Croatia Airlines will maintain flights to fifteen international destinations during the month of October, twelve of which will run from Zagreb, ten from Split, two from Dubrovnik and one from Rijeka. Domestic flights will operate from the Croatian capital to five destinations, two from Osijek, and one each from Split and Dubrovnik. “The national carrier has proven itself to be an important factor in the country’s transport infrastructure during these extraordinary circumstances, given that it never stopped flying and was the only airline to have continuously enabled Croatia’s connectivity to the world during this epidemiological crisis. During the peak summer season, the company’s aircraft linked Zagreb directly with fourteen destinations, Split with eleven and Dubrovnik with seven international destinations”, Croatia Airlines said in a statement.
Unlike in September, the carrier will no longer maintain operations from Zagreb to Athens and Dublin and will run fewer frequencies on a number of routes. Last year, the airline maintained 24 international destinations from the Croatian capital. As part of its international network, during October the carrier will fly to Amsterdam, Brussels, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, London Heathrow, Munich, Paris, Rome, Sarajevo, Skopje, Vienna and Zurich from Zagreb, to Berlin, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, London Heathrow, Lyon, Munich, Paris, Rome, Vienna and Zurich from Split, to Frankfurt and Rome from Dubrovnik, as well as to Munich from Rijeka. Due to a number of travel restrictions and declining demand, Croatia Airlines cancelled 80% of its planned flights during September.
The Croatian government will unveil plans to financially assist its national carrier in the coming weeks. On Thursday, it approved a deadline extension for the repayment of an 8.5 million euro loan the company took from one state-owned and one private bank in 2018 in order to finance the overhaul of its engines. Initially, the loan was to be repaid by December 31, 2022, but an extension has been granted until June 30, 2023. The Croatian Ministry for Sea, Transport and Infrastructure noted the carrier had requested for the deferral in payments of certain obligations due to difficulties arising from the Covid-19 pandemic. The changes primarily relate to the maturity and repayment of the loan, the repayment method, calculation of interest and the interest period.
This is quite low number of routes but good to see no major route cancellations compared to Sept.
ReplyDeletePoor Mostar, it really won't have any flights this year. I was expecting OU would resume it.
ReplyDeleteMe too :(
DeleteThe route was mostly empty before corona. Imagine now.
DeleteIf it were better timed it could have had more transfers.
DeleteTrue. Those flights are catastrophically timed!
DeleteWhat about frequencies on these routes?
ReplyDeleteAlso I find it kind of wrong that the government pressured a private bank to provide OU with an extension.
I have a feeling Kresimir Kucko will come back to save the day.
DeleteBite your tounge
DeleteWhy? At least OU was profitable while he was in charge and they launched many new routes.
DeleteI find it odd that OU suspended SPU-BEG especially with so many Serbs going to Croatia this summer. JU is even now running flights with A319!
ReplyDeleteWell demand was not so large this summer. Even JU reduced flights from 6 weakly, to 4 weakly, then to 2 weakly and again to 4 weakly.
DeleteThere is huge difference between flying 4 pw and not flying at all.
DeleteAnd it is 4 pw with A319, not with ATR72
DeleteAnon 9:46
Delete??
anon 13:00
Delete???
Is it me or is DUB a very difficult market for OU?
ReplyDeleteUsually is not but for this winter they will resume flights only to the most important markets.
DeleteI believe DUB was a seasonal route anyway no?
DeleteNo, it became year round last year
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2018/12/croatia-airlines-upgrades-dublin-service.html
Oh ok, missed that
Deletethey have a harsh 14 day q. even ryanair is thinking to close Cork&Shannon for the winter
DeleteYes, I think Ireland only has 5 countries on its green list. FR has launched a campaign against the government but they are not changing their decision.
Delete80% of planned flights cancelled in September!
ReplyDeleteThat's huge.
When tourism goes down to near winter levels in September that is the reality.
DeleteThis shows how important domestic travel is in Croatia and important for OU. Today for instance, you have flights to DBV, SPU, BUT and ZAD. Yesterday 2 daily OSI flights with Trade Air.
ReplyDeleteLast night OU 320 deployed to DBV!
AF also sending 320 and VY still operating from BCN.
Overall, picture is pretty decent.
VY flights end next week.
Delete:)
ReplyDeleteConsidering I read that Alitalia will have just 15 international routes, we can conclude that OU is operating at the same level :D
ReplyDeleteWill OU keep the extra flights to Frankfurt as replacement for Lufthansa?
ReplyDeleteFrom Zagreb I mean
DeleteI don't think the winter season timetable is still finalized.
DeleteLH won't be flying ZAG-FRA that is for sure.
DeleteAccording to Purger OU pushed them away from ZAG :-)
Actually on some way they did. OU has soo good realtions with LH so they liierally gave them all the market because of great relations.
DeleteMust be a big profit maker for LH to have handed it over so generously because of "great relations".
DeleteReally makes you think how profitable markets such as ZAG or LJU are for LH when they are not really fighting to have them for themselves. If they were making money on FRA-ZAG they would have stayed, they struggled even before corona. They downgraded it to Embraer.
DeleteRemember tgat LH happily left Adria to fly all German routes until they went bust.
DeleteActually, I wouldn't be surprised if LH ignores our region for a while longer. In the aftermath of the World Economic Crisis, German economy was boosted by trade with China. German companies earned billions from exporting machinery to China which they then used to manufacture their goods for export. This time around, many Chinese companies have developed their own technologies which they used to buy from Germany. For example, the expansion of the Stockholm metro was awarded to a Chinese company while Porto selected Chinese made trains for their metro (a first in Europe). The Stockholm metro is extremely interesting because the technology they have now used to be imported from Germany up until the crisis.
DeleteAll this means that it will take much longer for the German economy to recover this time around. This will no doubt impact Lufthansa's recovery which also includes our region. For Air Serbia this could be good news as they are not linked to LH Group but for OU it could mean that more 'responsibility' will be shifted to them ... at least in ZAG.
This could be a perfect opportunity for AF-KL in our region. We saw how aggressive they were in LJU, ZAG and BEG before the crisis.
https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/news/stockholm-criticised-awarding-impossible-metro-con/
I hope Hrvatska never allows any Chinese on its soil for business. They can visit and such but not more than this.
DeleteLuckily, the metros in Bucuresti and Sofia are and were not touched by them Chinese personnas.
Let's all learn from Slovenia and it's bitter Chinese experience with Maribor. Thanks, but no thanks!
Well, Croatia chose the Chinese for Pelješac bridge.
DeleteInteresting Nemjee, I didn't know about those things.
DeleteI hope it stays at this number during the winter season.
ReplyDeleteIt won't because in winter OU only flies to Rome, Frankfurt, Munich and Zagreb from Split.
DeleteThat is probably most usefull part of having OU. International winter flights from the coast.
Delete^ they should do more with the coast. Both summer and winter.
DeleteGlad to see LHR connected to more than 1 Croatian city.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that BRU also is a very important destination because of EU.
The surprise is having winter flights LYS-SPU. Traditionally, it's Germany.
It's not a winter flight. This is until start of winter season. Then almost all routes end from SPU.
DeleteOne thing I got to give to OU is that they kept flying through the lockdowns. That's commendable.
ReplyDeleteCroatians did not have EU ban.
DeleteI'm wondering, if anyone knows, do a lot of Slovenians still fly with OU from Zagreb? Or is that complicated now with the quarantine procedures?
ReplyDeleteThere were never "a lot" of Slovenians in ZAG.
DeleteYou saw in ZAG those who had no other choice but to fly from there. Much more Slovenians used the possibilities flying on connecting flights from LJU.
@anon 17:55
Deletethat's not true at all. Majority of public tenders had priority to use direct flights which is only possible from ZAG. In addition, with only one flight to major hub (FRA), Slovenians are very limited to get any decent connections. So there are a LOT of pax going from ZAG. They even put a exception in decree that quarantine does not apply for Slovenians flying from/to Croatia airports. They would not put that in decree if there wasn't huge amount of people travelling from there.
Speaking of Slovenia, there are two charters to Paris from LJU tomorrow because of Tour de France. One is being operated by Trade Air (with their 'new' plane) and the other by Croatia Airlines.
DeleteYes, it is. Slovenians are very practical people. As I said they fly through ZAG only if they have to.
DeleteDirect flights do have advantages but these flights do not depart from their country but from the airport that is almost 2 hours drive from LJU (one way!), where they have to possibly wait on the border, to have the risk of getting late to the airport due to possible road blocks, to pay for fuel for 4 hours drive, to pay toll, to pay for parking on Zagreb airport and many more...
Much easier is to take the flights from their airport to FRA (2 flights daily by LH and not only one!), to IST, to BEG or to CDG (10 weekly) and fly to their final destinations without any worry if anything is going to interrupt their journey. Not to mention that ZAG does not offer any connections to Eastern Europe.
Of course that quarantine does not apply for SLO citizens from ZAG as neither Croatia is on red EU list nor Slovenia.
There was a recent Eurostat survey which showed that Lithuania, Portugal and Slovenia are the nations with the highest percentage of road or car transport in Europe. All this confirms the theory that, similar to Swedes, Slovenia are ditching planes and taking other means of transportation.
Deletehttps://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/en/web/products-eurostat-news/-/EDN-20200916-1?inheritRedirect=true&redirect=/eurostat/en/news/whats-new
Slovenia just hates planes :D
Wrong again.
DeleteHere provided information are for INLAND transport. As there are no domestic air routes in Slovenia and the farthest point is only 2,5 hours drive it would be surprise final results to be anyhow different.
whats their freq to SKP & SJJ nowadays?
ReplyDeleteSKP is just 2 per week.
DeleteSarajevo is also just 2 per week but all flights are cancelled until the 25th of September.
Delete:(
DeleteI don't see that being convenient for transfers.
DeleteWinter is going to be tough
ReplyDeleteMaybe cold and snowy too! )))
DeleteThree years from now LCCs will have aircraft based at ZAG, LH will fly from ZAG to hubs and OU will have the same fate as Adria. Tradeair will get bigger and will serve more domestic lines with PSO.
ReplyDeleteyou wish...but ain’t gonna happen. ;-)
DeleteA 4 million country having 2 major carriers, developed domestic network, 9 operational international airports, prestigious coastline is a milestone. Not to mention that DBV is the jewel of the Balkans.
DeleteSome said Adria would never go bankrupt.
DeleteIt would be nice to see more co-operation on routes between Croatia Airlines and Trade Air.I have seen the code-share on the flights from Osijek to the domestic airports.
DeleteFlights are operated half empty and the company still did not consolidate its international routes at a single airport to maximize the efficiency. What a waste of money and resources.
ReplyDeletePeople here just don't seem to get how bad the situation is in the aviation industry.
ReplyDeleteDisaster
ReplyDelete