The two Gulf carriers operating flights to Zagreb - Qatar Airways and Flydubai - handled a combined total of 95.595 passengers to and from the Croatian capital during the first half of the year, according to data provided by the statistical office of the European Union. This represents a decrease of just 0.1% on the same period last year. The slight decline in figures has been caused by Qatar Airways’ decision to reduce its Zagreb operations over the summer from ten to seven weekly as a result of an ongoing shortage of narrow-body aircraft. These losses were made up by the strong growth on Flydubai’s Zagreb service. Qatar Airways carried 50.072 passengers, while Flydubai handled 45.523 travellers.
Qatar Airways saw its passenger figures decline 14.3% on its Zagreb operations during the first half of the year, down by 8.351 travellers. Its average cabin load factor over the six-month period stood at a high 87.4%, with all services maintained with the Airbus A320 aircraft. Due to a decrease in frequencies, the airline provided 11.352 fewer seats over the first half of the year compared to last year. Figures on the route are below pre-pandemic levels, when the Qatari carrier maintained up to two daily rotations between the two capital cities, handling 69.107 passengers.
Flydubai welcomed 45.523 travellers on its Zagreb flights during the first half of the year, representing an increase of 22.1% on the same period in 2024, or an additional 8.243 travellers, almost entirely making up for Qatar Airways’ loss. Its average cabin load factor over the six-month period stood at 75.8%. Overall capacity grew 8.6% year-over-year, or by 4.775 seats. Figures on the route are still 15% below pre-pandemic levels when Emirates maintained operations for part of the year with its Boeing 777 aircraft. Flydubai is now on course to overtake its Gulf rival Qatar Airways on its respective Zagreb service from Doha for the first time.
Turkish increasing frequencies might have also had an impact.
ReplyDeleteYes, we need Turkish on this table to see the true impact. The three of them fight for the same passengers.
DeleteThere is a big overlap but not same travel group. There are passengers that choose IST for transfers to North America and Central Asia from Zagreb. But Middle East hubs are rarely chosen for such routes.
DeleteA220s impacting too
DeleteWhat A220 is impacting Qatar Airways exactly?
DeleteThe only thing impacting QR is fewer flights. The number of seats declined more than the number of passengers. They managed to increase their load factor.
DeleteYou snooze you lose
ReplyDeleteAs they are getting A321s and A320neos soon hopefully they will be able to grow frequencies again.
ReplyDeleteI think they lost the battle. It will be difficult to get back in there again. Turkish has the huge advantage of having lots of P2P passengers. flyDubai also gets P2P passengers. Doha doesn't have that much P2P demand. It's a big disadvantage for Qatar.
DeleteQR is losing the battle in loads of markets in Europe. Even EY is growing by a lot after more than 10 years of stagnating and taking some market share from them.
DeleteThere is always room for QR. People know how good the experience is when flying with QR. Many like me would choose QR over FlyDubai and pay a bit more if necessary.
Delete^ agree. Incomparable. And Doha Airport is much nicer than DXB (in my opinion).
DeleteIt is true, but also has been part of a war zone on two occasions recently.
Delete@Mario, there’s not that many like you, money talks and even minuscule fare differences will push people to fly FZ over QR. Hence why you see what exyuav is reporting happening. There’s only a handful like yourself (or myself) in the grand scheme of things.
DeleteWhen flying within Europe I agree. I also choose often the cheapest flight. But people who are fling a longer distance more often don't have to look at every cent. Mostly you are connecting to another flight, so I think many would pay a bit more to have comfort on two long flights. At the end just look at the load factors. QR is winning.
DeleteExactly. Qatar Airways having such a high load factor despite reduced frequencies shows they could easily fill more flights if aircraft availability improves.
DeleteOne more here backing Mario. Avoiding FZ at any cost. Flying to Tanzania and Mauritius in January. Bought ZAG to Dar es Salaam on QR and for return Mauritius to VCE on EK, just to avoid Flydubai.
DeleteWill be great trip for sure. I flew in 2022 from Zagreb to Nairobi and back with QR. Love QR and Kenia was my favorite trip so far.
DeleteWith that sort of load factor for Flydubai, I don't see a chance for Emirates returning any time soon.
ReplyDeleteEK will launch flights to exYu capitals when it has A350s and 787s without F class in its fleet.
DeleteQatar has only itself to blame by getting into war with Airbus over the A350 and having losing their A320neo production slots.
ReplyDeleteExactly
DeleteAnyone remember how many passengers Flydubai had in the first half of the year in Ljubljana? It was published here a few weeks ago. Would be interesting to compare with ZAG.
ReplyDelete30,954
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2025/08/airbaltic-and-wizz-see-strong-ljubljana.html
Thanks
DeleteHow many weekly flights to they have to LJU?
Delete7 weekly in winter time and 4 weekly from summer.
DeleteThank you. They are going back to daily this winter?
DeletePretty good load factor for Qatar.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how loads are in February or March, because in June they were 95% the 4 times I flew. Also I think that flydubai is growing because of migrant workers
ReplyDeleteThe FZ loadfactor is just bad.
ReplyDeleteNot bad, but still not good enough.
DeleteThey have similar loads in LJU and BEG.
DeleteAbsolutely not bad. Depends on how their J class is performing too. To go head-to-head and get those nbrs and growth is pretty good. Especially since LJU seems to be holding it’s own and BEG now going triple daily on certain days. Their costs are also lower when comparing a MAX to CEO.
DeleteInteresting that QR had more passengers than Emirates when they flew to Zagreb.
ReplyDeleteTheir 2 daily flights made much more sense then sending a B777.
DeleteThe two daily flights gave more transfer options.
DeleteInteresting numbers. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteBoth routes could perform better.
ReplyDeleteThe Doha route numbers are solid, but Zagreb is missing long-haul transfer traffic that Qatar used to bring when it flew double daily.
DeleteFlydubai's 75% load factor suggests there’s still room to improve compared to Qatar’s almost 90%.
DeleteIt’s remarkable that Flydubai is close to overtaking Qatar in Zagreb. A few years ago nobody would have predicted that.
ReplyDeleteLoad factors near 90% for Qatar tell me passengers are being squeezed into fewer flights. Zagreb clearly has enough demand for more capacity to the Gulf.
ReplyDelete+1
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