Back in Zagreb
The national carrier of Japan, JAL, has announced that it will be operating charter flights to the Croatian capital throughout the summer, with the first Boeing B747-400 landing on Saturday, June 5, Zagreb Airport reports. Planned flights to Zagreb are also scheduled for June 19, July 3 and August 7. The flights will be operating out of Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Hiroshima and Sapporo. As was the case in previous years, the flights are being organised for Japanese tourists by the Japanese Tourist Bureau. Zagreb Airport has announced that all four flights have been sold out.Japan Airlines recently commended Zagreb Airport for the handling of its aircraft last year. Although there were more charters organised last year, the difficult financial situation JAL has found itself in has resulted in the reduced frequencies. After Zagreb, JAL will be moving to Ljubljana (as reported earlier). Flights to Ljubljana will operate from August through to September from cities such as Fukuoka, Sapporo, Osaka and Tokyo.
On Tuesday, June 1, Croatia Airlines commenced seasonal flights from Zagreb to the Greek capital Athens. Flights will operate 3 times per week.
That is so cool :-) Is that the biggest plane ever landed at Zagreb Airport :-)
ReplyDeleteMy God Zg will be flooded with Japanese tourists with their TINY,TINY cameras :-) flashing all over the place. How come such thing hasn't been organized for Belgrade, Sarajevo, etc....?
Anyway it is so cool to hear and see that.
I think Zagreb has had the Antonov 124 on occasions which is one of the largest planes in the world and a bit bigger than the 747-400.
ReplyDeleteI think this is great and that the charters are sold out is awesome as well!
The more Japanese tourist, the better.
I saw many of them in Croatia last year and they always seem very respectful to the cultural site's they visited.
I think our travel agencies and national tourist boards could do more on promoting the area in countries such as Japan, China, Israel. We have to compete for the new markets and not be focusing on the tourists from the West only.
ReplyDeleteCroatia is very well known in Hong Kong. But the tour price is just way too unaffordable compared to London or Vancouver - places we consider as our second home or even weekend gateway. The fact that most internal ground transport cannot be pre-arranged rejects us from exploring further. Yes, I do confess that lots of Asians are spoiled by those fancy high speed trains. So Sam might be right. We need YOUR representatives to come teach us how to get bus tickets, reserve a mountain resort, etc. A bit hilarious for you guys I know - but hey, we're 5000 miles away from each other :)))
ReplyDeleteAlso Dubrovnik will have JAL charter flights (here is written only LJU and ZAG) and I think Dubrovnik will have 8 flights per season as LJU and ZAG together :-)
ReplyDelete@ Q400
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. Asian tourists are so much more respecful to our culture and tourist sites than for example Britons who have very bad drinking habits or arrogant Russian moguls who think of themselves as Gods.
I'm wondering - how do these charter flights exactly operate? In particular, how does the first and the last one work? When the first plane full of Japanese tourists lands, does it then go back to Japan empty and is used on other flights until the next charter?
ReplyDeletePoor JAL. ANONYMOUS often makes references to basket-case flag carriers, this would have to be amongst the world's worst in terms of mismanagement and financial debt. Many of the American Chaper-11 airlines aren't far behind either...
ReplyDeleteLet's hope these flights actually make some money for the airline. We know the tourism flow is welcome across the region regardless!
And as for ZAG, this should be something the airport authorities persues with vigour - the plane is a welcome change to the constant A319s/props one sees day in day out too!
@ Arturo
My last flights HKG-ZAG were operated by LX via ZRH. I'm sure there were other possibilities. If airlines cannot directly support flights, then codesharing and alliances have to come into play, and people start to get sick of FRA all the time given many other hubs are too far West...
these flights from Japan to Croatia and Slovenia are flying for more then 2 years with very similar no. of flights so I don't think that this will hace any effect to JAL financial problems.
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First and last flight are flying empty in one direction ...
Right - I have made many references, and after being out in Japan for a week meeting with the government body responside for bailing it out - it's another sad case of a basket case flag carrier, albeit for very different reasons than those in the ex-YU region.
ReplyDeleteThe Japs must not be very particular on their choice of holiday destinations if they're going to Zagreb, though I suspect many of them will bus it to Belgrade and see what a real city is like...
Japanese tourists are quite adventurous so expect them to land in Zagreb and then find them in Sarajevo, Mostar, Dubrovnik, Skopje, Belgrade, Novi Sad, and Pula. Perhaps it will boost a few of the inter-regional flights as well.
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