Croatia’s ETF Airways unveils launch plans


Croatian start-up ETF Airways is set to take delivery of its first aircraft, a 189-seat Boeing 737-800, this coming Wednesday with a second jet of the same type to follow up soon. The carrier recently received the “EZZ” designator code from the International Civil Aviation Organisation, while its callsign will be “Enterprize”. ETF intends on eventually operating up to five aircraft, although, it initially plans to have one based in Dubrovnik for charter flights, while the other to be wet-leased to other airlines, if circumstances permit. The company is yet to sign deals with tour operators but has said there is interest.

ETF is now looking for partners, companies and brokers for ACMI and charter business opportunities in order to be able to station an aircraft on the Croatian coast. The airline argues that the country’s tourism industry would benefit from a charter carrier. “Thinking that we are world famous in tourism and that everyone will come to us is counterproductive. Antalya has thirty million passengers per year. All of Croatia’s coastal airports combined have less passengers than Ibiza. What we have is peanuts. We are talking about basing one aircraft in Dubrovnik. By brining a guest to Dubrovnik everyone will be able to profit from it - hotels, the city, tourist attractions”, the company’s CEO, Stjepan Bedić, said.


Private investors and Croatia-based investment funds are supporting the new airline which has stable financing. Commenting on its operations, economic analyst Velimir Šonje, who is one of the airline’s investors and members of the Supervisory Board, said recently, “ETF does not aim to become a big scheduled carrier. Our main goal is to utilise the opportunities which we expect in the coming years through charters and similar arrangements, primarily on the EU market, through flexible and reliable service”. Mr Šonje added that the post-Covid world will open a number of opportunities in particular markets niches.


Comments

  1. Anonymous09:03

    Good luck

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous09:04

    It's worrying they still don't have any contracts but have two planes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:06

      I am not, tourist season won't start before late June, July so there is still time.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:24

      Many charter airlines still don't have any deals. I know because I work with a lot. It's still all up in the air.

      Delete
  3. Anonymous09:05

    Plane looks good actually

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous09:06

    So basically 2021 was the year OU was almost completely destroyed on the coast, especially in DBV. The other day we read that Wizz be launching FCO-DBV and FCO-SPU on top of FR announcing ZAG-CIA competing with their ZAG-FCO. Now we get to see that DBV will get a dedicated local charter airline flying tourists to the city.

    OU has no one but itself to blame.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:07

      By the way, does anyone know how much OU contributes directly and indirectly to the country's GDP?

      Delete
  5. Anonymous09:25

    Will this be the first successful Croatian airline start up in years?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:26

      Well we first have to see will it be successful ;) but fingers crossed.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:48

      I am still sad Air Croatia failed. Parasitic OU made sure they died a quick death.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:55

      How did Croatia Airlines have anything to do with Air Croatia's failure?

      Delete
    4. Anonymous10:16

      Didn't they duplicate their routes?

      Delete
    5. Anonymous11:05

      No they didnt.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous11:06

      No, they did duplicate them but a few years after because Air Croatia basically went down the list of top unserved routes from Zagreb.

      Delete
  6. Anonymous09:25

    I'm surprised. Did not expect this would get off the ground.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous09:26

    I really hope this will be the new Dubrovnik Airline. Congratulations.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:37

      But one that will be successful.

      Delete
    2. Dubrovnik Airline was successful. Their AOC was revoked 2 months after they announced scheduled flights from Zagreb. Air Adriatic lost their AOC few months after announcing scheduled services from ZAG. First croatian private airline, Anic Airways was the first one whose routes were doubled by OU, making both loss making, with the private company with no state financing going to bankruptcy and ceising operations. The first Air Croatia, which had plans to operate long-haul as well, and be real competition, about 1995, fleet 737/DC-10, was clearly warned they would not be given necessary permits to operate, by Ministry in charge in those times. The similar happened to Dalmatian which intended to start with foreign EU AOC and leased fleet, being warned they want be allowed to operate on croatian AOC. After everything was set up and ticket sales started, their CEO received life threats and withdrawn from the project. There is much more but this is the most important. Trade Air is alive only because they never dared to interfere with what OU is doing. ETF is aware of it and will concentrate on charter and ACMI and will probably survive. But, maybe, just maybe both Trade Air and ETF will be in position to change the focus of their operations if we take Ryanair arrival to ZAG as indication of some eventual changes in overprotection of OU by the state, which absolutely was the case so far

      Delete
    3. Are you kidding mentioning Dalmatian??? All of others - Dubrovnik, Air Adriatic and Anic - were liquidated due to bad results and not because they competited with OU! Trade has no intention to "interfere" with OU not because they "never dared" but Marko is to clever not to fly on this routes...

      Delete
  8. Anonymous09:36

    OU should have created its own dedicated charter airline with 2-3 planes and maximised on the coast's potential.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:54

      +1

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:54

      There are many things they could have done.

      Delete
  9. Anonymous09:40

    The name...?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:54

      ETF - Easy to Fly :D

      Delete
    2. Anonymous19:15

      They could have at least styled it as Easy2Fly

      Delete
    3. Anonymous20:25

      Elektrotehnicki fakultet :)

      Delete
  10. Anonymous11:14

    Good luck to ETF! Croatia similar to Bulgaria needs at least 4 bigger charter companies to sustain its tourism. Deploy the aircraft to the max in summer in the Croatian coast and operate Egypt, UAE, Tanzania or even deploy aircraft in bigger markets such as Romania or Poland in winter operating from secondary airports. This is what happened this year. We saw Aegean operating charters from CLJ or Oradea to winter warm destinations or to Greece and Cyprus. No way should the aircraft be left on the ground in winter. This is the beauty of being an EU member and use of passporting.
    Although, it might not be a bad idea to consider charters from Slovenia too.
    The logo looks pretty neat, cool and modern. I like it!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous11:42

    Wow nice. I hope it works.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous11:42

    Nice to see some Boeing operator in the region finally

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous11:43

    More and more ACMI airlines in the region. Trade Air is getting competition.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous19:16

      Why hasn't Trade Air ever tried flying charters from Croatia for tour operators? They only fly PSO routes in Croatia.

      Delete
    2. Pula-Copenhagen, Pula-Billund, Zadar-Milano, Split-Bergen, Split-Oslo, Split-Bristol, Split-Napoli, Dubrovnik - Norwich, are just some of the charter chains operated by Trade Air

      Delete
  14. Anonymous11:43

    Always a pleasure to see a new idea actually get off the ground. Good luck!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Anonymous11:43

    What is the registration of this plane?

    ReplyDelete
  16. Ovi su ozbiljniji od Air Montenegro ili 2Montenegro, ili ToMontenegro (ne znam vise koja).
    Barem imaju nesto napisano na avionu.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Anonymous14:50

    I don't like the name. If you are starting from scratch, why the hell would you choose ETF when you can choose pretty much anything?

    ReplyDelete
  18. Anonymous17:17

    Another plane is preparing in Jat Tehnika. It has registration 9A-LAB and it was previously used by ASL Airlines (F-GZTV)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous17:27

      Where did you find these informations?

      Delete
    2. Anonymous18:51

      I saw it with my eyes :)

      Delete
    3. Anonymous19:42

      ... and also, it has name Voyager... I assume they give them names by Star Trek starships :)

      Delete
    4. Anonymous19:53

      Wow I am jealous! :) Can't wait to see it in a move at some Croatian airports...by names they are giving it seems like they are really passionate about whole project. One reason more why it differs from other airlines that are just doing it for profit and money without any passion...

      Delete
    5. Anonymous19:55

      https://ibb.co/P9LyNkr

      Delete
    6. Anonymous20:01

      @ 19.42 live long and prosper :D

      Delete
    7. Anonymous20:01

      @19.55 nice thanks :)

      Delete
    8. Anonymous20:02

      Beautiful!! Thank you very much for sharing! :)

      Delete
    9. Anonymous08:22

      Cool, I wouldn't be surprised if they inked a maintenance deal with Jat Tehnika. I guess we will be seeing them in Belgrade on a regular basis.

      Delete
  19. Anonymous18:24

    Exciting

    ReplyDelete
  20. Anonymous18:24

    Bad news for OU.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Anonymous18:25

    I think this type of airline, that will focus on ACMI in winter and charters in summer has the greatest chance of success.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Anonymous18:35

    Good! Croatia needs an airline with aircraft based on the coast.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous18:39

      Preferably a scheduled one.

      Delete
  23. Anonymous18:50

    This is developing much faster than I thought.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous19:02

      Comparing to the other failed startups, these guys actually have money to make it possible.

      Delete
  24. Anonymous19:03

    Hope it can work, but what will they do in winter when the coast is more or less dead?

    ReplyDelete
  25. Anonymous19:18

    What a time to launch a new airline. Can it work?

    ReplyDelete
  26. Anonymous19:32

    from the article: "All of Croatia’s coastal airports combined have less passengers than Ibiza."

    And that is positive, not negative. What a nonsense this world become. Making out of Dubrovnik an Adriatic Disneyland !
    Bringing masses by plane to make a selfie for their Instagram profile.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous19:53

      The more people come to take selfies, the more money locals will have.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous19:56

      Not really. If Dubrovnik would have same amount of passengers in only 4 months, for sure it would be overcrowded. But if they spread it across the year, we will finally have sustainable tourism that will give locals jobs for whole year not only seasonal contracts between April and October. Their idea is brilliant and finally had enough courage to start this project.

      Delete
  27. Anonymous21:17

    Bravo Hrvatska!

    ReplyDelete

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