussels | 11 | 11 | - | - |
| Barcelona | 0 | 2 | ▲ 2 | seasonal ends JAN8 |
| Copenhagen | 6 | 7 | ▲ 1 | - |
| Dubrovnik | 22 | 22 | - | - |
| Frankfurt | 21 | 21 | - | - |
| London-Heathrow | 9 | 4 | ▼ 5 | - |
| Lisbon | 0 | 2 | ▲ 2 | seasonal ends JAN8 |
| Munich | 14 | 14 | - | - |
| Paris | 7 | 7 | - | - |
| Pula | 6 | 6 | - | - |
| Rome | 7 | 7 | - | via Split |
| Sarajevo | 13 | 13 | - | - |
| Skopje | 7 | 7 | - | - |
| Split | 22 | 22 | - | - |
| Vienna | 14 | 14 | - | - |
| Zadar | 6 | 6 | - | - |
| Zurich | 14 | 14 | - | - |
Departing Split
| Destination | Frequency W16/17 | Frequency W17/18 | Change | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frankfurt | 7 | 7 | - | - |
| Munich | 6 | 6 | - | - |
| Rome | 7 | 7 | - | - |
| Zagreb | 22 | 22 | - | - |
Departing Dubrovnik
| Destination | Frequency W16/17 | Frequency W17/18 | Change | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frankfurt | 3 | 3 | - | - |
| Zagreb | 22 | 22 | - | - |
Croatia should reconsider LGW afetr Monarch filed for bankruptcy.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely the wrong time for them to reduce LHR. I hope they look into adding at least 1 p/w to LGW or Luton.
DeleteJust wait for those prices to skyrocket on BA and OU.
DeleteI can see BA launching a few flights from LGW.
DeleteMaybe it's time for W6 to reconsider LTN-ZAG.
I am sure there are going to be some extra bookings on Wizz Air from LJU to LTN.
DeleteAgree with anon 9.07. Remember Monarch originally wanted to fly to ZAG just seasonally but then the bookings took off and they kept flights over winter. So it shows there definitely is a market and demand.
DeleteI think it is very possible that Wizz Air will now start LTN-ZAG. They just announced they will be flying rescue flights from LTN to Tel Aviv.
DeleteMissed opportunity for Croatia Airlines.
DeleteI highly doubt W6 will be ready to fly to ZAG and to pay those relatively high charges.
DeleteThey fly from Sofia and Budapest to FRANKFURT. Fares rarely exceed 80€ one way. They would directly begin ZAG if there was DEMAND. Zag is a relatively small city and is served by two daily flights to LON. BEG, which is almost twce the size of ZAG has barely 9 flights to London a week. ZAG had until recently 14!
DeleteWell, Belgrade is not relevant here as Serbs need visas for the UK and we are not in the EU.
DeleteAlso, Sofia is a much bigger airport than Zagreb and Bulgaria's population is more than twice that of Croatia. It makes sense for W6 to be more bold there.
ya my point was to claim that the argument about the airport charges in ZAG is irrelevant when there is enough demand.
DeleteMeaning that there isn't that much demand for them to go head to head with BA.
Deleteand ZB until today. which made 18 flights a week. now they might reconsider adding some flights to LGW or BA will next summer.
DeleteYes, shame. Just as Monarch has gone belly up. And they've been doing fine on the route. Agreed, last anon. If they don't do it, BA almost certainly will.
DeleteIt's a shame they are reducing London right at the time that Monarch Airlines has collapsed and with it has ended its Zagreb flights. Maybe OU could have kept 9 weekly flights with 5 operating to Gatwick and 4 to Heathrow?
ReplyDeleteIsn't BA also reducing ZAG this winter?
DeleteBA stays as daily A319 in winter.
DeleteOk good thank you. Then I had wrong info.
DeleteMaybe you got confused with last year's reduction which took place in February.
DeleteEasyjet and JET2 will fill the void after Monarch´s insolvency. This is the opportunity for EZY to re-enter the Zagreb market, and significantly increase the coastal cities. Wait and see :)
DeleteEasyJet already published S18 timetable and there is no "significant increases" for coastal airports in Croatia lol
DeleteDubrovnik is quite week this winter. Frankfurt is the only international flight?! Seriously OU!
ReplyDeletethe same like last winter. But DBV will have flights to FCO (Vueling) and Istanbul (Turkish). OU management is still in 1990's and they are not following changes on market. Nothing surprising, right?
DeleteI know but I'm certain OU had a bigger network from Dubrovnik before during winter. Didn't they fly to Paris and Zurich as well plus Rome?
DeleteYeah, years ago. But that was before restructuring process. DBV have huge demand during the summer months, but obviously that is not the case during the winter. At least EasyJet will operate on that routes...
DeleteWhat's Dubrovnik's realistic catchment area? How many people live in a two hour drive from the airport? We should exclude Montenegro as they have TIV.
DeleteThat flights would be only for tourists. In whole Dubrovačko - neretvanska county lives approx. 120.000 citizens, and they are mostly using flights to Zagreb.
DeleteAnd how many people from Bosnia could realistically use DBV in stead of SJJ or TIV?
DeleteSramite se gospodo iz Croatie...
ReplyDeleteOvakav mizeran zimki red letenja DBV nije zasluzio!!
Sramite se Dubrovcani- sta ne letite vise!
Delete+1000
DeleteBio nekad jaci red letenja iz DBV... nekad davno...
DeleteWhy didn't the extend LIS and BCN for the entire winter. Why Just until early January?
ReplyDeleteBecause January and February are the lowest of the low seasons.
DeleteTrue and clever move, but I don't understand why they did not start with flights again on 1st, or at least 10th March?
DeleteI just saw online that LH will operate six weekly FRA-ZAG onboard the CRJ900... I know OU has three flights but it seems like very little capacity.
ReplyDeleteMUC seems to be performing better with double daily flights on board the CRJ.
I think it's a shame ZAG no longer has LH Mainline flying there.
small capacity to FRA? Hmmm...
DeleteCRJ900 79 seats, A320 174 seats, 2xA319 144 seats. That is 541 available seats per day in one way, or 1.082 in booth ways. Pretty sure that is enough.
Also, LH will operate double daily flights with CRJ9 until 01/12.
There is not so much point to point demand on a route that can be reached y car in 5 hours.
DeleteNo, they are already reduced to 12 weekly from the start of the winter season and then by the end of November they go down to six weekly.
DeleteAlso, I am not talking about the total amount of seats offered. I am talking about the ones offered by LH.
Also, it's depressing that ZAG will be operated exclusively by regional jets. I like LH and I don't like to see them retreat in a market.
Anon 09.24
DeleteI disagree, look at JU's BEG-VIE. It's chronically full to the last seat despite the drive being around six hours.
oh really? I didn't check whole timetable, but I saw double daily flights on 1.12., operated by LH.
DeleteThe competition in Zagreb is going up, and that's the biggest difference on previous years. Now u can fly from Zagreb with other airlines and make connections in Europe. Few years ago there weren't KLM, BA, AF, LOT, and almost only option was connection via FRA. I think that the reason for reduction, which is completely normal.
And yeah, I'd love to see something bigger than CRJ in Zagreb, but...
What I am curious is how come KL, BA and others stole passengers from OU-LH, was it just lower price or was there something else. I doubt AF has a better product than LH.
DeleteWell, at least as a passenger u have bigger choice now. With more airlines you can find your ticket with minimum connection time. Before that, you used LH because that was almost only choice. Now if u flying to, for example, Krakow, u can go with LOT and u will have just 45 min connection in WAW, etc. And yeah, price is sometimes lower with AF, KLM, LOT, but sometimes is opposite, so as a passenger u should check all options before you purchase the ticket.
Delete@Anon 9.30. Vienna is the second biggest city with Serbian diaspora in the world. VIE and ZRH. have you ever been there. In Vienna alone 250.000 people are Serbs. So no wonder the Atr with 66 seats has a load.
DeleteYeah but there is also Austrian which operates up to three daily flights, in summer with A320 even.
DeleteAll I am saying is that OU should not have a problem filling two daily flights on the Q400.
@Anon 9:59
DeleteStatistics for Vienna show 74,538 Serbs living in the city.
Total Serbs in and around Vienna is 180.000 while in the 'countryside' there are as many living there. You are also forgetting Austrians of Serbian origin.
DeleteAgain theory about 10 million Serbs out of Serbia which is not supported by any statistics, not even Serbian Government estimation.
DeleteThere is a correlation between diaspora and destination served by an airline. Or do you think ZRH out of INI and BEG is full with business travellers, while a much larger City like London is served only daily?
DeleteLike the 'there are a million Croats in the US' argument.
DeleteYa so when there is demand at a certain price flights will be there, regardless of whether it´s by diaspora, business or tourists.
DeleteHow many planes does Croatia Airlines use during the winter? Do they park some of their planes?
ReplyDeleteI think they park 2 Airbuses over winter.
DeleteIf that's the case, why don't they lease them out during the winter? It would give them extra revenue.
DeleteIt's very difficult to find anyone to lease out extra capacity during northern hemisphere winter.
DeleteAre you sure? Have they even tried? I have never seen them offering their frames on the market.
DeleteOh please anon 9.28. If Adria can do it so can Croatia Airlines.
DeleteAdria offering a 180 seater in winter?
DeleteIt's summer in the southern hemisphere. It's not like they are bound to lease in Europe.
DeleteQR managed to find to lease some of its extra capacity within 2 weeks.
DeleteSo where exactly is Adria's 180 seater going?
DeleteThey could make nice money by wetleasing 2-3 planes to other airline during the winter.
DeleteYes they did try this for several times, one winter even drastically. No success.
DeleteSo many companies in Europe, huge ones including, ground their capacity and try to lease them during winter with minimum or no success at all.
When you look at it they have an identical number of flights from Zagreb. They are reducing Heathrow by 5 and adding to each to Lisbon and Barcelona and 1 flight to Copenhagen. Net gain/loss 0.
ReplyDeleteWith everything that's going on in Barcelona I wouldn't be surprised if bookings evaporate.
DeleteJbt sa ovakvim redom letenja i dalje ce da prave gubitke a vi udri po njima. Nema potrebe da se leti svaki dan preko splita za Rim, dva puta dnevno za bec npr. pola od tih aviona su poluprazni.
ReplyDeleteCroatia Airlines has done nothing with their winter schedule for years except for shrink it bit by bit. Ok this year there are no changes. Like someone said they will substitute Heathrow with Lisbon and Barcelona, and even that won't be for the entire winter. Last winter they ended Pristina, before that Podgorica and before that Istanbul.
ReplyDeleteLook at the upside at least they are not shrinking this winter.
DeleteThey shrink it because there is huge demand. All other airlines are significantly increasing their operations like SN LH etc. Because of the huge demand in Winter to Croatia especially to places like DBV. They are so stupid to still be offering the like of FCO with one stop. They should offer it twice daily nonstop and go bust tomorrow.
Delete"Huge" demand in winter for DBV? Seriously? Ok, I can understand that there is something going on around Festivities, but apart from that...
DeleteThat was IRONY!
DeleteThat was sarcasm dammit, not irony! :)
DeleteThey sholud keep Oslo and Helsinki too. They are verry conservative. And London, now when Monarch is gone, they should start Gatwick yesterday.
ReplyDeleteThey should start Moscow, Lisbon, LHR, PRG, MAD, BCN, FCO, ATH, IST, DUS at least 2 times a day in winter. Otherwise they will not survive. Demand is there, definitely! I know it personally. What are Croatians gonna do with all their money they have earned now during summer.
DeleteIdu na skijanje u Sloveniju i Austriju. Autom.
DeleteHow can you do LHR double daily when an airlines sells over half its slots? What is the fascination with Moscow, surely Aeroflot would have doubled capacity if it was such a great result.
DeleteThe issue with OU and winter is their fleet. They urgently need 100 seaters. The Airbuses are completely unsuitable for their winter ops. Too large for 98% of the routes.
ReplyDeleteWhat on earth are they going to do with the neos then in the winter when they arrive in 3 years.
DeleteNot sure OU will survive till then.
DeleteImaju jos slotova i masina da prodaju, prezivece.
DeleteYeah, sure. Experts keep saying it won't survive. How many years by now?
DeleteWell the list of assets is getting pretty thin.
DeleteOUs biggest asset is Croatia. Makes the rest of the Balkans look pretty thin really
DeleteYes, especially other parts of the Balkans like Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece.
DeleteThe EX-YU part of the The Balkans.
DeleteAnon 10:21, ne moraš biti veliki stručnjak da bi predvidio kraj jedne kompanije. Mnogo veći su polomili zube pa će se isto to kad-tad dogoditi i našoj voljenoj Croatiji.
DeleteI to samo iz jednog razloga - tržišna utakmica će ih pojesti a loš management dokrajčiti. Zar ti misliš da se jedna kompanija sa 12 zrakoplova može boriti na današnjem tržištu? Svaka čast ako misliš da može, ali si u krivu. Postoji nekoliko razloga, od visokih cijena, imidža (pogledaj samo FB i feedback putnika), do nemogućnosti države da da kompaniji financijska sredstva.
I da, biti će dobro ako se prije kraha kompanija uspije prodati. Skini svoje ružičaste naočale i budi objektivan. Ako ti vidiš OU operativnu i za 10 godina, onda ne znam šta da ti kažem. Usput, danas je probao puno veći igrač, Monarch, a da se nabrojati 10 kompanije redom veličine veće od Croatie koje su isto tako otišle u zaborav.
There is Ex-Yu and there is Balkans, those are two separate things.
DeleteIt's like they took a ruler and drew a line near Skopje. Anything east of it is a no go.
ReplyDeleteSo Bucharest, Athens and St.Petersburg are not East of Skopje?
DeleteI was talking about winter.
DeleteFlights from ZAG to Rome still going via Split is completely nonsensical. They are lucky that Alitalia is a mess otherwise I'm sure someone if they were in a better state they would have launched this route years ago.
ReplyDeleteVueling is doing quite well in Dubrovnik, maybe they consider Zagreb next.
DeleteWith Qatar purchase of Meridiana cleared and them saying how it will become Italy's true national airline maybe they do start Zagreb.
DeleteI think Meridiana has a lot of catching up to do before they consider ZAG flights.
DeleteVueling is doing quite well in DBV? By what terms? They sit on over 100 aircraft they need to deploy somewhere. Even in BCN and FCO demand in winter shrinks dramatically.
DeleteHow big of an impact will ZB's bankruptcy have on ZAG's numbers this winter?
ReplyDeleteWell they started flying to Zagreb during this summer so they were not around last winter.
DeleteI meant how much additional passengers would they bring if they were still around.
DeleteIt's interesting that Adria now has more destinations out of Ljubljana, then Croatia Airlines out of Zagreb.
ReplyDeleteI think it is like that for a second year now.
DeleteWell if ZAG was the only airpory in croatia i'm sure OU would serve more destinations than JP out of LJU
DeleteNot great but not a disaster either. Keeping the status quo. But seriously I think Croatia as a country has much more flight potential over winter then the network Croatia Airlines puts out.
ReplyDeleteWhat about Osijek? It's in continental Croatia not dependent on tourism and seasonal fluctuations. Why don't they look into some routes from there?
ReplyDeleteDUB wasn't such a success so I think they got burned there despite the susbidies they received. Let's see how Wizz Air performs.
Delete^ Not surprising since they were selling return tickets between 250-300 euros!
DeleteClassical Balkan mentality. It wasn't enough they got subsidies but they also had to rip people off.
DeleteDo remember this was around Christmas, New Year. I mean this is Dublin we are talking about which isn't exactly close. I doubt there are tickets from Zagreb to Heathrow for under 250 euros around December 25.
DeleteHeathrow isn't subsidized, Dublin was.
DeletePeople talking about how OU should fly much more, keep in mind how much the competition has increased for them in just a year. Do you think this has no impact on them? Despite some people here saying that the market is huge and growing so much that everyone can sustain flights, that is not true. It's good they are keeping what they already have.
ReplyDeleteWhat about Madrid? Interesting that they don't fly there but do to Barcelona and Lisbon.
ReplyDeleteSame old same old from Croatia Airlines.
ReplyDeleteGood to seem them being stable in their ops with no cuts except LHR
DeleteI think they should have kept a few seasonal routes from Zagreb including Athens, Prague and possibly Milan
ReplyDeleteAgreed for those three destinations from ZAG. All are in good reach for the Dash (incl. ATH).
DeleteAlso Split to Vienna and Zurich 2 or 3 times a week should work - no competition in winter season and sizeable diaspora in both relatively wealthy/higher yielding destinations.
Very conservative network.
ReplyDeleteHi Fly with 340-300 today in ZAG to pick up PAX of Monarch! ZT came with 767-300 to DBV today to catch them. Pretty sure LGW will be taken on by Jet2 or EZY to Zagreb.
ReplyDeleteYup, departure time of A340 is 21:50 from ZAG.
DeleteWhat will happen to those who have booked travel arrangemets for ZAG this winter? Is it all lost?
Deleteunfortunately, probably yes...
DeleteCan the A340-300 land at Zagreb?
DeleteSure it can!
DeleteThere might be some take-off restrictions which should be irrelevant for this short flight.
DeleteAirbus A340-300
DeleteTakeoff: 3000m
Landing: 1926m
Payload Limited 13,500km with 295 pax
LDZA/ZAG
Direction: 05/23
Length: 3252m
so withouth problems tonight :)
Well, that's cutting it short.
DeleteNot if the plane does not have to fly for 13.500 km but less than 3.500 km to reach England.
DeleteNo need to fill it up with fuel and therefore no need for 3.000km runway to take off.
Considering the whole potential of the Croatian market this is a more than a disappointing network.
ReplyDeleteWhatever happened to the appointment of a new CEO ? Seems like there will also be no changes to that - just like their network ...
ReplyDeleteI heard Kucko is staying
DeleteNop, just extension for another 3 months, till final decision.
DeleteHello ! Does anybody know when those 2 crj 1000 of air nostrum leaving the fleet of OU ? Thanks .
ReplyDeleteAlready left since 30.9.
DeleteNo they don't . According to zagreb airport flight radar they are still flying with OU . You can check it .
Delete