Croatia Airlines has over the past week suspended ticket sales on select flights scheduled to operate from Zagreb to Sarajevo and Skopje during the upcoming winter season, which begins on October 25. The preliminary changes have seen the airline zero out a number of weekly services in its booking system, meaning the flights remain visible in the reservation system but cannot be booked. Under the revisions, services to Sarajevo have been reduced from the initially planned two daily flights to a single daily service.
Flights to Skopje have been cut from the originally scheduled eleven weekly rotations to four per week. The carrier has removed all evening departures from Zagreb, as well as the corresponding early morning return flights from Skopje. These services typically involved Croatia Airlines aircraft overnighting in the Macedonian capital, or remaining on the ground there for just over six hours.
Both Sarajevo and Skopje have seen sustained frequency reductions in recent months. However, with more than five months remaining until the start of the winter season, the changes should be viewed as preliminary and remain subject to further revision.
Croatia Airlines’ management met with officials from Sarajevo Airport just ten days ago. The talks were “focused on further strengthening cooperation, enhancing operational and commercial activities, and exchanging insights on the current challenges facing the aviation industry”, according to Sarajevo Airport.
The Croatia Airlines delegation was led by President and CEO Jasmin Bajić, the carrier’s Chief Commercial Officer, the Head of Croatia Airlines in Sarajevo, Croatia’s State Secretary for Road Transport, Road Infrastructure and Inspection and Civil Aviation, as well as the President of record label Croatia Records. Sarajevo Airport noted, “The meeting provided an opportunity to present new development plans while underlining the importance of the long-standing, stable and successful partnership between Sarajevo Airport and Croatia Airlines. Particular emphasis was placed on Croatia Airlines’ historic role as the first airline to launch services between Zagreb and Sarajevo in 1996, immediately after Sarajevo Airport reopened, helping reconnect the city with Europe and the wider world”. The two will mark thirty years of service and cooperation this September.
Like someone said here, they went to Sarajevo to inform them of halving flights.
ReplyDeleteWho does thought they go there for something positive ? Comeone be for real
DeleteThey have a lot more competition on these two markets compared to before.
DeleteI bet Bajic thought he could score a victory by going there and asking for discounts, thinking he can play like Ryanair. Only to be told that he is irrelevant.
DeleteOr maybe he just went to have a free holiday under the excuse of a business meeting.
Either way, he is a failure as a leader.
I don't think Bajic is a failure, he's doing exactly what OU owners want him to do.
DeleteOU would need painful restructuring like the one JU got under Kondic's leadership back in 2013. Without it Air Serbia would have never made it. Dane surgically removed all the old Jatovci who became dinosaurs and who couldn't understand what modern aviation was all about.
Croatian government isn't ready for that move. Too many friends, lovers, family members... working there. OU is not commercially run and Bajic is following government instructions.
Fully agree with all above written. Wrote the same myself multiple times. Just think one small addition ia needed. Word government should be swaped with Mafia
DeleteWhy do they keep reducing these two routes every few weeks?
ReplyDeleteBcs this airline is complete mess.
DeleteTrue they reduced them this summer two as well as last winter and they also discontinued Split-Skopje.
DeleteAnd this is to SKP airport which has quite a growth this season. Not to mention seasonal workforce migration on this route, vicinity of Kosovo which has 0 flights to Croatia, etc.
DeleteGrowth of the airport doesnt mean growth of this route. Seasonal workers only fly once or twice during a season. This doesnt equal huge ongoing demand. Skopje is a relativrly small city and many people who go to Croatia do so by car.
DeleteIn regional terms Skopje is definitely not a small city. And which road route from Skopje to Split you would recommend (we will put aside EES)?
DeleteHow does a city with almost 1 million people can be small ??? SKP this year has a great growth and that is mostly run by Wizz air new routes , plus Freebird charters which this year have alot of European cities addings, there is two daily flights with 150+ tourists in each plane , thats roughly 300+ people every single day. Plus here are summer charters that are full
DeleteIt is embarrassing that they cannot make these routes work BUT it is a step in the right direction to cut flights that are empty and lose money, especially the expensive overnight stays in Skopje and Sarajevo.
ReplyDeleteTbh 4 times weekly to Skopje sounds about right during the shoulder season unless OU return to a proper hub system.
DeleteZagreb to Sarajevo is never gonna be a profitable route for an airline without connections and both cities are far better connected to the world than the post-war period.
You can tell that for almost any intra exYu route, yet the number of them keep growing, with even LCC joining the club.
DeleteWhy on earth was the president of record label Croatia Records at the meeting in Sarajevo?!?
ReplyDeleteWho's gonna turn down a freebie
DeleteCroatia records has a business agreement with OU.
Delete^ I understand but was their presence needed in a meeting in Sarajevo?
DeleteBecause Croatian music dominates the Bosnian music scene. They are also an important corporate client.
DeleteThere's a jubilee in September, maybe that will involve some music performance in plane or at the airport/special song with Croatia Records artists...
DeleteLOL!
DeleteLufthansa entering SKP is killing OU there.
ReplyDeleteOU is killing OU there. Morning flights from SKP no longer connect onto anything, evening flights to SKP leave before MUC, BRU, LHR etc arrive.
DeleteLufthansa flights as well Austrian are currently lot cheaper then Croatian it is not normal , as well LOT is way cheaper than them :D
DeleteApart from Adriatic airports, OU doesn't offer anything of interest to connect to, especially out of season. This is P2P and it has its limits... For Skopje I bet many use Wizz service to LJU.
DeleteSmall portion still using ZAG as option to transfer through CDG,AMS,LHR,MUC those are most airports in demand from SKP
DeleteTurkish can cover majority of that demand with one stop.
DeleteAir Serbia can cover that demand with 1 stop too, but with shorter flying times.
DeleteTurkish can yes but their tickets inside Europe sometimes are lot more expensive than OU and JU
DeleteWhat Turkish really does out of SKP is flights to USA/Canada/Middle east/Asia
Australia this days as well too*
Delete“Flights to Skopje have been cut from the originally scheduled eleven weekly rotations to four per week.“ - after this i totally see wizz going daily in Ljubljana.
ReplyDeleteMay they are almost daily , and all summer are 5x weekly
DeleteOU prices are just crazy after the crisis , flight to ZAG in June is 200+ eur it is crazy, Austrian and Lufthansa are cheaper than them
I think Wizz will hit the ceiling with 6x per week in summer (maybe daily in jul, aug and sep) and 4x in winter, which is still incredibly good. This year when they went 4 weekly with A321 their LF was like 75% in January, so I don’t see them increasing the winter more.
DeleteAlso now they were flying daily for a month and their prices were relatively low, so I can’t imagine the yields were really good. But still, if they manage to get to 6x per week the countries will be very well connected.
Six weekly on A321 is more than enough. Wizz Air will most likely focus on yields now that they see where the limit is.
DeleteThey went daily bcs of the Basel runway being renovated. I think 5x weekly is the limit with such a large aircraft. I truly think that they would be better off doing 3x weekly to Tirana and 2x weekly to Bucharest instead.
DeleteMost of the summer W6 will serve it with 5x no surprising to add one more , but even with 5x it is pretty much great
DeleteThese are great news for JU!
ReplyDeleteJU doing amazing in SKP , strategically calculated and sending ATR on each flight and each of them is always full!!!
Deletenot that difficult to fill an ATR
DeleteTime to consider a 06.30 departure from BEG to SKP
DeleteNot difficult to fill up ATR yes , but when you will fill up A220 on regional route be real ???
DeleteNobody forced OU to take A220 and to retire Q400.
DeleteJU strategy was much, much smarter.
That's because JU fleet managers were smarter than the OU ones. They took their time testing different aircraft and realized there was nothing better than the ATR.
DeleteOU should have never retired their Atr. Ideally they should have a mix of ATRs and old A319s. The A220s is too expensive for them, just look at the mess with BT.
It was not OU fleet managers that came up with this fleet strategy. It was esteemed BCG, and top management and owners adopted the strategy.
DeleteBCG was highly corruptive deal in order Mafia which surrendered croatian market to LHG to be "covered" and not responsible for OU remaining humiliated feeder while they continue getting lease percentage to their pockets. Gravedigger of croatian aviation Ivan Mišetić is behind everything
DeleteJU doing very well and smart with ATRs fleet in regional routes.
DeleteOU should learn from them
his airline is complete miss, they pull over all their smaller aicrafts instead of using it just exactly for routes like SKP and SJJ when the demand is low , how the hell they get an idea to server 1 hour regional flights with A220??? It is just not real it is redicilous , no wonder why they never had any profit in their history
ReplyDeleteZAG-SJJ must be something like 30 mins... Maybe A330 would fit better.
DeleteHahahha true dat
DeleteNo sense from this airline at all
Thats why they never had any profit in their history :D
Maybe thr countries should man up and fix the railway! But that really would be too much to hope for
DeleteWere there flights between Sarajevo and Zagreb prior to 1996?
ReplyDeleteOf course but not during the war.
DeleteJAT flew around 12 weekly, all with B737s and DC9s (mostly DC9s). There was also some local airline in Sarajevo that flew to ZAG I believe.
DeleteDaily two flights, morning and evening, same as to Belgrade.
DeleteBack in those days driving to Sarajevo was like a safari trip. The road was ghastly.
DeleteI would say nothing from this could be taken for serious as the tension in middle east are not even close to stopping. I will be not surprised even during summer more of the routes to be completely cancelled. Things are changing every day and summer is here, winter is far away for anything to be planned
ReplyDeleteMaybe it can't be planned but it is a fact that these flights have been removed and can't be bough on OU website anymore.
Delete*bought
DeleteIt is interesting to me that OU is so heavily reducing flights for wwinter to SJJ and SKP although the situation might get improved until end of October.
DeleteOr they want to use the situation in Middle East for cutting less profitable routes only as an excuse no matter if it gets improved or not?
That's because these two routes didn't perform that well on the Q400. It's crazy to expect them to do well on A220.
Delete4x weekly flights to SKP in winter period is perfectly enough!
DeleteAnd yes their biggest mistake yet is using A220 to regional 1 hour routes
Please call JU straight away and tell them that their frequency of 10 winter flights BEG-SKP is totally wrong!
DeleteDont compare JU and BEG out of SKP. Options to travel out of BEG and with JU is way batter than OU and ZAG. Plus JU usint Atr on each SKP flight which is easy to fill up, when you will fill A220 on regional 1 hour route???
DeleteHaving wide network out of BEG and flying on ATR has not fallen from the sky to JU, but the consequence of smart decisions.
DeleteNobody forbade OU to take the same path, but they obviously thought they were much cleverer by taking "shine and brighty".
Therefore comparison is more than welcome not only because of flying frequency, but also because of development strategy.
It is all about smart decision and strategy that JU having but not OU.... easy to see who leads smarter and who have positive results in this game
DeleteThis proves how important a 70/80 seater like ATR600 or Q400 is in our region. That is why JU is doing so well with 10 of them. Great feeder on short regional routes, good economics, no wonder Ju is doin so well with them.
ReplyDeleteDroping the Q400 might be a very grave mistake for OU.
Not only that but JU fleet managers introduced the E75 and E90 before relying on E95s, A320s...
DeleteThey saw that the E75 was too small so the E90 became the ideal plane to bridge the gap between the small and slow ATR and much larger planes.
OU made a huge jump overnight.
This OU can fly only PSO flights and LH hubs. These two routes are neither, so it's absolutely expected them to be cut and terminated eventually.
ReplyDeleteI just wonder where is the guy constantly talking about "brand new bright and shiny which starts new era for OU". Or the one (maybe the same one) hailing Bravo Hrvatska and Bravo OU.
ReplyDeleteIt is better business decision for them not to have any passengers. More profitable.
ReplyDelete