Because not enough A220s have been delivered from Airbus yet. It doesn't seem too difficult to understand.

You are the one who does not seem to understand. If they are keeping the A320 all winter, why not just keep it for a few more months until September?

There are contracts you have to meet and part out slots too. You can't just pick and choose.

Because they do not need to extend leases and keep different flight crews for it during the summer. They already have scheduled a large increase in summer capacity with the existing and incoming A220s.
I don't see what's so difficult to comprehend.

What's difficult to comprehend is that an airline which only makes money in the summer is getting rid of its biggest aircraft (the one that it can fill easily for charters and all coastal operations) just before the start of school holidays. And it's an aircraft that is on a pay-by-hour contract.

Ending A320 operations is symbolic but in practice the aircraft was already an orphan in the fleet. One frame made no sense economically.

Yes 9A-CQD left on the 2nd of January bound for YUL. Anyone knows the fate of 9A-CTK?

Wait, it will fly on Croatia routes again. Only the financial arrangement will be somewhat more favourable for someone

Should not have gotten rid of the ATRs for Dashes. That decision had burned millions itself.

How many ATRs did they have?

They had 3 ATR 42's and they were too small, could only seat around I think 48 passengers. The Q400's were definitely needed at the time.

Oh wow I didn't realise it was an ATR42. Yes, that does sound too small.

The decision wasn't theirs in both cases. They decide NOTHING. Never did never will. Remember the first transition. Remember the political environment and the actors....

Why?

Because it does stupid things and makes a loss every year?

It is not company. It is Party fraction, uhljeb sanctuary and money laundering machine

Without doubt.

It is, but not thanks to Croatia Airlines. The national airline carries only about 8% of all passengers in Croatia in the summer.

A double digit increase is very impressive.
And just like all tourist hotspots their national airlines carry a small minority of the total number of visitors.

But double digit increase in capacity is not translating to double digit increase in passenger numbers. Do national airlines have 60% load factors in tourist hotspots too?

Check ITA and Cyprus airways for clarification. Do they carry a double digit percentage of the tourist traffic coming to Italy? Or Cyprus?

Their load factors are over 60% that is for sure.

ITA Airways' load factor for the first nine months of 2025 was 83.4%.

How many tourists visiting Italy actually fly in with ITA,

A lot more than with OU on a significantly more competitive market.

@Anonymous 09:38
Is it? How much exactly is their share? You seem to know...

How on earth can anyone know the share of tourists on any network carrier. Passengers don't register as a tourist, business person, VFR when they fly.

ITA is profitable, it generates large transfer traffic through Milan and Rome, it flies to FIVE continents and it brings millions of tourists to Italy every year. Croatia Airlines does precisely ZERO of these things.

@09:19 "A double digit increase" is not impressive. Croatia Airlines is only growing capacity because it's replacing Dash planes with A220s so every Dash route now has more seats on sale. It's actually a failure rather than a success because the load factor is 60%.

And it goes down to 45%

Aaaaannd it's gone...

Airbus A320 plus Embraers was what they should have gotten. The A220 fleet is an absolutely disastrous idea.

+1

I am glad there are more people who share my view and opinion on single type fleet, the worst decision ever made in history of OU, result of highly corruptive BCG deal and final nail in OU coffin

@PIR I doubt this is the final nail in the coffin as long as the ruling party stays in power but the reconstruction should of not only happend in the Fleet but in the entire management sector too I mean at some point somebody has to say enough is enough, right?

The A220 is probably the best aircraft Croatia Airlines could have chosen. Now the question is whether management can build a competitive network around it.

It’s not best ac for them, they need bigger birds for summer and smaller for winter. Isn’t that the most obvious thing in OU’s business and Croatia’s market?

12.24
3 airline companies fly nonstop long-haul to Croatia, plus dozen legacies which transfer long haul passengers via their hubs, Qatar and Flydubai almost exclusively. More than 2 million tourists from distant markets yearly in Croatia. A220 isn't long-haul aircraft.
Several domestic and regional secondary or tertiary airports with existent or potential or cut services, even suitable for (EU funded) PSO, much too small for A220 capacity/size, even-100.
Coastal airports which handle 2,3 or more million passengers yearly, where direct competitors operate 180-280 seat aircraft, where A220 is too small, too expensive and not competitive.
The only part where A220 is not probably but definitely the best aircraft for Croatia Airlines, is to provide continued and higher quality feeding to LHG.
Warm regards to Buzin and Središnjica!

I think the A220 is a good aircraft but it’s not cheap. Lease rates, training and spare engines all add up. The real question is whether yields will grow enough to justify the investment.

Single type fleet is by far the best option for OU. People who agree with Pozdrav usually have no knowledge about aviation at all.

HOW is it the best decision? Can you explain how it makes sense to use the same aircraft to fly ZAG-SJJ and ZAG-FRA, or DBV-FRA and SPU-SKP?

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha, Uhljeb is back!!! 🙂 Who knows everything about aviation? How and why? Because he was told so by Kradeze Središnjica

@10.21
He cannot explain it. He is not writing it because he can support his claims but because he was ordered to do it by his Mafia bosses from Buzin and Sre dišnjica, in order to hide crime corruption, incompetence harm and treason they do, in OU and wider

No I'm not an uhljeb, I'm barely aviation enthusiast. You obviously don't understand that OU should be a business, and not a megalomaniac airlines used for national pride. System with many airplane types in a small fleet doesn't work and it will never work for EU legacy airlines. Your ideas can be best explained as "selo gori, a baba se češlja modus operandi"; you are concerned that Dashes are exiting the fleet because you want operations towards smaller regional airports while foreigners with single type fleets are stealing essential markets towards west. You are no smarter than OU at all..

As an aviation enthusiast, you should be aware of LF of 57 %, market share of 13 % and hundreds of millions of euros wasted on tragedy called Croatia Airlines. As an aviation enthusiast, you should be aware that potentials of Croatian market are such that it should have much much more than "small fleet". As an aviation enthusiast, you should be aware that only by growing and improving current disastrous mumbers and results could be changed. Unfortunately you contradict yourself because you advocate status quo and the worst possible scenario for OU which is just being realized with single type fleet. That's why it's very difficult for me, and probably not only for me, to believe you are an aviation enthusiast. Your words tell so but your dids and acts don't.

And all these problems are caused by what? Single type fleet? Not flying enough to Sarajevo and Skopje?

The worst possible scenario is double downing this current shit system by expanding to even more unprofitable or low yielding regional markets and diversifying even more terrible multiple fleet model in a small carrier. Let's be realistic, long haul market is non-existent outside few summer months, and region is already overfilled with cheap direct flights. OU should expand on high yielding routes to the West and combine that with single type fleet which is cheap to operate.

You are persistent with "small carrier", "low yielding", and "long-haul non existent outside few summer months". OU is small, carries low yielding passengers and not going into long-haul right now, which I believe should be changed. Because all of the above could be changed but is deliberately done as it is in order for LHG to keep on being even bigger with our, mostly high yielding and mostly long-haul passengers. But you keep advocating OU keeps flying single type fleet on 70 percent LHG hubs. So, once again, if you are an aviation enthusiast, you are definitely the one who is the most enthusiastic about LHG, on expense of croatian flag carrier and croatian tax payers

You deliberately want to present anyone opposing your concept to be an enemy of the state and uhljeb from HDZ!

And yes, Sarajevo and Skopje are low yielding, that's not a surprise.

No, Ivan Mišetić personally, and Mafia members of the organization he belongs to, are directly responsible for handing over croatian air travel market to foreigners. I am not trying to present that, that is the fact. Entire concept of Croatia Airlines is wrong and everyone knowing the first thing about aviation is aware of that. The only question is why you advocate that, and especially the last, highly corruptive, and for croatian market totally inappropriate single type decision, if you are really "an aviation enthusiast" only? I did not "present" it - that is what you claim, propose and support yourself. And with this, I end today's discussion because it leads to nowhere.

So corruption is ok only when includes long haul plans? Fine

Interesting that Dubrovnik growth is only 1%. For a city that is still booming with tourism, this feels extremely cautious. Are they leaving too much room for competitors again?

Capacity is only growing because Croatia Airlines got bigger planes and it's just replacing Dash routes with A220s. There is absolutely nothing positive about this capacity growth.

The A319s were not old by European legacy standards and they were certainly not inefficient. Croatia Airlines owned these aircraft whereas the A220a cost millions just to lease.

Well they were inefficient, otherwise the model's popularity would not have suffered last years.

I heard something about CTK going to Flyair41 or something but nothing about the rest

I'm assuming most will be parted our and scrapped.

Says you. I much preferred the A319. The A220 is better compared to the Dash though.

So far it has not. Let's see if anything changes this year.

Getting rid of aircraft it owns and leasing A220s that are too big for regional routes but too small for summer Adriatic routes is something that it "should have done years ago"?

They'll have ATR for regional routes. Even wet leased, that should have better economics than flying Dashes.

Didn't zamagirl say that Q400 are way better than ATR's?

Well, it has muscles (it's faster), but in airline industry such models always lost battle to superior economics (Coronado, VC 10... Concorde). An analyst should know that.

2026.

According to the management, when all A220s arrive everything will magically become good at the airline.

Management is confusing cost simplification with business optimisation. They’re not the same thing.

It is. But it will likely increase losses this year because of everything involved in bringing so many planes to a relatively small airline.

The A220 is being treated as a miracle solution, but aircraft choice doesn’t replace market reality.

Why wouldn't it be managed properly? They will just get a long term wet lease partner.

Replacing Dash 8s with wet-leased turboprops is basically admitting that management doesn’t believe the A220 can do the whole job.

Why wouldn't it be managed properly? Maybe because it's run by politically appointed aparatchiks instead competent professionals? Maybe because it's been the case for over 30 years? Maybe because except for new aircraft type nothing else changed? Maybe because Croatian market is too diverse for single type operations? Maybe because intention behind it is to continue providing feeding to LHG at any cost? And many more maybies...

Engine issues will be the next excuse. Mark my words.

LOL

Yes

What is difficult to get?
They are both replacing aircraft that leave the fleet and increasing frequencies and capacity on existing routes.
Seriously you can not "get" that?

It is difficult to get because what you wrote is false. They are increasing frequencies on 5 routes. You write as if they are increasing frequencies across the network. The increased frequencies are all one additional flight.

Also they "new routes" they are launching are just shifting capacity because they are discontinuing 3 routes.

Growth is very modest because OU has no idea when the new planes will arrive, they just have an outline. Airbus has constantly delayed deliveries and OU can't plan anything. Last year they planned to start new routes in late May and early June but had to move it to July because plane deliveries were late. To avoid unplanned wet leases at a time where they are on the brink of bankruptcy, they plan a very conservative schedule despite bigger fleet.

Also last year they had situation where they launched new routes and then suspended them a month later.

I love the A220 as a passenger but I’m less convinced from a business point of view.

Single-type fleets reduce training costs but increase commercial risk. When demand shifts, you’re stuck with the wrong capacity.

+1
If you still need turboprops, then by definition a single-type fleet doesn’t work. You’re just outsourcing the complexity instead of managing it.

@22.03
Tell that to Air Baltic.

airBaltic has had major financial issues over the past 2 years and is wet leasing half of its fleet. If it was the right strategy, they wouldn't be wet leasing so many aircraft and they would not have needed for the government to intervene to prop them up and to sell shares to Lufthansa.

Also not to mention that Air Baltic has also had to wet lease planes for itself. So it is wet leasing out its own planes, only to wet lease in aircraft from other airlines. It's a prime example of how flawed their fleet strategy was. Let's hope Martin gauss does not decide on an all A220 fleet for Gulf Air.

If the airline truly believed in a mono fleet, it wouldn’t be planning wet leased turboprops at all.

Exactly. If the A220 was truly the perfect solution, there would be no need for wet-leased turboprops. The contradiction is obvious.

01.32
I sign under everything you wrote, except for one word: it should have been "wrong strategic shift" instead of "big strategic shift"