NEWS FLASH
KLM will commence seasonal flights from Amsterdam to Dubrovnik, marking its return to the Croatian coastal city after more than thirty years. Services will run on a daily basis, starting June 26, with the 100-seat Embraer E190 aircraft. Dubrovnik becomes KLM’s third destination in Croatia following Zagreb and Split. The Dutch national carrier discontinued operations to Dubrovnik prior to the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. It will compete directly against easyJet on the route, which will restore operations between the two cities on June 27. Further flight details for KLM’s new Dubrovnik service can be found here.
Maybe OU should make Dubrovnik their hub?
ReplyDeleteI believe they have other things to think about at the moment. If they care about anything at all. Or if it's not too early for that.
DeleteI believe that they just look at fire and play harps. Unfortunately some of colleagues are getting pretty upset with current situation. Word is that they will lay off some people. Everything remains to be seen
DeleteDBV-AMS P2P traffic has been, is, and will be predominantly served by Easyjet. This new KLM service is intended primarily for transfer passengers from/to North America, which once again confirms my claims of Croatia as significant long-haul market and missed opportunity of OU to take part and its fair share in that segment of traffic
ReplyDeleteDo you think KL might steal some local traffic from easyJet?
DeleteOf course. It's never 100:0. Some people will take advantage of daily services and more convenient schedule, some would simply prefer legacy carrier over LCC, some interested in price and booking last minute would also probably choose KL because LCC'S are expensive last minute, but still, majority of P2P will continue flying Easy and transfers on KLM
DeleteYou cannot compare market potentials of Netherland with Croatia. Croatia literally has less passangers then Bucharest, Bulgaria and same as Crete. If there is so much market potential for long haul in Croatia, why is there 0 long haul flights during winter.?
DeleteKLM's first charter flight to DBV was operated in 1963 with a Lockheed Electra. The routing was AMS-LJU-DBV.
DeleteIt's first scheduled flight to DBV was operated on 1 April 1964 with a DC-7. The routing was AMS-ZAG-DBV.
JAT707YYZ
@An.16.21
DeleteNever ever I compared market potentials of Netherlands and Croatia. You invented it. Of course Crete has big air passengers numbers - their passengers are 99 % tourists and air travel is the only way how to reach it, unlike Croatia. Also, both Bulgaria and Romania are much more distant to gasto markets and almost all their gasto passengers fly, again unlike Croatia. Not to mention both countries much bigger than Croatia, but I see absolutely no connection in overall numbers in BG and RO and number of long haul passengers in Croatia. . And you once again choose to manipulate with the two to prove right. There are zero long-haul flights in winter because Croatia based airline decided to act as feeder for others instead building network which would make winter long haul flights possible. I just don't understand why you refuse to accept that 500.000 passengers fly yearly between Croatia and North America, which number could have been doubled if OU had positioned itself as global carrier, instead letting American, Delta, United, Transat, Air Canada, British, Aer Lingus, SAS, Norwegian, Brussels, KLM, Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian, Air Serbia, Turkish, and many many others taking care about half million of passengers. If the number was 50.000 or 100.000, I would say yes, you are right, there is no potential, but with half million, and with new airlines day by day opening new services exactly for long-haul passengers, so sorry bro, you are wrong. For heaven's sake, JU started JFK with 20.000 and today carries 70.000 passengers, profitably. I just don't understand why you refuse to accept the fact that OU long ago should have taken piece of that cake, the sweetest in aviation
JU to NYC is a vanity project and certainly does not operate profitably.
DeleteJU to JFK is clever business move of the company and management which refused to be humiliated and refused to let go the most lucrative part of civil aviation to Masters, despite of less favourable geographical position, lack of EU administrative frame for services, and hundreds of thousands less tourists from distant markets compared to Croatia. And if after all my facts, numbers, names and explanations you only could have written vanity project sentence, I can just feel sorry for you.
DeleteLong-haul market, yes. Missed opportunity for OU? No. They never had an opportunity, because the long-haul market is too small to base widebodies in Croatia without losing money.
Delete