Several destinations within Zagreb Airport’s top ten busiest surpassed their pre-Covid passenger performance during the first two months of the year, data provided by the European Statistical Office shows. During the first two months, Frankfurt remained the airport’s busiest route, with 35.500 passengers handled jointly by Croatia Airlines and Lufthansa, although figures were still down 20.8% on the same period in 2020. Notably, the Lufthansa Group’s hubs within the top ten busiest - Frankfurt, Munich and Vienna - all failed to reach their pre-pandemic passenger figures. However, during this time, both Frankfurt and Munich were hit by industrial action, forcing the cancellation of a number of flights from Zagreb to the two German cities in February.
Zagreb Airport's busiest routes, January - February 2023
Turkish Airlines performed strongly during the first two months, establishing Istanbul as Zagreb’s second busiest route and improving its performance by a notable 34.2% on three years ago. Several other destinations within Zagreb Airport’s top ten busiest also surpassed their pre-Covid passenger performance during the first two months of the year including Amsterdam, operated by Croatia Airlines and KLM. Ryanair outperformed both Croatia Airlines and British Airways on flights to London. The budget carrier handled 18.695 travellers between the Croatian capital and Stansted Airport, while the two national airlines welcomed a joint total of 15.658 passengers on board their aircraft to and from Heathrow. Stansted is also Ryanair’s busiest Zagreb route with the carrier maintaining daily flights between the two.
During the first two months of the year, Zagreb Airport handled 430.216 travellers through its doors, representing its busiest start to the year on record. Much of the growth was fuelled by Ryanair, which opened a base in the city in 2021. Zagreb Airport recently said, “We expect continual growth due to solid demand and a return to pre-pandemic capacity levels by most airlines. Our network currently counts 22 airlines which link Zagreb to 59 destinations, which is a record for the airport”.
Well done TK!
ReplyDeleteWhat type of equipment is TK currently using to Zagreb?
DeleteThe same equipment like last XYZ years, A320 and B737 family.
DeleteMajority of the flights are operated by 321s, followed by Maxs.
DeleteAny chance we could see them send widebodies to ZAG?
DeleteNo, other than some one off.
DeleteThis shows two things:
ReplyDeleteZAG's growth is being generated Ryanair
OU didn't have any meaningful recovery
Also that FR is impacting many airlines/routes in ZAG
DeleteI do wonder what the result would be without FR.
DeleteI assume that if there were no FR, Croatia Airlines would not have retreated so much from Zagreb.
DeleteInteresting. I wonder if the US transfers have shifted from Lufthansa.
ReplyDeleteA portion probably has. Turkish Airlines keeps expending its US network while Lufthansa has severely decreased the quality of service on board.
DeleteYou have to wonder why Croatia Airlines never introduced flights to IST
ReplyDeleteTK and OU need to cooperate more. I don't see why they don't. Why doesn't OU have a codeshare on TK's routes from Istanbul? Especially to more distant markets.
DeleteIf only Turkish hires Misetic as a board member :)
DeleteThey used to fly IST with Dash, about 10 years ago.
DeleteThey used to do a lot of things 10 years ago that they don't anymore but their results are worse then they were 10 years ago.
DeleteThey used to fly to IST with B737 as well. It was one of their first destinations. Very profitable service, always full. It was deliberately stopped, the same case with MAN, MAD, ARN, SVO, WAW, PRG, BUD, TIA, MLA, STR, BER, DUS, in order for LH to take over the market, and Misetic to get his position in the Star Alliance Board of Directors. The same reason why long haul was never introduced, despite initial plans and already published flights to JFK, ORD and YYZ
DeleteTK seems to be doing a pretty good job in the region
ReplyDeleteI hope we eventually see a third daily flight on some days by TK.
ReplyDeleteEspecially since Ryanair only carries P2P passengers while BA and OU have transfers.
ReplyDeletewow Munich not even near pre Covid numbers.
ReplyDeleteMUC has lost a lot of its transfer appeal since Covid.
DeleteIs FMM launched meanwhile?
DeleteYes, there are flights to Memmingen and it is one of Ryanair's best performing routes from ZAG.
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2023/03/ryanair-sees-strong-zagreb-results.html
DeleteMunich is mostly affected by the fact that it was decimated by Lufthansa. Remember that the flights didn't even resume until last year.
DeleteNothing surprising, considering how reluctant British Airways was to increase frequency on the route (should have gone double daily as soon as Croatia Airlines sold its LHR slots). Good job by Ryanair!
ReplyDeleteThat's the Ryanair effect. Turkish is the only airline that doesn't compete with FR because Istanbul is the only destination that Ryanair doesn't fly to on that list.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteTK should really start Split, at least seasonally.
ReplyDeleteYes 100%
DeleteRyanair is doing very well on that Stansted route.
ReplyDeletePrice is king in our region.
ReplyDeleteZAG has not reached its full potential yet
ReplyDeleteAnd it never will with criminals leading the country and apparatchiks in charge of the flag carrier. The first and foremost condition for serious growth of any airport is serious and strong hub carrier based there. Croatia deliberately handed over its air traffic market to LH group. Croatia has no strategy for several fields of its economy, civil aviation being one of them. I fully agree ZAG has potentials for much more, but without strategy, without strong home based carrier, with hub synergy with it, those potentials will never be realised, especially with foreigners completely taking over the summer season coastal traffic and with JU growing immensely in the nearest neighborhood and taking care of the Balkans and behind
DeleteCriminals are not leading the country. They are people who the population voted in. All governments of every country in the world, no matter which political party are corrupt to some extent! I'm sure pozdrav you aren't whiter them white and have done some dodgy things in your life!
DeleteFirst, those leading Croatia are not those population voted. Their majority is constructed by post-electoral engineering, thanks to so-called "zetoncici". Second, major Party in control of the construct is fully verdicted criminal organization. Third, Constitutional Court ruled election results not to be valid because of another construction, of electoral units, with diferrent votes values. Fourth, only blind or stupid person is not able to see crime and corruption, modus operandi of each and every single Kradeze government. And finally fifth, not being in posession of Kradeze Party booklet, if I had slightest "dodgy thing in my life", I would have been in prison long ago
DeleteSurprised Munich is struggling. Full credit to Turkish Airlines though.
ReplyDeleteAir France-KLM is doing rather well in Zagreb based on those numbers.
ReplyDeleteThey offer good connections and schedule.
DeleteInteresting to see busiest routes. No major surprises among them.
ReplyDeleteI would think that Split route would have more passengers than Dubrovnik.
ReplyDeleteSplit has more flights to Europe during winter and it has highway.
DeleteTrue, makes sense.
DeleteNot that you get much more in terms of service on BA or OU.
ReplyDeleteI think many of the P2P passengers migrated to Ryanair on this route
ReplyDeleteRyanair offers a daily service, so it is easier to buy a return ticket with them than it is with Croatia Airlines who flies three times weekly. There is more flexibility with Ryanair.
ReplyDeleteHaving in mind the recent intentions of TK and recent serious plan of significantly expanding in the upcoming 2033 and reaching a fleet of 435, there will be hardly any legacy carrier close to them especially when it comes to geographical coverage.
ReplyDeleteTK is not only a great product, but very hard work has been done to reach where they are at the moment.
This is probably because of Aisa market. 2020 is not good year to compare because most of Aisa was closed down with COVID restrictions
ReplyDeleteJanuary and February 2020 were the busiest on record for Zagreb Airport until 2023, and all routes within the top ten achieved their best results during the first two months of 2020, excluding London Stansted which was not served at the time.
DeleteNo, Asia was not much recovered in JAN and FEB and didn't have much impact.
DeleteComparing JAN and FEB of 2023 only makes sense when compared to JAN and FEB 2020 as these were not affected by Covid at all in Europe. In fact almost all airport had record numbers then.
Delete+1
DeleteI wonder why Pegasus or AnadoluJet haven't launched ZAG from SAW.
ReplyDeleteBecause Turkish people need visas to enter Croatia while Turkish Airlines is being used primarily by transfers.
DeleteAnd no outbound p2p demand from Croatia as usual.
DeleteThe outbound transfer demand is by Croatians.
DeleteGuy daid p2p
DeleteLets not forget - as per their Strategy announced 10 days ago: by 2033, Turkish Airlines expects to have a fleet of approximately 800 planes, to serve 170 million passengers / year, and to grow their passenger network to 400 destinations:
ReplyDeletehttps://investor.turkishairlines.com/en/announcements/public-disclosures/13042023-turkish-airlines-strategy-and-targets-for-2023-2033-period
I see them covering more secondary airports in the region: INI, SPU, MBX, TZL, TSR, PDV, ZAD.
DeleteThey are also missing more French and Spanish connections.
With exception to FRA, all the numbers are very close.
ReplyDeleteFrankfurt, Munich, Vienna and London all have more than 20% less pax. How are those numbers very close?
DeleteI meant they are close as in all these destinations have similar passenger numbers, around 20,000.
DeleteIt's crazy that these 10 cities accounted for 86% of Zagreb Airport's total passenger numbers in January-February.
ReplyDeleteIt's not surprising in slow months like January and February.
DeleteI am pretty sure STN will be increased to 2 daily at some point similar to many other EU capitals. Especially the evening flights where there is usually demand.
ReplyDeleteWhat happened with JU in ZAG? How are they performing? BEG is not even appearing on the top 10 list. Maybe we can see the numbers grow in ZAG following the future expansion this summer.
ReplyDeleteHow do you expect to see them in top 10 when they operate with ATR72 aircraft, during winter one daily? Look at the capacity the last city in the top ten has.
DeleteJU was never in the top 10 to begin with.
DeleteThese numbers show in a big way what impact Ryanair is having on the main network carriers at ZAG.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely. Now the question is, is that a good or bad thing.
DeleteWell it isn't good. The result is airlines like Air France cutting their second daily flight.
DeleteNot surprised Turkish is doing so well.
ReplyDeleteIs Stansted more centrally located in London than Heathrow?
ReplyDeleteStansted is more than 50 kms away from central London. London City airport is the most central one, located in East London. Whish I could use it more since I live next to it.
DeleteThanks. I remember BA used to fly City - Split. Not sure if those flights are still ongoing after Covid.
DeleteLast summer BA flew to both Split and Dubrovnik, so I'm guessing they will have flights this summer as well. They are trying to diversify City Airport and serve more leisure destinations and are lobbying to get approval to extend working hours, since they are restricted to fly between 6.30AM and 10.30PM. There are also no flights Saturday 12.30PM until 12.30PM Sunday.
DeleteWould be nice if we got London City - Zagreb flights.
DeleteI am absolutely sure once "brand new shiny A220 fleet" joins OU, London City will be one of their first moves from ZAG. They are famous for their out of the box thinking, innovations, quick response to market changes and demand and profitability boosts. Hahahahahahahaha
Delete😂😂😂
DeleteI wasn't counting on Croatia Airlines for the London City route to start with :)
DeleteShould be mentioned that Turkish has benefited a lot from Gulf airlines reducing their operations to ZAG since the pandemic. In 2019, Doha was one of the top ten destinations from Zagreb (due to double daily flights) but I assume it is far down the list now.
ReplyDeleteThey definitely profited from QR's lower number of flights.
DeleteFlydubai too.
DeleteAnyone know how those Athens flights are performing?
ReplyDeleteThey just resumed a few weeks ago.
Deletefor the fans of stats some german numbers (LF) for the month of Feb :)
ReplyDeleteZAG-FRA 80.6% (all)
HHN 82.5% (FR, for comparison W6 to SKP 97.2%, TZL 94.7%)
FKB 89.6%, FR
CGN 84,5% (Eurowings)
FMM 86%, FR
Any info on Munich?
Deleteyes sorry forgot MUC: ZAG-MUC 79,9% (all)
Delete(actually its the other way round, MUC-ZAG, all numebrs are for one way flights D->HR as usual)
DeleteThat's not a bad figure, especially in February but question is what were the LFs from Zagreb.
Deleteprobably around the same
DeleteThat Hahn load factor is not great for an ULCC like Ryanair.
DeleteTo add to my last comment, compare the Ryanair load factor to that of Wizz in Skopje and Tuzla.
DeleteThe reason there is such a big decline to Frankfurt, Munich and Vienna is because there are a lot less flights than there used to be before Corona.
ReplyDeleteThere are "a lot less flights" because there is "a lot less demand."
Delete@16:45
Delete+100
Or maybe because a lot of p2p passengers switched to Memmingen, Hahn and Bratislava. The last one is seasonal though so not relevant for this article.
DeleteThese figures mean Croatia Airlines is nowhere near to getting close to pre Covid passenger numbers which is a disaster considering most airlines have surpassed those figures.
ReplyDelete