Zagreb Airport is unlikely to see the introduction of nonstop flights from the United States next year despite favourable circumstances for the launch of the much-awaited services. Although the major US carriers have not completely finalised their 2023 summer operations, all have announced their planned new long haul routes for the coming year. United Airlines will resume seasonal operations from Newark to Dubrovnik on May 26, which will run four times per week until September 27. Zagreb Airport recently said, “We are working on the establishment of nonstop flights between the United States and Zagreb. However, ultimately, whether these services will be introduced depends on the commercial decision of the individual carrier”.
New York is Zagreb’s busiest unserved destinations in the United States, accounting for 21% of all passengers between the Croatian capital and the US. It is followed by Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, Miami, Boston and Houston. Lufthansa shuttles the most passengers between Zagreb and the States, accounting for 22% of all indirect travellers. It is followed by Croatia Airlines, which benefits from the notable number of codeshare partnerships it has with airlines flying to the US, including Lufthansa. British Airways also accounts for a sizeable number of transfer passengers between the two markets. Croatian passport holders no longer require a visa to enter the United States.
Zagreb's busiest unserved US destinations
Zagreb Airport currently offers airlines incentives for the establishment of long haul flights, that is, service that are seven hours or longer. They include discounts on landing fees and the passenger service charge. The reduction in fees is dependent on whether services are operated on a year-round or seasonal basis. Incentives are also available for long haul charter flights. “Zagreb Airport had a notable number of passengers from the Far East, Australia and North America. We expect the gradual resumption of these services between 2022 and 2025”, the airport previously noted. The last time Zagreb boasted scheduled flights to the United States was during the summer of 1991, when Pan Am maintained four weekly nonstop roundtrips from New York with its Airbus A310 aircraft. Prior to that, JAT Yugoslav Airlines ran services from Zagreb to New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.
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Let's see with JU increasing both ZAG and US flights if their share will grow on the ZAG-USA market.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteTo be honest it makes sense that American tourists are interested to go to the coast...
ReplyDeleteCould work at least seasonally to Zagreb
DeleteUA always made the most sense since OU is in Star Alliance and can offer good onward connections to the region.
DeleteWhat are the new long haul routes UA will launch next summer?
DeleteNewark-Malaga
DeleteNewark-Dubai
San Francisco -Rome
Chicago-Shannon
Washington DC-Berlin
Chicago-Berlin
Not bad at all. Thanks.
DeleteMalaga! wow
DeleteIt's not that surprising. Similar destination like Dubrovnik.
DeleteMalaga similar like Dubrovnik........Hahahahahaha
DeleteNewark is just crazy busy, especially in the summer months. Connecting flights are often severely delayed or cancelled due to various reasons. I highly doubt UA will be able to expand any further there unless they expand the terminal. I personally try to avoid any East Coast airport, especially EWR and IAD due to frequent delays and cancellations.
Delete747 - I have to join your laugh to the guy saying Malaga is similar to Dubrovnik :)))
DeleteNewark just opened terminal One adding 33 gates and increasing capacity by 25%
DeleteInstead of buying a220s, croatia should acquire one or two 757s on pay when fly basis, so they can just put them in storage in winter
ReplyDeleteThe E.U are introducing a new Environmental tax on more polluting Aircraft. That is why OU needs rid of it's Airbuses, as it will cost them millions of pounds a year in extra taxes. So a Boeing 757 would be a very bad idea!
DeleteAlso, 757s don't have enough range for this route. Maybe in the summer months, but in the winter time, due to strong headwinds, they would have to make a technical stop to refuel.
DeleteInitial OU plans for the fleet were MD80 for short and medium haul and B767 for long haul. Afterwards, crooks and criminals took over
DeleteSeems like demand is changing. LO will not be renewing BUD-JFK, OS is reducing VIE-JFK to just 3 weekly and is focusing on EWR and UA transfers...
ReplyDeleteDemand is booming in Spain and Greece every summer Croatia could do that too. ATH in 2019 had services to New York and Philadelphia now they got ORD, ATL, BOS, IAD too.
DeleteWhere is the Croatian diaspora in the US mainly concentrated?
ReplyDeleteChicago
DeleteInteresting that New York is no. 1
DeleteIt is number 1 because it offers the most connections.
DeleteZagreb is used by a lot of Bosnian diaspora too. This is clearly evident from the list of those cities, (St. Louis, Seattle, Des Moines, Phoenix, etc.) who house large communities from Bosnia. Keep in mind that SJJ is very poorly connected with any Western European hubs. You can reach Western and Northern Bosnia faster from ZAG than SJJ. That's why many Bosnians from both US and Canada opt to fly to ZAG instead.
DeleteNew York has the largest Croat community in the USA
DeleteConditions are good for the US flights. Don't know what they are waiting for.
ReplyDeleteWaiting for more crews, there is a big pilot shortage in the USA and it will take a few years to get fully staffed. So more an internal airline problem then anything else.
DeleteSeems like that pilot shortage has been ongoing for 30 years.
DeleteNew York flights are long overdue.
ReplyDeleteAnd the connecting traffic you would have from Zagreb too, to domestic destinations and some in the region like SKP for example.
Delete@10,05
DeleteSome destinations in the region, not including their domestic network, is only 2 - SKP and SJJ.
They are trying but they can't force an airline to start flights. They say in the article "We are working on the establishment of nonstop flights between the United States and Zagreb. However, ultimately, whether these services will be introduced depends on the commercial decision of the individual carrier”
ReplyDeleteEvery year they are talking to someone and trying... But nothing. This has been the case since 2012.
DeleteThey have been delaying flights from Zagreb to US each year. Hope it finally happens in 2024!
DeleteZagrebovanje
Delete2019:
DeleteTwo airlines from the United States have expressed interest in launching nonstop flights to Zagreb, however, it could take several years until the service materialises. The Director of the Croatian National Tourist Office in New York, Ina Rodin, said, "We are in serious talks with two large carriers and we hope that within the next two to three years we can establish nonstop flights between New York and Zagreb".
Fingers crossed there will be nonstop flights one day.
DeleteThe only chance of these US flights happening is for Croatia Airlines to lease a widebody and start it themselves. This would also allow them to start other markets like Korea.
ReplyDeleteApart from that being extremely expensive, I don't see much point in OU doing that. They already carry a lot of transfers to the US. Why bother with an expensive route when you can just shuttle people to Frankfurt which seems to be their only successful destination.
Delete^ And that's how they loose so much money. On a ZAG-FRA-JFK ticket they get peanuts for the ZAG-FRA sector, even less than they would get on a point to point ticket while Lufthansa gets over 90% of the ticket value. With fares to the US not being expensive in the first place, OU gets very little money from it.
DeleteIf Aegean isn't flying to the US then OU shouldn't either.
DeleteExactly. FRA is not successfull. FRA is just the most frequent, and frequencies intended and meant for LH to do long haul traffic to and from Croatia. The only thing OU is doing successfully is feeding LH for peanuts
DeleteExactly was for @09.29
Delete@09,20
DeleteFRA might seem to be a successful route due to the large amount of frequencies, but overall, OU makes heavy losses. In 2019, the last proper year of operations, their losses amounted to 10.7 million EUR or roughly 892.000€ per aircraft.
Doing a quick search for ZAG-JFK tickets, OU don't sell them directly on their site, while using other sites such as Skyscanner and Google Flights for example, not a single flight involving at least 1 sector on OU includes a stop in FRA, it's mostly AMS or CDG. Google Flights show the average return fares are between 540-810€. If OU is making around 10% of that fare as people are claiming, that is horrible yield.
I can only dream that one day Croatia Airlines will start long haul flights.
ReplyDeleteWith what money and what supporting network?
DeleteLong-haul routes are only economically worthwhile via a large hub with a large number of feeder flights. Otherwise the price is not competitive. That is why Lufthansa, for example, does not fly HAM/BER-NY or Ageon ATH-NY.
DeleteCroatia might offer a few charter flights at most in the summer, but then more to the coast than Zagreb. If any. I don't see a chance against LH/AF KLM/BA.
does Air Serbia now actually earn money from long-haul routes or is that still subsidized?
*Aegean (sorry)
DeleteYes, Air Serbia's New York route has been profitable since 2020.
DeleteGreat job! But overall not profitable yet, right?
DeleteI just told you they have been profitable on the route since 2020.
DeleteMy request was for the whole company, not one route.
DeleteAlthough I do wonder how is it relevant for this article, you can simply search the articles here to find your answer.
Deletequite simply, many suggest croatia is to fly long distance. But apart from the big 3 (LH, BA, AF -Group) I can't think of any airlines in europe that do this and don't make any losses overall.
Delete@10,36
DeleteA3 should enter the long haul market. The fact that they haven't baffles me. They have an excellent hub in ATH, decent frequencies, Star Alliance member, fantastic profits.
For LH, their hubs are FRA and MUC, not HAM and BER.
As for JU, JFK is making them money. In fact, JU have stated that JFK is one of their most profitable routes. Their 2019 results show losses were roughly 9.5 million Euros when subsidies were not included or 432.000€ per aircraft. This is after JU had a massive 2019 expansion. Since then, YU-ARA was replaced with YU-ARB at roughly half the lease price (roughly 3 million EUR in savings alone). JU also had expensive aircraft leases with compliments to EY, which JU have been replacing or renegotiating lease rates. JU also had a large amount of aging aircraft which definately would not have been cheap to maintain regardless of them being fully owned by them. A number of factors could be reasons why JU is not producing profits, while JFK might actually be a reason why their losses are not larger.
I just wanted to point out that without a very strong HUB, long haul is very difficult. Small and medium long-haul European airlines are generally not profitable overall (TAP, SAS, Alitalia, etc). don't know if LOT or Finnair are profitable
Delete@14,14
DeleteLOT and AY were both profitable in 2019. Both were investing alot in fleet renewal programs. AY this year announced a US$200 million investment plan for updating its long haul product on both the A350's and A330's. They also intended to soend roughly 4 billion Euros in a fleet renewal program. One of AY's biggest problems currently is the Russian airspace closure, which makes their HEL hub less competitive as previously. Cost of hiring Finnish crew is also expensive, high social taxes and high salaries, which have pushed them to start outsourcing cabin crew.
LOT has also invested heavily in their fleet renewal programs, which hasn't gone well for them. The issues with the B787 and B737MAX has been horrible for them. LOT claims that the MAX grounding cost them over US$250 million in damages alone.
AZ for decades has had problems with their finances. Since 1946, they only had 1 year of profit (1998). Long haul routes were the least of their problems.
SAS was also profitable in 2019. They have invested alot in fleet renewal programs as well. Their bigger issues are similar to AY - cost of local staff and the closure of Russian airspace.
Well I do hope flights eventually start to the US. I was hoping for next summer but seems unlikely.
ReplyDeleteWhen looking at Zagreb's US potential and demand one should also look at Ljubljana's/Slovenia's since ZAG can easily capture that market.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteI've lost all hope for the US flights.
ReplyDeleteex-OU CEO Kucko once said that Croatia doesn't need direct flights to NY because ZAG already has so many options to NY and elsewhere in the US with 1-stop connections over Europe...
ReplyDeleteLufthansa connects everywhere for OU!
DeleteMaybe if ties with LH were not that strong, they would be able to launch flights to there.
DeleteZAG-NYC route will be more successful than some European ones.
ReplyDeleteI don't get the hype about direct flights to the US. Ticket price can't be that much lower than with a single stop in Frankfurt or Munich.
ReplyDeleteUSA passengers prefer nonstop flights and connections in USA.
DeleteNo we don't. Connecting in USA is a major hassle when traveling to Europe, compared to connecting in Europe.
DeleteBecause on the return flight, you must retrieve your luggage and pass security as soon as you land in USA. It's an inconvenience.
From which city did Pan Am fly from to Zagreb?
ReplyDeleteIt says in the article. " The last time Zagreb boasted scheduled flights to the United States was during the summer of 1991, when Pan Am maintained four weekly nonstop roundtrips from New York with its Airbus A310 aircraft."
DeleteOops true. Thanks.
DeleteI wonder which airline would be potentially interested in operating JFK-ZAG flights
ReplyDeleteI think eventually Delta might come. We will see.
DeleteWould be interesting to see how much flights to JFK would bring in new tourists.
ReplyDeleteWell I do hope flights eventually start.
ReplyDeleteToo seasonal market.
ReplyDeleteThere could be seasonal flights.
DeleteMarket is unfortunately too small and the yields are too low.
DeleteNo visas for locals, big tourist market in Croatia, good connections to rest of domestic airports from Zagreb... Really the conditions are there. Don't know why there are still no flights.
ReplyDeleteIs there any chance we will see Delta and American back in Dubrovnik first?
ReplyDeleteIt's unfortunate more wasn't done to establish flights to JFK
ReplyDeleteYou can make one stop in Duborvnik from Zagreb and land in Newark in summer. No point of having DCT flights from Zagreb.
ReplyDeleteJust add one A321NEO LR to the A220 order and boom, done. This seems like a no brainer to me not to mention that the A321 could still be used on the thickest short range flights during the winter.
ReplyDeleteImagine AS proposing to ZAG to make BEG-ZAG-JFK-ZAG-BEG route once per week. :) That would be hilarious.
ReplyDeleteBest would be UA due to code shares. OU could take the initiative and ask UA for a 50/50 deal, UA operated aircraft, with good OU connections to SPU DBV SJJ TGD SKP ZAD RJK PUY. Not sure about PRN and TIA, I dont see them in OUs SUTT 2023. LJU could be served by OU Bus. Even VIE could be served, as only OS is operating out of VIE to the US.
ReplyDeletePozdrav iz Rijeke is absolutely right, a good management could hve secured these flights already years ago. ZAG has a state of the art airport, short ways, ideal for connections, so use it!