Low cost airline Ryanair will double in size on the Croatian market in 2024 compared to last year, adding an additional 2.098.576 seats with close to five million seats available in Croatia overall. Whereas the difference between the budget carrier and Croatia Airlines last year stood at just 124.000 seats, capacity-wise, the difference in 2024 will amount to over 2.8 million seats. The development comes as Ryanair plans to open a new base in Dubrovnik this summer and expand its existing bases in Zagreb and Zadar. This year, Ryanair will account for a significant 30% of Croatia’s total capacity, cementing its position as the country’s largest airline. This is in stark contrast to the pre-pandemic 2019, when it accounted for just 5.7% of Croatia’s total capacity.
Croatia Airlines lost its mantle as the country’s largest carrier last year. Ryanair noted, “Ryanair, Croatia’s largest airline, has delivered low fares, connectivity, and tourism to Croatia for over fifteen years and has single-handedly driven Croatia’s post-Covid traffic recovery. Since the pandemic, Ryanair has invested over 800 million US dollars in Croatia, with the opening of its new Dubrovnik (two aircraft) base and three aircraft bases at both Zagreb and Zadar. Ryanair also offers flights to four other Croatian airports - Osijek, Pula, Rijeka and Split. With the addition of Ryanair’s new base in Dubrovnik from April 2024, Ryanair will continue to deliver Europe’s lowest fares and greater connectivity for Croatian citizens”.
Ryanair will operate the most flights from Croatia to London Stansted this year, followed by Dublin, Charleroi, Bergamo an Weeze. In addition to surpassing Croatia Airlines as the country’s largest airline in 2023, Ryanair has also surpassed easyJet in recent years as the biggest budget carrier in the country. “We are the strongest company in Europe, and we don't get help from state funds, as is the case with other carriers, including Croatia Airlines. We do not receive such assistance, and we have the strongest balance sheets in Europe. We are the only European carrier that has achieved growth in air traffic over several years”, Ryanair noted.
Ryanair is already selling flights to Zagreb from Stansted and Lanzarote through until March 2025.
ReplyDeleteWould have been interesting if Ryanair had received all their new planes from Boeing, if this would have had more of an effect on growing within the region
DeleteCroatia is a home market for Ryan too.
Delete"Whereas the difference between the budget carrier and Croatia Airlines last year stood at just 124.000 seats, capacity-wise, the difference in 2024 will amount to over 2.8 million seats."
ReplyDeleteThis is crazy!
As a Croat, I welcome Ryanair to Croatia 100%. I fly every month and it's never with Croatia Airlines because it's just too damn expensive! And it doesn't even fly anywhere.
ReplyDeleteFly as you can. Once there is no competition Ryanair will raise fares or/and blackmail the airport toeave demanding ransome.
DeleteYou fail to understand how these low fares ( or the illusion of) actually are possible... Somebody else is paying it. Somebody else is being squeezed the s*** out of. Somebody else. Many pay so a few can fly. But guess what... The base use shrinking.
DeleteIS shrinking...
Delete"once there is no competition". LOL! Zagreb is not Tuzla (no offence meant). Simply with 20+ airlines from 3 continents, there will always be competition in ZAG, even if OU goes bust. So everything you wrote is just an unsuccessful effort to advocate useless and pathetic OU
Delete"Many pay so a few can fly". Precisely the definition how OU functions - many poor croatian tax payers finance incompetence and corruption which makes possible only few rich to fly
Delete@09:12 I actually don't fly with Ryanair very much. I fly easyJet and Eurowings from the coastal airports and Lufthansa or British Airways and recently KLM from Zagreb. But thanks for the negativity 👍🏼
Delete@09:24 Yawn. These are boring talking points from people who don't understand the new reality of aviation in Europe. There are barely any countries in Europe where Ryanair, easyJet or Wizz are not the biggest airline. The reason why airports and tourist boards give them incentives is because they WANT them to fly there.
Deleteso much competition and so much demand that no airline wants to fly from Zagreb to Berlin, for example, or to Prague, Stockholm, Madrid, etc. all year round
Delete@Anon 9:55 Could you elaborate your claim that OU could have used Ryanair's expansion as an advantage? Sincere question, not rhetorical.
DeleteThanks
@09:43 What do you expect, for planes to fly empty? If no one wants to fly these routes then there are no airlines serving them. Is that supposed to be a bad thing?
Delete@10:17
DeleteLCC, especially the likes of Ryanair introduce people to air travel and have the ability of creating markets which did not exist before. With LCC's, people start to consider air travel as a viable option, who in the past may have instead travelled by car, bus, train or may have not consider travelling too far from home when deciding on a weekend break or short holidays. The numbers speak for themselves, air travel has exploded the last 30 years or so with the introduction of the LCC.
Croatia Airlines, unfortunately was never in a positing or never willing to "create markets" instead it relied on serving what they saw as an existing opportunity and just relied on "organic market growth".
OU in the past, has ignored the massive increase in Croatian tourism to expand the and also ignored other opportunities for example when Dubrovnik Airline (which carried 600,000 passengers in its last year of operation) ceased to operate, so unless there a major management changes or shift in their thinking, I would assume they would continue to also ignore the new market Ryanair is creating under their noses.
For example, when who is maybe new to air travel and was considering a Ryanair services, searches for a flight from Zagreb, they could also come across a similar service offered by OU if comitative and viable and convenient enough, they could then end up choosing OU instead. But instead of becoming a viable alternative and having a go at securing a share of the extra market Ryanair is creating, they decided to retreat.
on one side its great the Ryanair is growing the connection to Croatia. its good for the economy and good for the reputation etc.
Deletebut news like this is still heartbreaking that OU is falling so far behing is so sad. also yes Ryanair is misleading, because they are squeezing subsidies for many many routes especially in eastern europe. but the interesting part is that Croatia is getting some return and benefit from giving into the ryanair and paying them so much. the return from OU is sadly so much less.
wonder if there will be a revolution in OU anytime in the future to get the airline to the level it should be.
Nonsense. Croatia Airlines has been stagnating for decades. The only difference now is that Ryanair is finally filling the gap in the market. Otherwise it would be business as usual in the country.
Delete@Slav.Man What do you mean by Croatia paying Ryan so much?? Croatia isn't paying a cent to Ryanair. The only place they had been given discounts is at ZAG. Those went out of the airport operator's pockets, not from the state budget, and by the end of next year, all the discounts will be removed as per the public contract.
DeleteYou confused Ryanair and OU.
Croatia Airlines is the carrier subsisting on enormous amounts of state aid, and since we've already seen it doesn't matter at all which government is in power...the only thing left to hope for is OU finally going bankrupt and disappearing. Bloody parasites!
Ryanair are being subsidised in Osijek also. there is also claims they are being given unfair advantage in other airports by paying smaller fees.
Delete@Pozdrav iz Reke, what do you mean by Zagreb's 20+ airlines?? There are MAX 15 airlines in summer at ZAG
DeleteAir Transat, Qatar Airways, Flydubai, T'way, ELAL, Trade Air, Croatia Airlines, Ryanair, Lauda, British Airways, Air France, KLM, Iberia, Vueling, Norwegian, Austrian, Lufthansa, Eurowings, Air Serbia, Aegean, Turkish, Pegasus = 22. ETF and Fly41 not listed in 22 for not having scheduled services. TAP, Swiss, SAS, Air Canada, Emirates, Korean, CSA, Finnair, Malaysian, which all used to fly not listed in current 22 despite renewal of services possible. Nouvelair, Tunis Air, Air Malta, Freebird, which do charters not listed in 22 despite being in ZAG. So, could you please refrain from MAX belittleing ZAG, which actually has potentials for much more than 22 listed
DeleteForgot LOT, twice daily, for = 23
DeleteOh, yes, I also forgot DHL scheduled cargo flights, sometimes even on B757/767, for = 24
DeleteAnd Aeroflot, now not present only because of sanctions to Russia, for = 25
DeleteGoing from 3% to 30% share in just a few years is really something
ReplyDeleteNot surprising really when your main 'competitor' does not compete.
DeleteAnon 09:04.
DeleteUnfortunately hit the nail on the head.
OU could have used Ryanairs expansion in Croatia as an opportunity but instead they do the complete opposite!
I think, Ryanair, was more than enough fair player toward Croatia Airlines entering the market coutiously and with "basic" business plan showing OU, for free!, that there is a room for growth. But, now they see OU remain in hybernation mode forever and will keep on going only because they have unlimited access to the state treasury without being asked for plan, results etc. Ryanair is now game changer. OU remains state puppet, obviously, for other "businesses," and that fact remains. Thinking loudly, Trade Air and ETF management could successfully establish and run croatian national air carrier associated with the national identity. Such a waste of taxpayers' money and no result, for years, decades now. Even we who wished OU could find business model and we supported OU since years, we now welcome Ryanair growth!
DeleteI was hoping that Ryanair's arrival would have a positive impact on Croatia Airlines in the sense that it would make them wake up and start competing. I was wrong
ReplyDeleteIt kind of did happen though - Croatia Airlines is moving capacity to coastal airports. It is absolutely stupid to abandon Zagreb but the expansion in Split is good I think.
DeleteIt is not. In SPU they have much bigger competiton than in ZAG. They have many flights from SPU with 1-2 weekly rotations where 10x more airlines operates with much bigger capacity. Their base in SPU is an absurd.
DeleteWe don't know that. We cannot trust Analitičar. I think there's a market to be served on the coast in July and August, even for Croatia Airlines.
DeleteYes we know that. We had several examples here when on the same days flight to same destination from Split by other airlines had 150 or 180 passengers while OU had 15 or 30
Deletesource?
DeleteWell..all in all OU is too small to have 2 hubs.
DeleteThey should have to develop their base in Zagreb and do more charter flights to the coast, that would be smart strategy if OU would have qualified management. But they are too incompetent for that. They don't have any business strategy except eating public money.
+1000 last anon
DeleteThere will be four aircraft in Zagreb starting 31 March 2024. It's scheduled and publicly visible. That's why they launched Alicante, Pisa, Palma and Girona - to fill the remaining gaps. There are still some more gaps on some weekday afternoons so I wonder if more routes are coming.
ReplyDeleteI expect Berlin, Prague, maybe even Riga.
DeleteI also expect to be something different than the leisure routes they have announced so far.
DeleteBerlin Prague and Stockholm are not coming. I believe Ryanair is saving these for further rounds of expansion because it wants the airport to extend the incentives scheme for additional new routes.
DeleteGood theory last anon. Their incentives were agreed for 5 years. This year their discounts are down to 25%. In 2025. the last year of their incentives, the discounts will go down to only 10% and then they either continue doing business while paying full fees for everything, or more likely they'll fo what you're proposing.
DeleteCroatia Airlines is starting to get its act together lately. Sad thing is it is too late.
ReplyDeleteYou must be joking.
DeleteHahahahahahahaha
DeleteCroatia Airlines is starting to get its shupak tightened lately. Nothing else.
DeleteLOL!!!
DeleteThey are positioning themselves in such a way that when OU goes belly up in 2-3 years it won't be felt at all.
ReplyDeleteI think FR's aim is to get rid of them.
DeleteI think it barely makes any difference for them
DeleteIt does because it gives them much more blackmail power at airports.
DeleteWizz shall take measures to enter the market immidiately in such scenario
Delete@09:14 Only in Zagreb. Croatia Airlines is absolutely irrelevant for Ryanair in Osijek, Pula, Rijeka, Zadar and Dubrovnik. Even in Split, when you take away the PSO flights and the July and August rotations, they don't fly that much. But Split Airport pays Croatia Airlines millions of euros (!!!) anyway so if it went bankrupt then Ryanair would launch many many more routes for the same amount of money.
DeleteI remember reading last year JU CEO say that if they don't keep growing aggressively, other airlines will come and take over. Seems to be exactly what's happening with OU and Ryanair.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's exactly what I 've been saying, not last year only but for a decade or more, and constantly got labeled as "mrzitelj svega hrvatskog", by bots, uhljebs and brainwashed and blinded
DeleteIt's really amazing how quickly FR has expanded in Zagreb.
ReplyDeleteThanks to Croatia Airlines, there were loads of gaps in the market. For example, Zagreb had no leisure routes at all.
DeleteI am not really sure it makes sense to look at Croatia as a "market". The fact that Ryanair is opening a base in Dubrovnik makes no difference to anyone in Zagreb or Slavonia or Istria or around Rijeka. And vice Versa.
ReplyDeleteThis has more to do with Croatia Airlines' failure than Ryanair's success.
ReplyDeleteYes and no. Ryanair is known for destroying carriers so.
DeleteCroatia Airlines destroyed itself. Ryanair only conquered them on the Dublin route and impacted their feeder numbers to Vienna and Munich. Nothing else.
DeleteAlso a big challenge to LJU.
ReplyDeleteWe hear from experts that zero Slovenes use ZAG and 50% of LJU traffic are Croats.
DeleteNo, we never heard that. What we heard is that Slovenians were not majority on EK, FR, and OU flights in ZAG. We also heard that some Croats (me included) use LJU, the same as some Slovenians use ZAG. And after all, writing obvious lies in order to prove the point which can't be proved, must have much deeper roots, usually linked with psychopathology
DeleteYes, the anonymous at 9:45 literally reversed what was being said here. Not by experts but probably by him.
DeleteThose were the ridiculous claims about Slovenians supposedly making up 50%+ passengers out of Zagreb.
No one ever claimed zero Slovenians used ZAG.
That being said, this year Slovenians have taken over Austrians as the 2nd most numerous guests, behind only Germans. 1.6 million Slovenians vacationed in Croatia by the end of November so the number will definitely go even higher once December is accounted for.
1.6 million is 75% of the entire Slovenian population. The population which loves to fly soo much, yet 75% of them drive to Croatia for vacay.
Personally tho, I wouldn't mind having 50% of the passengers at ZAG being Slovenian since that would mean ZAG reaching 5 million pax basically over night.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteIt's a real shame. There are some really good professionals working across OU and doing a good job but the management is a different story.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's time for those good professionals to raise there voice and say enough. As long as they don't do that, they take part in treason destroying one of the biggest national potentials, and are as guilty as uhljebs and aparatchiks who prefer to be described as "management"
DeleteThe professionals have a union, they have a voice, they could speak to the media, they could organise a press conference themselves etc etc. But they are doing nothing and they are passively watching the management destroy what was once a promising airline.
DeleteThe last tranche of OU professionals left, escaped already. And businessess miss them already but yes, we are quiet, watching how mngmt is missing anothers brain for self promotion only..but it is over now..sad and shameful for all of us who are on payroll
DeleteAnon 13:28
DeleteOh yes, and some of them engaged with esteemed companies...OU supporting knowledge and brain drain..kako to?
How much does Ryanair receive in various incentives, deals with tourist authorities etc?
ReplyDeleteExactly a bit rich of them to be lecturing others.
DeleteThey compete for incentives from airports just like everybody else.
DeleteZadar Tourist Board pays them and is very happy to keep paying them because they handle almost all of the traffic. In Osijek and Rijeka it is the county that pays them. In Dubrovnik and Zagreb they have a discount program, and in Pula and Split they pay the full fees.
DeleteSo only PUY and SPU work with them based on commercial prices. All the others heavily pay FR flights to Croatia! And we speak here about millions of euros.
DeleteNo, I don't get the money. FR does.
DeleteNot as much as Croatia Airlines gets.
DeleteCroatia Airlines deserves more. It is the flag carrier of Croatia after all. Foreign Airlines such as Ryanair should receive nothing from the Croatian state/ tourist boards. Let the Irish government subsidise them!
DeleteCroatia Airlines deserves more? For what exactly? Flying to 15 destinations while Air Serbia flying to 80? For feeding LH in Minken and Vrankvurt instead having its own network? For having 15 % of the market share in Croatia while foreigners have 85? For not being able to compete on the coast, which is Gold mine seasonally? For not being able to build decent hub in ZAG? For not being able to decently connect Slavonia and Istra, Slavonia and Dalmatia, Istra and Dalmatia? For not having most lucrative long-haul services while American, Canadian and Asian carriers have it to Croatia? For incompetence maybe? For corruption? For nepotism? For shrinking instead growing? For enormous losses year by year? For obedient aparatchiks with mindset stuck in 1950's, executing political orders? For uhljebs in Buzin "working" on the positions non existent in other airlines? For excessive administration? For total inertness and lack of response to market changes? For non existent marketing? For cup of water on two hours flight sold for 300 euro? For worst the worst LF in EU of 60 %? For being not flag carrier which proudly carries the name (and brand) of Croatia all over the World but tiny irrelevant pathetic humiliated feeder? For being the biggest croatian shame? For what of the above listed Croatia Airlines deserves more?
DeleteI love it when these LCCs include the value of their planes as an 'investment' in the market
ReplyDeleteIt sounds ridiculous but technically it is true. They have allocated capital in the country, and the price tag of the airplanes is the value of the capital.
DeleteIf I come to Zagreb and park my 200.000€ Porsche in the street, that doesn't mean I invested 200.000€ in Croatia.
DeleteHe just shows off he has a Porsche 😃
DeleteIf he had a Porsche he would probably have at least an elementary understanding of business and accounting.
DeleteHe was just making a point for comparison sake.
DeleteI wonder why Croatia Airlines has not accused Dubrovnik Airport with unfair competition and discrimination publicly? Remember that three years ago, it accused Zagreb Airport over the media, even though it has been found out that Croatia Airlines had approved the incentives leading Ryanair to launch a base at Zagreb months ago. Is it because of the ownership issue?
ReplyDeleteWell they did say they will launch some winter routes from DBV in 24/25
DeleteBecause Croatia airlines is not competing with Ryanair in Dubrovnik, there is no flights from Dubrovnik except flight to Zagreb
DeleteCroatia Airlines stupidly thought it could bully Zagreb Airport into chasing Ryanair away by sending a late and poorly worded media press release. Zagreb Airport thankfully ignored it and now Ryanair is handling a million passengers in Zagreb per year.
DeleteIt is ironic how they point out they do not receive state funds like OU, then you have them taking numerous other incentives from local authorities, airports, tourist organizations ... and often blackmailing airports
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteThey do not blackmail anyone. Do you know what that word means? Ryanair gets paid by Zadar to fly there because it brings hundreds of thousands of passengers (read: tourists) who spend way more money than what it costs the tourist board to get them to fly there.
DeleteCroatia Airlines, on the other hand, receives taxpayer money for absolutely no value at all. It barely flies anywhere and it is far too expensive.
Blackmail is a strong word, but in essence, they do come to airports and say in a polite way "Give us money, or we will never fly here and we will go to another airport and direct all passengers there". Lets just say it as it is.
Deleteit's a win win. Airports get passengers, regional communities get business activity, tourists arrive, locals can travel abroad for cheap. How can anyone possibly think this is a bad thing?
DeleteUhljebs can. They don't care about business activites, about tourists and tourism and about public interest, and they travel on ID tickets for free or with 90 % discount.
DeleteWhat can Croatia Airlines realistically do at this point?
ReplyDeleteThey better do something because Ryanair ain't going away any time soon.
DeleteLook for niche destinations, improve on board experience, better time, short connection time etc. Frankly you cannot compete with Ryanair on fares, but on soft products.
DeleteThey need to work on their network first and foremost and create better transfer options. At the same time they need to realize that the entire world does not revolve around Frankfurt and Munich. The fact that Ryanair was able to launch a bunch of leisure routes from Zagreb shows what a poor job Croatia Airlines has been doing all these years.
DeleteCroatia Airlines has loads of options. It gets PSO funding but it has scheduled the timings of these routes poorly. It has small aircraft but it does not use them for regional feeder routes. It is a Star Alliance member but it does not cooperate properly with any airlines in the alliance. Its prices are too high, its aircraft are too empty, its management is bloated. There is so much Croatia Airlines could do immediately to make things better.
DeleteFirst thing OU can do is to stop acting like a lazy airline. Nothing they do requires any risk or hard work because, as we have seen, you can be the CEO, waist tens of millions of euros demonstrating incompetency and your job or your position is never called into question. So the first thing the OU can do is start holding management accountable for bad management. (This is what the government should be doing)
DeleteSecondly, they need to realise where they are (in the EU) and take advantage of this.
Thirdly, it is just hopeless and completely defeatist that in the next 10 years, they have committed themselves to a fleet of just 15 aircraft (if they get there). A220, ok whatever, they chose this plane but there should be at least another 10 options and they should also look at either keeping or replacing the Q400 with another turbo prop type because they will need this type of aircraft to work as a proper feeder to realise point four.
So fourthly, they need to turn Zagreb into a proper hub, swallow some pride and copy what Air Serbia has done with Belgrade and then maybe we can have our own little Middle East three race in the region. Lol
In a nutshell, there is a lot they can do!
You will all regret when Ryanair have no competition. It will lead to sky high fares, less choice and heavy subsidies by regional tourist board/ government to Ryanair. When they don't get their way, they'll be off. Michael O'Leary isn't a very pleasant person and is not a person you should want to do business with.
ReplyDeleteYes, no one wants to do business with MoL, that's why FR is the biggest company in Europe LOL
DeleteI would always choose to do business with MoL over SRB or CRO government.
DeleteAnd you are aware over 80 airlines fly to Croatia, right? No competition would mean FR remaining the only, chasing away other 80.
Delete@10:40 Do you work for Croatia Airlines? Do you not understand how stupid your comment is? Sky high fares?? Croatia Airlines already has sky high fares. Less choice?? Croatia Airlines barely flies anywhere. Heavy subsidies?? Croatia Airlines got hundreds of millions of euros from the Croatian government in the last decade!
DeleteAnon 10:40 There's almost no competition for Ryanair at Zadar Airport. Do you claim that Ryanair's ticket prices skyrocketed there?
DeleteIf you gave OU management a billion euros they would not know what to do with it and would still be making losses.
ReplyDeleteThey would become millionaires 🤣
DeleteGood luck Croatia Airlines. You will need it.
ReplyDeleteNo, they will not need it. They need structural changes, getting rid of political influence, having professional and competent management, getting rid of feeder model, making development strategy and plan, reduce excessive administrative work force, getting rid of uhljebs, grow network, grow fleet, start doing things in marketing, increase work productivity..... Luck has absolutely nothing to do with it. And as poster above very well said, even with luck and with billion euros, remaining like they are, they would still be making losses
DeleteOU needs not luck indeed, they are quite competent in increasing Vrankvurt and Minken frequencies to double digits.
DeleteI don't understand that OU didn't see this coming
ReplyDeleteThey thought they could hold onto their monopoly power in Zagreb forever.
DeleteOU should go for LH destinations, that's their only hope
ReplyDeleteWhat they pretty much do already and that would be fine if it produced profits, a strategy they could defend. But year after year, massive losses. They are basically demonstrating the definition of insanity. How does it go, "doing the same thing over again that produces a negative result"
DeletePeople are complaining that OU is not responding and introducing new routes. Well, usually if an airline isn't responding in face of huge competition it means their finances are stretched to the very limit.
ReplyDeleteThen they should do something to attract more revenue. They are flying half-empty planes.
DeleteWe need this in Serbia ASAP instead of getting fleeced by AirSNS
ReplyDeleteYou have Wizz Air on over 20 routes from Belgrade, surprised you didn't know about it.
DeleteAnd not only Wizz but also Norwegian, Eurowings, Pegasus, easyJet...
DeleteAirSNS, as you call them, is raking in sizable profits (just look up their fares to Moscow or to North America) and paying them into the state budget.
DeleteWith every day it seems like OU is taking JP route... sad
ReplyDeleteAdria at least went out with a bang...the SSJ100 saga really was something lol
DeleteThe Sukhoi was for Adria what the A220 will be for Croatia Airlines
Delete14:52 I find it interesting that the SSJ100 is similar to the A220, when it comes to the design that is (Idk, could be just me), and that they might (saying that because of OU, obviously) be one of the factors to end both of the Ex-Yu Star Alliance members.
DeleteToo bad for Belgrade that it doesn't have a Ryanair yet. It would be good for all of us, especially the passengers.
ReplyDeleteCompletely off-topic:
Admin, are you going to write down article about busiest airports in the exYU, perhaps entire Balkans? 🤞
BEG does have a 'Ryanair', it is called Wizzair.
DeleteRyanair is doing a great job expanding in Zagreb. Customers love new destinations and affordable travel. Looking forward to new routes.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant minds in CTN management have shrinked the fleet in 2023, and will significantly shrink it 2024(when other companies will again have record earnings), as C-Series (commercially called A220) was supposed to come early in 2024., but it will not, at best it will come in the middle of the season, and old Airbuses are leaving fleet slowly. On top of that, connectivity from Zagreb is drastically cut, where this is the only airport in Croatia that had a solid customer base. Working in the industry and being a former CTN staff, I would like to fly CtN for patriotic reasons, but their flight schedule simply does not allow it. This looks like internal disintegration of CTN, slow and painful one, this is hard to watch.
ReplyDeleteSame, I would be happy to fly Croatia Airlines and pay extra but they just don't fly very much and the times are inconvenient. Who wants to get up at 3 to fly from Pula to Zagreb for an hour and a half via Zadar?
DeleteBravo Hrvatska!
ReplyDeleteThe amount of ignorance with some of the commenters here...
ReplyDelete[FACEPALM]
There's one great example of what happens when flag carrier goes bus: Malev and Budapest.
Go check how Budapest airport did back in 2012 and how they fare now.
Malev going bust is the best bloody thing that happened to that airport and Hungarian air travel industry.
The same woul happen with our air travel if Croatia went bust.
You just found one of the exceptions... you don't need to look far from Zag/CRO to find a bad example what happenes to an airport when flag carrier no longer exist...
DeleteAnd on the other hand, I suggest you look to the East, to BEG, which had equal number of passengers with ZAG decade ago, with Jat Airways, and today numbers are more than double compared to ZAG. And imagine, they didn't bankrupt their flag carrier, they did the opposite...
DeleteToo bad the airline won’t ever let you all see the pitches that various firms gave them. Most advised don’t shrink as Ryan air will come in with low costs and you will lose even more money Those were dismissed for the order of new A220s and a focus on a new fleet rather than getting costs out and a better network with airplanes that were newer than what they had but not brand new and very expensive.
ReplyDelete