Low cost carriers Transavia and Volotea are interested in launching services to Zagreb and expanding their presence in Croatia. It comes as Zagreb Airport looks to attract more airline operators following the opening of its new passenger terminal, scheduled for this March. The Air France - KLM no frills subsidiary Transavia France has told the Croatian Ministry for Tourism it plans to add flights from France to Zagreb and Pula in 2018. It will also consider the possibility of introducing services to Rijeka next year as well. The low cost carrier maintains seasonal services to Dubrovnik and Split. Transavia France boasts bases at Paris Orly Airport, Lyon and Nantes. Within the former Yugoslavia, Transavia will launch year-round flights from its main operational base in Amsterdam to Belgrade and Ljubljana this April, as well as seasonal services from Paris to Tivat. It previously expressed interest in serving Sarajevo as well, however, these plans never materialised.
Currently, Air France and Croatia Airlines link Zagreb Airport with the French capital. Both operate to and from Charles de Gaulle Airport. Speaking to EX-YU Aviation News recently, the Air France - KLM Group, which includes Transavia, said it saw new development opportunities in the region. "The Air France - KLM Group strongly believes in the potential of ex-Yugoslav countries. This was demonstrated in 2014 with the opening of the first KLM flight from Amsterdam to Zagreb, which was the only route launched in central and south-eastern Europe that year", a spokeswoman from the Group said. She added, "We have a real desire to serve the region to our best. We also launched a codeshare agreement with Croatia Airlines to Paris and Amsterdam. This agreement paves the way for new development opportunities".
Meanwhile, representatives from the Spanish no frills airline Volotea have announced plans to add flights from France to Zagreb, Pula and Zadar, with the aim to carry 220.000 travellers to Croatia by 2020. While the new services would likely commence next year, the airline gave no firm timeframe. Volotea currently operates seasonal flights to Split and Dubrovnik and will launch new services from Marseille and Strasbourg to the Croatian coast this summer season. The airline has operational bases in Bordeaux, Nantes, Strasbourg and Tolouse within France. The Croatian Minister for Tourism, Gari Capelli, noted last week, "We are in serious negotiations with airlines concerning the introduction of new routes. Special emphasis is being put on Zagreb, Istria and Krk since they are in close proximity of other popular destinations, including both the islands and continental Croatia, which could be of interest to French travellers".
Finally some low cost airlines!
ReplyDeletelast year 524 000 French Visitors visited Croatia, 627 000 UK Visitors, 375 000 Dutch Visitors, 255 000 Swedish, 155000 Norwegian. 240 000 Spanish, 107 000 Danish, 75000 Finish, 22000 Estonian, 32000 Lithuanian, 21000 Latvian, 45000 Portuguese and 58000 Irish visitors.
DeleteNot sure how many Polish, German, Slovak, Austrian and Czech visitors travel by plane to Croatia.
However the potential for direct links to Zagreb and the Croatia are considerable, EasyJet and Norwegian should look to set up some sort of direct connection with Zagreb year round.
in 2016, 1.1 million visitors visited Zagreb alone. 2017 and 2018 should be very interesting years for Zagreb.
http://www.mint.hr/UserDocsImages/170111_stat_I_XI.pdf
ZAG management seems to have really sprung to action to attract new airlines. Good job.
ReplyDeleteVery good news, it seems that ZAG is on the right track! Desperately hoping to see Wizz basing an aircraft. SJJ and ZAG are way too underestimated.
ReplyDeleteWhen I talked to a guy high up in the Zagreb Airport management chain last summer he told me that they had talks with Wizz Air but that the conditions made by Wizz Air were so unreasonable that they rejected them.
DeleteSmart, same goes for Ryanair. I think easy jet would be the best fit for Zagreb but let's see. Transavia and Volotea are good to have.
DeleteI agree about easy but probably not until next year. They have already announced their Croatia expansion for the summer.
DeleteNorwegian would be the best for Zagreb. But easyJet or Transavia are good alternative. Eurowings is not bad. But Wizzair and Ryanair are worst options. Hope they will not be the one!
DeleteIt will probably be easy
DeleteI wonder what's the rationale behind adding ORY when they already operate from CDG. I can see three reasons for this decision:
ReplyDelete1. Their CDG route is not performing well. If this route was such as a stellar performer they could have just added more seats or flights.
2. The market is so great that they can afford to add ORY.
3. They are not confident in OU's future so they are introducing an option for O&D travelers as a deterrent against someone like easyJet launching its own flights.
It doesn't mean that they are necessarily adding ORY. Transavia has bases from a few other cities in France.
DeleteWhat other route besides Paris could work from ZAG? Maybe as a summer seasonal but I highly doubt it could work in winter, outside of the Christmas holidays.
DeleteI think having a LCC from Orly could work. They would be going after a different market than Air France which has a lot of transfers and would probably try to ruin OU on the route.
DeleteI agree, I assume they are going for option 3.
DeleteOU's sale of slots didn't go unnoticed so AF-KL is making all the necessary arrangements.
I guess there is no need for Transavia from AMS given that KL has an extremely competitive cost structure.
Since Zagreb is managed by a French company it makes sense to add more links to France.
DeleteAdding more links to France only makes sense if the available seats can be sold at a decent enough price.
DeleteCDG-ZAG route has huge LF. I use it at least 5 times per year and for last 3 years it is always, even out of season, 95% full. Data published on CAF support this fact.
DeleteLast summer they plan to send A318 on route, but at most of times they send A319, and lot of times A320, even A321. Croatia usually used A320 on that route instead A319.
I also can not understand why they open ORY before they have at least 4 daily rotations to CDG which covers most of waves (5 of them).
But for sure I will be more than happy if that happen as my regular trip to Martinique is hell to change CDG/ORY. Even with early flight (9:00) I can not get connection to FDF in ORY as I need to spend at least 3 hours on transfer to ORY. Because of that I always have to spend at least one night in airport hotel. So, ORY flight would be huge help for me.
AF had an average LF of 86% to BEG yet they suspended the route because they couldn't make money on it.
DeleteFull plane =/= profit.
Someone is jealous here.....
DeleteSure not. But price of tickets are more than good for AF. And for sure they would not put A318 instead of Embraer, and than use even A319/320/321 instead. If you want to cut costs and need flights for connections or need that because of ADPI who is owner of Zagreb airport, than you use the smallest plane with huge LF and than you can put higher prices of tickets (less passengers=bigger price). But if you constantly increase capacity that shows you are satisfied with financial results of route and use bigger plane instead of somewhere else where that result is not so good. Especially if you change plane out of planed timetable, so that means you must put smaller A318 to some other route which are not that good, that you open bigger A319/320/321 on Zagreb flights.
DeleteI agree but at the same time we have to wonder why AF didn't increase ZAG to 10 or 14 weekly flights in stead of introducing Transavia.
DeleteMy guess is that they are still experiencing issues with their cost so some French O&D will be switched to Transavia while transfers will be shared by AF and KL. I am sure they will make far more money like this.
Anon 10.59
Jealous of what exactly?
Of course it can be like this. Especially that there are so many French tourists in Zagreb who for sure want LCC to fly instead of too expensive legacy carriers (AF and OU).
DeleteBy that logic they react on time to prevent easyJet who will for sure find huge increase of tourist in Zagreb as opportunity. And, for sure, ADPI knows what are easyJet plans in Zagreb as they negotiate with them and could inform Air France (same owner of AF and ADPI) about possibility for easyJet to come in near future. On that way they could react several months or even one year in advance to positioned them as LCC carrier on Paris-Zagreba route.
Hmm.. I don't see the airport informing Air France on easyJet's intentions, especially not since U2 is a much smaller player at bot airports and they could get them to pay higher fees and charges than Air France/Transavia.
DeleteWhat I think this is is AF increasing its yields while making sure it deters easyJet from launching flights.
If OU goes belly up at some point then it will be interesting to see what happens with the Paris market. I think Wizz Air would be a much better fit than easyJet as it would offer dirt cheap fares, much cheaper than Transavia or easyJet. That is it would cater to a completely new market.
You two forget that Transavia is a Dutch company. It can fly to Amsterdam or Rotterdam. There is an increasing number of economic migrants in the Netherlands from Croatia.
DeleteWell in the article it specifically states they want to fly from France.
DeleteNEMJEE I think you are a little bit jealous for one reason : because for a few months now most of airlines choose Croatia's airports and not Belgrade.
DeleteTransavia starts flights to Belgrade this April. Why would he be jelous?
DeleteThere is absolutely no reason to be jealous, both BEG and ZAG are different markets attracting different airlines and each having a very different national carrier.
DeleteI guess for some one here any criticism/skepticism is immediately a sign of jealousy.
Also, I think BEG is far more attractive to fly out of since fares are generally cheaper, mostly thanks to a greater number of lowcost carriers.
@NemjeeJanuary 24, 2017 at 9:23 AM
DeleteLyon, Bordeaux have strong links with Zagreb, large french community in Zagreb mostly hails from burgundy and northern region of France.
Some 150 000 Croats live in France, data from 2011, now could be easily 175000.
524 000 french visitors visited Croatia, ~57000 visited Zagreb.
I think we can assume French will come to Croatia year round, especially during Advent and xmas period, not forgetting Snow Queen event in Zagreb held every year at the beginning of the year, this year 20% more visitors then last year for the event.
I think in coming years more and more visitors to Zagreb from France, potential to bring 1 million French visitors to Croatia by 2020 is very good, with Zagreb attracting at least 10% of that number.
LYS I could understand as even JAT used to fly this route if I am not mistaken. However I think HOP would be a better candidate to serve it rather than Transavia.
DeleteAlso, out of these 175.000 Croats there, how many are in Paris? I guess most.
I feel that all these cities you mentioned have a better chance of being connected with the coast rather than with Zagreb.
Which route(s) could they start? Having a third airline fly from Paris would be unnecessary in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteMaybe that is to prevent easyJet to jump in.
DeleteIs Transavia full low cost - as in baggage, meals, seat allocation - or more hybrid?
ReplyDeleteFull lowcost.
DeleteThanks. I assume the same for Volotea
DeleteYes full low cost, and a fair company if you compare them with WizzAir or Rynair
DeleteNice. So far this year we have confirmed Emirates, Monarch Airlines, Swiss retunring, LOT increasing flights, possible flights to NYC, Beijing and new announcement for 2017 - Volotea and Transavia. Good start to the year :)
ReplyDeleteAny updates on PEK or NYC flights? We are running out of time.
DeleteI think there is still enough time. Beijing Capital Airlines just needs to start selling tickets. It's really up to them since they have the permits. If they don't start selling tickets it might mean they have changed their plans. As for NYC I think there will be an announcement soon.
DeleteI think there is still time for BCA because they will carry tourists so they probably arranged it all with agencies in China.
DeleteCroatia Airlines should go ahead with its planned expansion announced last year although they will probably cut Moscow and go just for Oslo and Stockholm.
DeleteI'm really surprised there is no Aegean at Zagreb. They could easily beat Croatia Airlines' seasonal flights via Dubrovnik.
DeleteMaybe they give it a try now that they have attempted Ljubljana and didn't do too well since they won't be resuming those flights.
DeleteNice work Zagreb!
ReplyDeleteWhy don´t JU increase BEG-ZAG to 3x daily?
ReplyDeleteWhy would they? This is more than enough.
DeleteWith a loadfactor of 60 % on the route, I doubt there will be a third daily anytime soon.
DeleteIt may work.
DeleteIt is not like we did not hear here when the line started that nobody will travel with JU from ZAG.
I think JU has to acquire new ATRs first.
The prophets of doom always get it wrong.
That's a different thing, people were saying that because of the other reasons. Third flight can't happen if there is no demand for it. When the loadfactor improves to at least 85-90 %, we might hope for a third one.
DeleteBefore that Bucharest should be served double-daily, Budapest re-opened...
DeleteBudapest can't work with the prices they had. People from here are so used to use the train or van shuttle for the much lover prices... When it comes to transfer pax from Budapest, the loads were so light, the line would survive with subsidies like Wizz Air will be getting to start some EX-YU cities...
DeleteAir Serbia has 2 + 2 waves. That means if there would be 85-90% LF than they will put A319 on one of the flights instead of ATR. Their goal is to have A320 on two flights, just after that they could open 3rd frequency.
DeleteAnd for sure that is not near future.
JU has a fleet shortage so even if they wanted to add one flight they can't
DeleteNew ZAG Termial Pictures:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=137923417&postcount=10258
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=534084&page=513
DeleteFantastic! Congrats!
DeleteGood to see more airline interested especially LCCs.
ReplyDeleteI hope Transavia considers some routes from France to other ex-Yu cities as well.
ReplyDeleteLike TGD!
DeleteWell they are launching Orly-TIvat :)
DeleteI also think they would do well if they launched Orly-Nis, at least seasonally.
DeletePre Lil Nis.
DeleteWhy Lille?
Deletewow excellent news coming in from Zagreb this year. Any morer surprises we might see?
ReplyDeleteIn regards to what the spokeswoman said about their focus on Croatia, I'm really wondering whether those rumours could be true that Air France will start Zagreb - New York flights.
ReplyDeleteno one will fly zabreg-jfk :)
Deletejust a rumor somenone from Croatia stared i think its time we got serious
It's not a rumor since Zagreb Airport confirmed it was in talks with an airline for these flights around a month ago.
DeleteIf a legacy airline operates these flights than it will surely be someone from Star Alliance rather than Sky Team.
DeleteHe wasn't referring to the flights but to the airline. It will be most likely XL Airways.
DeleteI think it will be a leisure airline. People were talking about XL Airways. But who knows. Maybe it will be a nice surprise like with Emirates.
DeleteFrom Star, the only airline that would look likely to fly the route is United from Newark. Somehow I don't see Lufthansa or Swiss flying Zagreb - New York nonstop. What would be the point when you can shuttle passengers through your respective hubs.
DeleteThe point would be to rub it to your neighbor nose. Major world airlines do it all the time, don't they?
DeletePitty Emirates didn't do Dubai-Zagreb-Newark like they are doing with Athens.
DeleteYou dare to compare Zagreb with Athens?
DeleteNo, I was just saying it would have been nice. Calm down.
DeleteHow about DXB-ZAG-JFK?
DeleteHow about Dubai-Dubrovnik-New York ?
DeleteManagement is doing a good job, no big announcements, they are negotiating and announce new routes only once they're arranged!
DeleteBravo Hrvatska!
ReplyDeleteWe need more LCC at Zagreb but good direction.
ReplyDeleteOT: I just googled for few OT's:
ReplyDelete1. OU ZAG-AMS flight this morning diverted to FRA because of alarm for wrong smoke indication in toilet. A320 had 96 passengers.
Src: http://www.24sata.hr/news/zrakoplov-croatia-arilinesa-sletio-u-frankfurt-zbog-alarma-508548
2. New Eurowing flights to PUY (some of them already announced on the list on the right side):
PUY-TXL, 3pw, starting 18.05.
PUY-DUS, 2pw, starting 06.05.
PUY-HAM, 2pw, starting 30.04.
PUY-CGN, up to 3pw, starting 30.04.
PUY-MUC, 3pw?, starting 02.05.
PUY-STR, 3pw?, starting 04.05.
(Im not an aviation expert, so look source for further details)
Src: https://www.total-croatia-news.com/travel/16111-germany-calling-6-routes-to-pula-with-eurowings-munich-dusseldorf-new
3. Unofficial announcment for Adria flights to Vilnius?
"Route Development Foundation raised 800,000 euro and allocated subsidies to those airlines that opted to use help, among them Belavia, Adria Airways, Ukraine International Airlines, Ryanair and Turkish Airlines."
Src: http://www.rusaviainsider.com/lithuanian-airports-handle-record-number-of-passengers/
4. Fraport is very close to BEG airport?
Serbia's infrastructure ministry said Russia's VTB Capital is interested in investing in Belgrade's Nikola Tesla airport.
No further details were provided in a statement issued on Friday after a meeting between infrastructure minister Zorana Mihajlovic and representatives of VTB Capital and real estate company Lamda Development, owned by Greek tycoon Spiros Latsis.
Lamda Development, in partnership with Greece's EFG Eurobank, owns a land plot next to the airport.
...
In June, Air Serbia launched a flight connecting Belgrade to Saint Petersburg's Pulkovo airport, operated by Northern Capital Gateway LLC, an international consortium of VTB Capital, Fraport, and Copelouzos Group, a company owned by another Greek tycoon, Dimitrios Capelouzos.
Src: https://seenews.com/news/vtb-capital-eyes-investments-in-belgrade-airport-serbian-govt-555311
Keep up the good work Zagreb. Apparently management has set a 7% growth target this year, which I think will be easily achieved.
ReplyDeleteHV je odlicna kompanija i odlicno je sto ce imati letove za BEG.
ReplyDeleteI takodje je jedna od boljih LCC za ove prostore.
Nadam se da ce doneti dosta putnika BEG.
INN-NS
Decko ovde se ne prica o Beogradu, saberi se i prati temu.
DeleteDobro, INN se vjerojatno nadovezao na temu o pokretanju letova u Zagrebu, nemoj odmah napadati ;)
Deleteinteresting! Transavia is offering competitive prices ex Ljubljana to KLM destinations using codeshearing Transavia_Klm. If you fly to the final destination with KLM you pay nothing for checked baggage on the Transavia legs.
ReplyDeleteSame is valid ex Ljubljana for Transavia_Air France codeshearing. Current offers ex Ljubljana rountrip : Beijing, Shanghai 450eu, Bangkok 470 eu, Hong Kong 500eu Toronto 585 eu etc.
DeleteWhat do you mean by ex?
DeleteEx means from.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete