Foreign carriers, as well as Croatia’s national airline, are restoring flights and increasing their operations to Zagreb, which was the only airport in the former Yugoslavia to remain open throughout the year so far. At this point, carriers which have resumed services to the Croatian capital include Austrian Airlines, Air France, Air Serbia, British Airways, Eurowings, KLM, Lufthansa, Qatar Airways and Turkish Airlines. This is to be followed by LOT Polish Airlines on July 16, Vueling on August 1 and Emirates on September 1. The return of Aeroflot, Norwegian Air Shuttle and Aegean Airlines is yet to be confirmed. While the Greek carrier initially indicated it would resume operations between Athens and Zagreb on September 2, all seats have been blocked for purchase from this date onwards.
A number of carriers which have resumed their operations to Zagreb will be increasing their existing frequencies in the coming weeks. This includes Air France which will boost its service from Paris from the current four weekly flights to eleven weekly starting July 27. Its partner KLM will follow with an additional four weekly Amsterdam rotations from August 3, increasing from the existing three weekly flights to daily. Lufthansa will boost its service between Munich and Zagreb from three to five per week starting July 27, however, it is not expected to restore operations from Frankfurt until the start of the 2020/2021 winter season in late October.
Several high-profile carriers operating to Zagreb on a seasonal summer basis, such as Air Canada Rouge, Korean Air and Air Transat have suspended their operations to the Croatian capital for this year. So far, Air Transat has confirmed it will resume its flights from Toronto to Croatia next year, although changes remain possible at this early stage. Out of its usual thirty routes during the summer, Croatia Airlines will this month serve nineteen destinations from Zagreb. Flights to Skopje and Athens will be restored next week. However, seasonal operations to Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki and Tel Aviv will not be returning this summer.
Zagreb Airport handled 547.735 passengers during the first half of the year, representing a decrease of 64.4% on the same period in 2019. In June, the airport welcomed 44.402 travellers through its doors.
This will be a long and difficult recovery. With an expected drop of over 9% in GDP expect the growth to be modest in the next two, three years.
ReplyDeleteThat's a nice increase from Air France. That's more than they will be flying to Ljubljana.
ReplyDeleteYes. LJU should be around 8 weekly in late August I think.
DeleteThat's bad news for OU and LH Group. AF IS going for the jugular.
DeleteLH not looking to resume FRA-ZAG is a good indicator of that. The market has contracted a lot and AF wants to damage LH Group in ZAG as much as possible. Seems like they want to be the new sheriff in town. If OU goes bust, which is not unrealistic, then they can become a dominant player like they are in LJU.
DeleteAF and OU codeshare.
DeleteDoesn't matter, AF is taking away passengers that would otherwise fly via MUC or FRA. Also my friend, AF used to codeshare with JP until one day they didn't.
DeleteGood to see most airlines coming back. I don't think Norwegian will return in the foreseeable future though.
ReplyDeletethey only fly seasonally to ZAG. I doubt they will come back this summer.
DeleteEven before the crisis the downgraded ZAG heavily
DeleteI think CPH ZAG was the first to go.
DeleteWhat will Rouge do next year? They no longer have the equipment to operate to ZAG.
ReplyDeleteThere are a few scenarios.
Delete1) Their merger with Transat is cleared and Transat takes over the route completely
2) They suspend flights to ZAG altogeather
3) The route is taken over by Air Canada mainline
4) Rouge gets some wide bodies by next summer
Let's hope for option number 3 :D
DeleteThe merger with Transqt may be blocked.
Delete* that was supposed to be Transat
DeleteBravo Hrvatska!
ReplyDeleteIf Aegean blocked seats from September I'm guessing they won't resume the flights this season, especially with Croatia Airlines starting flights to Athens next week.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't necessarily mean the route is cut. For example Austrian did the same with Vienna-Zadar at one point and the route launched yesterday.
DeleteWe will see
DeleteIt will take a long time for things to fully recover. Just look at Qatar which now has 3 flights and they used to have 14 per week. But at least things are starting to recover, which is a good sign.
ReplyDeleteThe other day they arrived full and left with just 21 passengers
DeleteNot surprised. I think most traffic to ex-Yu destinations are inbound at the moment. But it's good to hear the loads were good at least in one direction.
DeleteI think QR is carrying many stranded people around the world, they are currently the only one stop link between Asia and Croatia.
Delete^ true
DeleteWell the damage has been done to all airports and airlines in the world. Maybe next year although I have some strong doubts about that also.
ReplyDeletePeople don't realize how bad, critical, some might even say apocalyptic, the situation is this year. Look at DBV and SPU in June.
ReplyDeleteDBV
2019: 415.876
2020: 10.592
SPU
2019: 513.706
2020: 26.150
These are not just drops in passenger numbers at airports, these are fewer people in hotels, bars, coffee shops, restaurants and so on. It will take at least five years for local businesses to recover from this.
It's the same everywhere
DeleteNumbers for SPU will be a lot beter in July then in June. Airport said that they had 10.000 passangers last weekend.
DeleteGenerally numbers in July will be better since most foreign airlines refunded flights in late June/early July.
DeleteI don't know why you complain about number of air passengers in SPU or DBV.
DeleteAccording to some people here tourists arrive to Croatia mostly by car so no need to worry.
That argument is only used by Croats to justify why their coastal numbers are behind airports like SKG, RHO, LCA and so on.
Delete"According to some people here tourists arrive to Croatia mostly by car so no need to worry." I dont know exact numbers but i think that is true. Coastal villages in Istria and Dalmatia are always full of tourist families from Germany and Austra coming by car while tourist who are coming by car are mostly from France, USA, Scandinavia, UK, Spain and these people are mostly going to Split, Dubrovnik and Dalmatian islands.
DeleteAnon 14:36
I think that you are the first person on this blog who compared SKG, RHO and LCA to dalmatian airports. Not only that nobody was never justifying croatian coastal airports from these airports but nobody was talking about these airports ever.
Yeah they have, it was last year, summer, so chill out.
DeleteI really dont know who is so crazy to compare any croatian costal airports to an airport of the city of 1 milion people...
DeleteProbably SPU and DBV grew so much with passengers numbers in previous years due to the fact that most tourists arrive to Croatia by car.
DeleteYou have 19 million toutist in Croatia and 11.5 million air passanegers. Among air passangers are not only tourist but and locals and business people. Most of tourist who are coming to Croatia by plane are also going back with plane what means that 1 tourist is equal to 2 air passangers so max number of tourist coming by plane would be 5.75 million but probably is less because locals take a part in passanger numbers. So number of tourist who are not coming by a plane would be more than 13 million. Tourist structure is different in Split and Dubrovnik than in coastal villages, Istria and Kvarner. Nobody is coming to Split or Dubrovnik with a car like nobody is coming to etc. Pakoštane, Pirovac or Vir with an airplane. That is simply a fact, like it or you not.
DeleteWe all like your facts whether you like it or not.
DeleteIn your list Trade Air is missing with 6 flights per week to Osijek which flight starts 3 weeks ago.
ReplyDeleteThose flights are a joke anyway with their 4 passengers per flight
DeleteAt least there is something.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that LOT will resume flights to Zagreb next week but they delayed Ljubljana till August.
ReplyDeleteI think bit may have something to do with entry restrictions for Polish citizens. They also resume BEG on the 15th.
DeleteRussia has today proposed for international flights to resume in a couple of days. So it is possible we see Aeroflot come back sooner than expected. Not sure if OU will resume LED this summer.
ReplyDeleteDoubt SU will start ex-Yu routes till August.
DeleteSU already flies to BEG, yesterday they sent the A333.
DeleteWhy did Croatia Airlines suspend Oslo, Stockholm and Helsinki. I understand there is less demand but I would assume there would be enough passengers to sustain these flights.
ReplyDeleteThey did not lease the CRJ1000 from Air Nostrum which operated these flights.
DeleteThey could have deployed an A319. It's not like they are being fully utilized.
DeleteUnfortunately Iberia also not returning until winter.
ReplyDeleteYes
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2020/06/iberia-suspends-zagreb-service-until.html
:(
DeleteNice lineup on the photo :D
ReplyDelete