Zagreb Airport handled 3.723.650 passengers last year, making 2023 its busiest on record. The figure represents an increase of 19.2% on 2022 and an improvement of 8.4% on its previous best result achieved during the pre-pandemic 2019. The airport added an additional 288.119 travellers compared to its past record. Frankfurt was Zagreb’s busiest route in 2023 with close to 300.000 passengers. Croatia Airlines was the largest carrier based on the amount of capacity with a total of 1.896.966 seats provided on its Zagreb flights, followed by Ryanair with 1.315.937 seats. During the year, the airport saw the introduction of two new routes - Kos and Lanzarote - both operated by Ryanair.
Zagreb Airport’s largest airlines in 2023 by seat capacity
Zagreb Airport’s growth in 2023 was primarily fuelled by Ryanair, which handled over a million passengers. Compared to the pre-pandemic 2019, the airport is served by notably fewer airlines, including Emirates, which was the seventh largest carrier by seat capacity that year, as well as Korean Air, Air Canada Rouge, Brussels Airlines, Swiss, and Czech Airlines. Back in 2019 the airport was also served by Aeroflot which has discontinued flights due to European Union sanctions. Croatia Airlines’ decision not to restore a number of services from Zagreb which were maintained prior to the pandemic continues to slow the rate of recovery. Last year, the airport launched its Connecting Capital Cities Incentive Model, providing benefits for the introduction of sixteen pre-selected European destinations. However, in order for an airline to utilise the incentives on offer, they must launch at least two weekly year-round flights to at least three of the sixteen destinations. The scheme is valid until May 2026 and is yet to be taken up by an airline.
Zagreb Airport aims to handle over four million passengers this year. Next week, Pegasus Airlines will become the newest carrier to launch flights to the Croatian capital, introducing services from Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen Airport. Ryanair has announced the launch of five new routes from Zagreb this summer - Alicante, Girona, Palma de Mallorca, Pisa, and Marseille. Korean low cost carrier T’Way Air has filed its schedule for the launch of one weekly operations from Seoul from July. At this early stage, Zagreb Airport has 5.673.315 seats on the market for the whole of 2024, which is up 17.4% on the actual capacity provided last year. At this point, Croatia Airlines remains the largest airline with two million seats on the market, followed by Ryanair and Lufthansa.
Zagreb Airport's largest airlines in 2024 by preliminary seat capacity
Congratulations to Zagreb, first and foremost
ReplyDeleteStill sad to see OU underperform so badly, though. Ryanair probably eclipses them this yewr with so many new routes announced
Croatia Airlines is a disgrace for us Croats who need to travel.
DeleteAnd if Croatia Airlines were a real airline, and not pathetic feeder and humiliated servant, and if they have made proper hub in ZAG, with proper network - domestic, regional, european and long-haul, ZAG could have been on 6 or 7 mil now.
DeleteZagreb has the geographical advantage of being a possible transfer point between Western, Northern Europe and the Balkans and the Middle East
DeleteInstead we get random flights to feeder ports with Dashes
@10:30 every airport in the balkans has the ability to be a transfer. all the way from zagreb to istanbul. ZAG had an opportunity in thr early 2010's to be that airport after the Jugoslavoja. but today istanbul, athens and Belgrade have much stronger geographical advantage.
DeleteAny info on Air Serbia numbers in ZAG? I am surprised they didn't make it on the list after they increased flights.
ReplyDeleteI don't know the exact numbers for whole 2023., but I am frequently flying on this route and last year was first year when planes were full even in tradionaly weak months like February and November. Tickets in weak months are sold at promotional prices so cannot comment on yields, but load factor improved a lot for sure comparing to previous years.
DeleteLOT, which had similar amount of flights, came in on 10th place but sent aircraft with larger capacity (ERJ175/195) compared to JU with the ATR (roughly 10-45 seats less per flight). The new third daily flights might put them into 10th place this year.
DeleteAir Serbia was eleventh (both 2023 and 2024)
Delete2023 – 91.088 (+25.4% on 2019)
2024 – 105.560 (+45.3% on 2019)
Thanks Ex Yu, this is great news. I hope JU is yet to upload 15th, 16th and 17th frequency per week? Great article btw, concise and very helpful.
DeleteHow did you find the figures for 2024?? "Back to future 5" ? Or Nostradamus projection?
DeleteThey are compiled by a software through existing GDS availability for this year based on all published flights and aircraft types scheduled for each flight.
DeleteWhat about AF? it would be interesting to see what AFKL as a group is offering for ZAG for 2024.
DeleteThe German market is very slow with its recovery. One of the slowest country markets in Europe for Covid recovery. So I'm not surprised LH Group is underperforming.
ReplyDeleteIt seems people have also discovered KLM.
Delete^ But surprisingly not Air France.
DeleteI wonder if the US transfers have shifted from Lufthansa.
DeleteGood luck if your KLM flights isn't cancelled. Out of my last 8 flights booked with KLM four were cancelled on the day they were supposed to operate. I'm not talking about their Zagreb flight but about connecting flight in AMS. Will avoid them in the future.
Delete@11.07
DeleteA portion probably has. Turkish Airlines keeps expending its US network while Lufthansa has severely decreased the quality of service on board.
* expanding
DeleteI guess FR is impacting many airlines/routes in ZAG
ReplyDeletePrimarily Eurowings and Croatia Airlines
DeleteFR is mainly creating demand i.e. new passenagers. As you can see all their new destinations are leisure ones. Only destination where FR "stole" a lot of passengers from OU is London because OU sold Heathrow slots so now even government employees are using FR for business trips to UK.
DeleteYou must be joking. Ryanair was directly responsible for OU leaving Dublin, for British Airways not bringing back full frequencies, for Eurowings not bringing back all the capacity it had in 2019 to Dusseldorf, Cologne and Stuttgart, for Lufthansa and OU not bringing back Munich and Frankfurt capacity or for the passengers being down, for OU not bringing back Milan and Sofia and not launching Podgorica.
DeleteNo it was not. It's the fault of OU which didn't position both itself and ZAG as transfer airport/airline. If they did so, they wouldn't have to count on P2P pax only.,and could have kept all destinations and frequencies they previously operated, plus opening more. Eurowings is total mess and LH will further lose the market share generally, not only in Croatia, because what some time ago used to be very good airline is slowly but surely becoming disaster and disappointment in any way possible
DeleteThey will achieve 4 million without an issue especially since article mentions total capacity is already at 5.1 million and it's only January.
ReplyDeletetotal capacity according to this article here is 5.67 million, if you hit 70% of that figure, it is nearly 4. million, I guess final capacity will be known closer to March for this year that is, can't be more than 5.7 million I'd imagine. Anyways, 4.04 million likely, 4,1 million possible, anything over that is a bonus.
DeleteWhat's going on with Eurowings?? Both 2023 and 2024 capacity is down the toilet.
ReplyDeleteTo add to that I'm really surprised how strong they were pre-Covid based on these numbers.
DeleteEurowings is an absolute mess of an airline itself.
DeleteBack in the day Eurowings used to fly to Zagreb from Berlin Tegel, Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Cologne and Stuttgart. Cologne was daily flights at one point years ago.
DeleteThey simply cannot come back with the same capacity now that Zagreb is also served by Ryanair to Weeze, previously also Dortmund, Hahn, Memmingen, Karlsruhe Baden Baden and airports near to Germany too like Eindhoven and Basel.
Eurowings directly losing passengers to Ryanair which flies cheaper albeit to worse airports.
DeletePeople prefer paying 20 bucks less for a flight to an airport branded as Cologne or Frankfurt while it's almost 100km away rather than flying almost directly ot the city
I think overall Lufthansa are also thinking what to do with euro wings. I think a merger with someone like EasyJet would benefit all and bring a 3rd large LCC in Europe to compete with Wizz and Ryanair. Also allow EasyJet planes which hopefully would see them showing some love to ex-yu again
Delete@10:37 The "airport branded as Cologne" is Cologne. One of Ryanair's biggest bases. Please inform yourself before commenting.
DeleteI really can't believe that even in 2024 OU still has such a big decrease in capacity on 2019. Really disappointing.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, quite expected, with nothing to change in the year to come with this management.
DeleteIn 2019 they used to wet lease Air Nostrum aircraft.
DeleteIt dosen't matter what they used. The 12% decline isn't because of Air Nostrum plane. It's because they don't fly anywhere.
DeleteAnd that's just capacity. Their passenger numbers are even more down than that.
DeleteActually it does matter. They shifted capacity to Split so their coastal airport operations explain most of the decline in capacity, but the Air Nostrum aircraft are no longer wet leased so that adds to the decline network-wide.
DeleteThe incentives were so well thought out that not a single airline got them. What is the point? Change the requirements.
ReplyDeleteI think they were tailored for Croatia Airlines. But OU is a disgrace of an airline and they are now trying to punish Zagreb for allowing Ryanair to come.
DeleteThe airport openly said (there was an article somewhere here) that the incentives were made for Croatia Airlines to apply. And they said how there is still time for them to apply. But I must say odd that airport is openly admitting to fixing an incentive policy for one airline.
DeleteIt is not fixed, it is tailored. It was meant to be inviting for OU. The fact they have not taking it on is shocking.
DeleteMaybe they are waiting for the new planes to arrive.
DeleteTK seems to be doing a pretty good job
ReplyDeleteThat's why they are introducing additional flights.
DeleteWhy not codesharing with TK and introduce flights to IST? Croatia can benefit impressive network of TK with a codeshare.
DeleteThey flew to IST years ago and failed.
DeleteTK should really start Split, at least seasonally.
Delete@11.14
DeleteThey didn't fail. On IST and SVO and MAD and ARN and BER and PRG and DUS and on many many others they were doing fine. Until Ivan Misetic exchanged success of the company for his personal benefits and position in Star Alliance Board of Directors, promised to keep OU obedient servant and humiliated feeder to LH only and influenced all later CEO's to continue with it, thanks to his position in Mafia organization which has been destroying both OU and whole country for decades now
TK and OU need to cooperate more. I don't see why they don't. Why doesn't OU have a codeshare on TK's routes from Istanbul? Especially to more distant markets.
DeleteShould be mentioned that Turkish has benefited a lot from Gulf airlines reducing their operations to ZAG since the pandemic.
DeleteGood job by Ryanair!
ReplyDeleteStealing many airline's passengers.
DeleteHow dare they
DeleteOU is apparently leasing TradeAirs A320 for the whole year... I know AirSerbia is doing it too with a few aircraft, but they didn't return their aircraft from the lease a month ago... A220 will be either the end...or the end of OU
ReplyDeleteYes, OU will wet-lease 2 planes this year
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2023/12/croatia-airlines-to-wet-lease-aircraft.html
"as expected, the jet will begin operating on Croatia Airlines’ behalf from February 2024. The jet will initially be based in Zagreb, before being moved to Split to cater for the airline’s summer schedule out of the coastal city. The Croatian carrier is also eyeing a second A320 wet-lease for the 2024 summer season."
DeleteTradeair started flying this week, and was announced to stay till the end of the year; meaning that either a220 is late or that they don't have any idea what they are doing
They are clueless. They returned an A319 recently.
DeleteLuckily, there are so many world class experts on this site, shooting their mouth and doing nothing else all day long.
DeleteLuckily, Jasmin is such an expert that OU will overtake Turkish tomorrow
DeleteFunny how you felt called out instantly! Why is that?
DeleteI thought this was the blog on ex-yu aviation, not on me. Lack of arguments, go personal. Low. Pathetic. Mean. Sad. Enjoy your little spineless life! 😃
DeleteI assume that if there were no FR, Croatia Airlines would not have retreated so much from Zagreb.
ReplyDeleteyes but it would stood behind SPU and DBV
DeleteIn reality, other airlines were hurt more, like Eurowings. Flights to Karlsruhe, Weeze, Hahn are marketed as Stuttgart, Cologne and Frankfurt, despite being very far from their respective cities
Delete@10:45 when will you realise that almost no one on these flights lives in the centre of Stuttgart and Frankfurt? Have you ever even considered the possibility that it is easier to get to Weeze from most of NRW than to Cologne? Have you considered that it is easier to get from Luxembourg to Hahn than to FRA?
DeleteCan't wait to see T'way in ZAG. Even if it's just once per week.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteHope they start ticket sales soon. I'm very interested to see the price.
DeleteShould start in the next month
DeleteWell done, ZAG.
ReplyDeleteMy prediction is that in 2024 Ryanair will overtake Croatia Airlines in terms of passenger numbers in Zagreb.
ReplyDeleteGroundbreaking
Deleteflydubai is growing because emirates is not flying? would be great to see both numbers ...
ReplyDeleteIn terms of capacity, Emirates had the following on their Zagreb route:
Delete2018: 233.040
2019: 149.320
so zagreb- dubai is still down on 2019?
DeleteOf course it's down when EK operated B777. And don't forget the figure admin gave is for Emirates only. In October 2019 Fly Dubai took over the route so there was additional capacity.
DeleteBravo Hrvatska!
ReplyDeleteHope QR will finally go back to double daily this year.
ReplyDeleteThe good news is they keep 10 weekly in summer at least.
DeleteOU is in deep sleep
ReplyDeleteAnd has been for years...
DeleteZAG-CPH
ReplyDeleteOU480
12JAN24
Trade Air A320
Economy 49/162
Business 6/12
Ouch as they would say. Not a bad load in business though.
DeleteThe A220 will be great for such routes, especially with decent business class load. The worry here is the likes of Sarajevo, Mostar, Rijeka, Osijek etc. How they are planning to fill a 130 seater when 78 seater is flying empty is beyond me.
DeleteIt's a double edged sword. The A220 will either make or break OU. No in between.
DeleteDo we really believe the A220s are coming?
DeleteA220s are coming, the question is how long they'll last
DeleteAs long as OU is run as a political entity on expense of tax payers
DeleteGovernments fuel their policies with public funds, that's in essence the idea of politics. Which part don't you understand?
DeleteI don't understand uhljebs who are that stupid that they are not aware they are sawing the branch they sit on. Btw this is not blog on politics but on ex-yu aviation. Probably that's the part you should understand. But with your intelectual capacity, I doubt 😃
DeleteThanks for these numbers admin. They give much more context than just the passenger result for the year.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteI agree. I hope we get them for other airports too :)
Delete+1
DeleteIt will be interesting to see how the capacity evolves. Finnair is gone compared to last year and Volotea is still on the rocks.
ReplyDeleteNeither of them are counted in 2024 capacity since there are no scheduled flights.
DeleteVolotea never flew to Zagreb.
DeleteSorry I meant Vueling.
DeleteCroatia is going wild this summer due to LCC.
ReplyDeleteCompletely forgot that Swiss, Brussels Airlines and CSA all used to fly to ZAG in 2019.
ReplyDeleteThe numbers would be dire had they not brought Ryanair.
ReplyDeleteThat's speculative. It is likely that had Ryanair not come, Croatia Airlines would not be at under 17% compared to 2019.
DeleteAlso, it's likely it would have been someone else had it not been FR. So, your logic is rudimental.
DeleteI would love to see financial results for all ex yu airports
ReplyDeleteThanks to ryanair
ReplyDeletePrice is king in our region.
DeleteThat is really good growth. Well done Zagreb.
ReplyDeleteZAG has not reached its full potential yet. Lots more room for growth.
ReplyDeleteNot gonna happen with OU remaining pathetic feeder with single type fleet
DeleteIf OU stays stagnant they can attract other airlines too. Look at ATH, BUD, PRG OTP etc. where so many foreign airlines operate.
DeleteGreat article and congratulations ZAG!
ReplyDeleteThis year, 4.1 - 4.15 million shouldn't be a problem at all, given that compared to 2022. ZAG added 600k passengers.