Annual traffic
Zagreb airport is Croatia’s busiest airport and last year passed through the two million passenger mark for the first time. Promoting itself as “Gateway to Southeast Europe” the airport recorded double-digit growth for a fourth successive year resulting in a passenger increase of 50% in just four years. Growth has been remarkably consistent in recent years with traffic only declining in 1999.
| Airline | Frequency share | Capacity share | Number of routes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Croatia Airlines | 59.3% | 66.4% | 17 |
| Lufthansa | 9.7% | 7.8% | 2 (FRA, MUC) |
| Germanwings | 4.8% | 6.3% | 3 (CGN, STR, SXF) |
| Austrian | 5.5% | 3.5% | 1 (VIE) |
| Turkish Airlines | 2.4% | 3.4% | 1 (IST) |
| Air France | 4.8% | 3.1% | 1 (CDG) |
The national flag carrier Croatia Airlines dominates traffic at the airport and this summer will operate non-stop to 17 destinations giving it two-thirds of all scheduled traffic at the airport. Lufthansa and its partner low-cost airline Germanwings are the next two biggest airlines operating a total of five routes to Germany. Other airlines operating scheduled services this summer include Malev, Wizz Air, Aeroflot, CSA Czech Airlines and TAP Portugal. TAP’s service is to Bologna which then continues on to Lisbon. Wizz Air, the only LCC other than Germanwings with a presence at the airport, operates a single route daily to London Luton.
Analysis of schedule data for this summer reveals that Germany has the most flights and seat capacity. Domestic services are operated by Croatia Airlines to Dubrovnik, Split and Zadar.
Croatia Airlines is present in nearly all of the leading markets except Hungary and Turkey where Malev and Turkish Airlines have a monopoly. Surprisingly there are no flights to either Rome or Milan although regional links continue to grow within the former Yugoslavia. In June Croatia Airlines began 3 weekly regional services to both Priština and Podgorica. Spain is currently unserved though this will change when Croatia Airlines starts flights to Barcelona in June and Iberia launches Madrid services in July. Other new routes starting this summer include Gothenburg (3 times per week with Croatia Airlines) and Tel Aviv (weekly with El Al subsidiary Sun D’Or from April 15). However, routes to Dortmund (with Germanwings), Dusseldorf (with Croatia Airlines) and Geneva (with Baboo) which have started during the last two years appear to have been axed, or in the case of Geneva have ceased at the end of the 2008/09 winter season.
This article (clearly researched in-depth with lots of number-crunching) has a few errors in its statistics.
ReplyDeleteTAP’s service is to Bologna which then continues on to Lisbon.
But not this summer - flights are being trialled direct. What the end result is we will wait and see... if this is successful, will we be seeing OU operating Q400 flights to BLQ (perhaps also in codeshare with TP) in addition to the direct services?
Domestic services are operated by Croatia Airlines to Dubrovnik, Split and Zadar.
... PUY?? And seasonally OSI and BWL too?
Surprisingly there are no flights to either Rome or Milan although regional links continue to grow within the former Yugoslavia.
FCO is served daily... though one-stop via SPU or DBV.
As for MXP, this was a twice-daily route cut when Alitalia went belly-up. Reasonable patronage levels (inc many pax connecting via MXP) too, with flight times aimed at business travellers. OU did operate on this route with ATRs some years back (in competition to AZ, or codeshare??), therouteshop did have some interesting figures the viability/need for direct flights - an idea for a future story.
A new proposal might be (with the delivery of extra Qs this summer), that similar to flights to ZRH, double-daily flights to MXP operate daily connecting with the two waves of flights connecting both across Croatia and the exYU, and put serious dents into the rival markets of JP and JU, and a lesser extent LH (via MUC). 571km between airports equates 60-mins flying time in either direction (comfortable in a prop, unlike the 2+hr flights to BRU!), this could be quite lucrative. Possibility even of codesharing with the new Lufthansa Italia now based at MXP...
However, routes to Dortmund (with Germanwings), Dusseldorf (with Croatia Airlines) and Geneva (with Baboo) which have started during the last two years appear to have been axed, or in the case of Geneva have ceased at the end of the 2008/09 winter season.
Baboo to Geneva (much like Belle Air to Tirana) were not going to work on thrice-weekly services during winter months. Where were their target markets? Testing the waters during the summer seasons and brand recognition would have been far more successful for both companies.