Croatia Airlines is exploring opportunities at expanding its footprint in Southeastern Europe and linking destinations in the region to the West, as the carrier looks into ways of becoming more competitive on the market. “We will redefine new market opportunities for connecting European destinations with the region of Southeast Europe, maximise future revenue potential and increase aircraft productivity”, the airline noted. Regionally, Croatia Airlines maintains year-round flights from Zagreb to Skopje and Sarajevo, as well as seasonal operations to Athens and Bucharest, the latter having been suspended since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. The carrier has also suspended several other seasonal regional routes including Zagreb - Mostar, Split - Belgrade and Split - Athens.
The busiest unserved regional destination from Zagreb Airport in the pre-pandemic 2019 was Sofia, followed by Tirana, Pristina, Podgorica and Thessaloniki. Croatia Airlines scheduled seasonal services to the Bulgarian and Montenegrin capitals in 2020, however, it was forced to cancel its plans due to the coronavirus pandemic. Ryanair, which will open a base in Zagreb in late August, will launch operations to both cities. Furthermore, the Croatian carrier considered introducing services to Tirana in 2020 as well, however, the city didn’t make the final cut for its summer network, which was ultimately upended by the pandemic.
In late 2019 Croatia Airlines said it was looking to establish a greater presence in the region following the collapse of Adria Airways, which had a developed regional network, shuttling passengers through Ljubljana to Star Alliance hubs such as Frankfurt, Munich, Vienna and Zurich. However, even though the Croatian airline said it would be “good to expand” as a result of Adria’s demise, it noted it was too early to react at that point in time. Further back, in 2016, Croatia Airlines outlined plans to open bases in Sarajevo, Pristina and Skopje, however, these never materialised. At the time the carrier said, "Market research data has shown that there is a potential for the successful opening of additional bases in the Southeastern European region and Croatia Airlines, as a European Union community carrier, has recognised its business interest in this”.
Comments
OU originally had a morning departure schedule on Monday, Wednesday and Friday with the possibility of quite convenient transfer to the coast on both ways.
Also, it is interesting to see a big plane such as the 738 being deployed on such regional routes. 2 missed opportunities for OU sadly.
The key would be to strenghten domestic or regional routes that could be used by tourists to hop to different resorts like DBV or SPU or ZAG or TIA or TIV or SKG + niche markets from Northern and Western Europe to the coast.
Now that FR is here they are done, too little too late.
PRN-ZAG! I’m glad they’re are back :) keep going forward.
Much better move then transatlantic flights!
Plus many more
"Greek market is saturated with carriers from distant markets, Croatian hasn't been for decades."
Not actually true. Greek market is like 6 times bigger, in 2019. there were like only 4 routes to the US. Aegean is not interested in it because it knows they do not have resources like USB3 and EUB3 to launch long haul so it is just a useless risk for them. Also another aircraft type is going to increase their operation costs so it is better to not enter on that market.
"In addition to that, flights to North America from Athens are 2 hours longer than from ZAG and is impossible to rotate the plane again in 24 hours. From ZAG it is possible. Maybe that was one of the reasons why Aegean was interested in OU. "
Flights are not 2 hours longer, they are usually only 1:30, and Aegean said they are not interested in long haul because of reason i mentioned above. Thats why i think for OU its better to not enter long haul.
"I also hope you are not serious listing peak corona crisis numbers for any relevant comparation."
In 2019.
Totally not true. Greek market itself is equaly large as exyu one +Albania, Bulgaria and Romania. And do not forget that Greece has Cyprus and Israel, large natural markets from Greece.
A person REALLY, but really must be VERY BAD PERSON to constantly lie and deliberately accuse someone for something that person NEVER EVER said
If you worked in aviation, good for you. Still, that doesnt mean you are right about everything what you said here.
You predicted long haul to Croatia? Ok, cool. Still, that doesnt mean long haul is the best thing for OU and that it definitly should go for it. There are literally no corelations between your predictions for US, Canada - Croatia markets and whats the best thing for OU. That isnt an argument that OU should go for it at all.
My arguments? I showed them. I lie about Aegean? No, literally you can find different texts on internet where Aegean says they are not intersted in long haul or even taking another aircraft model like a220.
I simply do not understand why are you insulting me at all when i never insulted you. Or why are you calling me uhljeb if i just dont share your oppinion.
So when thinking about flying long-haul, management at Aegean Airlines is in no rush to take on the extremely risky challenge.
“The airline business is notorious for its profitability. It’s very difficult to achieve even low profit-margins and it’s very easy to lose lots of money. Look at the recent bankruptcies in Europe (FlyBMI, Primera, Small Planet, Cobalt, Germania, Air Berlin, etc.) You need to focus on what you’re doing well. If you decide to change your model, you’d better be sure that you can do it well. The airline business is not a business that you can experiment a lot with models and long-haul is a completely different business model. We’re not going to think about it before we feel that there is a real opportunity for Aegean and for our capabilities. We know what we’re good at, and we know what we’re probably not good at…”
Think before you call someone a liar...
Apologise? Well you literally bashed me that i am manipulating and lying about Aegean, what was not true and i showed you why.
OU did not miss any opportunity to go long-haul, because there never were opportunities. The Croatian market is much smaller than the Greek market, and on average, the people are poorer. Athens itself is 4 times bigger than Zagreb. The Croatian market has never been ready for wide-body aircraft to be based there. As you can see in another article, Pragusa.One also fails to start. It is just impossible currently and it was never possible before. Croatians have to become much richer and/or the population has to grow by a lot. Otherwise Croatia cannot sustain based wide-body aircraft. Wide-body aircraft also come with much higher costs and that was a major reason for WOW Air to go bankrupt and for PLAY to not follow that path again.