Croatia Airlines plans to further expand its network from Zagreb next summer as it continues its transition to a single-type fleet. The carrier is due to take delivery of another four to five A220 aircraft in 2026. It has previously indicated that most of the new routes to be introduced over the coming years will focus on Europe and the Mediterranean. Although the airline has ruled out long-haul flights, it intends to launch new intercontinental services, making North Africa and the Middle East likely candidates. The focus will be on strengthening year-round connectivity and reducing the carrier’s high level of summer seasonality. This year, the Croatia Airlines introduced new flights from Zagreb to Prague, Bucharest, Milan, Madrid and Hamburg.
The carrier has so far indicated interest in launching flights between Zagreb and Lisbon, which it last served in 2019. It applied for slots to serve the route this year but was unable to secure them due to congestion at Lisbon Airport. Slovenian tour operators have also discussed with the airline the potential introduction of flights between Dubrovnik and Ljubljana. Since the coronavirus pandemic, Croatia Airlines has yet to restore services from Zagreb to Helsinki and Oslo, while planned 2020 launches to Podgorica and Sofia did not materialise due to the onset of the pandemic.
Lisbon remains Zagreb’s busiest unserved destination in Europe. Apart from Croatia Airlines, TAP Air Portugal also previously operated flights between the two cities, with the last service running from June to October 2021. Other high-demand destinations without nonstop flights from Zagreb include Helsinki, last served by Finnair in October 2023, and Oslo, which Croatia Airlines last operated in October 2019. In North Africa, where Zagreb currently lacks scheduled services, Cairo is the busiest unserved destination, followed by Marrakesh, Algiers and Tunis. Within the Middle East, Kuwait City, Muscat and Beirut see the most indirect passengers from the Croatian capital.
Lisbon is a must!
ReplyDeleteIt's too slot restricted, a lot of airlines have applied and failed to get seats. Hope OU gets em, but it's unlikely
DeleteGreek Sky Express back in June announced LIS among others and it started flying there last week.
Deletehttps://www.routesonline.com/airports/2360/athens-international-airport-sa-eleftherios-venizelos/news/299664787/sky-express-is-accelerating-its-international-expansion-at-athens-with-the-addition-of-five-new-destinations-for-20252026/
But they are arriving there in the evening and return to ATH at 6 AM I think so that pax can catch the morning departure wave.
Maybe OU and JU could go for a similar schedule which is primarily aimed at LIS originating travelers. And hopefully morning slots are secured at a later date.
What do you guys think?
^ JU already has flights at such times on some days. The plane arrives back at 4.30AM in Belgrade and allows for passengers to connect onto their entire morning wave which starts at 6AM.
DeleteGreek is one hour ahead of Serbia and Croatia meaning an overnight flight from Portugal to Greece is workable. If a flight was to take off at 23:30 from Lisbon it would land in Zagreb around 03:30 am which is not in the slightest bit appealing for many people, nor does it offer workable connections of note.
DeleteCroatia Airlines has shown time and again that it has no interest in transfer passengers. Just look at their Mostar route paid for by taxpayers but no drive to make it self sustainable by changing the times slightly and connecting onto many destinations. Unless of course it's transfer to Frankfurt and Munich to feed mum, nothing else matters.
DeleteThey should have gone for Porto this year if they could not secure Lisbon.
ReplyDeleteRyanair will likely start Porto.
DeleteIn my opinion, at least three new destinations are coming. For summer 2026.
DeleteIn LIS you can get a lot of connections from America.
DeleteBravo Hrvatska!
ReplyDeleteWhen does OU usually announce its new routes?
ReplyDeleteThis year they announced them in February
DeleteWhile they were sleeping Ryanair developed SOF. I think it's going very well, it's also being used by people travelling to Ljubljana. There are also a lot of tourists to both Slovenia and Croatia.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteIt's not just Bulgaria. They've been in a deep sleep since they were created.
DeleteI see FR and to OTP.
DeleteThey should really consider Belgrade
ReplyDeleteThey could but its tough to get in now.
DeleteWithout connections that is too much metal for a Belgrade rotation from Zagreb. They could try Dubrovnik - Belgrade in summer perhaps and start a point to point price struggle with JU, but again I think its highly unlikely.
DeleteWhat about a Geneva - Zagreb route?
GVA would be great! Year round ATH direct too.
DeleteZag-beg is full of Air Serbia transfers at the moment, I’m really not sure they could compete with an A220 there.
DeleteThat's correct, however air Serbia only fly 4 times a week as i understand. OU launching three times a week gives the route a reasonable degree of success if priced properly and perhaps offering solid connections to Split over the winter months. During the summer Geneva to Split is well connected with DS/U2.
DeleteAir Serbia flies on average 9pw ZAG-BEG, thats just too strong of a frequency
DeleteAdditionally, Air Serbia now has direct connections to Split throughout the year too
Delete14 weekly BEG-ZAG this summer
DeleteDubrovnik- Ljubljana makes sense, Split and Brač too
ReplyDelete+1
Delete+100, especially Dubrovnik - Ljubljana
DeleteBrac Ljubljana too
DeleteI can see Franjo Tudman Airport coming close to 6 million passengers next year!
ReplyDeleteFor sure it will have again a double digit growth.
Possible
DeleteLooks very likely, they need to do something with the old terminal and move FR there.
DeleteThe new one then would be more than large enough to handle the other airlines comfortably.
+1
DeleteOr move OU there and give the new terminal to FR :)
DeleteIf OU really wants year-round demand, Cairo or Tunis could work. Lots of tourism and growing business ties and both are year round destinations.
ReplyDeleteMarrakesh as well along with Tenerife.
DeleteTenerife is a must as FR serves Lanzarote
DeleteWith the A220s arriving, the fleet will finally be efficient enough to try new routes.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteA220 will cost more to lease and operate combined, their range is the same as 319/320 had and with no bigger capacity diferrences compared to before. So, they will be LESS efficient, and OU will remain predominantely LHG feeder. Few more destinations wirhin Europe with 2 or 3 weekly frequencies is pure cosmetics
DeleteYou don't know what efficiency means.
DeleteWow, what an argument. You nailed it! 🤣🤣🤣
DeleteYou don't. And that is the fact.
DeleteHahahahahahahaha
DeleteWhen does OU usually publish the schedule for the summer season? It would be nice to know how the frequencies will be for routes that started the two past summers.
ReplyDeleteFor this summer they published them rather late. In September.
Delete* February (sorry not September)
DeletePorto and Geneva are obvious routes. Surprised no one has launched them yet, even Ryanair or easyJet.
ReplyDeleteWhy easy no ZAG flights?
DeleteAgreed. A friend of mine had to travel Zagreb - Geneva a few weeks ago and the best price was with JU via Belgrade. Geneva seems a really logical route maybe 3 times a week.
DeleteEx Yu, why are you still using "single type fleet", when it is not? ATRs are joining. Wet lease or ownership, it's not single type fleet if one operates two kinds of aircraft
ReplyDeleteThey are not operated by the airline or its crew. So it is single type.
DeleteWhere else will those two ATR72 fly apart from SJJ? Maybe VIE, OMO, ZAD-PUL?
DeleteEx-yu uses single type fleet because you are wrong. The operater of the aircraft is the company registered to operate them, according to its procedures. If leased from the other company, OU will not be the operator of ATR. Therefore it will remain single type operator
DeleteI’m still unsure how summer seasonal routes contribute to reducing summer seasonality
ReplyDeleteMost of the new routes this summer are year round or at least for part of the winter.
DeleteLIS and GVA could definitely work in winter too.
DeleteHaving high seasonality and getting brand new aircraft does not make any sense at all. They need cheap leases = older planes to balance low utilisations.
ReplyDeleteSMFH
DeleteDont shake it much. You will get dizzy. This is business model employed by many airlines. If you have high seasonality or want to fly peak times or fly less frequently, you get older planes to be competitive. Or you get brand new planes and use them 6 to 8 legs per day. Getting new planes = high leases and using them efficiently only 5 months a year, is shooting yourself in the foot.
DeleteYes I'm sure many airlines in sub-Saharan Africa lease 20 year old aircraft. The rest of the world has moved on to new technology efficient aircraft.
DeleteAllegiant Air employs this business model. Volotea also. And they are much more successful than OU. Avelo also does the same but not so successfully. United does the same with their B767. They keep them for routes which they can fly profitably only part of the year.
DeleteNo one is saying to lease relics of the past. Do not push the conversation from end to the other. I am saying that second hand planes with cheaper leases would work better for the finances of an airline with high seasonality.
Allegiant is getting MAX to replace A320s, Avelo just ordered E2s, United B767s will get replaced by B787s in next 4 years, and now that Aegean has stake in Volotea it will probably get new aircraft.
DeleteThe examples were to show you that the business model of getting older planes and flying them less frequently exists and it can be successful.
DeleteThe most important part of the article is "will focus on Europe and the Mediterranean". Which proves my point A220 is there for them to remain LHG feeder. Few new destinations is pure cosmetics. On the market where 2 million passengers, mostly high yielding, come every year from distant markets, on the market where JAT, Pan Am, Air Canada, Air Transat, United, American, Delta, Qatar, Emirates, Malaysian, KoreanAir, T'way... operated or still operate. The only way to grow really is complete change of the model, stop being predominantly feeder, introduce many more destinations and strenghten both regional and euromediterranean network, give up idea of single type fleet and start with long-haul. But with that much interference of politics and the people placed by politics to "manage" or in real meaning prevent OU from real growth, it will of course not going to happen
ReplyDeleteLong haul can't be profitable in Croatia Airlines. Market is too much seasonal.
DeleteIt isn't going to happen and we have no examples of an airline the size of OU making such a drastic transition to Long haul flying and you know it. So lets focus on reality and hope their poor management begin to slowly make the best of it.
DeleteLong haul for Croatia Airlines is just aviation dreamland. Some people will rigorously claim its possible. But then again sometime still claim the world is flat...
DeleteYes Croatia is a very popular tourist destination, but that does not mean you are going to efficiently sustain any form of long-haul operations. Anyone who actually believes that is just lost in the world of aviation fantasy. , which is fine...but fantasy nonetheless.
DeleteWhich smaller airlines are starting long-haul in Europe my I ask? We should not forget that with 1.8million passengers, Croatia Airlines carried fewer passengers than SATA Azores(2.4million) and Luxair (2.6million). It really isn't a big airline and that is of itself ok!
The idea that OU would be able to transition to a long-haul leisure airline (akin to Air Transat) or an airline offering connections such as LOT isn't going to happen. We saw the failure of two of eastern Europe's big beasts that tried to offer connections and long haul flying in the early 2000s: Czech Airlines and Malev. Their failure was just at the beginning of improved point to point connectivity within Europe If Croatia Airlines wants to be a new Malev then attempts at Long haul are the rapid route to complete failure.
11.03
DeleteTo answer your question first: Icelandair, Air Serbia, SATA which you already mentioned, Neos, HiSky...
Then, Hungary and Croatia are not the same. The time you talk about is past, again uncomparable to today, and especially tomorrow. You keep repeating I want long-haul in OU big as it is which is simply not true. Tourism which you refer to as the only source of traffic might not be seasonal if oportunuties taken on the Far East markets which are not seasonal, AUS/NZ transfers (not flights ), outbound/emiting tourist traffic to opposite hemisphere and tropical best, not only croatian but from wider region, ethnic traffic, foreign workers in region, seamen, business travel, regional transfers...
You simply refuse to see and admit all potentials and possibilities that might lead OU to be decent mid-sized airline instead humiliated midget, if run and managed properly, which is deliberately not the case
9:50. JU is an example.. In fact, they were once smaller than OU!
Delete@PIR your whole view is balanced on the idea "if" Croatia Airlines was run properly. Even if it was run properly by the best minds in the world the list of things you are talking about are just not workable given Croatia's geography, small (and decreasing population).
DeleteNeos? Hisky? Give me a break you know they serve difference types of market and if Croatia had the potential for some kind of Zagreb based long-haul airline to take all the outbound domestic tourists you speak of then I'm sure a business mind would be able to start one.
Whilst I'm aware you are saddened by OU being small (so am I), your obsession with "humiliation" is deeply strange. There is not such thing in the world of aviation, and if the market existed for a company then I'm sure an enterprising individual such as would be looking to establish such a thing.
outbound/emiting tourist traffic to opposite hemisphere and tropical best, not only croatian but from wider region, ethnic traffic, foreign workers in region, seamen, business travel, regional transfers" Lovely list, not the basis for a lovely bottom line in the world of business however.
@ 12:48 Although they benefit from a (essential) a single base of operations, a legacy inherited from JAT, a market outside the EU, a larger capital city. If OU wished to emulate such a business model it would be a route to complete failure in the modern aviation landscape.
DeleteImprove connectivity and try to retain market share and slowly improve where it can is the best case outside the world of the aviation fantasists .
Your third chapter of 14.24 proves my point and says it all : I am absolutely sure that few ENTERPRISING INDIVIDUALS would do miracles with OU, including starting long-haul. The problem is that Ivan Mišetić handed over croatian market to LHG, with OU playing key role in such scenario. Former and current owners, the government, highly influenced and blackmailed by I. M., deliberately placing on managing positions in OU people who are light years away from enterprising individuals, precisely for OU to remain predominantly LHG feeder. Highly corruptive BCG deal resulting in single type decision is another way of how it is done. I am glad you mentioned market share at the end because that's another point where you contradict yourself - it's been proven they can't increase market share, which is shameful, being it aviation or any other field. Another word shows your real intentions and reasons why you oppose any change in OU - you think they should improve SLOWLY. And it's not exactly opposite - they would need to do everything opposite and ASAP and as faster as possible, not slowly. You didn't give any single study result, market research result or any other number to back up your claims that potentials I speak of are wish list only. No, they are something that could be easily achieved if we had enterprising individuals managing OU, and not Party uhljebs and aparatchiks. Here I finish posting for today because if we continue for next couple of years, you will not change your mind and I will not change mine. And future will show who was right. Ciao!
Delete"You didn't give any single study result, market research result or any other number to back up your claims that potentials I speak of are wish list only. "
DeleteAnd you did? Or course not.
Of course they didnt not. Because they live in a world of anger and frustration on this topic.
DeleteHahahahahahahaha, once again
DeleteThey should try a second destination in France.
ReplyDeleteSuch as?
DeleteLyon, Nice, Bordeaux, Marseille, Toulouse... lots of possibilities.
DeleteRyanair with cheap tickets didn't succeed with Marseille. Why should CA.
DeleteAbu Dhabi could work winter seasonal.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately current management does not think outside of the box. At best we will see some new destinations in central Europe.
ReplyDeleteThat's true.
DeleteCurrent management not only does not think outside of the box but does not think at all. They just obey orders written at and delivered from Središnjica. Like in 1950's.
Delete13.08 is me
Delete@ 13:09 have you considered seeking employment in OU? Given your keen views on how to save such a floundering company?
DeleteI was employed in OU 1991-2011. I LEFT the company (left is in capital letters because I wasn't fired, what some people claim, but left by my own will). So, once again, I LEFT, when I realized how corrupted and mismanaged the company became, that its future had been determined as shameful tiny feeder, that it survives financed by poor croatian citizens, and that it was absolutely controlled by tied high politics and Mafia bosses. I didn't have stomach to work for such company. And just for your info, after OU I have been working for two other croatian airline companies, one of the World's biggest ACMI's and AFKL group. And I wouldn't mind coming back to OU, to answer your question, but definitely not the one as it is now.
Delete2001, not 2011, typo
DeleteWow check in is really important work!
DeleteYour civil aviation knowledge is really amazing. Probably you had a quick course in Središnjica. Check in personnel in Europe is 90 % employed by airports, not airlines. Btw someone was mentioning anger and frustration recently? Or didn't not? Hahahahahahahaha 😂😂😂😂😂
DeleteThey keep talking about expansion but their passenger numbers barely grow.
ReplyDeleteOU needs to set up a hub system in Zagreb. They can not rely solely on point to point, they need to copy what JU is doing at Belgrade to have any chance at success. Soon someone will copy JU in our region, I'd rather it be OU and Zagreb then another carrier somewhere else.
DeleteNobody will 'copy' what JU are doing in the region. If anything JU's business model is one of the rare old school hub-and-spoke networks which only works given good Belgrade's location in relation to other cities in the region.
DeleteBring back Helsinki and Oslo. There is demand from both business and tourism.
ReplyDeleteOne of the biggest unserved routes, but still Finnair didn't succeed on Helsinki. As it seems most unserved route doesn't mean you will see instantly success.
DeleteMadrid and Milan were good additions. Now build on that momentum with Lisbon, Porto and maybe Valencia.
ReplyDeleteWhy is there still no flight to Geneva? Sizable Croatian community in Switzerland plus business travellers and potential high paying tourists too.
ReplyDelete+1 agreed. Seems like many people here agree that is clear front runner of a route.
DeleteI'm not shocked with European and African underserved routes but the ME destinations are fascinating. Surprising that Kuwait is first, maybe oil and Muscat likely tourism. I live in Riyadh and wonder how there isn't more pax to Riyadh or Dammam
ReplyDeleteWhy should there be more pax to Riyadh and Dammam?
DeleteBecause Dammam has a large port and people from Croatia that I know who work in Aramco and other companies, Riyadh probably has less
DeleteAlso they can take advantage of the connectivity subsidies. LOT, Aegean, ITA and even Air France on A350 fly flights with a couple dozen pax
DeleteThis is huge! Headline at least
ReplyDeleteHuh?
DeleteHow about Rome non stop from Zagreb?
ReplyDeleteHahahahaha, good one 🙂
DeleteVery nice.
ReplyDeleteCroatia has to get some sort of wide-body arrangament if they want to utilise the single-fleet same-size (except 2) relatively big planes to their full potential, because you cannot feed a 150 seater with 150 seater, it is not how it works.
ReplyDeleteIf they wet lease, as a teat, 2-3 widebodies for the summer season for usa and canada, then thay could see less minus.
Also, prioritize point to point in summer,, why would only low cost bear the fruit of sun and sea?
13.07
DeleteHow dare you suggesting such a blasphemy? Soon you will be spit at, strongly and passionately 🙂
Yeah, god forbid if i wanna see progress :-D but then again, that would mean that buzin gang would have to work or find somebody who knows and wants to work and that'd lose their meaning for existence.
Delete@13:11 No need for spitting. The fantasy land of such views regarding OU's potential speak for themselves.
DeleteYeah, I guess that's why United, Transat, Qatar, T'way and many others fly to Zagreb, Split and Dubrovnik. Because of my fantasy land. I believe 2 million guests from distant markets every year in Croatia also belong to my fantasy land. But Thanks God we have Minken and Vrankvurt which are not in anyone's fantasy land. Cheers!
Delete@14:44 what fantasy land about OU potential? Sir, OU is still more potent than the 3 times bigger JU or any flag carrier from vienna to istanbul. Now, the issue is the complete set of retards and poltrons and rectal alpinists who are by default employed in a goverment owned business, in this case croatia.
DeleteYou put potent management and in 8 yrs it will be on LOT level!
@19:04
DeleteLol
Qatar is long haul with widebody? Sure expert.
DeleteQatar is 90 percent long-haul transfer expert LOL
DeleteNot in ZG. And nothing to compare with Croatia at all, either as a business or a country.
Delete