The United States’ “Big 3” carriers - American Airlines, Delta and United - have outlined their plans for the upcoming 2022 summer season and the future development of their operations to Dubrovnik. American, which launched seasonal flights from Philadelphia to the Croatian coastal city in 2019, was set to return in 2020 with additional flights and capacity. However, the coronavirus pandemic has seen the airline indefinitely delay the route. Brian Znotins, American Airlines’ Vice President for Network and Schedule Planning, said the company will “take a holistic evaluation” of its Dubrovnik route in the coming years to determine whether to potentially restore flights depending on how demand and competition has changed in the market by that time. “There's nothing to say that we won't necessarily restart flights again”, Mr Znotins said, adding that Philadelphia is “the natural draw” for utilising new aircraft as they come in to ramp up service to Europe.
Delta introduced seasonal flights from New York’s JFK Airport to Dubrovnik during the summer of 2022, but at this point does not plan to restore flights next year. As Europe has reopened for American travellers, Delta is looking to increase operations to traditional markets frequented by US tourists and destinations that can attract even more high-yielding passengers. Croatia was one of the few countries within the European Union to permit entry to US citizens and residents both this year and last year, with Delta noting it was one of the major factors for the introduction of its flights to Dubrovnik.
United Airlines has confirmed the resumption of flights between New York’s Newark Airport and the Croatian coastal city next summer following a successful debut this year. The carrier will restore operations on May 27, 2022 with four weekly rotations, departing Newark each Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Furthermore, the US carrier has extended its flight program to Dubrovnik with services to be run until the end of the 2022 summer season, on October 26 of next year. All flights will be maintained by the Boeing 767-300 aircraft. United’s Chief Commercial Officer, Andrew Nocella, has said the Dubrovnik service was launched in response to Croatia maintaining open borders for American citizens and residents throughout the coronavirus pandemic, and has performed strongly as a result. “We feel really bullish about Europe for next summer. We had a look of that this summer. We started in a few new markets. In fact, we loaded those for sale very late. And those new markets are actually some of our top performing city fares because Croatia and Greece, in particular, made it clear to the world that they were open for business. And in fact, our customers responded to it immediately, and our new flights did incredibly well”, Mr Nocella said.
I hope United will introduce a second Croatian destination next year or 2023.
ReplyDeleteNo chance of it being next year. The schedules are already set.
DeleteI was hoping the same that UA would start ZAG out of EWR and leave DBV do DL out of JFK. I guess until this pandemic is not under control, it will be hard for ZAG to get any new intercontinental flights.
DeleteUA to Split direct. Lets go!!!
DeletePity none of them considered ZAG.
ReplyDeleteThe airport should do more to attract flights to the US.
DeleteNot enough demand.
DeleteMore than enough demand. No brains and no effort. For ages. Seen already in FR case.
DeleteUnlike Ryanair, US airlines are not waiting for subsidies to operate to ZAG. Not waiting for brains and effort either. They would have already been operating there if they wanted.
DeleteFirst you should learn the differences between subsidies and incentives. Second, all of the USB3 operate or have been operating to Croatia, along with Air Canada and Transat,despite being very conservative about new markets, especially smaller ones. And the third, brains and effort were addresed to OU, which should have launched North American long haul at least decade ago instead if being LH feeder. Once again, demand between North America and Croatia exists and is of such volume that it can sustain several daily nonstop flights in season and at least daily in winter.
DeleteI meant to write incentives not subsidies, my mistake. The point is what's stopping the USB3 to operate all these flights to Croatia if the is so much demand? Even in DBV only United survived. So much for ''several daily nonstop flights in season''.
DeleteYes, ONLY United survived in DBV during the WORST aviation crisis ever caused by pandemic scam. Numbers before covid are relevant and those overall numbers are bigger in ZAG then DBV. If there was no covid scam, one of the USB3 would have been in ZAG today for sure, the same as Canadians are. And if OU was not mismanaged, inert, corrupt and politically controlled, ZAG with its numbers could have easily been southestern Europe hub for North American flights, I repeat once again, with several daily nonstop flights in season.
DeleteBecause pre-pandemic the USB3 were lining up to fly to ZAG and DBV. Next joke please.
Delete3 airline companies from North America operated to ZAG and DBV pre-pandemic. So I don't see why talking about the fourth one from NA, or somewhere else, should be considered a joke
DeleteSo US abolishes visas yet there are fewer flights planned than last year... :/
ReplyDeleteThese flights are definitely not used by Croatians.
DeleteBut why no flights then to ZAG? I mean there are basically no bureocratic or pandemic restrictions.
DeleteDunno if you heard of this small inconvenience called Coronovirus pandemic?
DeleteDemand from covid is recovering and people should stop using it as an excuse for everything.
Delete^ you might want to check the latest industry data which shows recovery has stopped since the start of the month and things are going downhill again because of the new variant.
DeleteNot true. Omicron vatraiant is disrupting the whole world and aviation is not exemption. And it's not people that are using it as excuse, when governments are imposing travel restrictions. Who would want to travel under such conditions?
DeleteFully agree. Personally planned to go again to the US, few places never been before, in February. Gave up plans and decided not to go because of covid scam histeria.
DeleteWhy would you give up a trip to the US? I've been to NYC, DEN and SFO since the start of the pandemic without any issues, and plan to go to RDU in Feb. The measures are no worse than back home in Europe.
DeleteVery simple : uncertainty, possibility everything will be locked down again, and fear of wasted time and money in case of situation change, "new measures" and trip cancelling as a result
DeleteI was hoping to see flights to Zagreb next year and United would make most sense. Maybe in 2023.
ReplyDeleteLufthansa woud not be happy with that.
DeleteLufthansa has a revenue sharing agreement with United for all trans-Atlantic traffic so they wouldn't really care.
DeleteYes but at the same time LH uses UA to fill its own flights from FRA and MUC, among those is ZAG. So they have double profit.
DeleteAlso demand is obviously not there for non-stop flights.
Both LH and UA has benefits and profits from their croatian operations. And demand is there, for several daily nonstop flights in summer and at least one daily in winter, if OU had started doing it as the most logical move, similar to what JU started. But they have decided to willingly give away market to LH and continue serving as pathetic feeder, because of personal interest of particular individuals tied with politics
DeleteReally happy to see the new flights worked out for United. Although I do hope they change the plane type to the Dreamliners.
ReplyDeleteWell they are retrofitting their 767s and they have a quite decent hard product on their 767s
DeleteThis is also good news for OU. It will help fill some domestic routes from Dubrovnik.
ReplyDeleteIn summer they are pretty full from DBV anyway.
DeleteUnfortunate Delta won't be back. It's without doubt the best US big three airline. Then again, it's mostly for US tourists so dorsen't really matter.
ReplyDeleteIt was a bit much to expect two airlines to be flying NYC-DBV. One was bound to loose out.
DeleteWell done to DBV attracting interest from the Big 3. Not a small achievement by any means.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteAA should try DBV from another destination. Chicago would be a good choice.
ReplyDeleteWe are waiting for Pragusa one to start flights from DBV to across the states.
Delete@Anonymous 11:12
DeleteLOL
As I said before Pragusa will never take off, especially with its "new" all premium economy business model
I was joking of course :D
DeleteWhat is a typical price for round trip usa-dbv?
ReplyDeleteThey were rather pricey last summer but there weren't too many options for Americans to travel to Europe for a good part of sunmer.
DeleteWhen American gets A321XLR they can resume DBV.
ReplyDeleteWhat about Split? Any chance we see flights from US to there?
ReplyDeleteI think there is an issue with apron space there for widebodies but not 100% sure.
DeleteLet's hope American will come back to DBV once the remaining 13 B787s are delivered.
ReplyDeleteI would prefer UA focusing on Zagreb and AA on DBV
Agree. DBV is quite strong for Oneworld.
DeleteBravo Hrvatska!
ReplyDeleteWould love to see all three serve DBV at the same time.
ReplyDeleteDuring Yugo times we had two airlines serving Dubrovnik-US market - JAT and Pan Am
DeleteDuring Yugo times we had two airlines serving ZAG - US market as well - JAT and Pan Am. This just for the guy constantly writing no demand mantra for ZAG, despite the fact numbers show bigger demand between ZAG and the US than between DBV and US
Delete''During Yugo times'' I feel like about 70-80% of your comments include this phrase my dear friend. Different reality.
DeleteYes, reality is different today. Today we don't need visas for the US any more, we have double more tourists from the US than in Yugo times, we have NATO ties which we didn't have before, we have potential transfer basin in Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, whose citizens were not allowed to travel to the US before, we have half of Bosnia emigrated to the US because of the ex-yu wars during last 20-30 years and all of the listed are reasons enough to have services from ZAG to several destinations in the US, my dear friend
DeleteI'll believe it when i see it. Okay we know OU is corrupt and incompetent but how is it possible that no airline from the US has been interested to fly to ZAG for all these years? Especially with this crazy demand you're speaking of. Are they pathetic feeders and political tool as well or?
DeleteDemand is not crazy but is sufficient to start operations on at least one destination. As I already said, US airlines are very conservative and careful with smaller markets and don't fly to much bigger but still relatively small like Belgrade and Bucharest. Once covid scam is over, it will happen, by an US airline. Other one already exists, operated by Canadian airlines to Toronto. Another two could easily be added and demand created by transfers, both domestic and regional, if OU was not as if we both described.
DeleteAs US airlines start getting long haul narrowbodies I think we will start seeing more flights to Croatia.
ReplyDeleteSorry I meant long range
DeleteI have heard United is doing really well with cargo on this route too.
ReplyDeleteCorrect but it might be temporary.
DeleteThis was from a recent article here on ex-Yu
"Another important aspect of our Dubrovnik operation is cargo demand. So far, we have transported over 100 tones of goods from European Union markets to the United States via Dubrovnik. The origin of the goods is mostly from Central Europe which are being rerouted via Dubrovnik due to less cargo capacity available on the market and increased shipping costs."
Interesting
DeleteY'all keep talking ZAG but really SPU would be the next option as this is primarily seasonal summer traffic.
ReplyDeleteI'm flying to DBV direct and driving 3.5 hours to my apt in Split. EWR to SPU direct. Lets go!!!
Delete