Croatian airports anticipate strong growth in both passenger numbers and flight operations in 2018 as authorities seek to ease the seasonal nature of air travel in the country. The head of the Croatian National Tourist Board, Kristjan Stančić, said, "Our strategic goal is to develop and position Croatia as a year-round air travel destination. Air connectivity is extremely important in strengthening the country's tourism sector throughout the year. As a result, we have held an open call and prepared a special program in the form of joint strategic promotional campaigns with airlines to achieve this goal. We will see a wave of new flights and services launched to Croatian airports as early as this March". The Croatian Minister for Tourism, Gari Capelli, noted, "The Ministry's strategic goal is to develop Croatia as a destination which is accessible to various airlines, particularly before and after the height of the summer season. We are focusing on closer cooperation with carriers, which will result in more flights to all of our airports".
Apart from the country's three busiest airports - Zagreb, Split and Dubrovnik - which foresee sustained passenger growth following a record 2017, the airports in Zadar, Rijeka, Osijek and Brač also expect for their figures to improve this year. Zadar Airport's General Manager, Josip Klišmanić, noted, "We are currently negotiating with several new airlines and expect further records to be broken in 2018, with excellent results in both passenger and air traffic. We have great expectations from Eurowings, which became the second busiest airline in Zadar in 2017. easyJet has already announced its schedule for 2018, which will see its Milan service increased from two to three per week, while flights from London Luton will resume two weeks earlier compared to last year". Furthermore, easyJet will launch new services from Berlin to Zadar, along with Lufthansa, Aegean Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Ryanair, Condor, Germania Flug and TUIfly which have all announced new routes to the city.
Rijeka Airport's General Manager, Tomislav Palalić estimates for some 180.000 passengers to use the airport's services this year, with Ryanair, Condor and Transavia so far announcing new routes to the city for the coming summer. "Over the past twelve to fifteen months I have witnessed Mr Capelli and Mr Stančić hold talks with virtually every airline, in a way pressuring them to focus on developing traffic to Zadar, Pula, Rijeka and Osijek, especially the latter where it is most difficult to develop tourism", Mr Palalić noted. Eurowings has previously said it plans to add a new route to Osijek and increase its existing two weekly service from Stuttgart to three per week. Meanwhile, Wizz Air will add another flight, for a total of three per week, on its Basel - Osijek service from late March. The low cost airline has carried over 15.000 passengers on the route since starting operations last May.
Brač Airport has high expectations for 2018 with eleven routes already confirmed for the summer. "So far we have negotiated flights from Bari (VLM), Bern (SkyWork Airlines), Brussels (TUIfly), Deauville (TUIfly), Graz (Croatia Airlines), Innsbruck (ČSA Czech Airlines), Linz (ČSA Czech Airlines), Ljubljana (Adria Airways), Luxembourg (Luxair), Rotterdam (TUIfly), Salermo (VLM), Vienna (ČSA Czech Airlines) and Zagreb (Croatia Airlines). We hope that Brač will also secure flights from Dusseldorf, Munich and Zurich (all Eurowings)", the Assistant to the General Manager, Petra Bonačić-Sargo, said. "Following the lengthening of the runway [in 2017], Brač Airport can now handle jet-engine aircraft with the capacity to seat 150 passengers. That includes the Airbus A318, A319, Boeing 737-400, Embraer E170, E190, Bombardier CS100, CS300 and a whole range of turboprops. These aircraft are operated by European carriers, so we have opened the opportunity for Brač to be linked to the entire continent. Taking into consideration that a large share of passengers come to Brač by car from Split Airport, we are certain that by boosting direct connectivity we will improve the island's tourist offer", General Manager, Tonči Peović, added.
Since the number of tourists will increase around 5%, I assume there will be similar growth at airports.
ReplyDeleteThis year will be crucial. Turkey is coming up in a big way and Tunisia is also recovering.
DeleteYes, but Europeans still prefer Greece and Croatia. Russians return to Tunisia and Turkey.
DeleteAnon 9:04, 5%? Huh?
DeleteYes a conservative estimate is 5%.
Delete"This year will be crucial. Turkey is coming up in a big way and Tunisia is also recovering."
DeleteThen, Italy, France, Spain and other countries should also be worried? Not to mention Montenegro, Serbia,...?
Yes, they should.
DeleteWhy Serbia? Montenegro should, yes.
DeleteWell, I suppose that Serbia expects bigger growth in tourism numbers in 2018...
DeleteIts tourism is completely different then the other countries you mentioned and does not rely on people who spend their summer on the beach.
DeleteMontenegro and Bulgaria should be worried.
DeleteSpain, Portugal, Italy, Croatia, Greece and Cyprus are focused on more afluent tourists than Turkey and Tunisia.
Last time Croatia had seen a 5% increase in tourism was probably 1999.... 12 to 15% would be a more realistic ‘comservative’ figure with the real number probably being closer to 20%.
DeleteOk, 5% is Capelli's estimate too. I certainly hope it's more.
DeleteAt the beginning of 2017. Capelli (Mint) and HTZ people estimated 3-5% growth for 2017...and it ended up around 11%. For as long as I remember, those institutions rarely ever predicted anything more than 3%...in the years 2012-14 when Croatia grew at 5%, there were announcements with hopes "to repeat or slightly overpass" the numbers. So, here you all go. If he says 5%, it's most likely gonna be closer to 10%.
DeleteSorry just a correction, I got numbers in the millions and percentages confused in my comment above.
DeleteIt was announced today that Russia will be resuming flights to Egypt meaning they are also slowly getting back in the game.
DeleteYou just have to look to the right side to see how many new routes are planned to know it will be a good year for Croatian airports.
ReplyDeleteThey still have to sell those seats.
DeleteUsually you schedule new routes if you you foresee that you will sell seats on those flights.
DeleteAnon 9:12, your post doesn't make any sense. Of course they have to sell those seats, and I'm sure the carriers did their research on the routes to and from Croatia.
DeleteI hope they did their homework otherwise...
DeleteRight side of this web page should be updated to reflect the volume of operations at a glance, as most of the announcements there are insignificant with 1-2 weekly operations during peak months.
DeleteYou can see the volume when you click on the link.
DeleteSo what if they are 1-2 weekly flights during peak months? The title says "New routes".
DeleteSomeone is not happy with the exponential pax growth at Croatian airports?
DeleteExponential growth yet they are still way behind other European tourist airports.
DeleteRijeka has been a big disappointment and I don't think it will change much in 2018. In 2017 Eurowings increase their capacity to Rijeke by 20,000 seats but load factor dropped 10% on all routes. Ryanair has also reduced flights before and after summer...
ReplyDeleteTrue. Has a lot of potential but hasn't done much about it. The current cargo boom will dry up as soon as the current wars in the Middle East wind down. So they should really focus on attracting more airlines.
Deleteyeah, 180k, don't know how they think to reach that with 3 new routes and there will no be flights from CLR, STN, HAJ, LHR... they need better marketing and more new lines and than something maybe would change.
DeleteThey need a management change in my opinion. It was a very promising airport years ago when Easy Jet started flights there.
DeleteI’m predicting Rijeka to be the next big hit. Please standby!
DeleteHow so?
DeleteBig hit? Please...As someone wrote before, Eurowings increase capacity during the summer 2017. and they had even less pax. than during the summer 2016. There is no more flights to STN, CRL, HAJ and LHR. Just new routes to FRA and EIN. They expect to reach 140.000 pax from 2017. and to get 40.000 new pax with 3 new routes? Sorry, that is not possible. They still didn't reach the record from 2006. which is horrible - 166.675 pax! They need more subsidiary there, support Eurowings to open summer base to many destinations and than we can talk about some nice growth, thill than, it gonna stay small regional airport with less than 200.000 pax per year.
Deleteand yeah, Rijeka's management announcements are pathetic - they are talking about record year before every summer season. That's happening for the last few years but pax number surpassed 160.000 11 years ago!!
DeleteI read somewhere 2 weeks ago how Rijeka Airport's GM was complaining about unfair PSO distribution. I didn't quite understand what he was going on about. Anyone know?
DeleteWell, they wanna more PSO seats in Rijeka, like in Dubrovnik and Split, because Rijeka is 3rd biggest city in Croatia and have less seats than other airports. But even this routes are quite empty during the winter...On the end of story, I do not believe they gonna change PSO before end of contract which is in March 2020. so they need to focus to connecting the airport with some legacy carriers with some big EU hub, for example LHR (BA would not come to Rijeka - they are flying to PUY and ZAG which is close to the city), FRA (Lufthansa! Croatia Airlines), AMS (Transavia with codeshare to KLM!), CDG (HOP!). Munich with OU is not enough, OU is expensive, connections are not perfect and they are flying just 3pw from May until end of September.
DeleteThanks for the explanation.
DeleteRijeka airport needs to be shut down immediately, pure waste of country's resources. Shutting it down would not only cut unnecessary costs but would also help to increase traffic in Pula and reduce its losses.
DeleteRijeka radi bez subvencija države već 3-4 godine. Jedino što se subvencionira jest PSO kao i u svim drugim zračnim lukama. Ove godine će država kao suvlasnik uložiti 20 milijuna kuna u infrastrukturu, kao što povremeno ulaže i u druge ZL. Mislim da ju iz tog razloga ne treba zatvarati, sve dok ona ne bude na teret državnog proračuna odnosno nas poreznih obveznika.
DeleteMajority of the European airports (80%) having less than 1M annual pax have negative balance. If you claim that Rijeka Airport with 150k annual pax and its sharp seasonality has a positive balance sheet, please step forward and present ACI the secrets to achieve such result, so that all other European airports can have lessons from Rijeka. Oh sorry, you already mentioned in your text that RJK received 20M Kuna this year :)
Deletelol, ajde pogledaj malo račun dobiti i gubitka, imaš sve na stranici FINA-e, ako želiš lako pronađeš podatke, proračun, prihode u proračun, dotacije iz državnog proračuna, etc. :)
Deletei da, RH će napokon, prvi puta nakon x godina, uložiti 20 milijuna kuna namjenski u održavanje infrastrukture, ne kao subvencija zračnoj luci za njeno tekuće poslovanje (isplatu plaća, otplatu eventualnih kredita ili trećih potraživanja). Dakle, ZL Rijeka posluje sa dobiti (jako jako niskom) i ne prima subvencije iz DPRH za tekuće poslovanje. Cheers!
Nije istina da je to prvi puta nakon x godina. Bila je obnova Riječke luke, uređenje iznutra i nabava opreme u kojoj su sudjelovali i država i županija.
DeleteI to za zračnu lučicu koja ima tek 100-njak tisuća putnika. Bolje da se to ulaže u one zračne luke koje imaju potencijala, poput Zadra, Pule, Splita, nego da se bacaju novci na udaranje mrtvog konja.
bilo je to pred 3 ili nešto više sezona, x je jer nisam znao precizirati godinu, pa je ostalo nedorečeno. Koliko je to bilo značajno, dalo bi se, ne znam ako si koristio RJK, ali to i dalje izgleda poprilično loše...Ono što je bitno reći jest da je lova uložena u obnovu/razvoj infrastrukture što nikad nije bačen novac. Na kraju, da se i zatvori ZL, ta zgrada ide na bubanj a prodaja i zarada od iste se dijeli na sve suvlasnike, tako i na RH.
DeleteIzgradili smo i mi (porezni obveznici) zračnu luku na Braču na kojoj nema ni 50k putnika već godinama pa eto...Isto tako smo i Osijek obnovili nakon rata pa eto...Zadar također, koji je 10 godina unatrag imao brojke koje danas ima Rijeka. Također Pula. I zašto Zadar ima promet? I zbog potencijala i zbog ulaganja u promociju odnosno Ryana. A Ryana bi imala bilo koja ZL koja bi dala lovu za nju. Sad možemo diskutirat o ulaganju turističkih zajednica u taj sektor i koliko je to isplativo...Jer eto, da na Rijeci ili u Osijeku imamo ljetnu bazu Ryana imali bi "bijesne" brojke putnika. 300k i više. Onda bi rekli da se isplate ulaganja države u RJK ili OSI?
Everyone please, stick to English. This is an English speaking website and forum. It seems that it is enough recently that one starts in local language, then almost everyone immediately switches too, which is really not ok as this is an international site, so is the forum. Thank you all.
DeletePlus not everyone on here speaks Croatian/Serbian etc.
Upravo tako. Naravno da su zračne luke obnovljene nakon rata. Ali ove silne investicije od pustih milijuna u neke, a s druge strane nije se imalo za Zagreb ili se sa Splitom čekao ne do zadnje sekunde nego bitno poslije toga stvarno nema smisla.
DeleteKriteriji bi trebali biti za sve jednaki.
Nema se vlastitog novca za razvoja, hajmo lagano u koncesiju, pa da se skine sa državne sise, neka koncesionar ulaže. Kao što se tako brzo i jednostavno odlučilo za Zagreb.
Jednako tako je trebalo biti i u Dubrovniku. OK, fondovi EU, ok vlasiti novac (pa neka se i ne uplačuje u budžet), ali čemu državni novac. Nema se? Zagrebački model = Dubrovnik u koncesiju.
Ispada da se samo za Zagreb nije imalo. A za ostale luke se potrošilo daleko više nego što bi se ikad za Zagreb.
imaš pravo što se toga tiče, pogotovo ovo da bi kriteriji trebali biti isti za sve...no onda dolazimo do činjenice da nisu sve ZL ni jednako važne za našu državu pa je i to diskutabilno.
DeleteU svakoms lučaju, u ZL Rijeka država je utukla bitno manje love nego u neke druge...no isto tako je to onda očito i na rezultatima poslovanja
Congratulations Croatia.
ReplyDeleteHas Croatia Airlines flown Brac-Graz before?
ReplyDeleteYes that is charter flight for gruber reisen..
DeleteAh ok. I hope OU considers some more routes from Brac since they said they will be focusing on the coast this year.
DeleteOU WILL NEVER have more routes from brac,for OU brac is on the end of list for open some new routes from it...
DeleteBut normaly can open severel routes from brac..
And that is why so many years OU was only airline to fly to Brač, when all other decide to move and stop flying. I presume that unprofitable logic was because they hate Brač?!?!?!
DeleteWhen Ou was only airline wich flight to brac.??when she like it why she no have more destination from Bwk?
DeleteShe have some financial suport for flights to brac..
Who is she?
Delete@frishki
DeleteProbably Croatia Airlines.
Croatia was flying from Brač Zagreb and 3 routes to Austria. On one point alone. Even when Austrian and ČSA had flight to Austria that was 4:2 flights in favor of Croatia.
DeleteBrac will be the new big performer if all these flights and plans with Eurowings and other materialize.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to see how many of the intra Europe charters CSA will be operating.
DeleteI'm really happy for Brac, looking forward to seeing pics from their airport!
DeleteWell, CSA actually flying to Brac for the last 2 summers I think. Before them, Austrian operated on those routes :)
DeleteI guess CSA is a lot cheaper than OS for these charters?
DeleteSad you cannot book these flights publicly.
Biggest market in ex-yu.
ReplyDelete+1000
DeleteBy a long shot!
I think Croatian Airports are just warming up. I’m predicting big announcements in 2018. Viva Croatia!
Greetings from Australia
Yes, overall Croatian airports are performing the best in ex-yu.
DeleteHow many passengers had all the croatian airports combined in november and decembe
DeleteMayby biggest market during summer but in example november, all croatian airports had ~310k passengers combined only, just belgrade had more 350k without nis!
Deletein November 470.000
Deletein December 510.000
Anon 3:24 thats not true, november month is ~310k only.
Delete4 new company,7 new routes,and 3 of then are eurowings destination is very good work for brac airport...
ReplyDeleteYes, Brac will do well. I do hope that those Eurowings flights happen. How many passengers could we expect in 2018?
DeleteMore then 35000
DeleteSpeaking of Brac I read they now load your bag straight from the hotel to the plane if you are flying with TUI, so you don't have to carry your checked in luggage with you. Cool idea.
DeleteI’m predicting Brač Airport to become the new hub of the Balkans at this rate. Congratulations Brač and well done Croatia. Amazing numbers expected in 2018
DeleteLet's not get ahead of ourselves :D
DeleteAnon@9:37AM
DeleteWat dude?
EW at BWK is not confirmed yet.
DeleteStill don't get why there is no scheduled regular VIE-BWK service.
New hub? Of course in 2019 Niš and Brač will take position from Belgrade and Zagreb.
DeleteWhat do you people drink? Brac the new hub??? With what infrastructure? It's a small island! Do you want to build a big bridge to the mainland? How many tourist can have Brac? Do you want to build hundreds of hotel there???
DeleteChill, I am sure he was joking...
DeleteI think Split will continue to be the stand out performer in Croatia this year.
ReplyDeleteYes around 3.1 million passengers this year in my opinion.
DeleteThat's amazing considering ZAG had that many in 2017!
Delete+1
DeleteFuture no.1 airport.
DeleteIts amazing ZAG has 3,1 Million Pax without LCC or a bigger Network airline.
DeleteProbably 3.2 Million at Split in 2018 which really is astonishing.
DeleteAirlines are not getting the Slots they want at SPU anymore. Thats why the spread to ZAD and BWK.
DeleteI hope no further flights to SPU. ZAD and BWK are great alternatives.
DeleteBrač will take passengers from Split. So, there will be no more than 3,0 million in Split this year. Extra 0,1 will go to Brač.
Deleteoh c'man, are u joking or what? hahahah this is crazy with BWK comments here!
DeleteOMG, guys, do you realize that Brac is a small island? How many passengers would you like there to destroy it? A million?
DeleteBWK and INI are the new kids on block! They need attention xD
DeleteYes, Brac will take pax away from SPU - but how many? Maybe max. 20000 if it is very lucky - but what is that number compared to 3000000 (three millions)? Some 0.6% at best.
DeleteHappy to see Osijek will be getting some more flights. It has a completely different passenger structure to other airports in Croatia and a whole lot more competition from airports in neighboring countries.
ReplyDeleteAgree Osijek's main passengers are gasterbaiters.
DeleteBravo Hrvatska!
ReplyDeleteGood achievement in 2017. It has been a huge year and looks like 2018 will be much the same.Anyone willing to predict results for the end of the year for the main airports?
ReplyDeleteSplit is definitely going over 3 million this year. Zagreb I think will have growth around 10%.
DeleteRelying on leisure traffic too much. No strategy to become the hub airport in the region?
ReplyDeleteYou need to be center of the region to do that.
DeleteI completely agree with the Minister that Croatia needs to reduce seasonality, especially at Zagreb Airport. This winter 2 airlines dropped ZAG and will fly only during the summer and these are mainstream European airlines to Brussels and Prague. They were there for the first year when ZAG airport gave incentives to fly for the whole year and then dropped it as soon as those incentives ended.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I hope Croatia Airlines at least extends some of its seasonal flights to all year round.
DeleteThey should have done it already with Stockholm or Oslo.
DeleteYes those two were very popular. Even Helsinki. Also it was a golden opportunity to extend Prague now that CSA has retreated. But they extended only Barcelona... for 3 months.
DeleteI think Bucharest would also be a good year-round route. Adria will fly there year round from this March so its important that they keep it for the entire year if they want to be competitive.
DeletePrague is must. ČSA or Croatia Airlines.
DeleteIt would be nice to see a Croatian based LCC taking advantage of some of this tourism boom through or indipendent of OU. Too bad it won’t happen.
ReplyDeleteI always held hope that Trade Air would eventually start scheduled flights with a low cost model. Doesn't look like it though.
DeleteTrade Air tends to fly everywhere in Europe bar Croatia, unless OU is using one of their planes.
DeleteI would vote for Trade Air becoming a proper LCC immediately. Imagine all the routes it could serve particularly from/to the three big airports in CRO. And it could do it at affordable prices - in contrast to OU!
Delete2018 will be another huge year for tourism again which = great year for airports.
ReplyDeleteGood for CRO!
ReplyDeleteWhat about Pula?
ReplyDeleteCroatia's best airport is no doubt DBV. Even if SPU is leading, DBV remains with higher level.
ReplyDeleteIf BEG was not the biggest city in ex-Yu then DBV would have easily be the busiest airport in ex-Yu.
All the comments about the winter don't really matter because we are talking about 4 months only which is nothing.
Wishing DBV all the best.
How in the world did you come to the conclusion that DBV would be the busiest airport in exYU with ZAG and SPU being busier?
DeleteThe growth in ZAG cannot be compared to DBV. ZAG is just relying on EK because of the recent widebodies but just look how many destinations are served to/from DBV.
DeleteROFL dude. We're talking about current numbers, not something that might be in 2, 5, 10 years. So, stick to the facts.
DeleteI don't find it funny. The difference between ZAG and DBV is merely not even half a million and as you well know, DBV has higher figures in the summer season.
DeleteZAG will have to dream about the widebodies compared to the ones arriving in DBV.
Please refer to the destinations list and then feel free to express yourself.
DBV is really a boutique airport and SPU is just a pale shadow compared to DBV in terms of quality of service. I agree DBV is in terms of customer perception by far the best airport in Croatia.
DeleteBravo. So Emirates 7pw + Air Transat 2pw and Air Canada 4pw next year is nothing compared to 2 pw Thomsona to London.
DeleteHahahahaha
Thomson, Thomas Cook, TUI
DeleteWhich route was done by long-haul from Thomas Cook and TUI?
DeleteDBV has more premium passengers than ZAG.
DeleteAlso OS is operating wide bodies into DBV every summer season.
DeleteHow many passengers had all the croatian airports combined in november and december?
ReplyDeleteCompared to other countries in ex yu? Just those 2 months
in November 470.000
Deletein December 510.000
Even if it surpasses ZAG (which won't be easy since ZAG has more or less all year traffic, compared to mostly seasonal traffic in DBV, what about SPU?
ReplyDeleteSPU is a joke, an airport where passengers are forced to stay on the hot summer sun for more than half an hour during check-in! And you want us to think that is customer-oriented airport?! Get serious!
DeleteAerodrom nije sam po sebi svrha putovanja.....
DeleteTo nekima nikako jasno nije
Definitivno nije svrha putovanja ali je njegov integralni dio. I loše iskustvo s aerodromom pokvari čitav dojam putovanja. Šta tu nije jasno?
DeleteČovječe pa Split ima neusporedivo više putnika, daleko više linija, daleko više prijevoznika, zimi ima bitno više linija nego Dubrovnik. Po čemu je Dubrovnik onda uspješniji? Po broju prodanih kava?
DeletePa nije jasno nista.
DeleteTerminal se gradi.
Sto ti nije kasno?
Onome tko se prži na suncu je svejedno da se gradi. Šta ga nisu sagradili na vrijeme? Tko im je dozvolio da prime toliko letova kad nemaju odgovarajući kapacitet terminala?
DeleteZAG and SPU must indeed apply DBV's model for them to develop. I am also confident that DBV will see US flights very soon.
DeleteWe can expect very impressive growth
ReplyDeleteWhat about Losinj? They did have plans to extend the runway so that all sorts of turboprops can land there. What happened? Any work done? Any details?
ReplyDeleteThey could sustain ATR, Dash, Saab ops to places such as ZAG, BEG, ZRH, VIE, MUC, BRN.
Pogadjat cu.
DeleteDobre trajaktne linije i 2 postojeca aerodroma.
LSZ needs to get its act together and lengthen that runway!
DeleteWill LH mainline return to ZAG next summer?
ReplyDeleteYes, of course. The FRA flights are often operated by mainline. Some FRA flights and all MUC rotations are op by LH Cityline.
DeleteNo it won't. Embraers scheduled for the summer as well. You can see easily by checking the system or making a booking.
Delete