Croatia Airlines enters the 2024 summer season, which begin on March 31 and runs until October 26, with the introduction of four new routes, including Berlin, Stockholm and Tirana from Zagreb, as well as Istanbul from Split. Over the course of the summer, in June, the carrier is expected to take delivery of its first of fifteen new Airbus A220 aircraft, although the jet is yet to be scheduled on any of its flights. Overall, Croatia Airlines plans to operate some 17.155 scheduled services during the 2024 summer season, offering 1.915.173 seats. This represents an increase of 1.1% and 6.2% respectively on last year, however, operations are still down 10.1% on the pre-pandemic 2019, while capacity is still 6.7% below 2019 levels. These figures may change once the carrier puts its A220 jet into service.
Croatia Airlines won’t be making many changes to the remainder of its network this summer. Apart from scheduled services, the airline plans to run charter flights. It will resume operations between Split and Amsterdam a month in advance compared to last year, while the remainder of the seasonal routes will launch at roughly the same time as in 2023. As previously reported, Croatia Airlines will base one of its wet-leased Airbus A320 aircraft from Trade Air in Split, deploying the jet on flights to Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Dublin, Dusseldorf, the newly added Istanbul, London Gatwick, Oslo, Paris, and Stockholm.
Please note that the frequencies listed below are preliminary and based on current availability in the Global Distribution System (GDS). They are subject to change. Furthermore, the tables below display the peak weekly frequency on each route during the course of the summer season. Increases in frequencies, particularly on domestic flights between Zagreb, Dubrovnik, Split, Zadar, and Pula, may not come into effect until later on in the summer and may vary depending on the month. EX-YU Aviation News will also bring you the planned summer season operations for Air Serbia later this week, while Air Montenegro’s summer network can be viewed here.
Departing Zagreb
From Pula, Croatia Airlines will operate to Zadar (8x per week) and Zagreb (3x per week), with a limited service to Zurich during the month of April, until April 27 (2x per week). From Osijek, the airline will fly to Munich (2x per week), as well as Split and Dubrovnik (1x per week). From Zadar, the carrier will operate to Pula (8x per week) and Zagreb (8x per week). Rijeka will see the Croatian national airline operate flights to Munich (3x per week) resuming May 12. Finally, Croatia Airlines will maintain scheduled services from Brač to Zagreb (2x per week), while services to Munich, which were maintained once per week last summer, have been discontinued.
Not bad...
ReplyDeleteIt will start with a strike...
DeleteSoon
Hope so
DeleteTheir network is great actually; the problem is that all of the destinations should be at least three time weekly. Operating one weekly flight does not make any sense.
ReplyDeleteGood(ish) job to Croatia, but they could do so much better, especially with all those PSO flights
The one weekly are often done in the form ot scheduled charters
DeleteThey need more than 13 aircraft for more frequencies.
DeleteOU does have a the most difficult job out of the JUG nations because of the geography of the country, and having too many airports. but its a good sign they are making progress over last year.
Delete@9.28 they could have better fleet utilization. All their planes are idle at night time.
DeleteWell, they've got 350 weekly departures, from all 3 airports, that is roughly 70 daily departures which can be done by a fleet of 10 aircraft. They have 12, they should be ok, once A220s join the fleet, they'll have more manoeuvring room in 2025. They might increase noumber of departures to precovid period in 2025 as a result of introduction of A220s.
DeleteThe problem in my opinion is that they don't have proper waves in ZAG which costs them a large chunk of transfer passengers (that would also increase average cabin LF from/to ZAG)
DeleteGood to see growth but still being below pre-Covid in 2024...
ReplyDeleteTheir network out of Zagreb is still considerably smaller than pre Covid.
DeleteRyanair effect.
DeleteIt is crazy that such a small airline is still below 2019 numbers and by a lot.
DeleteBravo Hrvatska!
ReplyDeleteWhy are many increases from May? Will they get an extra plane then?
ReplyDeleteIt is their answer to seasonality :D
DeleteOU still can't find a way to get around seasonality. This is killing them.
DeleteSeasonality exists for all airlines all over the world.
DeleteOU task is very hard. mayber reduce the number of airports. if they had only 2 or 3 airports it would make it much easier for them to plan routes and keep good numbers even outside the summer season if it was concentrated to fewer airports.
DeleteTheir Split network should be their Zagreb network.
ReplyDeleteWhy? They make more money from Split in summer.
DeleteIt would be interesting to see which city is most profitable for them.
DeleteTo an almost 100% certainty: SPU from Apr to Oct
DeleteMore of the same every year. With exception to the few new routes, barely any frequency changes.
ReplyDeleteThe most exciting airline...
DeleteCopy paste almost every year
DeleteWhy such little focus on Dubrovnik?
ReplyDeleteThey haven't focused on DBV for a decade
DeleteAccording to their previous announcements, they will put more focus on DBV in winter 24/25.
DeleteThat makes no sense. Focus on DBV in winter of all seasons???
DeleteMulti-hubbing is very inefficient. They serve ZAG and SPU extensively and have enough flights from DBV.
DeleteSimple answer: In winter Dubrovnik is dead and in summer they can earn more with Split flights.
DeleteSPU network looks good!
ReplyDeleteBut very low frequencies across the board.
DeleteFor a secondary city, it really does look impressive
DeleteThose 1pw from SPU are weird. What's the point of flying to AMS once per week, I don't get it. Otherwise, the network doesn't look too bad but their destinations are pretty much no brainers... Croatian market offers much more.
ReplyDeleteI guess for tour groups staying for a week or two.
DeleteMaybe, but that means they all have to come on the same day :)
DeleteI thought that Sat-Sat tourist rotations are thing of the past
Those routes with such frequencies are usually scheduled If i.e. a tour operator buys/guarantees a large number of seats once a week
DeleteCroatia is hard to serve - its small with extensive domestic network requiring a large amount of turboprops.
ReplyDeleteGreece which is somewhat similar has several airlines doing that.
extensive domestic network? because of pumping PSO cash?
DeleteCroatia has 3.8m population, while Greece has 10.4m. Metro Athens alone has 3.6m population. Thessaloniki their second largest city has 1m. You can't really compare the two.
Deletemost croatian islands are reasonable close to the coast unlike something like Rhodes
DeleteGreece has it a lot easier. ATH is relatively central and a real hub, with spokes serving all islands numerous times a day thanks to the massive volume there compared to HR.
DeleteOn a map, sure, it looks good, but if you look at the frequencies, it is rather underwhelming.
ReplyDelete19 international destinations out of Zagreb, two of which which are not nonstop.
ReplyDeleteWho flies with them to Athens when there is Aegean nonstop?
DeleteThat is why Aegean uses A320 while Croatia Airlines sends a turboprop.
DeleteRome is also nonsensical to me. 30 years via Dubrovnik and Split. JAT used to fly it this way before as well and it might have made sense in the 70s and 80s but in 2024 when you are competing against Ryanair operating the same route nonstop on an A320
Delete+1 last anon
Delete@9.34
DeleteIs OU's service to Athens year-round?
No, it is seasonal
DeleteAegean service is year round tho
DeleteA network like this will bring them money
ReplyDeleteIt didn't bring them money last year. In fact they had one of the biggest losses. What brought them money was selling 5 planes.
Delete0936, nonsense. Last year was profitable.
DeleteYes, it was profitable after sale of 5 aircraft for over 20 million euros. Even in their financial report they said profit was achieved as a result of the sale.
DeleteMeanwhile they couldn't pay the state back covid loans and had to move repayment to 2025.
DeleteHopefully next summer when they finally have the A220s in the network we will see some more meaningful changes.
ReplyDeleteI really don't think they can do much different. They are replacing them plane for plane. They won't have more aircraft than their current fleet until 2026.
DeleteWhy no flights to Poland?
ReplyDeleteThey can't compete against LOT
DeleteGood luck OU!
ReplyDeleteNot a bad network at all
ReplyDeleteThey could be doing so much more
DeleteThis is quite low number of routes but good to see no route cancellations from last year.
ReplyDeleteThey have 13 planes. How many destinations do you expect?
DeleteLet's see how things turn out. I wish them good luck.
ReplyDeleteAlmost no coverage in the east
ReplyDeleteOr Middle East
DeleteAn airline still under the impression that there is an iron curtain.
DeleteThere is an iron curtain.
Delete^ Too bad then. When Croatia Airlines finds out there isn't one and that they can fly to Finland, the Baltic states, Poland (one of Europe's largest markets), Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan etc, it might help them. But it's easier to fly 21 weekly to Frankfurt and hand over passengers to Lufthansa which, believe or not, has found there is no such thing as an iron curtain anymore and serves all of these markets.
DeleteWell it's a bit better than what it was. At least now they fly to OTP and IST.
DeleteAnyone know which charter routes they will operate?
ReplyDeleteThe new routes they chose are pretty good
ReplyDeleteThey have completely handed over Zagreb-Spain market to Ryanair.
ReplyDeleteAt least they got a win against Vueling and now have a monopoly on ZAG-BCN route.
DeleteI think that has more to do with Ryanair starting Girona than with Croatia Airlines' success.
DeleteOU actually operates charters to Girona. Not sure if they will this summer.
DeleteThey have a total of 3 weekly flights between the UK and the entire Croatian coast. That's such a major missed opportunity.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteThat's a disaster. easyJet alone sends about ten aircraft to Croatia from the UK every day in the summer.
DeleteCouldn't agree more. For me it is ludicrous that Croatia Airlines will be serving London from Zagreb just 3 times per week. That is really poor considering how many Brits are visiting Croatia.
DeleteIs it known which of the new destinations offered by Croatia Airlines is selling best?
ReplyDeleteNo, airlines usually don't make public which routes are selling best.
DeleteAny news about MSN of the A220, and also about the new livery?
ReplyDeleteYou ask the same question every time. It was already answered
DeleteIt was reported before that MSN will be 55290. As for the livery no one knows but don't expect anything ground breaking. Most likely the squares will be bigger on the tail or something like that.
DeleteWhat a poor network.
ReplyDeleteIt could have been much worse considering their network over the past few years,
Deleteuninspiring
DeleteActually an amazing network across 6 airports with planes being stationed at ZAG and SPU only. Well done Croatia Airlines. :)
DeleteI hope that Croatia Airlines will expand their network. They should connect SJJ and B&H better with Europe.
ReplyDeleteSJJ has Ryanair now for that
DeleteRyanair does not fly to Munich, CDG or BER unfortunately. :(
DeleteI get your point and I am quite happy that SJJ got a new oppurtunity, but it does not solve the main issue. Bad connectivity with European cities.
Didn't they say how many seasonal routes will be starting much earlier than before? As it turns out only Split-Amsterdam is starting earlier. The rest are just 1 or 2 day difference on last year.
ReplyDeleteThe same way they said they ordered A220 from Airbus only to turn out they are leasing them from other companies.
DeleteWhere is Pozdrav iz Rijeka when we need his expertise?!
ReplyDeleteA good question.
DeleteI would say HDZ is keeping him in home detention without internet access until after the election lol.... or he might not be with us anymore.
DeleteTheir summer Dubrovnik marketshare must be very low. Do they have even 5% at DBV in the summer?
ReplyDeleteCroatia Airlines' Dubrovnik capacity share for S24 at the moment stands at 11.6%.
DeleteMore needs to be done to enable greater amount of connections through ZAG. They could be using their Star Alliance membership much better to their advantage rather than juat being a Lufthansa feeder.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful pic
ReplyDeleteNot bad. Good coverage in the east and west. Now if the network looked like this in winter...
ReplyDeleteMore flights needed to Italy, Spain, Eastern Europe
DeleteWhy doesn't Croatia Airlines operate charters!?! Or at least more of them.
ReplyDeleteWhen and with what aircraft? They do a few charters here and there every summer.
DeleteOU could be doing a lot more. They should have at least double the fleet size.
ReplyDelete