Croatia Airlines - a distant memory for Rijeka
Rijeka Airport has not had a good start to the year. The airport has lost most of its funding and is now loosing a customer. Croatia Airlines will terminate its only service from the airport - seasonal summer flights to London. In a statement, the airline explains its decision, “Due to business rationalisation and the restructuring of our timetable, Croatia Airlines will terminate flights from Rijeka to London during the summer of 2010. One of the reasons for such action is the low profitability of these flights”. The airline also states that it has no plans to introduce any new services from Rijeka and will therefore completely withdraw from the airport.Rijeka Airport is also fighting a battle not to loose its status as an international airport. The director of the airport, Mladen Pasarić, believes that the airport will be hit hard by Croatia Airlines’ decision. “I believe that the termination of this service, which catered for our diaspora in the United States, is damaging, especially since tickets were selling well. For us, the damage is even greater. It’s not the same when the national carrier reduces frequencies rather than when it completely withdraws from your airport. Honestly, we thought that frequencies on this service would be increased due to high interest”, Pasarić said.
For the 2010 summer season, Croatia Airlines will be decreasing frequencies from some Croatian airports.
For your information Croatia Airlines have also determinated flights to Gothenburg(swe) two flights per week, but instead put extra flights to Copenhagen (Den).
ReplyDeletePhilswe
I don't understand one thing: Croatian Airlines is supposed to take delivery of the last 2 Dashes this year, right? Now, if this is true, where will they be sending them? If BEG is off, what are CA's plans? Athens cannot be the only destination opening?
ReplyDeleteCroatia Airlines is cancelling flights to Gothenburg, as well as route Dubrovnik - Gatwick is cancelled. But I don't see any new extra flights to Copenhagen, only days of operations are little bit changed.
ReplyDelete2 Q400s are comming already during following 3 months, but one A320 is leaving. As Croatia Airlines used often Aibuses on shorter routes all shorter routes are to be operates with Q400s. Also many routes will fly more freqently for example ZAG-BRU, ZAG-PRN, and more... The biggest changed is Rome FCO with nearly double no. of frequencies with Q400s instead of Airbuses, and also one Q400 will be based in Split to operate flights to VIE,ZRH, MUC ... etc. with more flights per week also instead of Aibuses.
They canceled ZAG-BEG flights?? It's a shame...
ReplyDelete@Aerocroatia
ReplyDeleteHey, I just saw on (I think your-) Aerocroatia blog that there are flights ZAG-BEG on days 2, 4, 6, 7. Is it true? OU will after all start these flights?
OU only flew once a week from RJK, so not exactly a huge presence.
ReplyDeleteLooks like the LCC's are starting to impact on OU. Dropping DBV-LGW is just scandelous.
This really raises the question of airlines plans, their early release to the travelling public, and strategy.
ReplyDeleteWhilst OU remains at the front of the pack of exYU airlines, it is still running at a loss. Reducing operating costs whilst still keeping roughly the same amount of seats (2x76-seat Qs vs 1x164-seat 320) is a clever move and allows the airline to operate more efficiently.
6 Qs still won't be enough to sort out their need to grow the airline and more destinations within the Qs range which still aren't served. 2 more ordered for 2011 would be the right solution, before the introduction of the new 319s.
My guess is that RJKs removal is due to the 4th 320 not being around, and this just allows OU to take the airport off its destinations list.
@ JU500
From a business traveller's point of view (and they are often the ones who keep an airline afloat), OU has dropped the ball. Daily frequencies are intially needed to BEG (even if they do initially operate at a loss), with the aim for double-daily (so people from either city can operate meetings and return) within a fixed period of time. Look at MA serving BEG...
If OU is basing one of its Qs at SPU and it has spare capacity then 3-weekly to BEG would also be a good start.
I wonder if dumping Rijeka (Croatian 3rd largest city and one of Croatia's most important in terms of industry)has more to do with taking away Rijeka's intl status then it being not profitable?
ReplyDeleteI do not understand why is there such a problem for Croatian to launh flights to Serbia? I bet to you that if Jat had a few more ATR's that they would have launched a few more flights into Croatia...
ReplyDeleteps Malév's fligts rely only on transfer passengers, not O&D
Croatia Airlines flights to Belgrade were announced in December but shortly after that deleted from timetable. I don't know any reason why it happened.
ReplyDeleteRijeka is a big problem, airport terminal is in very bad and poor condition, nothing was done there for more then 20 years I think. Local authorities and also govenment are not interested in this airport at all. Also the airport has very bad public transport connection to the Rijeka downtown, and it is quite far away from the city. Also Rijeka airport has very often a problem with weather, for example this year during Christmas and New Year there where several flights of TUIfly and nearly half of these winter holiday flights landed at Zagreb because of weather.
One Q400 which will be based in Split has pretty full daily program with the longest routes up to Lyon and Dresden, so I don't think there will find some free time for flights to Belgrade, but on the other side local newspapers wrote that there are some negotiations to offer more seasonal flights per week between Split and Osijek.