Qatar Airways has temporarily suspended operations between Doha and Zagreb due to low demand. The carrier, which resumed its service to the Croatian capital on July 1 following a three-month hiatus, was forced to cancel a number of services to the city up until July 22 when the last rotation was operated. In a statement to EX-YU Aviation News, the carrier confirmed the temporary suspension until at least August 12. Qatar Airways returned to Zagreb with three weekly flights operated by its Airbus A320 aircraft. “Due to Covid-19’s impact on travel demand, the airline has taken the decision to temporarily suspend operations on this route”, the Qatari carrier noted. Last summer, the airline maintained fourteen weekly rotations between the two.
Once they resume, services between Doha and Zagreb will run three times per week. Qatar Airways has restored limited operations to the former Yugoslavia. It currently maintains three weekly flights to Belgrade, which will increase to four weekly from Monday, and daily from September 1. Services to both Skopje and Sarajevo have been temporarily suspended until the start of the 2020/2021 winter season on October 25. The carrier’s brand new seasonal service to Dubrovnik, which was to launch this summer, has been discontinued indefinitely.
Qatar Airways is one of the few global airlines to have never stopped flying throughout the ongoing crisis. By the end of July, its network will expand to more than 450 weekly flights to over seventy destinations worldwide. Qatar Airways has further enhanced its on board safety measures for passengers and cabin crew. The airline has introduced Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for cabin crew, which includes gloves, facemasks, safety glasses and a new protective gown that is fitted over their uniforms. A modified service that reduces interactions between passengers and the crew inflight has also been introduced. On board, all Qatar Airways passengers are now provided with a complimentary protective kit. Inside a ziplock pouch, they will find a single-use surgical facemask, large disposable powder-free gloves and an alcohol-based hand sanitiser gel. The airline has also introduced disposable face shields for adults and children. Passengers travelling from Doha’s Hamad International Airport will receive their face shields at the check-in counters, whereas at other destinations, the face shields will be distributed at the boarding gates.
This really sucks :(
ReplyDeletethey will come back
ReplyDeleteWho knows when
DeleteMy guess is next summer
DeleteI hope before.
DeleteSeems like the downward spiral at ZAG continues :(
ReplyDeleteWith no tourism this year and with Corona exploding again in Croatia we might not see them back before winter.
This is bad
ReplyDeleteAnyone know if it is confirmed that LH FRA ZAG IS not coming back before the winter?
ReplyDeleteYes, LH has already published their entire summer schedule.
DeleteCan someone list all the airlines Zag lost in recent times?
ReplyDeleteSwiss, Bruselss and Czech Airlines. They are not selling tickets to ZAG anymore. Other airlines are just temporarily suspended due low demand. Windrose also is not selling tickets anymore but they were never actually operating flights to ZAG.
DeleteThere is also Emirates, Korean Air, Air Transat and Air Canada Rouge, but I think they vwill be back
DeleteEK, KE and Transat for sure. Demand will grow again so they will probably operate flights to ZAG but with less weakly flights. Air Canada Rouge is still selling tickets to ZAG, OTP, WAW and BUD but they retired their all widebodies so it will be interesting to see what will happen with these routes...
DeleteThere is also EW with two destinations that were suspended.... or was it three? Did you cut HAM as well?
DeleteYes, these routes are suspendend and they are not selling tickets on these routes anymore. But Anon 09:12 asked for airlines who were lost in ZAG not routes.
DeleteThis is disastrous. I wonder if the government will have to pay fines to the operator.
DeleteKE has the smallest chances to return. They were struggling in ZAG and cancelled winter flights to Croatian capital much before March 2020.
DeleteThe tourists will slowly return after all this is over and they will be mostly flown by TK and QR as they have the advantage of narrow body planes. EK won't return soon with their B777.
Both Zurich and Zagreb were struggling during a winter. Loads were not so good to sustain route during a winter so they cannceled it. But during a summer Korean Air had quite good loads so in 2019. so they upgraded aircraft from A330-200 to B787-9 and added one more flight for overall 4 weally. So its not like they struggled in ZAG during a summer season...
DeleteThere were information that KE will decide to fly to BUD instead of ZAG during a whole year.
DeleteStill they were not struggling in ZAG during a summer season...
DeleteProbably KE wanted to move to ZAG because they didn't struggle.
Delete*to BUD
DeleteThat makes sense since the market is much larger, don't forget that LO also flies the route. They even resumed flights the other day.
DeleteSo how than to explain route uprgrade from 3 weakly with 218 seater to 4 weakly with 269 seater? When you are struggling on the route you are adding more capacity or opposite?
DeleteSimple.
DeleteBUD would be still better than ZAG even with the increased capacity EK sent to Zagreb
Why it is a better option if they were not struggling in ZAG?
DeleteBecause they can earn more money in BUD on a yearly basis
DeleteThere were news here that many flights were cancelled last days due to low demand.
ReplyDeleteThis comes as a logical consequence.
Yes, they cancelled three flights that week, so all of them. Demand seems to have crashed.
DeleteGood news for TK.
ReplyDeleteAnd some saod that EK cancelled ZAG because of QR
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, I flew with Turkish last week and this week from Skopje to Bodrum via Istanbul.
ReplyDeleteBoth flights to SKP had average load factor of about 80% to 85%. Flights from Istanbul to Bodrum were close to 90% full.
Everyone is required to wear masks both in the airports and during the flight.
Cabin crew is passing through the cabin very often to check and warn people which are putting the mask down.
Their service as everyone knows at this moment consists only of one glass of water.
On a side note, we had very enjoyable time in Bodrum, much better vacation spot compared to Antalya :).
Bodrum, Izmir are missed opportunities for Pegasus from SKP. good to see TK has solid LF
DeleteAnon @09:41.
DeleteYou can't have two side notes in one post. ;-)
The loads must have been really bad for them to cancel considering they are flying almost empty everywhere.
ReplyDeleteLike I said before, it goes to show how reliant the Croatian market is on tourism.
ReplyDeleteI doubt they will come back in 3 weeks but fingers crossed.
ReplyDeleteNo way
DeleteAnd LJU dreaming how EK, FZ or QR will come.
ReplyDeleteSeems funny at this moment.
DeleteWhat makes it extra sad is that this route used to be 14 weekly :(
ReplyDeleteIt's a different world now.
DeletePlus they were about to deploy their state of the art widebodies
DeleteExpected considering the flight cancellations.
ReplyDelete"The carrier, which resumed its service to the Croatian capital on July 1 following a three-month hiatus, was forced to cancel a number of services to the city up until July 22 when the last rotation was operated. In a statement to EX-YU Aviation News, the carrier confirmed the temporary suspension until at least August 12."
ReplyDelete"It currently maintains three weekly flights to Belgrade, which will increase to four weekly from Monday, and daily from September 1."
Why so big difference?
Because one relies more on local demand and less in tourist traffic.
DeleteLocal demand between DOH and BEG so bigger than local demand between DOH and ZAG?
DeleteSomehow I doubt.
While there are certainly more Serbian people living in Doha due to bigger number of empliyees at QR and a large number of people working on projects won by Energoprojekt in Qatar, I was saying more travel demand from BEG for transferring via Doha.
DeleteBut Doha is still more about transfers. Their market is not so big so transfers passangers are majoriti of passangers in DOH.
DeleteIn the case you doubt you can look at the numbers.
DeleteIf there was any demand between ZAG and DOH/DXB routes wouldn't be cut.
QR charges €730 for BEG DOH, I doubt many fly with them when there is Pegasus and TK for half the price. I guess in Belgrade they have more transfers for third destinations.
ReplyDeleteHello! Does anybody know the temporary timetable of Croatia airlines or Aegean airlines to Athens? Need to travel early October. Thanks a lot.
ReplyDeleteSorry from Zagreb.
DeleteYou don't have to apologize for flying from Zagreb.
DeleteJust to be on the safe side why not book on JU via BEG? Aegean has moved ZAG return several times now.
DeleteWith so many foreign airlines cancellations to ZAG that must be good for OU!?!
ReplyDeleteOU cancelled several destinations as well, I think three or four. There is simply no demand right now.
DeleteZAG’s saviour will be the EU flights. After all the losses, it still managed to handle half a million passengers. Most likely ZAG will conclude with 1 million passengers in 2020 which is a 40% decrease and still not bad compared to SKP for instance where this figure is expected to be 65-70% loss.
ReplyDeleteEU flights are not a guarantee, look at Wizz Air and Ryanair that operate many intra EU flights. FR LF was 40% and W6 50% in June.
DeleteZAG should not have allowed this, they had to offer them to fly free of charge in the period they wanted to cut. Qatar provides a vital link for Croatia especially now when SU's future in ZAG remains uncertain.
ReplyDeleteVital link to where if there is no demand and when half of countries closed? And why would ZAG airport lose money?
DeleteIf you are flying with Qatar Airways you must select e.g. Italy as a departure point and not Croatia.
ReplyDeleteYou can change the departure point (out bond) within the same country at no additional cost so in case they are some cancellations you can still fly with Qatar airways.
Croatia right now was not a good departure point: people are choosing Italy (even if they are from Croatia!). I know many cases like this!