NEWS FLASH
Croatia's busiest airport has registered its strongest March and first quarter results on record by welcoming 223.642 passengers through its doors during the month, representing an increase of 16.2% on 2017. The number of flight movements stood at 3.143, which is down by one operation. Overall, during the first quarter of the year, Zagreb Airport grew 13.5% by handling 585.576 travellers. Two new foreign carriers will commence operations to the city this year with Aegean Airlines to start three weekly flights from Athens, which will be followed by Air Canada Rouge's four weekly service from Toronto. Meanwhile, Croatia Airlines will launch new flights to Dublin and Mostar next month.
Croatia's busiest airport has registered its strongest March and first quarter results on record by welcoming 223.642 passengers through its doors during the month, representing an increase of 16.2% on 2017. The number of flight movements stood at 3.143, which is down by one operation. Overall, during the first quarter of the year, Zagreb Airport grew 13.5% by handling 585.576 travellers. Two new foreign carriers will commence operations to the city this year with Aegean Airlines to start three weekly flights from Athens, which will be followed by Air Canada Rouge's four weekly service from Toronto. Meanwhile, Croatia Airlines will launch new flights to Dublin and Mostar next month.
| Month | PAX | Change (%) |
|---|---|---|
| JAN | 191.276 | ▲ 13.3 |
| FEB | 170.658 | ▲ 10.3 |
| MAR | 223.642 | ▲ 16.2 |
Congrats to ZAG! This year 3.5 million Pax.
ReplyDeleteBravo Hrvatska!
ReplyDeleteNew company is also Silver Air from Lošinj 3 flights per week from June.
ReplyDeleteWont that be to Pula?
DeleteNo. Zagreb too
Deletehttp://www.exyuaviation.com/2018/03/foreign-carrier-to-start-croatia.html
They will fly 8 weekly flights from Lošinj: to Zagreb (3 pw), Pula (2 pw), Split (2 pw) and Lugano (1 pw).
DeleteIf we see a solid April I’ll would say we could see a 400 thousand plus July.
ReplyDeleteI doubt it. Figures will be positive but not double digit.
DeleteActually, Anon 5:02, figures will be double digit, in both pax and cargo numbers. Another great year ahead with much more tourists using Emirates and Qatar, among others!
Delete@AnonymousApril 5, 2018 at 5:02 PM
DeleteWould you explain your reasoning ?
@AnonymousApril 5, 2018 at 8:22 PM
I agree, 11-12% in April predicted based on current trend. Overall this year Zagreb will likely better last year, when 327 000 new pax was added. I predict Zagreb could be handling 3.45 million this year, conservative estimate and 3.5 million if load factor improves on last year and all indications are this is happening as airlines are sending larger aircraft to Zagreb.
I am only worried there's too few carriers in Zagreb, and too few of them fly more frequently. Zagreb needs 30-32 carriers.
If Zagreb can attract SAS, Alitalia, Finnair, Air Baltic, TAP, Aer Lingus and EasyJet back, and get Voltea do year round service to Barcelona and Valencia, and Iberia maintain Madrid flights year round, Czech Airlines maintain 5 weekly Prague service year round and Brussels air does same with Brussels. numbers will go up dramatically. These 7 new/returning carriers with 4 weekly flights could generate extra 300 000 pax first year and as market grows and matures extra 30-32000 per year.
Answer straight away: there are very few routes launched from/to ZAG to ensure it has a double digit growth. Just take TGD as an example to see what TWO digit growth is.
DeleteI am curious to see growth post-June.
ReplyDeleteOr, in translation: post-Emirates, right?
DeleteShould be ok, March had the same number of planes but more passengers!
Emirates alone didn’t count for the extra 30,000 passengers Zagreb had this March compared to last... only about 5000 can be contributed to them.
DeleteAnon 2:01 - you are not curious, you are jelaous.
DeleteQ400 - true, the credit does not all go to Emirates. However, I would say, EK contributed to at least 10k to 12k on their EK129/30 flights. Some of their pax transfered on to domestic or regional flights, perhaps 2k to 3k, bringing their total "contribution" to about 15k. Still, it is nice to see other airlines growing as well...
Delete@AnonymousApril 5, 2018 at 2:01 PM
DeleteEven post June numbers should be in 10-12% territory.
EK contributed a lot, but natural increase in load factor here is what brings growth. Zagreb as a destination still has rather low load factor, loads of room for growth there.
Most carriers still send regional jets or turboprops to Zagreb, CRJs, EMbrs and CS100s dominate the market, most aircraft that carry less than 100 pax on average.
The trend is improving though, we're having larger aircraft sent to Zagreb, often B738, A320/A321 and this with major carriers. KLM, Lufthansa, BA, even Air France.
First year is always nice to see new carriers, however the load factor per flight is far more important and ensures carrier continues to serve a destination. Zagreb is still small destination for most, but it is slowly growing.
Last year, Zagreb had 3.092 million pax with 41584 movements, this gives us factor of 74.35 per movement. In 2016 this factor was 67.8.
With arrival of Air Canada and Air Transat increasing its frequency, this factor will also increase additionally post May.
Also. EK effect will continue on as Zagreb and Croatia attract more visitors from Asia and Australia/NZ.
Although read some projections posted on Croatian aviation blog which predicts 3.3 million pax for 2018 or 3.35 million at most,
I think they've been bit more cautious and didn't look at maturity of the market, as market matures is grows.
The rate is not predictable as it depends on set of circumstances, recession, wars, negative media coverage, bad weather....
However so far, Zagreb and Croatia are doing fine in the media and recession is truly over, Croatian economy grew 3.7% last year in real terms or 5.2% if CPI added.
This year, all indications are this growth will be even greater, exports have picked up, last year Croatian exports were around 103 billion kuna or $17.1 billion, 110- 115 billion worth of exports are expected this year, and exports represent 27% of GDP, 10% growth in exports = 2.7% growth in GDP.
Add to this service exports which are also massive @90 billion kuna and grew @slower pace of around 8% last year contributing with around 1% to Croatian economy.
If we consider all these facts, and increase in interest in Croatia, numbers will go up, domestic demand and foreign demand will improve overall picture @Zagreb airport, by how much we'll see. I predict overall growth of around 11-12% this year.
LH is not sending larger aircraft, quite the opposite. They are one of the few carriers not to be growing.
DeleteI am confused. Did OU reduce VIE? I thought it was double daily but in the system it shows 12 weekly. Daily departures in the morning and five in the afternoon.
ReplyDeleteIncludes their codeshare flights with Austrian.
DeleteThanks but so that means that they didnt have double daily before? I could have sworn it was.
Delete