The Croatian government has said the national carrier must be offered similar terms and conditions at Zagreb Airport as Ryanair. It comes after Croatia Airlines accused Zagreb Airport of favouritism towards the budget carrier which will station two aircraft in the city this September. “You can’t give Ryanair discounts, while you have different criteria for Croatia Airlines, on which you depend the most”, the Croatian Minister for Sea, Transport and Infrastructure, Oleg Butković, said. He added the two sides will hold another meeting in the coming days in an attempt to reach an agreement, noting there is “good will” on both sides for the matter to be resolved.
Ryanair will launch flights to Zagreb with one route each in June and July. This will be followed by the introduction of an additional ten destination in September and the stationing of two aircraft from its subsidiary Lauda Europe. Based on existing schedules, Ryanair will become Zagreb Airport’s second biggest airline based on offered capacity this summer season. It has 134.190 seats on sale to and from the Croatian capital until October 31. At the same time, Croatia Airlines has 1.014.608, although this will be revised as the carrier modifies its schedule on a monthly basis. Ryanair has said it intends on launching new routes from Zagreb next year and becoming the city’s largest airline.
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| Market share by capacity at Zagreb Airport, summer 2021 |
Commenting on Ryanair’s arrival and Croatia Airlines’ criticism, Zagreb Airport’s General Manager, Huseyin Bahadir Bedir, said, “Ryanair’s business model often provokes different comments all over the world, especially from legacy carriers. That is exactly what happened in Zagreb. That is the nature of our business in today’s world. Competition brings with it risk of declining revenue and profitability and requires certain adjustments to new market conditions”. He added, “Nevertheless, Croatia Airlines is our largest and most important business partner and it is absolutely in the interest of Zagreb Airport to see it succeed. We can and want to help out our national carrier and will offer them our know-how and valuable statistical data, because Zagreb Airport is part of a large group of airports managed by our shareholders, which jointly handled over 250 million passengers in 2019”.
Surprise surprise
ReplyDeleteWell it would be shocking if the state did not side with a state owned company.
DeleteI looked at some fares for CRL ZAG and they are still pretty low. I guess sales aren't going as great. There is a reason why OU sends the Q400 to BRU.
ReplyDeleteWell flights started selling two weeks ago and Ryanair's launch promotion is still ongoing.
DeleteI still don't understand what's the problem. Airport made inventive for new routes which are also available to Croatia Airlines. All they have to do is launch new routes.
ReplyDeleteWell I guess OU has launched around 8 new routes since 2016 and they didn't receive the same treatment as FR in terms of discounts.
DeleteTough. You can't apply discounts retroactively. Market conditions change. The world today is not the same it was between 2016 and 2019.
DeleteHahaha, OU is not in 2016-2019, they are in 1946-1949
DeleteHahah good one Pozdrav
DeleteIf Butkovic had done his job and tried to privatize Croatia Airlines on time, none of tis would be an issue.
ReplyDeleteThey tried to sell it.
DeleteThere was genuine interest in 2019/2020 from Aegean and Air Nostrum. But then corona came.
DeleteThere was also Garuda
DeleteThe privatization attempt in 2019 was much more serious and interest was officially confirmed by both airlines.
DeleteFR will have a big market share considering it will open a base barely two months before the season ends.
ReplyDeleteOU has a big battle on its hands.
DeleteSo in the end Croatia Airlines is going to get even more subsidies, now by the airport.
ReplyDeleteNow airport will give Ryanair prices to OU and Government will pay back that money to the airport due to missed profit.
ReplyDeleteAnd of course that it should not be seen as financial help to OU. No way.
My thoughts exactly. If they give huge discounts to OU as well then they might struggle financially.
DeleteThis is ridiculous. You bring a new airline to the airport and now the other airline which has been receiving millions over the years wants more money and is crying to daddy because it admits it cannot compete against a low cost airline. Isn't this the EU? Open market?
ReplyDeleteBravo Hrvatska!
ReplyDeleteU svakom pogledu. Najvise na tome sto se SKJ-SKH podijelio na dvije struje, od kojih je reformirana struja uglavnom u opoziciji a oni sa staljinistickim mindsetom na vlasti, i unistavaju zemlju, i kompaniju, vec 25 godina
Delete“You can’t give Ryanair discounts, while you have different criteria for Croatia Airlines, on which you depend the most”, the Croatian Minister for Sea, Transport and Infrastructure, Oleg Butković, said.
ReplyDeleteMr. Butkovic, can you then please explain, why HTZ and Zadar tourist board pays millions of euros to Ryanair for Zadar operations? Why do you think government/local authorities can give Ryanair huge financial support in Zadar (by discriminating the others and your own national carrier) and why a private company cannot offer transparent and non-discriminative incentives for airlines at Zagreb?
That is bad news fore Fraport!
ReplyDeleteHe probably meant LJU.
DeleteIs the government going to play fair game and give Ryanair same amount of state aid than they give OU?
ReplyDeleteWhy would they? No one forced FR to launch flights from Zagreb.
DeleteIf it's not fair to OU that FR got a better deal with the airport, why would it be fair to FR that OU got a better deal with the government?
DeleteOf course the government is going to side with Croatia Airlines and try to protect its investment.
ReplyDeleteInvestment is done in order to make profit. Protecting investment means preventing losses. OU is loss making, with or without FR it makes no profit, so it cannot be called investment, and there is nothing to protect except bunch of uhljebs who do nothing for decades already
DeleteWhat do you people think should be OU's strategy now to try and compete against Ryanair? Do you think FR really poses that much of a threat to them? Will they launch new routes, become more proactive?
ReplyDeleteMy first suggestion would be to replace the management.
DeleteIn my opinion they should have focused on connecting the region with western Europe long ago. This would be a good source of passengers and helped them be less affected by Ryanair's arrival.
DeleteAlso, why not launch something like Croatia Airlines Holidays, offering holiday packes to Croatia on Western European markets and organizing charters so you can better compete on the coast.
DeleteI'm guessing they will do away with the free snacks sooner or later :D
DeleteGee, that should help them back to profitability in no time!
DeleteI still think they should have established a base in LJU with one Q400. Could have been successful.
DeleteToo close to ZAG...
DeleteI find it surprising that OU has not reduced its workforce.
DeleteThey should have gone harder and earlier - like so many other airlines did- instead of waiting for the competition to come to them.
DeleteI don't think FR is a big threat to OU, but OU is in an unhealthy position nevertheless. The simplest strategic way to secure long-term existence is to leave Star Alliance and join OneWorld. Star Alliance is all over the place and OU has nothing to offer to them other than feeder flights. OneWorld is only at the edges of Europe, with the rest of Europe being a huge hiatus. OU could fill that hiatus and work on their hub function. As a OneWorld member, OU would be certain of full flights and they could charge more for them = more profitability. ZAG would also be much more attractive for long-haul OneWorld partners (esp. AA, JL, CX, maybe even QF) than it is for Star Alliance partners (UA, AC, CA, NH, ET, OZ, BR, SQ, TG, SA) right now, because for Star Alliance, there are too much and better alternatives, such as VIE, ATH, IST and WAW.
DeleteZAG should not give in to OU's pressure.
ReplyDeleteYou snooze you loose. FR is introducing Podgorica. OU had years to start it but they didn't care. Last year they decided to start but then corona came. Instead of starting it anyway in winter or this summer since there are no entry restrictions in Montenegro, they decided not to either.
ReplyDeleteI'm really curious to see how Ryanair will make this route work with a B737-800.
DeleteThe flight is there probably because they have no fees at TGD either and want to keep the aircraft in the air.
DeleteI can only imagine what will happen if Wizz Air comes to ZAG.
ReplyDeleteIn the end maybe OU launches some new routes.
ReplyDeleteDon't count on it.
DeleteWe should go back to a system of bilateral traffic rights agreement between two countries within the EU and for agreements with nations outside the EU, it should be a bilateral agreement EU and other nation to avoid, that the heavily government sponsored carriers fm Qatar and UAE are spreading out further and further and seriously damaging our EU carriers.
ReplyDeleteThe same thing is with Ryanair, on the back of taxpayers money and low wages, they are advancing further and further. Low prices means also low wages and the less money is around, the less is the quality. The less quality, the more miserable is our daily life.
Re QR and EK, EK: No problem if they fly 1 x daily to a destination and want to connect their country and stimulate tourism. If they are however flying 3 or 8 x daily to a city and you have huge capacity differences in their favor, built up mainly on heavy subsidies, than something is definitely wrong.
In aircargo the situation is already quite critical: 2020 the two largest cargo carriers in the world, were EK and QR. In 2019 they were Nr. 3 and 4, but considering that Fedex and UPS are not just carriers, but integrators, you can consider EK and QR as the top cargo carriers. Qatar has 2.8 mio population and UAE 10 mio but they move more cargo, than any other carrier fm Europe, Asia or the US. There u see how strongly threy are subsidizing their carriers.
Back to OU: I prefer them over Ryanair, eventhough the ridge is narrow, especially in Balkans country, between a home carrier securing most important Europe connections and pay fair wages or a mismanaged, bureaucratic, politically misused and corrupted national carrier.
Never going to happen. It goes against every single principal of single European market.
DeleteRyanair and low wages? Some pilots pay to fly in OU. As in actually paying per hour for line flying. While Ryanair certainly isn't without their own flaws, they have never sunk that low.
Low prices mean low quality? Compare the fleet age of LCCs and that of some "legacy" carriers around here. JU's 737s were in "mint" condition, right?
More regulation would only increase cost to consumers. Imagine the amount of bureaucracy if every EU country would have to negotiate bilaterals with every other EU country.
It will have to happen as current system is going into wrong direction. A full liberal market will end up with just a few players and at the end you will pay higher prices than in a regulated system.
DeleteCompare Football and export their system to our society. Now UEFA just announced CHL reform 2024, much more games, will make the rich clubs richer, the transfer amounts for players will further rise. But the majority of the football loses, so do the fans. More boring group games and boring national leagues with 1-2, seldomly 3 wining the titles. Thats liberalism and thats BS
There is no big bureaucracy for traffic rights. Can be negotiated with one visit
"There is no big bureaucracy for traffic rights."
DeleteYeah, it was so easy for TK deploy A330 to BEG when they had higher demand in the past, right? CAD never denied any of their requests?
Where do we stop liberal market then? Should we ban Aldi and Lidl too? Or other pan-European companies?
Single market is there to stay, as it represents the basic idea of European Union. If a member state doesn't like it, they are free to leave it. Life might be a bit tougher on the outside though.
@JU520 BEGLAX
DeleteI realize you like flying with legacies more than LCC's, that's your preference, when you add to that flying with benefits and paying peanuts for the legacy airline, which is not a thing that many people have, it makes sense why you wouldn't step on FR's plane.
Good luck. Hope all issues are resolved.
ReplyDeleteOU is a big contributor to the tourism industry. Last summer the season would have been even worse without them. They deserve to be offered the same conditions as foreign airlines. They could have easily parked planes in Zagreb to save costs but then many other industries, including the airport, would have struggled even more.
ReplyDeleteOU big contributor to tourism industry is uhljeb's mantra. Less then 20 percent of tourists come to Croatia by air. OU share in overall passenger traffic in Croatia is less then 20 percent. If we imagine there were no domestic traffic, no etno traffic and no business traffic, in best case OU brings to Croatia 20 out of 20, which makes 4 percent of tourists, and I would say 3 percent. In return, billions are pumped in, definitely much more than OU returns to the state, through tourism, taxes and everything else. Very clean numbers.
DeleteThe response from the Fraport Zagreb Is even better
ReplyDeleteWhat are you talking about?
DeleteHe probably meant the Zagreb Airport response in the text?
DeleteToday OU has just 13 flights out of ZAG. Of those 4 are subsidized domestic flights. So I don't see what they are crying about or why ZAG should give them special treatment.
ReplyDeleteJust comes to show how important the domestic traffic is in Croatia. The capital and the coast contribute significantly to the economy.
DeleteWhat economy for heaven sake? Where do you live? Even Romania has better numbers than Croatia. We had fallen to the bottom of the bottoms. Because of those like you finding excuses for corruption, nepotism, excessive administration, mindset belonging to 19 century, inertness, incompetence, domination of politics over economy and so forth. OU is just reflection of the general situation in the country that has potential to be among the best in Europe and had sunk so low it practically cannot climb up any more.
DeleteWhy OU didn't make the most of it of having little LCC competition at its main base up until now is a good question.
ReplyDeleteIt was too early to react.
DeleteAny word on when the government will start tenders for PSO funding? Original contract expired in March last year, they just keep extending the same terms. I'm curious to see if Ryanair will apply.
ReplyDelete“We have no plans just yet for domestic flights, however, it is something we will look at. Short flights enable us to have better utilisation of aircraft. But we will concentrate on international flights for now”, Mr Wilson added.
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2021/03/ryanair-aims-for-up-to-forty-zagreb.html
Very interesting. Missed that. Thank you
DeleteInteresting to see that KLM has such a large share at ZAG.
ReplyDeleteThey were the main foreign airline at ZAG in 2020.
DeleteKLM is simply the most efficient network carrier in Europe
DeleteOU is not competitive to capture the post covid market.
ReplyDeleteLet's see how things turn out. I wish Ryanair good luck but despite all focus being on OU, I don't think Ryan will have it easy on some routes either. I'm very interested to see how Bucharest and Podgorica will work the B737-800.
ReplyDeleteBucharest?
DeleteSorry, I mixed it up with their new Zadar-Bucharest flight. Thought it was from Zagreb
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/p/ryanair-zadar-bucharest.html
I hope ZAG stands its ground despite the "shocking" fact the state once again took OU's side.
ReplyDeleteThere's nothing for ZAG to lose in remaining firm in their position. OU can whine to the government but otherwise it can do nothing else other than, well...try and do their job professionally for once.
If FR can introduce 12 - 20 new routes with only 2 planes based in Zagreb, the fact that OU has altogether some 35 routes or so with 14 planes, is disastrous.
At the same time the government can do nothing about it either, other than try and find yet another loophole in order to subsidize them even more so and foot the bill to the Croatian citizens - something which will become increasingly difficult, both from domestic and the EU perspective.
At this point, I'm guessing those few comments here doctrinally supportive of OU as miserable as it is, must be coming from its employees.
Agree with everything Michael says. Hope ZAG Airport doesn't give in.
DeleteAs some other people said on other portals, what Croatia needs to do is very simple - as Ryanair flies to placec where there is currently no service (so that they can get incentive) Croatia airlines should schedule a BUNCH of new lines with 1PW just in order to block Ryanair from starting those flights.
ReplyDeleteBurning money just to stop competition. Sounds like a great business model for making profit.
DeleteOr they could actually start routes where they can make money while still using the incentive scheme.
DeleteUhljebs are too busy sailing, playing tennis, visiting beauty parlors and travelling around on ID tickets to think about the things you suggest. But if somehow they were forced to decide about it, it would be option no 1, burning money to stop competition. No doubt . Seen already.
DeleteRyanair is shaking lol
ReplyDeleteCan you imagine something like this happening in Slovenia, i. e. the government demanding level playing field for all airlines operating out of LJU (same discounts for Adria and Ryanair)?
ReplyDeleteno because neither of them fly to or from Slovenia
DeleteBut Adria no longer exists...
DeleteYeah, but if it did ...
DeleteHaha cepusaju se, a nitko ne leti... Ryan vec odgodio skoro sve letove iz ZD za 6.mj., a dosta njih i za 7. Pitanje je koliko ce se i od toga ostvariti.
ReplyDeleteMarket share by capacity at Zagreb airport summer 2021: so many operators gulp!
ReplyDeleteStill OU alone over 50%?!
Yes, OU really has dominance in ZAG. I assume if it were not for Ryanair's arrival thier share would be over 60%.
DeleteThis has been the case for many years.
DeleteZagreb is already performing in great way, compared to nearby Ljubljana.
ReplyDeleteTomorrow from Zagreb 12 international flights (including one charter via Ljubljana to Palma Mallorca).
Tomorrow from Ljubljana just one lonely charter, that's all.
Comparing LJU with ZAG.. you should compare LJU with TZL, BNX or INI, to see how much it has fallen behind all other airports. We must be so proud of Skobir/Krašnja duo. Bravo LJU!!
DeleteSad :(
DeleteJU520 BEGLAX10:58
ReplyDelete“A full liberal market will end up with just a few players “
There is nothing “liberal” in today’s system. “Liberal” as word is used to conceive neo-feudal economy by the EU structures. And I am sure OU management is particularly good in playing along in this “dumb & dumber” game in fleecing the taxpayers by 0.1% at the top.
OU management is so dumb that they did not even try to call things correctly, but accusing Airport for their own incapacity to negotiate better terms for their own so called “private” business.
Football saga with Super league is the same example of current neo-feudal economy where few teams at the top wants to compete between themselves in closed shop league and never get relegated if the loose a game. OU behaves like Real Madrid where it wants to “compete” but never to have the an option to lose a game (go bankrupt)!
Let's see if Ryan launches those flights as scheduled. They are pushing back Zadar.
ReplyDeleteBy September things should calm down so I think there is a goof chance those flights will go ahead.
DeleteThe one negative side for Croatia Airlines is that if it gets any more aid, Ryanair will be quick to reports them to the EU, as they have been doing with many airlines recently.
ReplyDeleteSo am I correct in believing that Croatia Airlines is asking for all of its routes to have the same charges and fees as Ryanair has for launching new routes?
ReplyDeleteNo, my guess is they will probably request a reduction in fees.
DeleteBased on its calculation, I can say that it is asking for subvention of its existing operations.
DeleteIt's all a numbers game, and national pride is one thing, but in today's free skies countries with populations below 5 million like Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Bosnia&Hercegovina can not keep supporting national airlines, with internal and external subsidies, just for the matter of pride. Hungary's Malev died , and the new national ailine is Wizz, Austrian Air is Lufthansa as is the old Sabena now called Brussels Air, as is the old SwissAir now called Swiss!! Zagreb airport owners and their shareholders want profit, RyanAir, WizzAir may get breaks on fees, but thousands of more passengers flowing through the terminal in Zagreb, will bring more revenue to concessions, duty free, parking, rent a car, and most important more flying domestic flights on Croatian, if only the brains behing Croatian coukd see the potential!!!
ReplyDelete