Croatia Airlines recorded a net loss of 64.7 million euros during the first nine months of 2026, more than triple the 20.9-million-euro loss registered in the same period last year. Its operating loss widened from 21.5 million to 49.3 million euros. Operating revenue increased 8% to 221.2 million euros, supported by a 6% rise in passenger revenue to 183.9 million euros. However, total expenditure grew 18% to 292.6 million euros, while total revenue, which also includes financial income, remained broadly unchanged at 227.9 million euros. The carrier remained loss-making during the peak summer quarter. Between July and September, Croatia Airlines posted a net loss of fifteen million euros, compared with a loss of 2.9 million euros during the same period last year. Q3 revenue increased 4% to 98.8 million euros, while expenditure rose 17% to 113.9 million euros.
Croatia Airlines attributed its performance to the combined effects of its fleet renewal programme and unfavourable market conditions. The airline said the introduction of its new fleet between 2024 and 2027 entails additional costs associated with aircraft induction, adjustments to business processes and the transitional operation of different aircraft types. It noted these pressures were anticipated in its business plan, while higher jet fuel prices following the escalation of conflict in the Middle East further weakened its results. Fuel expenditure increased by 20.7 million euros compared with the first nine months of 2025. Aircraft maintenance costs, excluding personnel expenses, rose by 7.6 million euros, airport and air navigation service costs increased by 3.3 million euros, while depreciation grew by 4.2 million euros. Interest expenses increased 43% to 11.1 million euros, primarily reflecting lease obligations for new aircraft.
Croatia Airlines net financial result
January–September 2018–2026 · EUR million
Net lossNet profit
Cash and cash equivalents stood at 20.4 million euros at the end of September, compared with 11.9 million euros at the beginning of the year. The airline received a 35-million-euro cash injection from the Croatian government during the reporting period, while the sale and leaseback of two spare engines in June and September generated a further 25.7 million euros. Another 35-million-euro state cash injection was approved at the company’s shareholder assembly on October 28, as part of the wider recapitalisation package worth approximately 156 million euros.
Despite the weaker financial performance, Croatia Airlines handled 1.656.468 passengers during the first nine months of the year, representing an increase of 7%, or approximately 103.000 additional travellers. International scheduled services accounted for 1.244.532 passengers, up 9%, or 105.803 travellers. The load factor on international services improved by 1.6 percentage points to 67.1%, despite a 5% increase in capacity. Domestic scheduled traffic remained broadly unchanged at 372.372 passengers, although the domestic load factor declined by 0.7 percentage points to 65.3%. A further 39.564 passengers travelled on charter services, down 6%, accounting for 2.4% of total traffic. Croatia Airlines’ overall passenger load factor improved by 1.2 percentage points to 67.5%. The airline operated 20.969 flights, broadly unchanged from last year, while block hours increased 1% to 29.877. Passenger yield remained stable at 14.6 euro cents per revenue passenger kilometre, although the average gross fare declined 1%.
From bad to worse. Disaster
ReplyDeleteWhile airlines like AA, DL and others are loss making attributing it to the exploding fuel costs, OU remains immune to it- the problems are only to new aircraft
Delete^ have you actually bothered to read the article?
Delete🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
ReplyDeleteThis year El Nino is record strong. Handy excuse for 2027 loss :)
ReplyDeleteSo the loss will probably be around 90 million this year.
ReplyDeleteStaggering loss for such a small airline.
DeleteWouldn’t Croatia be better off building a hospital with this money? Develop Osijek so people don’t emigrate en masse? Literally anything else?
DeleteYes, it woulb be better.
DeleteConnectivity is more important
DeleteConnectivity is more important
DeleteConnectivity to where?
DeleteWhere many went for last decade, like Ireland, Malta, etc.?
Connectivity to Minken and Vrankvurt
DeleteAt some point they will need too much money and they will be shut down. Does Croatia have €100 million to spend on OU?
ReplyDeleteIts not a poor country. But yes its a black hole.
DeleteIt's not a rich country either. It's a lot of money
DeleteIf only the $100m was for one year, it could be managable, but given that its an annual amount, the economics theory would say you should look at other means to use the money
Delete100million is 4.9% of Croatia's entire transport budget. Not cool.
DeleteThat's a massive percentage to be spent on a single public company!
DeleteNo wonder they fast forwarded the state aid injection.
ReplyDeletePlus selling engines and leasing them back. They really are running out of money.
DeleteThe biggest issue is the big loss they had in the summer quarter. Not good
ReplyDeleteFor H1 2026, Croatia Airlines is even worse than Airbaltic:
ReplyDeleteAirBaltic generated €399.2 million in revenue and lost €128.2 million. This means airBaltic lost roughly 32% of its total revenue value.
Croatia Airlines generated €129.1 million in revenue and lost €49.7 million. This means Croatia Airlines lost roughly 38.5% of its total revenue.
Airbaltic already filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Interesting to see how long the Croatian Government will go along with these numbers.
Latvia was already reluctant to help BT. For the time being HR has a different attitude
DeleteIt's a question of national pride.
DeleteHow can you lot have national pride in OU?
DeleteAs an impartial outsider, how can anyone have pride in an element of infrastructure That's just weird.
DeleteAn element of shamefully run infrastructure.
DeleteClever people consider pumping hundreds of millions of euros into the midget feeder and servant shame. Big shame. Plus act of treason, especially in the biggest ex-yu aviation market. Stupid people with nazi like sympathies, consider pumping money into such corruptive midget feeder pride. National pride. I will formulate it that way.
DeleteJust to point out people can have pride in infrastructure of their city or town or nation of it being respect from visitors and tourists and a positive opinion and impression. If you have an amazing organised airline or airport that people share positive impressions and experiences of, then it's amazing and you can take pride that your people and culture achieved that and built that. And especially the national airline is a big deal and potential source of pride if done well because it can be a tourists first interaction and experience with your country and people. But also a source of shame of it's poorly run and has bad customer service and even more of a person ever actually looks at it and just sees that the tax payers are literally being stolen from by the government. Just like POR said. Croatia is the biggest aviation market in the YUG and OU should be the premier airline in the region. It literally has every reason to succeed. Decent national economy, huge tourism, EU membership and very positive geopolitical position so it losing money can only be due to crime.
DeleteYou just read wrong economy and political economy books. Because you are in EU anyone can earn money on your assets malo kamene obale. Italy with 3 times more longer coast and numerous beautiful cities sold their national company.
DeleteThere are no such thing like "wrong books". Comparing Italy and Croatia is ridiculous. Croatia Airlines can't be sold, no single entity wants shameful feeder full of corruption and incompetent uhljebs. Is something written about that in "right books", located on the 3rd fllor in Buzin?
DeleteWell let's be honest, the Croatian government did try to sell OU. We all remember Garuda, Aegean etc. I am sure they also tried to sell it to Lufthansa at some point.
DeleteHowever, they didn't understand that before trying to find a buyer, you need to make sure you are selling an attractive product. The other option was to do what Serbia did and not to ask what it will cost to fix the freak show. In that case the government has to take a step back and stop meddling. Maybe the Croatian government wasn't ready to give up on the perks it has buy owning OU in its current form.
As time marches on, OU becomes increasingly irrelevant, even in ZAG where they used to have a dominant position. With each passing day there are less and less things which make OU an attractive thing to have. Any future investor would have to spend a lot of money on fixing the mess and then on regaining the lost marketshare..
What about those sweet A220s?
DeleteIf someone would force me, I wouldn’t know how to make so bad business
ReplyDeleteat this point additional 1mio +\- it doesn’t really matter
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone in government have a brain cell enabling them to see what a basket case the airline is
ReplyDeleteThe €15 million loss in July-September is the most worrying part. If the peak summer quarter looks like this, what is winter going to bring?
ReplyDelete67.5% load factor is a DISASTER!
ReplyDeleteI don't know an airline where the management keeps their jobs after recording these losses year after year. Madness!
ReplyDeleteWelcome to Croatia
DeleteIt is amazing that with the key indicators continuously going from bad to worse nothing is being changed - same CEO, same commercial and revenue management people. Amazing. Load factor as such is not always the same as good financial performance (full flights don't mean good business by default), but sub 70% load factor for short haul airline also stands out. You either have wrong fleet and/or you have incapable sales and revenue management. But again, this has been going on for a while now with NO changes within OU. Just amazing.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteLooking at Covid (2020/2021), it seems like they'd be better off just parking their fleet, as they'd probably lose less money that way.
ReplyDeletePathetic
ReplyDeleteEverything will be OK. Everything will be OK....
ReplyDeleteFor all the Adria Airways fans out there… This is exactly why its eventual bankruptcy wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Since then, we’ve been able to fly much more cheaply from Ljubljana, for both business and leisure.
ReplyDeleteHopefully, with the new CEO, we’ll eventually see more frequent flights as well.
People also need to realise that driving to airports in neighbouring countries isn’t necessarily cheaper once you factor in fuel, parking, and the extra time involved.
Supporting Ljubljana Airport makes sense, especially if we want to see more routes and higher frequencies in the future.
The entire third floor of the famous blue building in Buzin needs to be under investigation for corruption and abuse of position. You put in a man from the street to do their job and he would not “achieve” results like this
ReplyDeleteCash and cash equivalents stood at 20.4 million euros at the end of September, compared with 11.9 million euros at the beginning of the year. The airline received a 35-million-euro cash injection from the Croatian government during the reporting period, while the sale and leaseback of two spare engines in June and September generated a further 25.7 million euros.
ReplyDeleteYou lot do not realise how bad this is
OU would perform better in environment with less competition from lowcosters, charter airlines and full-service airlines. Very little can be done to reduce competition.
ReplyDeleteYou mean if it was only competing against itself.
DeleteA lot can be done! Other national airlines have the same environment and still manage to be successful. Look at Air Serbia for example...and many others.
DeleteAfter being the most lossmaking national airline in Europe the goal is to become the most lossmaking national airline in the world..
ReplyDeleteAnd hailing Bravo Hrvatska while achieving the goal!
Delete@Admin
ReplyDeleteCould you check the flight load, say, for Munich
And also for Barcelona?
Or wouldn't that be possible?
Munich from Zagreb, Zadar, Rijeka, Split, Dubrovnik or Osijek? Because they all have flights to Munich. Whereby LF, yield and profits/losses are irrelevant. The only important thing is LHG getting its feed at any cost. Regards to Ivan Mišetić, the real Boss
DeleteShut it down. It’s a national humiliation. It’s going to collapse, they can decide if it shall be an orderly process or chaotic leaving pax stranded.
ReplyDeleteAir Baltic and Croatia the end is coming
ReplyDelete