Zagreb Airport is estimating an increase in passenger numbers throughout 2023, noting its traffic figures are already growing above the European industry average. The forecast comes despite the airport still lacking a single new route announcement for 2023. However, this is expected to change in the coming period. Furthermore, frequencies on several existing routes will be strengthened this summer, with Finnair resuming seasonal flights from Helsinki in April, boosting its presence by operating for the entire summer, while Lufthansa will add an additional daily service from Munich for a total of two daily flights from March 26. The German carrier will also boost capacity to the Croatian capital from both Munich and Frankfurt.
Greece’s Aegean Airlines will add a third weekly rotation from Athens to Zagreb starting mid-June, up from two last summer. The carrier has also tentatively upgraded the service to year-round flights, although this is subject to change. Qatar Airways plans to increase its frequencies from Doha to daily from late March, while El Al’s leisure brand Sun d’Ór will maintain two weekly services instead of one, with the additional rotation to be introduced from late April. Furthermore, Ryanair plans to run services to all destinations within in its Zagreb network, in contrast to last summer, when it faced significant operational issues, forcing it to suspend a select number of routes and decrease frequencies on others.
Croatia Airlines does not plan to introduce new destinations from its Zagreb hub this summer for a third year in a row, despite being the airport’s biggest customer The airline has opted instead to roll out new seasonal flights from the country’s coastal airports. “The business relationship we have with Zagreb Airport, our home airport, reflects our traffic volume, and related commercial conditions”, the Croatian carrier said recently. Another segment which has lagged in recovery at Zagreb Airport is long haul traffic. This summer, Air Transat will restore its pre-pandemic three weekly service, however, due to a shorter season than last year, will have similar capacity on offer. On the other hand, its rival Air Canada does not intend on launching services to the Croatian capital this year. Korean Air, which is in the process of restoring its entire European network has so far omitted Zagreb from its plans. Zagreb Airport previously said its long haul operations would recover by 2025.
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I find it very odd that there really is no single route announced for this year from Zagreb.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the increase in fees at ZAG could be an issue?
DeleteThe impression is conveyed reading all these articles that you fundamentally do not understand hub-'n'-spoke and what it means.
DeleteEvery s*hole ('s' meaning spoke) cannot be a hub.
Or to express oneself even more poetically and perhaps less ambiguous;
DeleteFrom every spoke hole can not be a hub....
And now also TAP cancelled all ZAG flights for this year to
DeleteAt this present time I now only see Ryanair as a possibility of announcing a fourth plane in Zagreb somewhere from July.
ReplyDeleteI really hope Aegean does upgrade ZAG to year round but they have done this before. They put flights on sale for winter and then in July just remove them.
ReplyDeleteI don't think, that there is enough demand to turn the route into year round
DeleteAegean wants to turn ATH into a hub so people can have connecting flights there ZAG will be year-round
DeleteSo how many pax could Zagreb have this year?
ReplyDeleteMy prediction is 3.4 million. But let's see if and how many new routes they might get.
Delete3.5-3.7 million at this point. Could go higher in case there are new routes or serious capacity increases.
DeleteNot bad. And how many did they have in 2019? I can't remember
Delete3,435,531
DeleteMind you, we are already in February meaning it is unlikely anyone will schedule any new route before June. Even increases for April should have been announced by now.
DeleteThe passenger numbers will not rise ad infinitum. They cannot. Only compounded interest on debt used to finance these exuberant expectations DOES.
DeleteA recession is coming; inflation eating away disposable income for leisure; your overlords saying CO2 destroying the planet; nobody wants to work in this volatility, vax mandated shell of an industry. It's gonna collapse. It was lost due.
corr: LONG due
DeletePeanuts
ReplyDeleteZagreb Airport is estimating an increase in passenger numbers throughout 2023, noting its traffic figures are already growing above the European industry average"
DeleteThat's not peanuts.
I’m just hoping ZAG management isn’t purposely slowing down potential growth so they don’t have to expand. Because according to their concession contract, once they hit 5 million passengers they have to expand the terminal.
ReplyDeleteThis has crossed my mind too.
DeleteI think this is precisely the reason they are not more aggressive. They took on Ryanair when traffic was at its lowest and everyone predicted the crisis would last for years. Now that things are mostly back to normal, they could reach 5 million with Ryan easily.
DeleteThat's a very good point.
DeleteThey don't want to build an airport that can handle 8,10 or 12 million pax a year unless they absolutely have to and the increase in pax volumes is rapid.
So for the time being they'll continue to milk the existing capacity.
Sad reality is that current capacity is more than enough for the amount of traffic there is. I fear there isn't much growth out there. I mean if demand was there airlines would be adding flights left and right. Why aren't they?
DeleteAt the same time Air France will not be operating its second daily flight to Zagreb this summer.
ReplyDeleteBA has also cut a lot of flights compared to the plan but then again they cancelled a bunch last year as well so it might be even an increase compared to 2022.
DeleteDidn't Ryanair also suspend Dortmund or are they bringing it back in the end?
DeleteNo, it's discontinued.
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2023/01/ryanair-discontinues-one-zagreb-route.html
No, they don't bring it back. Zagreb has currently -1 destinations comparing to last year.
DeleteAF and BA as well as their home airports faced a lot of labor shortages and disruptions last summer.
DeleteSo they won't be expanding but instead they will focus on keeping their network functioning better. That means being careful with were they deploy their resources.
Just my2cents
BA is cutting destinations such as BER, FRA, CDG, GVA, BUD... and are instead focusing on where tourists want to go. They are boosting holiday destinations.
DeleteThey boosted Lju flights to 6x weekly if I am not wrong
DeleteStill waiting for US flights.
ReplyDeleteUnited would be the most natural choice.
DeleteA lot more 787s need to be delivered for the US3 and the Canadians to start expanding transatlantically again.
DeleteCome on, let's be real. If AC is staying away from ZAG then US carriers will too. There is limited business demand for them. If an Air Transat like airline existed in the US then they would be a good candidate. Like this ... nothing.
DeleteDL butchered its pre-pandemic network in Eastern Europe.
DeleteDon't expect them to ne launching ZAG or BEG soon.
To be honest there is no need for DL in BEG now that JU is in expansion mode, that they have an interline with AA and soon a codeshare with B6.
DeleteDL in Balkans give more attention to ATH I don’t think there is demand for them to launch regular flights to ZAG or BEG especially when there’s JU there
DeleteWhat happened with Ryanair's grand plans of basing 5 planes in Zagreb in the first year? FR is the one that disappointed me the most.
ReplyDeleteThey probably found more profitable routes to fly them in other bases.
DeleteIt was a joke from the beginning.
DeleteBravo Hrvatska!
ReplyDeleteCroatia Airlines has done nothing at ZAG yearsr. No new routes, no restored routes from pre Covid era. It's like they just gave up...
ReplyDeleteThey explained it
Delete“The business relationship we have with Zagreb Airport, our home airport, reflects our traffic volume, and related commercial conditions”
Unfortunate about AC. It would be nice if they replaced Rouge. There is a big enough market for both them and Air Transat.
ReplyDeleteGood work. Looking forward to the new routes.
ReplyDeleteWhat is ZAG's busiest route?
ReplyDeleteFRA obviously
DeleteIs Munich after Frankfurt? Or domestic routes?
DeleteI think its DBV.
DeleteNope, it is Amsterdam
DeleteInteresting. Thanks
DeleteAir France-KLM is doing rather well in Zagreb
DeleteAF has cancelled second daily flight to ZAG. They are not doing that well.
DeleteI hope Transavia considers some routes to ZAG.
ReplyDeletemaybe the flights to eindhoven or orly but deffenitly not amsterdam as what is happening to those ljubljana amsterdam flights operated by them
DeleteWhy doesn't Zagreb have more flights to the Middle East? Considering how popular Croatia is, I would expect more flights from Gulf countries like Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain...
ReplyDeleteBecause Arabs don't go to Croatia for holidays. They go to Greece, Turkey and Spain.
Deletelol that's not true. Look at Croatia's tourism stats and you will see.
DeleteThere are already nonstop flights from Dubai to Dubrovnik during the summer.
DeleteTK benefits the most from this. In summer they carry a lot of Middle East transfers to Croatia.
DeleteThey lose money on every Ryanair flight and tried to recoup it from the other Airlines by increasing fees!
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteFully agree!
Delete+1000
DeleteThese increases are good
ReplyDeleteWithout a single route, it is not good. If they get a couple of new destinations, then I agree it will be good.
DeleteBelgrade has something like 30+ destinations apart from frequncesies increase.
DeleteAnonymous09:50
DeleteBelgrade has a functioning national airline and no major competitors nearby. ZAG has LJU super close and Croatia has many functioning airports and Serbia has 2, 2 and a 1/2 if you take those 2 or 3 routes from KVO.
Croatia in total has more passengers when you combine all the airports than Serbia which makes ZAG and BEG impossible to compare, if Serbia diversified its air travel to all aiports it can (BEG, INI, KVO, and even Ponikve and Vrsac) i doubt that BEG would have these numbers. Centralization is destroying Serbia, but helping BEG to grow, and that is not the case in Croatia (at least to to that extent). However I do think that none of those Croatian airports are using their potential, unlike BEG and INI that are stretching as far as they can.
I did not see that LJU was any kind of problem at the time FR opened a base in ZAG and safed current numbers in Croatial capital that would have been terrible without Irish LCC. Without FR ZAG would have been on ca. 70% comparing to 2019.
DeleteLJU has never been in worse situation and if so weak LJU can influence ZAG then it only shows "strength" of ZAG.
Geographical position of Serbia and Croatia are totally different so only people who do not understand whole situation could compare it. The only realistic comparison is between ZAG and BEG as they are both capitals and both in continental parts of their countries.
Having one main airport in small, landlocked countries is nothing new or strange. If we just have a look on Hungary, Czech Republic or Slovakia we shall see that the situation is totally same like in Serbia.
What kind of potential INI and KVO have are clearly shown in JU reduction of winter flights between ZRH and INI. The only JU route from INI that has no PSO had quite weak LF and frequencies were decreased. Let me remind you that all KVO flights are aslo PSO flights.
It simply means that main demand is in Belgrade and logically the most of the new routes are organizes from BEG. I really do not see nothing strange there.
Hahaha you want to open Vrsac which is some 90 km from Belgrade? Yes because that's what we need.Yet another failed airport which is struggling like OSI, PUY or RJK.
DeleteAnd btw TSR is more of competition to BEG than LJU is to ZAG.
>>makes ZAG and BEG impossible to compare
DeleteBasic math skills should be required to post a comment. For example: BEG 5.6M > ZAG 3.1M
More like basic logic skills and understanding of geography should be required. Anyone who wants to arrive anywhere in Serbia via air, has got literally one major choice.
DeleteIn Croatia they have 4. Four airports with over 1million pax annually.
Some people here are either stupid, or pretend to be.
January results will be strong.
ReplyDeleteHow much will the increase be?
DeleteStrong as in compared to 2022 or 2019?
DeleteIt would easily beat the 2019 record.
DeleteJanuary should be around 350.000 in ZAG
Delete@"Anonymous09:53
DeleteJanuary should be around 350.000 in ZAG"
Nooo, not that much, perhaps 200-220k
I'm certain Ryanair will announce new routes. But let's wait and see.
ReplyDeleteWhy are you so certain? Any real reason apart from optimism?
DeleteZAG has not reached its full potential yet with the current FR flights.
DeletePotential is one thing and reality something totally different.
Delete@"Anonymous11:29
DeleteZAG has not reached its full potential yet with the current FR flights."
Not even close, Ryan air hopes to handle 2million out of Zagreb as reported by this blog few years ago, when Ryan air announced their strategy in Zagreb. This blog reported that Ryan air plans to base up to 5 aircraft in Zagreb and handle 2 million passengers by 2025. Similar sized city Krakow, Ryan air has over 60 routes out of Krakow, handling half of Krakow’s passenger volume. I expect similar figures can be expected in Zagreb, few years down the road.
Lol.
DeleteCause Zagreb is such a touristic area as Krakow.
Mind you, Krakow's catchment area is much larger and more similar to Belgrade than Zagreb.
@Anonymous06:45
Delete"Lol.
Cause Zagreb is such a touristic area as Krakow.
Mind you, Krakow's catchment area is much larger and more similar to Belgrade than Zagreb. "
If you weren't so stupid, ignorant and up your arse, perhaps would be interesting to have a cordial reply to your stupid trollish post. However, since you're beneath contempt and lack morality of any sorts, replying to you in any dignified manner would be lost on you, therefore only response left to me is to ridicule you and ignore your existence.
You are very rude! Calm down, man!
DeleteNice lineup on the photo :)
ReplyDeleteGood luck ZAG!
ReplyDeleteThe way things stand now, they will need it.
DeleteAll capital city airports have new destinations this year. Why aren't there any in Zagreb?
ReplyDeleteThey will have them. Be patient
Deleteit is already February and SUTT starts in 1,5 months.
DeleteI just wonder when they intend to announce new destinations... On 01st April? :)
Please add new routes
ReplyDeleteIf FR does open new routes, it won't be before July.
ReplyDeleteFinnair is at max 3 times a week in summer, not 4 as the article says
ReplyDeleteThe long-haul tourism market is still dead
ReplyDeleteOU is in a deep comma in ZAG.
ReplyDeleteIt's far too early to react!
DeleteI've been at the ZAG airport last weekend and I saw some new walls coming up at the top of the stairs once you pass the passport control. Is it regarding the Schengen?
ReplyDeleteAlso, the automatic boarding pass gates are installed, but not operational. And it was the first time I arrived at the boarding pass gate and ended up in a 30+ people queue while one staff member was manually scanning the boarding passes.
Yes, works you saw are part of Schengen entry preparations.
DeleteManual scanning of boarding passes at the departure floor are effective since opening of the new terminal building. Automatic doors are installed a month ago, I guess software tests are still on. Hopefully we'll see them operational before the start of S23.
Let's see what Lufthansa does in the end. Today they announced large capacity and frequency cuts in their long-haul network. They are even reducing FRA-ORD from 7 to 5 from March to June.
ReplyDeleteThings are really not looking well over there guys.
Jbg culi da JU krece.
DeleteWhat happened to TAP flights to ZAG for 2023, yesterday all flights disappeared from the booking platforms
ReplyDeleteYes, it looks pretty strange. It seems they offer now only transfer flights to ZAG on their site.
Delete@Admin,
DeleteDo you have any news about TAP not selling tickets to ZAG on their site?
I had a booking with TAP from ZAG to FNC via LIS with direct ZAG-LIS flights for April/May. Few days ago TAP informed me the flights had been cancelled so I had to re-arrange the trip plan which now includes two addtional stops at BRU and BCN with OU codeshare flights.
DeleteDoes it mean that TAP is cancelling ZAG?
DeleteMost obviously
DeleteRegional leader in ... not opening new routes?
ReplyDeleteZagreb is too small of a city.
ReplyDeleteToo small for what? Zagreb metro area alone has a population of 1.1 million.
DeletePriština is 1/3 the size of Zagreb and it almost reached 3 million pax last year.
Zagreb - Kos will be new seasonal route from Ryanair. I read it today. Starting from June :)
ReplyDelete