Low cost carrier Ryanair will bring forward the opening of its base at Zagreb Airport by almost two months to July 23. The airline will introduce several routes earlier than planned, launching London Stansted, Rome Ciampino and Gothenburg in late July rather than early September. The carrier will also move forward the launch of its Bergamo service from July to June. It comes after the airline announced the addition of two more routes - Malmo and Weeze - from September. Ryanair plans to have two Airbus A320 aircraft based in the city this summer, operated by its subsidiary Lauda Europe. The carrier has said it is scheduling the earlier start to operations due to strong demand, 90% of which is being generated by consumers outside of Croatia.
Ryanair’s Director for Commercial, Jason McGuinness, said, “We are delighted to accelerate the launch of our new base at Zagreb, which will offer our Croatian consumers popular destinations almost two months earlier than scheduled. This advanced opening will open up routes to European hotspots such as London Stansted, Gothenburg and Rome from July. We’re also pleased to announce a further two new routes to Malmo and Dusseldorf Weeze, both operating two departing flights per week from September”. He added, “Mindful that Covid restrictions change regularly, customers can now book flights for a well-deserved break knowing that if they need to postpone or change their travel dates, they can do so up to two times with a zero-change fee until the end of October 2021. To celebrate the early launch of the new Zagreb base and these popular routes, we are launching a seat sale with seats from 39 kuna for travel until October 31, which must be booked by midnight May 13”.
Ryanair has previously said it plans to operate up to forty destinations from Zagreb, with a number of new routes already planned for the summer of 2022. “We will grow exponentially in the years to come. We plan to operate thirty to forty routes and handle two to three million passengers. This will transform Zagreb, transform tourism, accommodation, hotels, taxi operators … Basically everything. We will become the largest airline in Zagreb and Croatia within a very short period of time”, the carrier said. Despite only starting flights in June, Ryanair is already set to become Zagreb Airport’s second largest airline in 2021 in terms of both offered frequencies and capacity, behind only Croatia Airlines.
Things are about to get even tougher for Croatia Airlines.
ReplyDeleteThey will have huge problems with them in CPH and FCO. Weeze will take away some passengers from them and KL from AMS and now they put an end to OU ever returning to MXP.
DeleteWe will have to see what happens now.
Bye bye OU. Now they won't even have the summer to make money.
ReplyDeleteExactly.
DeleteWe shall see soon something like "Ryanair, the national carrier of Croatia" :-)
Nonsense! We will have a much better season compared to previous year, and yes, OU is here to stay, and there is nothing you two can do about it, other than hope for the worst. But remember, the saying goes: what goes around comes around!!
DeleteHehehe, the hope dies last.
DeleteBye bye OU!
Realy you prefer lcc over national carriers. You will never have such service on ryanair until you pay same amount of money or even more than on OU. And that's what many people don't get. They pay for extra laguage and all stuff so the flight is cheaper like 10 € on the end.
DeleteAnonym 1546h
DeleteBye Bye OU means also Bye Bye Jobs in Croatia. Those who laugh now, might cry one day later...
Great news! :)
ReplyDelete"90% of which is being generated by consumers outside of Croatia."
ReplyDelete??? don't Croatian people from Croatia travel by plane?
Tourists and Gastos.
DeleteShows nothing but real domestic demand.
DeleteAnon 09:05 Not for summer holiday purpose. Croatia has the most beautiful coast in Europe, stretching to more than thousands of kilometers. Therefore no outbound traffic from Croatia when it comes to leisure holiday during summer. And logically, the country attracts huge amounts of tourists, which become the driver of Ryanair's booming sales.
DeleteSo Italia and Spain have a large coast, but people are using Ryanair for a city break
DeleteCroats are not going to own coast because of it's beauty, but because they have families, houses etc.there, so because it's the cheapest for them. Let's be realistic!
DeleteSame with Greeks who go in large numbers for summer holidays especially to places like Spain or Italy. Also ZAG is brutally seasonal which makes me think Croats don't travel that much in winter either.
DeleteTrue dat.
DeleteRelatively cheap, close, convenient, tradition, and perhaps even patriotic.
When they don't travel to the coast most Croats end up traveling to see family around Europe. Unfortunately the number of travelers is too small (adventurous ones) to have a large impact on air travel.
DeleteWe are talking about ZAG here. Without FR they had no more than 54.092 passengers in whole April! And their country is in EU without entry limits to other EU countries as other non-EU countries in the region have.
DeleteThat was also Easter month when there is usually more demand.
DeleteI have been stating for the past years that the problem of ZAG is significantly weak local demands. The traffics are solely relying on inbound leisure market. Croatian don't travel abroad on a flight as much as the rest of Europeans, which is probably caused by mix of the social, cultural and economical reasons. Every time when I pointed this out, some Croats here got offended. Let's be real. For airlines like FR can still make it work, but many airlines need healthy demand from both side in order to sustain the route through out the year.
DeleteFR was very open about their plans for ZAG. They said from day 1 that their main goal is to bring tourists, not outbound demand.
DeleteThat's a reason of terrible winter results in Croatia!
Delete@anon 09:43 and anon 13:10 - You are mixing airports on the coast with ZAG. Inhabitants of Zagreb and the greater region travel enough, and ZAG doesn't rely only on tourism, because it's more for bussines, so it's a kind of mix. 40 to 50% of business in Croatia is happening here, so it can't compare to leisure airports on the coast, which function only 5 months a year. Adding to that, domestic people from the coast aren't used to travel by air, the numbers are negligible. So that's why coastal airports are empty during the winter. And as for 54.000 passangers in april - did you sleep the whole year? Did you hear about lockdowns and pandemic in whole of the World, Europe, and in neighbouring countries? I always like to see smart out of context comments like yours.
DeleteZAG business attracts more Business pax than the coastal cities for sure, but nothing comparing to BUD, BEG, VIE. Business traffic at ZAG is insignificant. ZAG still relies on inbound tourism heavily.
DeleteWhat happened to the 'ouch guy'?
ReplyDeleteYou replaced him.
DeleteHAHA :D
DeleteWell 30 years after it was established Croatia Airlines still hasn't managed to fly to Rome nonstop. Instead they just copied JAT's strategy from the 80s of flying via Dubrovnik/Split. Serves them right. Ryanair coming in and launching the route straight away.
ReplyDeleteFinally Zagreb fulfilled the missing LCC part. Now we wait for the long-haul flights to resume next year and voila!
ReplyDeleteHope OU will be able to adapt to new environment and contribute to/benefit from Zagreb's growth instead of running for old school easy money at the coast. Otherwise not even the government can save them from bankruptcy.
So my assumption is they will base one plane in July and the second in September?
ReplyDeleteGreat news for ZAG but this is not looking good for Croatia Airlines.
ReplyDeleteExciting times definitely coming for ZAG.
ReplyDeleteFantastic news
ReplyDeleteWhat are the next routes we could see from them?
ReplyDeleteLet's wait to see how the announced routes perform.
DeleteMy guess is Spain will be included next to the network.
DeleteAthens hopefully.
DeleteATH would make sense considering Aegean has withdrawn and OU is employing the same strategy as their FCO flights.
DeleteIf OU begins to reduce it's network as a result of increased competition from Ryan will legacy carriers rush in to replace them in ☆A hubs?
DeleteMaybe Aegean withdrew with a good reason.
DeleteAnon 09.25
DeleteYou don't have to wait for an answer, just go look at what happened in LJU after JP. Many routes to Star hubs that are operated by OU and that were operated by JP rfrom LJU were loss making. LH and others did not resume them to the same extent. Look at the mess with LX on ZRH-LJU.
But ZAG is a bigger market than LJU.
DeleteInteresting that if you go on lh.com and check out what they offer for FRA-ZAG from 31.05 to 06.06, so Monday to Sunday, on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays they offer 3 daily OU flights as an option. I checked OU site and seems like they will have 4 flights on those days. Interesting that LH plans two flights on Friday and Sunday.
DeleteSeems like Mutti started shifting passengers from OU to LH.
They realized JP destiny will knock very soon on OU door.
DeleteThat was fast.
DeleteHopefully Eindhoven and perhaps Malta and Porto could work out!
DeleteRyan got burned multiple times in clashes with Aegean.
DeleteI'm still baffled by Ryanair's decision to fly Zagreb-Podgorica twice per week with B737-800. I don't think it will work. So I see them potentially replacing that destinations with for example Athens or something close in the region.
ReplyDeleteThe route will last at least for a year due to incentives.
DeleteMaybe it was their reaction on OU intention to open TGD and to send them a message not to even think about it anymore.
DeleteJust to show them who is sheriff in the city 💪.
I think you may be right
DeleteI think it had more to do with them having some spare time in the evening and they needed a regional destination that could just maybe work. I see them canceling TGD and maybe replacing it with SKP.
DeleteOr a domestic route. What anon said above is correct. It was reported here that FR said that to keep high fleet utilization they introduce these short routes.
DeleteMeanwhile Croatia Airlines in deep sleep.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone know if airport ZAG will give same conditions to OU as to FR? As far as I understood that was request from the government as well.
ReplyDeleteIt already has the same condition. If it were to launch new routes not served in the past 2 years it would get the same discounts and incentives. The issue is Croatia Airlines now wants this policy to be applied retroactively for routes they launched 2, 3 and 4 years ago.
DeleteThat's right. The incentive program ZAG announced does not say the incentives are for FR or OU, every airline can benefit the same incentives when they fulfill terms and conditions of the respective incentive program. Croatia Airlines and its owner still live in 20th century, believing that they can influence free market conditions for their own benefit by barking loud.
DeleteSome people get scared when they hear a dog barking loudly.
DeleteSo what should OU do, replace BRU with CRL and CPH with MMX? Come on guys, we all knew that this kind of incentive programs are made for specific airlines. I would move all OU fleet to coast or to LJU and then let's see how ZAG will do with 2 FR aircrafts.. And if you think that other airlines will just replace OU routes than please take LJU as an example.
DeleteSo you would have OU abandon ZAG?
DeleteAnon 10:25 Hej Jasmin, is that you? Say that Croatia Airlines brought all 20M tourists to the country and the government will never let Croatia Airlines go and will fight for equal conditions at ZAG (whatever that means).
DeleteAndrej..
@anon 10:39
Deleteyes, if ZAG airport would not give same incentives for OU flights/passengers.
I fully agree OU gets retroactively all incentives offered to FR as soon as FR gets retroactively all state aid, both legal and illegal, which was paid to uhljebs in OU
DeleteAs expected, London performed more than good. Similar to many EU capitals, FR already launched their summer 2022 schedule from London, Bergamo and Ciampino.
ReplyDeleteFor sure, FR will add a second daily STN evening service from ZAG next year. It's all a matter of time.
Good, I guess OU can now sell the remaining LHR slots.
DeleteHas the value of those slots gone down because of Covid?
DeleteLHR is not at its perfect moment so it's highly likely the prices went down but haven't increased. It would be more beneficial for ZAG to receive a second STN rotation compared to LHR simply because of higher O&D traffic. Leave LHR for OU and BA because it is a transit and expensive airport.
DeleteWhat ZAG definitely needs is a LGW connection with U2 and of course a competition with OU to DUB or secondary UK airports such as MAN, BHX and EDI.
They will eventually cover the whole of Europe from ZAG.
ReplyDeletePeople keep talking about Croatia Airlines but forget that this will have a massive impact on Ljubljana Airport.
ReplyDeleteHow so?
DeleteMany people from Ljubljana will use these flights and will put off potential new airlines from starting flights to LJU.
DeleteTrue.
DeleteIt is called "the final nail in the coffin" for LJU.
DeleteI think that it can't be worse, most passengers are already using ZAG due to convenient schedule, FR will not change that.
DeleteIm from Slovenia and i will not use most of those FR flights iz Zagreb... because current destinations are not interesting at the moment. And because it's cheaper/faster to use Venice and its part of schengen.
DeletePeople from Ljubljana and across Slovenia are already heavily using all of the airports outside Slovenia. Look at the shuttle service demand from Ljubljana city to airports like Venice, Trieste, Milano, Vienna,... Take a look at the reg plates on cars parked on those airports! Nobody who is traveling across Europe on their own money is using Lju. This new FR base in Zag is good news for 90% of Slovenians. I think Skobir and his gang missed a huge opportunity here
DeleteSpeaking for yourself, you have every right to choose VCE over ZAG, especially if you are from Koper or Ljubljana. But not so sure people from Novo Mesto or Maribor would opt for VCE. Slovenia is not Ljubljana only and some parts are really much closer to ZAG than to VCE, even with border crossing which will so and so be history in year or two, you like it or not
DeleteExactly. Zagreb with Ryanair is becoming a big player in this region! LJU fell asleep long time ago. Try using a public transport to get from Ljubljana city to LJU. Impossible. Much easier to just go to ZAG instead.
DeleteI´m from Slovenia I will use Ryanair from Zagreb.Thats great for us in Slovenia-first trip I buy with them is for 9.98 to London yesterday :D I think they can close LJand all leader of LJ airport must be fired! They are to stupid to lead!
DeleteGood luck to ZAG and FR!
ReplyDeleteHow do connecting flights within Ryan's network work?
ReplyDeleteCan you link two Ryan flights into one ticket?
No, you have to buy two separate tickets.
DeleteSo same as Wizz and other LCCs.
DeleteThanks.
You just buy two tickets... No problem at all. I do it all the time. It is a bit clumsy if you have more bags, but certainly beats lufthansa ticket price and network in Europe
DeleteBut if your first FR flights arrives late, and you arrive late for your next FR flight, what happens?
DeleteRyanair offer connecting flights through a number of airports, not all, but some, so they are improving all the time on this. Details on website.
DeleteI did it from Nis to Portugal,
DeleteINI - BGY then BGY - LIS
and
OPO - BGY then BGY - INI on the way back..,
As the others mentioned a bit clumsy, but it most definitely works, return ticket was 120e in the middle of the season :D
Long life FR!
You can use a web page called Ryalive to find the connecting flights. Before Covid it worked perfectly. You just set up your parameters, search for the best connection and book flights through ryanair web page
DeleteThanks, good to know.
DeleteW6, where are you? FR and W6 battled for VIE as soon as VIE became attractive for ULCCs. ZAG seems to be attractive for FR, why isn't it for W6?
ReplyDeleteYes because Zagreb is a market comparable to that of Vienna. lol
DeleteWizz will reply soon to this attack in their neighbourhood.
DeleteWill this be FRs biggest base in South East Europe?
ReplyDelete(not including BUD)
Athens, Thessaloniki, Sofia, are all bigger. Which is logical as these are bigger cities, with bigger distance to most of the emitive markets
DeleteTrue dat. Thanks bro.
DeleteThessaloniki is not bigger than Zagreb
DeleteClose enough.
DeleteThessaloniki and Zagreb are approximately the same size. Thessaloniki has some 20.000 more population in urban area and Zagreb has some 50.000 more in metro aerea. That's same size. But still Sofia and Athens are both much bigger
DeleteSo, Thessaloniki is not bigger than Zagreb at all :)
DeleteI would say ZAG is bigger than SKG but just because of seasonality. SKG becomes really sleepy in winter. That said, ZAG has now chances to reach up to 5 million when the pandemic is over.
DeleteSOF has 3 FR planes, but they have more frequencies as it receives flights from other bases.
The dominant airline in SE Europe is definitely W6. They have an impressive coverage in Romania, RNM and Moldova.
Hehe, ZAG bigger.
DeleteSKG had almost 7 mil pax in 2019
@An.10.56
DeleteNo, city of Thessaloniki is for about 20.000 people bigger than city of Zagreb. I was willing to say OK, they are same or similar size, precisely to avoid discussion and argue on this matter with someone who obviously must prove right, but now when I see that you are triumphally smiling on my attempt to skip irrelevant details, and concentrate on the overall content of my post, now I insist on the fact that Thessaloniki is by 20. 000 inhabitants bigger than Zagreb.
Thessaloniki is not bigger than Zagreb. It's a city of 325,000 compared to Zagreb's 807,000.
DeleteIf you compare urban areas, than Thessaloniki has 824,000 but again Zagreb is bigger with some 980,000. Zagreb urban area in addition to Zagreb city includes Zaprešić, Sv. Nedjelja, Samobor, V. Gorica and Dugo Selo (some include Sv. Ivan Zelina too).
And as for the metro area, it's at least Zagreb city plus Zagreb county, which means around 1,12 million people.
I don't know where you got your numbers, but I think I might know where is the "catch" : your data for Thessaloniki "City" are numbers of city center, like London "City" or Zagreb center, without Novi Zagreb, Dubrava and so on. As I said in my first post, Thessaloniki urban aerea is over 800.000 people, and 20.000 people more than Zagreb urban aerea. Zagreb metropolitan aerea is slightly bigger than Thessaloniki metropolitan. No single world listing places Zagreb ahead of Thessaloniki. 300.000 for the second biggest Greek city and one of the biggest in the Balkans is absolutely impossible and wrong. Even Skopje and Pristina are almost double bigger. So no, sorry, no, check your sources
DeleteZAG 60min catchment area 1.9m people, SKG is 1.3m people.
DeletePozdrav is correct on this one. Both metropolitan areas are similar, Zagreb maybe 50.000 to 100.000 bigger. But no big deal.
DeleteThis ends discussion on this off topic.
As a resident of Thessaloniki, i say it's metro area has around 1,1m population (not counting illegal immigrants and refugees living for years in the city..But because its airport is the largest in Northern Greece its catchment area expands to 2-2,5hrs drive which covers Thessaly/Central Greece as well, a total of 2,5-3million people..
DeleteWho could have thought that this could happen just two months ago?
ReplyDeleteThis will change the aviation landscape in Croatia and beyond for years to come.
DeleteWizz is coming too ;)
DeleteThis is the best news of the year!!!! Ryanair will tear a new hole into OU - and hopefully kill them off for good and give ZAG a sustainable future to build upon. Popcorn needed to watch this one...
ReplyDeleteBrutal assessment dude. OU may surprise us all and come out of this as a lean mean fight'en mašin.
DeleteNope , never, nada .
DeleteThats good news !
ReplyDeleteWell this says it's all. Quoting one of the ministers: "Siguran sam, kao i moj kolega ministar Butković, da Croatia Airlines ili treba kvalitetnog i dobrog strateškog partnera ili mora ostati u portfelju RH. Izgubiti operatera u zračnom prometu, mislim da ne bi bilo dobro ni pametno"
ReplyDelete