Zagreb Airport has witnessed several routes approach or surpass pre-pandemic passenger levels during the first half of the year, despite the advent of Ryanair, which has launched a number of flights that both directly and indirectly compete against legacy carriers. Services between Zagreb and Amsterdam are already performing above pre-Covid levels, with passenger numbers up 14.4% on the same period in 2019. Both Croatia Airlines and KLM maintain between the two cities. Turkish Airlines has been another strong performer, with its passenger figures up 10.8% on its Zagreb route compared to three years ago. Despite a slower January - March period for the carrier, numbers picked up during the second quarter.
Zagreb performance on select routes, H1 2022
Data shows the London Heathrow service is approaching pre-Covid passenger levels, with second quarter figures outperforming those in 2019. This is despite Ryanair launching flights between the Croatian capital and London Stansted. Although the Heathrow service is maintained by both Croatia Airlines and British Airways, Europe’s largest carrier singlehandedly welcomed almost the same number of passengers on its London service. In addition, passenger numbers between Zagreb and Dublin are outstripping 2019 levels, with both Ryanair and Croatia Airlines operating the route during the first half of the year. The Croatian carrier has since suspended the service but is set to restore flights this upcoming winter season.
Other routes are still significantly behind 2019 levels, in particular the likes of Frankfurt, Vienna, Brussels and Cologne, which were all impacted by lockdowns and strict coronavirus related measures during the first quarter of the year. Passenger numbers on the Dubai service are also notably down on three years ago, although this is mostly the result of Emirates’ absence during the second quarter. As a result, figures on the route have declined 59% on 2019, highlighting the importance of Emirates’ wide-body operations. Croatia Airlines’ busiest domestic routes, from Zagreb to Dubrovnik and Split, have reached 62% and 77% of their pre-Covid traveller levels, respectively.
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Any particular reason why Amsterdam is performing so well?
ReplyDeleteI guess more people are choosing to transfer via AMS. I remember it was very popular last year which is why KLM maintained so many flights.
DeleteI believe KLM has more flights than it did in 2019.
DeleteI would choose KLM over Lufthansa and transfer through Amsterdam rather than Frankfurt any day.
DeleteAt the moment I don't know which is worse considering all the delays, cancellations and passengers caps.
DeleteI was talking in general.
DeleteProbably KLM. My girlfriend come from USA through Amstardam by KLM to Split and ticket was surprisingly cheap.
DeleteAMS was one of that rare hubs operating relatively normally during the pandemic and especially last year. AMS frequencies were already above pre-covid levels last year. I think many have migrated to KLM from Lufthansa in the last year, at least from Zagreb.
DeleteKE announced the resumption of ICN-BUD so hopefully they also reconsider ZAG since it's a massive market with great potential for growth.
ReplyDeleteActually the fact that they introduced BUD means less chances for ZAG as these 2 cities are not that far and many Koreans use only one airport to land in Europe. From that airport further they visit other surrounding countries by bus.
DeleteDidn't they fly to both airports before too?
Delete:Anonymous 09:56:
DeleteNo, Korean only planned to fly to BUD from May 2020, but it was cancelled because of Covid. LOT flies from BUD to ICN from 2019
Anonymous 10:30:
DeleteCorrection: Only PAX flights were cancelled, cargo flights are available from February 2020
No Belgrade or any other Ex-Yu route in sight?
ReplyDeleteNo since O&D demand is minimal..
DeleteThe only other one they have is TGD. You make it sound as if there are hundreds.
DeleteRead the article it says select destinations. It has nothing to do with passenger numbers.
Delete@9.05 there is also Skopje.
DeleteOf course it has to do with passenger numbers. If some ExYu route was outperforming pre-covid numbers, it would be on the list. Even if it was close it would be on the list.
DeleteThere is no available data for destinations from Zagreb to other cities in the former Yugoslavia, which is why they are not included on the list. It is not related to whether the figures were close or below pre-pandemic levels.
DeleteSo FRA accounted for almost 10% of all passengers at ZAG during the first half.
ReplyDeleteYes. Not such a big surprise. There are the most flights to FRA.
DeleteIt's impressive that LHR managed to outperform 2019 in the second quarter considering all the trouble at Heathrow and the fact that British Airways was reducing flights constantly.
ReplyDeleteMy thoughts too
DeleteBA was only seemingly "reducing" flights - that was the perception, because they announced 13pw at the start of the summer 2022, but in reality they operated between 8 and 11, depending on a particular week during spring. The truth of the matter is that this is still a greater number of operations, as in 2019 BA operated 7pw. Those are the facts.
Delete^ Did not know that. Makes sense. Thanks
DeleteIt is still pretty good numbers, considering Ryanair is flying Stansted.
DeleteGood job TK!
ReplyDeleteAmazing that Croatia Airlines has made no attempt to resume flights to Istanbul.
DeleteOr at least conclude a codeshare with TK.
DeleteThey could cooperate with TK and have an afternoon flights to IST, similar to what JU has.
DeleteDoes someone know how many passengers were on LJU-IST route in H1? Thank you.
DeleteThere were 53.137 passengers on the Istanbul - Ljubljana route in H1.
DeleteThank you. This number is actually very good, taking in consideration that many Slovenes fly to IST also from ZAG or VCE or VIE.
DeleteTK seems to be doing well on all ex-Yu markets.
DeleteThey are actually doing better than any European flag carrier or ME3B Emirates, Qatar in all markets except for India and Australia.....
DeleteIt helps that many of their fares are rather cheap.
DeleteUsed to be cheap.
DeleteMoscow has a large number considering flights were operating for just 2 months.
ReplyDeleteYes there was huge demand at the start of the year because of vaccinations. Aeroflot was adding capacity and frequencies.
DeleteAeroflot sent the A330 to ZAG several times during that period.
DeleteAh yes forgot about that.
DeleteAnd S7 and Rossiya also started flights.
DeleteS7 never launched. Flights were canceled before they started. And Rossiya operated from LED.
DeleteI meant an increase of flights from Russia in general. But you are right, S7 did cancel its flights before they started. My bad.
DeleteAre there usually more passengers from Zagreb to Dubrovnik than to Split?
ReplyDeleteYes
DeleteSo the numbers show Ryanair didn't do much damage to any airline.
ReplyDeleteExactly. They created a whole new market of passengers.
DeleteI'm sure it has had an impact on some routes but not all of course. Maybe their Charleroi flights is the reason for Brussel's poor performance.
DeleteBravo Hrvatska!
ReplyDeleteWas expecting more passengers to BRU considering the number of flights.
ReplyDeleteProbably much less travel by EU officials considering that many meetings have moved online and there have been fewer in-person summits and events.
DeleteCorrect Anon 09:40
DeleteBRU airport overall is still 30% down so far this year compared with 2019.
Do you think it also may be an impact of Ryanair flying to Charleroi?
DeleteInteresting numbers
ReplyDeleteSo there are just a bit more passengers on the DXB-ZAG route than on DXB-LJU.
ReplyDeletePassenger numbers don't always mean much. The fact that LJU is going daily is an indication that yields on the route are very good.
DeleteIt was supposed to become daily already in summer but it stayed 5 weekly. Just hope that it doesn't happen again.
DeleteIt was never planned to become daily in summer.
DeleteYes it was.
DeleteNo it wasn't.
DeleteIt really never was planned to go to daily during the summer. It was increased to 5 weekly
Delete"The airline, which commenced three weekly services to Ljubljana last September, will add a further two weekly rotations for a total of five starting June 25. Prior to that, the carrier also plans to run four weekly flights during the first week of February and six rotations during the second week of the same month as a one-off due to strong demand."
https://www.exyuaviation.com/2022/01/flydubai-to-grow-operations-to-former.html
Yes it was.
Delete"Flydubai will be increasing frequencies between its hub in the United Arab Emirates and Ljubljana to daily this summer. The route, which was launched at three times per week last September, is currently being maintained five times per week. It will increase to daily from June 27. The extra frequencies will run until September 19, when services will return to five per week. Flydubai’s Ljubljana operations are codeshared by Emirates. All flights are operated by the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft."
On article from 23 March. Read more next time.
FZ struggled with MAX capacity which is probably why they didn't increase it to daily (LJU). We can see that LJU is in their focus and after BEG it is definitely shaping to become their strongest market. Unlike most others, they can fly to LJU the whole year.
DeleteWould be interesting to see BEG load factor too. Especially since they have 2 daily flights.
DeleteIt was published here the other day that their passenger numbers in Belgrade for the first quarter was 29,641. So if you can find the number of flights they had then you can calculate it.
DeleteThe Belgrade average load factor was 70%.. Total of 256 flights during Q1.
DeleteWhat about SKP?
ReplyDeleteIt says select routes. Obviously there is no data for SKP. People should really try reading what it says.
DeleteI wonder what are the SKP numbers, regardless
DeleteLondon performing really well for Ryanair.
ReplyDeleteIt is their strongest route.
DeleteIt is FR's only daily route.
DeleteJust goes to show how much potential there is on the London route. Monarch was also doing really well on its Zagreb flights before it went belly up. I'm surprised Wizz or easyjet never have it a shot.
DeleteWizz used to fly zag-Lon about 10-12 years ago and easyJet did for a short time.
DeleteThey should have considered restoring them at some point. They would have had the same success as Ryanair.
DeleteDon't forget that neither easy or Wizz were offered the same discounts and incentives as Ryanair.
DeleteIt would be interesting to see the load factor for each route.
ReplyDeleteIt is not difficult to calculate for some routes. For example there were 200 Zagreb-Dubai-Zagreb flights (100 in each direction) during the first half of the year. If you divide the number of passengers by capacity (all flights were on the MAX 8) then you get an average load factor of around 62%.
DeleteThat's not that great.
Delete@10.41 could you calculate the Ljubljana load factor? In an article the other day it was mentioned that there were 20,507 passengers during the first half of the year.
Delete56%
DeleteYep 56%. Total of 220 flights (110 each way)
DeleteHmm maybe the advanced bookings for winter and autumn / spring were so good that they increased the frequency?
DeleteMost likely. They certainly didn't increase for the fun of it. Winter is high season in Dubai.
DeleteHow many frequencies will FZ have to Zagreb this winter?
Delete4 weekly
DeleteHope we see these numbers for all airports :D I always find it interesting to see these even though they don't necessarily show whether a route is successful or not.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteI am Schocked how small market between ZAG and SPU and DUB is. 60000/70000 respectively in H1 is small as I always thought those are super busy routes.
ReplyDeleteComparing to BEG TIV/TGD this is much less and I am very much surprised.
To quote for the article about TIV from few days ago (figures are for full year):
"The number of passengers on the busy Belgrade - Tivat service fully recovered last year and exceeded pre-pandemic traffic figures. During 2021, Air Serbia and Air Montenegro handled a total of 252.540 passengers between the two cities, up 6.8% on 2019 when the figure stood at 236.378 travellers."
This means that BEG-TIV is 70% bigger then ZAG-DUB. No wander why all Croatian domestic routes are subsedised as PSO.
DUB is Dublin. Dubrovnik is DBV. The markets mentioned are not small. They are just perfect example of wasted potentials and incompetence and inertness of OU. If they created network to be filled from SPU and DBV, long-haul included, if they offered acceptable prices, especially with winter PSO, if they managed to take over one part of pax flying to the coast on other airlines, if they didn't feed LH from the coast instead its own hub, this numbers would explode and be at least triple. So it is not about small markets, it is not about airports and not about pax, all answers are in Croatia Airlines, which is corrupted, rotten, mismanaged and without any vision, idea or interest to do anything what is the purpose of their existence
DeleteThank God there is no hub in Zagreb, since most of social cases uhljebi live there and have no vision.
DeleteCompare the travel time by car Zagreb Split and Belgrade Tivat. Then you will know why.
DeleteDid anyone understand what @An.12.17 was trying to say? Maybe I am stupid, as I tried several times and I couldn't relate or connect or comprehend anything. Someone can help?
DeleteCroatia is in EU so if I am not mistaken, any EU carrier can fly from Croatia to any point (say US). So, if SPU and DBV are such a gold mine, how come noone flies long haul?
DeletePozdrav iz Rijeke, surely some corrupt uhljeb :)
DeleteAn. 16.24
DeleteDelta, American and United are flying or have flown to DBV before pLandemic. Air Transat gave up SPU because of taxiway /apron/congestion issue. Cartel 3-4 daily, KLM 3 daily, British 2 daily, Finnair, LOT, SAS, Iberia, Austrian, Air Serbia, Turkish minimum daily, they all have more transfer passengers than P2P. P2P are coming mostly with LCC, leisure and charter carriers. If Croatia Airlines was an airline, and not money laundry machine and Uhljeb sanctuary, at least half of the mentioned could have been transferring via ZAG. But obviously you know better, especially if sandwich is with extra mayo. Maybe even an apple pie for the best inhrigade
Zagrebs biggest growth potential would have been Russia .
ReplyDeleteConnections before were never good but in the last years grew a lot and proved to be very successful .
Remember the World Cup in 2018 when Zagreb got 777s from Aeroflot and Rossiya .
Again Zagreb is hit by decisions by others totally unrelated to Croatia .
EU-membership proves to be no game changer for Zagreb airport at all .
Your logic is just stupid
DeleteGood to see that many routes are already above pandemic levels.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised that there aren't more passengers to Zurich. It is such a strong routes from many ex-Yu markets.
ReplyDelete*route
DeleteThe Croatian diaspora isn't as big in Switzerland as the Serbian, Albanian, Bosnian and even Macedonian one. Swiss doesn't even fly to Zagreb.
Delete