Croatian airports set for record summer

Croatia’s nine commercial airports will see a significant increase in the number of flights and capacity on offer this summer. Zagreb Airport, which is today marking the first anniversary since the opening of its new terminal building, said, “We anticipate for the positive trends to continue into the summer. Two new carriers will launch flights to Zagreb - Greece’s Aegean Airlines, which will introduce three weekly services from Athens, as well as the Canadian national carrier Air Canada, which will commence four weekly flights from Toronto. Croatia Airlines will start services to Dublin and Mostar, while Air Transat will prolong its seasonal flights by a month compared to last year”. It added, “This summer, a number of our partners will boost their frequencies, such as Spain’s Iberia which has announced a number of additional departures”.

Split Airport expects to handle three million passengers this year. A number of carriers have scheduled new seasonal flights to Croatia's second largest city including Croatia Airlines, Brussels Airlines, SAS Scandinavian Airlines, airBaltic, easyJet, Thomas Cook Airlines, Condor, Volotea, Smartwings and Jet2. Furthermore, charter airlines will significantly boost their presence in Split. This year is expected to be the last the airport will face capacity constraints with work on its new passenger terminal progressing on schedule. However, despite a lack of available day-time slots over the summer months, the airport is not encouraging airlines to operate night flights after it became operational 24-hours a day for all types of traffic as of last Sunday.

First phase of Dubrovnik Airport's runway overhaul nears completion

Dubrovnik Airport has projected 10% passenger growth this summer. “This year we expect the biggest increase in arrivals from the United Kingdom. In addition, several new routes will be launched. Among them is Edelweiss Air from Zurich, Flydubai from Dubai, as well as Adria Airways from Ljubljana. There will also be a number of charter flights from the Middle East”, Dubrovnik Airport’s Operations Coordinator, Josip Paljetak, said. Other airlines to commence new services to Dubrovnik this summer include Air France, Croatia Airlines, LOT Polish Airlines, easyJet, Transavia, Volotea, TUIfly, Thomas Cook Airlines and Smartings, while Rossiya Airlines will run two charters from Moscow on April 16 and April 20 with its 522-seat Boeing 747-400 aircraft. Meanwhile, the first phase of the overhaul of the airport’s runway and taxiways is nearing completion. The work, which began in December of last year, is part of a multi million euro development project that will enhance the airport's handling capacity to approximately 3.98 million passengers per year. The first phase of the overhaul included work on the eastern portion of the runway, while work on the western side will begin following the 2018 summer season.

Pula Airport anticipates welcoming a record 700.000 travellers this year. General Manager Svemir Radmilo noted that the airport should see 15% passenger growth this summer with over 10.000 flights to be operated. "Pula Airport was linked to 53 destinations in 2017. In 2018 we expect this figure to reach close to sixty. Volotea will launch its new route from Nantes to Pula in May, easyJet will add new services from Milan, Basel, Liverpool and London Southend, while Swiss International Air Lines will introduce flights from Zurich", Mr Radmilo said. This summer will also see Pula served by the wide-body Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which will be utilised by TUI from London, each Tuesday, starting May 1.

Zadar Airport is gearing up for growth of between 5% and 7% this summer. A total of five new carriers will launch operations to the city, while the airport will offer ten additional destinations when compared to last year. “New arrivals include Aegean Airlines from Athens, Norwegian Air Shuttle from Oslo, Germania from Zurich, Brussels Airlines from Brussels and Condor from Frankfurt. This summer, Ryanair will maintain fourteen routes from Zadar and launch three new destinations: to Frankfurt, Memmingen and Bremen. Eurowings will run seven routes to Zadar and easyJet three. The national carrier, Croatia Airlines, is this year operating flights to Zagreb and Pula, as well as a service to Frankfurt”, Zadar Airport said in a statement.

Rijeka Airport expects ambitious passenger growth of 40% this summer on the back of a handful of new routes and a strong charter season. New scheduled services will be introduced from Eindhoven, Frankfurt and Katowice to Rijeka, while charters will be operated from Warsaw, Katowice, Gdansk, Paris, Nantes and Lyon. Ryanair, which initially had no plans to resume its seasonal flights from London Stansted to Rijeka this summer has recently put tickets on sale for the route, with two weekly services planned from July until the end of August. It comes after Croatia Airlines cancelled its one weekly summer flight from the seaside town to London Heathrow.

Brač Airport plans to welcome a record 47.000 travellers through its doors this summer, a year after it extended its runway, allowing it to handle larger aircraft. The airport expects to benefit from the capacity and slot constraints over at Split Airport, with some airlines rerouting to Brač instead. “From Zagreb, Croatia Airlines will continue to maintain flights throughout the summer season, while Adria Airways will launch services from Ljubljana in April with its Bombardier jet-engine aircraft. It is important to note that Adria is targeting transfer passengers from Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam to Brač”, the airport’s General Manager, Tonči Peović, said. This summer, Switzerland’s SkyWork Airlines will commence services from Bern to the island airport, while Luxair will introduce operations from Luxembourg in May. Due to congestion at Split Airport, TUIfly will boost its seasonal services from Brussels and Deauville to Brač, as well as launch new flights from Rotterdam. “We will see a big leap this year in the number of passengers because, apart from scheduled flights, Brač sees a lot of small private aircraft that also need to be handled. So there will be a lot of work”, Mr Peović said.

At Osijek Airport, Wizz Air will add another flight, for a total of three per week, on its services from Basel. Finally, the small Czech-registered airline Silver Air will commence seasonal summer flights from Lošinj Airport to a number of Croatian cities. It will become the first foreign carrier to maintain domestic flights and the only scheduled airline to operate out of Lošinj, the country's smallest commercial airport. Services to Zagreb, Split and Pula will commence on June 24 and run until September 16. Furthermore, Silver Air will link Lošinj with Lugano in Switzerland. All flights will be operated with the twenty-seat L-410 Turbolet aircraft.