NEWS FLASH
Ryanair will launch a new two weekly service between Sofia and Zagreb this August. Flights will operate twice per week, each Tuesday and Saturday, starting August 3. During the pre-pandemic 2019, Sofia was Zagreb Airport’s busiest unserved regional route. With almost 15.000 passengers flying indirectly between the two cities under a single itinerary. Croatia Airlines initially recognised the opportunity and planned to launch a two weekly service between the two cities back in 2014, however, those were shelved as the company embarked on a restructuring process, barring it from introducing new routes at the time. In 2020, it revisited plans to introduce operations to Sofia and scheduled a seasonal three weekly service. The flights were ultimately cancelled as a result of Covid-19. Further flight details for Ryanair’s new service can be viewed here.
Wow, what a way to capture the demand OU had been eyeing for years
ReplyDeleteFinally a direct service. No need to transfer anymore!
DeleteThey are slowly killing off any new potential OU routes.
ReplyDeleteI think OU is doing a fine job killing itself
DeleteAnd that's not an easy thing to do.
DeleteEspecially with huge amounts of money regularly provided by government
DeleteOU could've been started this route already (and many other routes FR is about to launch).
ReplyDeleteFinally!
ReplyDeleteFor sure will use this route!
Greetings from Bulgaria!
Clever move from FR. Interesting to find out that there is such decent O&D traffic between SOF and ZAG. For OU, it could've been great to offer both O&D and transfer flights to the coast.
ReplyDeleteThe schedule resembles the ZAG-TGD and operate on the same days and almost hours.
How did passengers fly on the route before?
DeleteAustrian Airlines and Lufthansa were the main transfer airlines on this route with over 55% of the market.
DeleteIf JU had been consistently double-daily to ZAG it would've been a different picture. This way people had to fly illogical routes (via VIE or MUC) to get to SOF. Hopefully JU can correct this post-pandemic.
DeleteAre those city employees carrying flags?
ReplyDeleteYes from the municipality.
DeleteI wonder what is the core pax structure that currently flies to both cities. I am sure FR will generate addtional city break customer base.
ReplyDelete@Vlad - with JU flying double daily, you may be right to a degree. However, ZAG should have and clearly can get direct connections. Afterall it had the most tourist visitors out of all ex-yu destinations, including Dubrovnik, for years. With relatively underdeveloped airline routes.
It was also in the world top 50 conference meeting destinations in 2019. All that says something.
Downfall of ZAG had been a non proactive national carrier, but the market has been there.
Yes, it will definitely generate more city break after all we are talking about EU capitals which means not only leisure but business travellers.
DeleteZAG made a very good first move to connect LCC major Euro capitals such as London, Paris and Brussels and FR is likely to add more.
As for SOF, well if BTS, BUD LCC connections have been working quite well then why not ZAG? FR also launched SOF-OTP today, which means that there is also a huge room for ZAG-OTP and even ATH-OTP in the very near future.
I'd wait to see what routes stick and which do not. Load on the first flight were disastrous and that's Brussels we are talking about here. A market which has much more potential than Sofia. Personally I think TGD will be the first to be cut. Will be interesting to see what they replace it with, I suppose they will try SKP
DeleteNot trying to defend or advocate anyone, but all, or almost all numbers, everywhere, are still disastrous. After all, we are still fully acting in covid scam movie. I am sure most of the services from ZAG will be successful as covid scam passes, and not cut in future, just new ones added.
Delete@08:10 CRL is usually a tricky destination. It will need some time to become more popular. Remember that LJU also has flights to there. But as pozdrav says, loads are horrible almost everywhere.
ReplyDelete