Less than a year since launching operations from Zagreb and establishing a base in Croatia’s capital, several of Ryanair’s routes are among the airport’s busiest. During the first quarter of the year, Ryanair’s operations to London Stansted and Dublin have performed particularly well. The airline handled 18.051 travellers between Zagreb and the capital of the United Kingdom, with just over 13.000 travellers on its Dublin service over the three-month period. London Stansted is also the budget carrier’s most frequent destination out of Zagreb. In a statement to EX-YU Aviation News, Ryanair confirmed, “Currently, we are really satisfied with the majority of the markets served out of Zagreb. For example, the UK market performs really well, as well as Ireland with the Dublin route”.
Launched last July, it took just two months for Ryanair to close in on Croatia Airlines’ and British Airways’ figures on their competing Zagreb - Heathrow route. In September, the two national airlines handled a total of 7.544 passengers between the two cities, while Ryanair welcomed 6.842 travellers on its Stansted service, a difference of just over 700 customers. In October, the difference between the two shortened to just 234 passengers, while Ryanair has been handling more travellers between the two capitals since November of last year, when it had double the number of passengers. During the ongoing second quarter of the year, Ryanair has reduced its frequencies to London, along with a number of other routes from Zagreb, although British Airways has also heavily downsized its operations from Heathrow to the Croatian capital.
Overall, Frankfurt remains Zagreb’s busiest destination with 46.172 passengers travelling between the two cities during the first quarter of the year on Croatia Airlines and Lufthansa. The figure is still down 34.7% on the pre-pandemic 2019. Furthermore, Ryanair has also taken away some passengers from the two legacy carriers by launching operations from Zagreb to Hahn. Following behind are flights between the Croatian capital and Amsterdam with 36.297 travellers handled during the first quarter on Croatia Airlines and KLM. The figure is ahead of 2019 levels by 3.2%. The Amsterdam route has performed well throughout the pandemic. Dubrovnik was Zagreb’s busiest domestic route during the first three months with 28.326 passengers, followed by Split with 24.242 travellers. Both are still notably down on 2019, by 45.2% and 30.6% respectively.
“Launched last July, it took just two months for Ryanair to close in on Croatia Airlines’ and British Airways’ figures on their competing Zagreb - Heathrow route.”
ReplyDeleteThis just proves what a nightmare Ryanair is for Croatia Airlines in Zagreb.
+1
DeleteAnd their response was to run away from Zagreb and launch flights from Split.
DeleteAnd OU suspends Dublin in peak summer.
DeleteWell, after years and years of monopoly on a LDN - ZG route by BA and OU, arrival of Ryanair shaked things up a bit. This competition was well needed especially since the legacy carriers would kept the prices high and you couldn't get a return ticket with them for less than £200. During the holiday season they would hacked the prices up and expect you to pay + £350 on this route. For that money I could fly to New York. If the legacy carriers won't lower the prices and compete with LCC, well that's on them.
DeleteThe London route really needed a low cost alternative. Things started going in the right direction when Monarch started flights but the airline went bankrupt and OU and BA enjoyed their duopoly on the route for quite a while.
Delete@09.08
DeleteIt is questionable if they will restore Dublin at all.
This goes to show that most of Zagreb’s recovery is the result of Ryanair if Frankfurt route is still over 30% down on 2019.
ReplyDeleteThis was Q1 when travel was still slow. Let's wait and see what the numbers will be like in Q2.
DeleteRyanair's cheap fares are changing attitudes towards air travel. It is generating more interest for Croats to travel and they are now doing more weekend city breaks.
DeleteAmen
DeleteWell done Ryanair.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised at how popular ZAG-AMS-ZAG is.
ReplyDeleteLots of transfers.
DeleteTo where? US/Canada or other European destinations?
DeleteN. America. primarily.
DeleteUS and Latin America, North Europe
DeleteInteresting. Thanks
DeleteThey were very popular during Covid considering KLM maintained flights to most of the world unlike their West European competitors.
DeleteFR took over a lot of point to point passengers on routes like London. No need to pay high prices for a short flight.
ReplyDeleteIt's good that they don't compete on too many routes head to head.
DeleteSo what routes is FR competing directly against OU?
DeleteAnd I don't mean alternative airports, I mean head to head
DeleteOnly Dublin
DeleteThey have avoided competed head to head against anyone because they would not be eligible for incentives. They must start a route not operated from ZAG in the last two years.
DeleteGot it, thanks
DeleteI think Stansted should definitely become at least 2 daily similar to many other EU capitals.
DeleteI doubt they will have competition on the Dublin route much longer.
DeleteThe way things are going, they probably won't.
DeleteHow many frequencies do each of the airlines have to London? BA, OU and FR?
ReplyDeleteBA has 5 weekly while OU 4. FR has 5 weekly atm but going daily from 1 June I think.
DeleteYes it goes back to daily from 1st of June.
DeleteWhat is BA's usual frequency. I know its currently reduced due to crew shortage but how many times per week do they generally operate this route?
Delete11 weekly
DeleteI'm not surprised about Dublin considering how strong Ryanair is there.
ReplyDeleteThey are also much cheaper than OU.
DeleteManchester is doing quite well for them too.
ReplyDeleteWould be interesting also to analyze the demand from Ljubljana to these places as I'm sure they will contribute to Ryanair's flights.
ReplyDeleteNobody, LJU is still unfazed by Ryanair, says Fraport.
DeleteImagine they built a high speed rail between Zagreb and Ljubljana.
DeleteThats exactly what I've been thinking. Imagine a high speed rail line going from Ljubljana Central to Zagreb Central, and then they could transfer onto another train going to the airport. That would benefit both ZAG and Slovenian passengers
DeleteA new era for Zagreb. Thanks FR
ReplyDeleteNew era for ZAG but also for Croatia Airlines. Unfortunately for them don't think it will be so good.
DeleteAll of their routes will take a way a lot of passengers from Croatia Airlines.
ReplyDeleteIt's game over for Croatia Airlines.
Delete+1
DeleteWhat other destinations could we see Ryanair add in the future?
ReplyDeleteDefinitely think more Iberian routes are needed, Israel and Jordan.
Delete+1 on Israel and maybe domestic flights
DeleteSo basically only gastos routes are being filled completely lol.
ReplyDeleteAmsterdam is a gasto route?
DeleteI am interested on how Eindhoven is performing and if that route has caused Amsterdam to perform less than they would have otherwise.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't seem to have had a major impact considering the Amsterdam route is performing better than before Covid.
DeleteI don't think it has a big impact on AMS since it seems majority of AMS passengers are transfers.
DeleteI always thought there would be more passengers between Zagreb and Split than Zagreb and Dubrovnik.
ReplyDelete* thought
DeleteI think it's always like that in Q1 but eventually Split has more passengers over the entire year.
DeleteWell no, Split is easily accesible by road.
DeleteDubrovnik is 2x farther away from Zagreb and the roads leading to Dubrovnik arent highways, but state roads
DeleteStill waiting for OU to respond.
ReplyDeleteThey never will.
DeleteThey are performing well on Zagreb-German market too.
ReplyDeleteFRA is way down on 2019 not just because of Covid but because Ryan took away a lot of passengers who used LH/OU to reach other European destinations via Frankfurt which were not served from Zagreb but are now offered.
ReplyDeleteAgree. Zagreb finally got some much needed routes ignored by Croatia Airlines for years. Well done.
DeleteOU could have at least done SKG with Dash.
DeleteI can't believe Croatia Airlines never considered Thessaloniki or Cyprus.
DeleteSKG? Why would OU even consider that? This is not Serbia so people go on holidays to Thessaloniki.
DeleteThankfully Ryanair considered it and launched flights to Thessaloniki. Because Croatia Airlines rarely considers anything other than being a Lufthansa feeder, that is why has millions in losses and millions in debt.
Delete@An.20.36
DeleteMaybe because Greek diaspora in North and West Europe and North America is huuuuuge, and combined with croatian coast, ex-yu, Albania, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary enormous potential source of transfer passengers. Oh, wait, you are right, why would OU consider it, it has LH to feed, for peanuts, on expense on croatian tax payers
Dedicated to POZDRAV the song from the swedish music group Army of lovers : OBSESSION !
DeleteThe only obsession here is obsession of Adeze bots and Uhljebs to spit on me in order to advocate crime, corruption and incompetence in OU, which led to its feeder status and zillion of lost opportunities and wasted potentials
DeleteYou snooze you loose. Not surprised.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if they would consider OTP in the future. It seems that SOF didn't go so bad after all. Flights are already available for winter 2022/2023 though oddly removed in June only.
ReplyDeleteI also think OTP is highly likely.
DeleteWasn't Croatia Airlines supposed to start OTP a few years ago?
DeleteNo, they were flying OTP. Suspended during covid and never restored.
DeleteOTP is LJU's busiest unserved route out of many, so Ryanair will definitely launch ZAG-OTP, because LJU is world champion in missed oppurtunities (between airports). Bravo Fraport!
DeleteMálaga route is performing very well, they should increase it to three weekly!
ReplyDeleteReally happy they took a chance with this route and that it is performing well.
DeleteMálaga is pretty cool and you have many many places in the surroundings. Ronda is an absolute must, Caminito del Rey walkway in the middle of the mountain, Torremolinos, Fuengirola and also Granada is not far away. Not to mention Córdoba. There are more and more Brits choosing to live here for obvious reasons. Definitely a year-round destination that is worth it. AGP is getting closer to traffic compared to Mallorca according to AENA:
Deletehttps://www.aena.es/es/estadisticas/inicio.html
In April it had more than 1,6 million passengers!
1,6 million passengers. Wow!
DeleteWhat I don't get is that if Ryanair is performing well on its routes, why did they reduce their Zagreb flights by so much in May and June?
ReplyDeleteThey have crew shortage and had to station plane somewhere else.
DeleteSeems like FR just took passengers from others.
ReplyDeleteI'm shocked that the Bravo Hrvatska guy has not written today.
ReplyDeleteIn this case Bravo Ryanair.
DeleteNot bad at all. EX-YU Admin: Any info how many passengers Turkish Airlines had to/from ZAG in Q1?
ReplyDeleteTurkish Airlines handled 29.553 passengers during the first quarter.
DeleteThank you so much!
DeleteOh and one last thing, how is this compared to 2019 same time frame?
DeleteIn the first quarter of 2019 there were 31.305 passengers on this route. Therefore, current figure is down 5.6% on 2019.
DeleteNice, not bad at all!
DeleteBig surprise Frankfort being the busiest route :D what are the current frequencies for LH and OU on this route?
ReplyDeleteSeveral per day
DeleteI wonder how is FRA doing on the routes from ZAD?
ReplyDeleteThey should definitely put ZAG-AGP 3 times per week, people like to travel a lot to Malaga. At my work everyone are saying how they want to go to Malaga and they plan to return because it is so much things close to AGP which they still did not see. Malaga is a heart of Andalusia and from Malaga by car isn't far to any touristic destination. Finally a great route for Ryanair!
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteThe Malaga troll is back
DeleteDoes anyone know the real reason why there were so many cancelled routes in ZAG?
ReplyDeletePoor loads and an even worse yield. If all these routes were a goldmine they would have kept them going somehow.
DeleteI don't think so. They said they needed a plane based in Zagreb for another base. And it's logical since they get money for flying to Zagreb.
DeleteThe other day, one guy here claimed Transat cancelled Tuesday June 7 ZAG flight from Toronto due to poor loads, probably even worse yield. Couple of days later, information published Transat starts Tuesday ZAG flight on June 14. Just draw the parallel...
DeleteThey were selling tickets for flights before 14 June
DeleteThey were not for Tuesday flights. They did for Saturday flights which started beginning May. Tuesday flights were never planned before June 14 and tickets for Tuesday flights were never on sale before.
DeleteSo there still were cancelled flights
DeleteYes, of course, flights on June 7 were never on sale therefore couldn't be cancelled, but black is not black, black is white, because you say so
Delete