Croatia Airlines, the only national carrier in the former Yugoslavia maintaining scheduled commercial flights, has taken delivery of a newly leased Airbus A319 aircraft. The jet, now registered 9A-CTN, has been painted in the company’s full colour scheme and is eight years old. It initially operated on behalf of Germania, before being utilised by HiFly Malta. It has been in storage since November of last year. The aircraft has the capacity to seat 150 passengers, which is slightly more than the rest of Croatia Airlines’ A319 fleet. The lease was negotiated prior to the widespread outbreak of the coronavirus Covid-19 in Europe. The A319 has been leased for a period of eight years and will become the fifth of the type in its fleet. Furthermore, the aircraft will become the youngest member of the carrier’s fleet.
Croatia Airlines also arranged a lease of a Dash 8 Q400 prior to the Covid crisis. It is unclear whether the lease will go ahead. The aircraft is to be delivered at the end of April and is to have a low utilisation rate. The plan is for the turboprop to be primarily used as a spare, so as to limit network disruption, by supplementing any aircraft which may go out of service due to technical reasons. Croatia Airlines also plans to go ahead with the launch of two new routes from Zagreb this summer, to Sofia and Podgorica, although their inaugural service has been moved by a month to early June.
Croatia Airlines continues to maintain a limited network in Europe as the coronavirus progresses. The majority of the carrier’s fleet is still in use. The company recently noted its booking numbers and overall demand have sharply decreased. During the first twenty days of the month, Croatia Airlines has been carrying an average of 2.590 passengers per day. The carrier’s privatisation process has been suspended until further notice “due to the risks and unfavourable circumstances currently prevalent in the aviation sector”, as a result of the coronavirus.
What will they do with it?
ReplyDeleteThey will use it at some point. This won't go on forever.
DeleteThe article says it's an 8 year deal. This won't go on until 2028.
DeleteI honestly hope the summer season is not a bust as it's not only OU that will suffer but the government might go bankrupt. Finances are not the best as is and something like that might be a ticking bomb. Though I have faith that Milanovic will guide us through this turbulent period.
DeleteIf circumstances change in the future they can retire one of the older A319s.
DeleteAnon 09:06. Don't you think that if the summer for Croatia goes bust, saving OU will be the government's last concern? I mean we are talking about 20-25% of the local economy.
DeleteThis will be a good excuse for the government to finally let go. Same as Britain let flybmi go bankrupt as a collateral damage to the crisis and nobody dared to say anything.
I hope they first force ZAG to make a deal with someone like EW to open a base there.
DeleteI think ZAG deserves someone like easyJet more than Eurowings.
DeleteRyan would be great
DeleteInteresting that it's just 8 yrs old.
ReplyDeleteCroatia Airlines' A319s are on average 20 years old, so this is a welcome change.
DeleteTheir BRU flight wasn't that bad yesterday afternoon/evening. It left with 13 passengers and returned with 21. That's not too bad on the Q400. It only shows that they made the right commercial decision and that things are starting to change for the better.
ReplyDeleteDo you know which of the routes they are still operating is doing best?
DeleteOh and also to note that UAE has let a Flydubai plane go to Zagreb so UK residents can connect onto OU's flight to Heathrow.
DeleteI work at the airport so I don't know for sure but from what I saw BRU is the one that had at least 20 passengers the most often. FRA is a total disaster, the other day it had 1 and 29 passengers. lol
DeleteThanks. I'm not from Croatia but I respect them very much for continuing service and I honestly hope they don't stop.
DeleteThem flights to BRU are most likely EU business travellers. Some do not assist physically I guess. BRU is the administrative capital of EU.
DeleteMy guess it also attracts some passengers from northern France, southern Netherlands and western Germany. I might be wrong but for someone who lives in Dortmund or Dusseldorf closest airport to fly out to on a non stop flight to ZAG is AMS, FRA or BRU. That's crazy. North-western Germany is extremely populous and rich with a large Croatian diaspora.
DeleteWhy are you surprised? In 2020 ZAG will be left without non stop flights to Berlin.
DeleteSo sad about Berlin. But I hope we can survive with so unimportant companies such as Korean, Emirates, Air Canada, Air Transat, Air Asia, Iberia, British, KLM...
DeleteYou are right, now you can fly to Berlin via Madrid or London. Or in winter time to Stockholm via Amsterdam or Toronto. Who needs non stop flights to some of Europe's most important cities, am I right or am I right?
DeleteWell that's unexpected in this corona age.
ReplyDeleteHas it arrived in ZAG?
ReplyDeleteYes. Yesterday afternoon/evening.
DeleteWho will pay for it?
ReplyDeleteTaxpayers one way or another. Who else?
DeleteSame as every ExYy airline.
DeleteIt is not the same as every ex-Yu airline as OU remains as the only one that still flies making huge losses with terrible LF
DeleteLOL @09:45
DeleteIt's not about getting subsidies but what the airline actually does with them. OU has so far received the most from the government and the market has seen very little benefit from it. I mean people are basically paying for OU to support a German business.
DeleteExactly anon. 10.49. OU makes huge losses flying its 12 planes back and forth :D
DeleteEver thought aboout that Croatia is currently heading the EU presidency. For that reason they operate a mx of 4 return flights. 95% of the fleet is grounded and parked in ZAG.
Who do they carry when EU officials do not hold or attend meetings?
DeleteEU spirit!
DeleteMoving from BRU to ZAG couple of times daily :-)
Are the interiors (seats) from OU or the previous leasee?
ReplyDeleteFrom what I heard they were planning on putting their own but right now they can't afford it.
DeleteIt is obviously previous leasee if it has 150 seats while OU A319s have 144.
DeleteA friend of mine who is close to the guys in the union said that salaries might be late in April, hope that's not true.
DeleteA friend of mine told me the same about other airlines in the region. JU might not not be able to pay their salaries in April.
DeleteNot true, JU got a cash injection from the government.
DeleteAnon 13.37 you are obviously not from Serbia because if you were you would know the government is presenting its €5 billion help for local companies. Medium and big companies will get a direct cash injection, JU is among those companies so please tell us how exactly will they not be able to pay salaries?
DeleteAll medium and large companies will get a direct cash injection. It will save the economy from collapsing and from firing employees.
DeleteYes that´s what I meant. Not be able to pay on their OWN.
DeleteNo, you said they might not be able to pay salaries presenting it as if they are not going to pay them at all. They were grounded by the government so the government will cover their losses.
DeleteBravo Hrvatska!
ReplyDeleteThere will be no summer season! First of all restrictions will go on for a couple of MONTHS. German media just reported that the restrictions may be going on for 4 months!!! After that, the economy will be almost dead. Already 2,1 million people in Germany filed for "short-working-money" that will provide them with just 60% of salaries and heaven knows what will follow that. People will have other worries than going (even if they could) on vacation abroad. So the summer season is dead! Then foreign seasonal workers are laid off or not hired. Meaning that many thousands Croats will not go abroad and/ or will return without money. Croatian economy without substantial industry (unfortunately killed during the transition and due to membership in the EU), without viable banking and sevice sector and problems in the agriculture (too small, too expensive) will IMPLODE without tourism! OU should quickly try to find solutions to get out of these contracts.....
ReplyDeleteOf course there will be no summer season, we all know that but what OU needs is for things to start returning to normal so that they can get at least income from ethnic travellers and some sort of business passengers.
DeleteI wonder what this crisis might mean for their flights to SKP, OTP or SJJ. Could we see them eventually reduced or cancelled? I know they rely a lot on transfers and tourists.
Anonymous 10:09
DeleteThe same question concerns many airlines who rely on transfer passengers to support not only a few routes like OU but the majority of their network.
@anon 09:56
Delete"German media just reported that the restrictions may be going on for 4 months!!! "
Could you please provide any link for this information?
Thank you.
Anon 10.19
DeleteYes but unlike other airlines out there, OU offers very little in terms of onward destinations from Zagreb.
Restrictions doesn't mean lockdown. So 4 months of restrictions is plausible.
DeleteCroatia economic setup has been beyond hopeless for years being so heavily screwed towards tourism and rejecting any attempts to even this out. Doubt they will learn any lessons from this too.
ReplyDeleteOnly silver lining is that all of the EU is in the same boat and Croatia could have access to some EU based financial assistance. Big negative is that the EU might not survive this crises. We all became nation states again overnight and many EU member states decided it was more important to secure all necessary resources for themselves than help fellow EU nations like Italy. I don't think the Italians will forget this and it could lead to them leaving the EU.
Italians will not leave EU. We will try to change something.
DeleteSo will the government prepare a rescue package for the economy like Trump has done? What is their strategy? If OU fails the economy will live on. If the economy fails OU is as good as dead.
DeleteThere was something I read about $17 billion rescue fund.
DeleteAustralia has announced around 300 billion in stimulus/rescue packages so far.
In the end, tax payers the world over will be paying for all of this.
Anon 10:41
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7HUPKW0wzw
$17 billion for the Croatian economy? That's quite a lot of money.
DeletePozdrav svima na ovom forumu, pratim vas već nekoliko godina ali vam se sad prvi put obraćam. Radim u Croatia Airlinesu (većinom prodaja) i trenutno u sjedištu sjedi tek nekoliko kolega (većinom IT). Jedan od većih problema je što se u tvrtki nikad nije provela digitalna transformacija, u ITu radi ukupno tek 10-15 ljudi. Poslovni procesi se zbog toga jako sporo mijenjaju i optimiziraju te je posljedica veliko zaostajanje za svim ostalim konkurentima. Od uprave i direktora važnost informatike nije prepoznata kao u ostalim najuspješnijim firmama. Ovdje se na njih gleda kao na nekoga tko popravlja printer, pomaže poslati mail itd... Naročito u Salesu se vidi nedostatak informatizacije, procesi su spori a podaci teško dostupni i upitne točnosti, te se odluke donose presporo. Nevjerojatno je da je toliko mali broj IT djelatnika (a voditelji su u 60-im godinama i nemotivirani) uspio omogućiti rad od kuće za opstanak operativnih procesa, ali za njih da nije napisana nikakva pohvala, dapače nisu nikad spomenuti u mailu zahvale onima koji nose teret ovog virusa. Dok god poslovna analiza i informatika ne bude oslonac ove tvrtke zaostajati ćemo za ostalim aviokompanijama, u prodaji, marketingu pa i u svim ostalim područjima. Zadnjih 10 godina je jako malo pomaka prema naprijed. Vrlo je upitno na temelju čega se trenutno donose odluke u vrhu... Lijep pozdrav od radnice koja radi od kuće :)
ReplyDeletePozdrav kolegice.
DeleteMeni CTN nije prva aviokompanija u kojoj sam radio, dapače, imam iskustva iz puno većih kompanija. Slažem se s Vama, i još ću dodati da se vani IT smatra jednim od, naravno, najjačih oruđa u rukama zaposlenika. Šta se tiče motiviranosti kolega, ja nažalost to ovdje još nisam sreo. Ni od nadređenih niti od podređenih. Meni je zaista nepojmljivo da ovakva organizacija uspijeva opstati. Što se tiče uvođenja poslovnih procesa... ne daj ti Bože ovdje predložiti korištenje SharePointa, jer moramo ostati u 1983-oj i kopiraš/printaš/šalješ internom poštom (ovdje ne mislim na dokumente koji po različitim regulacijama moraju postojati). Zdravorazumski gledano to me ne iznenađuje, većina poslovođa je staro, stari ljudi, oni nemaju moderna znanja i vještina, niti ih žele i mogu učiti. Daj ti njima papir.
Sadly what we see and discuss here about Croatia Airlines is a reflection of the entire Croatian economy and the way the country operates. Need to lower the retirement age for a few years to 50 to get rid of the old commie dinosaurs so the country can begin to flourish for once.
DeleteHi to colleagues from CTN. I am also working in company for some time (5 years and counting). I think you both are absolutely right about the main problem in our company and that is the unmotivated workforce. Reason for that are old and non-proactive leaders of sectors and services. Sales sector is rising after appointing new director and head of sector, and similar thing should be done with other sectors. In recent time they employeed few new colleagues in IT which (seems to me) are motivated and have great ideas. Unfortunately the leaders didn't recognized (or didn't want to - probably they see them as competition)a and motivation and as it looks they extremely demotivated them. I really don't understand why they don't give credit to people who want to make changes to better. As it looks those new guys could soon leave company sooner then later, real shame. But no problem, as always government will save the dinosaur...
Delete@Q400: retiring people early can not work here; there are just too many fresh from university that have the very same mindset as those in their late 50ies who block every progress for ages...
DeleteThere you go. We all attack Serbian deal with Etihad but it was exactly that process that forced this generational change. I remember in 2013 Air Serbia was in a big problem because these long time 'experts' were forced out. However this left JU with no other option but to hire new people, younger talent, which allowed Air Serbia to fully transition from Jat to a modern company that could face these changes. I think they are the only ex-YU airline to have an extremely active social media presence, maybe even more than Aegean or Turkish Airlines!
DeleteUntil these people are not replaced with competent people, and not their kids or relatives, OU will not have a bright future ahead of itself. That's a sad fact in life.
It will be interesting to see if the Q400 comes too.
ReplyDeleteExtremely bad timing I guess. They are adding planes as the economy is about to collapse and the summer season won't happen.
ReplyDeleteHow are SOF anf TGD bookings performing? Any idea?
ReplyDeleteI would be interesting to know especially for Sofia since they were relying on transfers to the coast.
DeleteIt's time to start Airline regulations again
ReplyDeleteOn index.hr you can also follow the growing number of unemployed people. Number only keeps on growing and it's not pleasant. Let's see how the government reacts.
ReplyDelete