Croatia Airlines’ CEO, Jasmin Bajić, has said the carrier long-term plans will revolve around reducing Croatia’s highly seasonal travel market with a fleet of fifteen Airbus A220 aircraft, while ensuring connectivity to its partners’ hub airports to enable transfer options to distant markets. Speaking to the monthly “Poduzetnik” magazine, Mr Bajić said, “The newly initiated development cycle will result in a fleet of fifteen new aircraft over the coming years, which represents significant potential for future growth and development, as well as a foundation for sustainable business operations in the decade ahead. Year-round air connectivity both within Croatia and internationally will continue to be developed, providing strong support to Croatian tourism and the economy as a whole. With our partners at major European hubs, Croatia’s connectivity with the entire world will remain guaranteed”.
According to the CEO, the carrier will put an emphasis on year-round operations over the next five to ten years. “Croatia, as a well-known tourist destination, has great potential to expand its offerings during the low-demand months, with a vision of developing sustainable year-round tourism over the next five to ten years. Achieving this vision requires a collaborative approach with various stakeholders in the tourism sector, in which Croatia Airlines plays a significant role”.
Officials from the Croatian carrier had previously said the company’s destination network will continuously expand over the coming years with the arrival of new A220s, six of which are anticipated within the next fourteen months. However, the airline noted that while it will focus on using the jets on longer-distance routes, it will not operate long-haul flights. Furthermore, Croatia Airlines plans to select a wet-lease capacity provider for turboprop planes by the end of next year, with the aircraft expected to enter service on behalf of the Croatian carrier in 2026. The airline will wet-lease turboprops for regional routes to replace its existing six-member Dash 8s, which are to be retired over the coming years, as the company transitions towards becoming a single aircraft type operator.
Commenting further on its plans, Mr Bajić said, “When it comes to the future of Croatia Airlines, alongside enhancing passenger satisfaction, the focus will be on employees as the company’s greatest asset. Investments in their standard of living, careers, education, and training will continue in order to increase employee satisfaction, boost work productivity, and thereby improve the airline’s competitive position in the highly competitive Croatian aviation market”.
Underwhelming
ReplyDeleteThey have a plan ? 🤣
ReplyDeleteBajić has a vision, AirBaltic was in a similar position in 2018 so Croatia Airlines has a huge potential.
DeleteAir Baltic initially ordered 50 A220s. Croatia Airlines has ordered 15.
Deleteah the smiley guy again
Delete"Bajić has a vision".
DeleteBljuc.
No AirBaltic initially ordered 10 CS300 and then firmed 10 additional aircraft in 2016. Bajić is an aviation legend, Plenković made right choice! Croatia Airlines is future AirBaltic of Adriatic!
DeleteI believe that the airline that Croatia Airlines takes as an example is Air Baltic
DeleteIsn't Air Baltic doing badly, taking every opportunity to wetlease out their fleet? It doesn't sound like a good role model.
DeleteAirBaltic is planning to double the fleet to nearby 100 jets, if they were doing badly they wouldn't be profitable in 2023 on the other hand they have exercised 10 additional jet orders in 2024 so business is booming. With this business model, their expansion in Balkans is inevitable. A lot of airports and routes that were unprofitable for wizz and Ryan but are perfect for a220. Bajić is a aviation legend, books are going to be written about his movements!
DeleteSeems to be more of the same
ReplyDelete+10
DeleteI cannot tell if Bajić is trolling us all at this point or if he is genuinely completely clueless
ReplyDeleteThe latter
DeleteThanks to the people still
Deletevoting for HDZ, we are stuck with him.
I really hope Bajic won't be at the helm to implement the next 5-10 years at the airline.
DeleteWell at least he is not going down Kucko's path of selling everything and dreaming of bases in neighboring countries.
DeleteIf we are lucky maybe bajic will be in jail by then ......
DeleteIs there any chance of a management change at OU?
DeleteNo
DeleteBravo Hrvatska!
ReplyDeleteHow yes no.
DeleteBravo on what exactly in this concrete instance?
DeleteOn a vision!
DeleteIt is a blurred vision
DeleteSo they will continue feeder model. They will need to make wet lease arrangement for a indefinite period, which we have heard is very costly on topics about other airline. They keep talking about new routes and reducing seasonality yet they have not introduced a single new route or increased any frequencies this winter.
ReplyDeleteWhat a joke!
ReplyDelete+1
Delete+2
DeletePozdrav has been missing for a while. I miss him.
ReplyDeleteNot me, because there is no essential content. What is true is that it is unbelievable how incompetent Croatia is. They missed the whole tourism boom. They also missed the opportunity to generate new demand in Zagreb. I mean, they don't even fly to Berlin in the winter!?
DeleteBerlin barely works in summer. My first ever bravo to OU for not wasting anymore tax payer money flying there in winter
DeleteWho thinks that they can have any value from tourism can look former Alitalia. LCC took everything. They have miserable coast and some money. They try to get as much as possible from budget tourist. Please do not reply if you did not go around Mediteranea at least.
DeleteMiserable coast 😂😂😂
DeleteItaly having a miserable coast is one of the more unhinged takes I've read on this website.
DeleteAlitalia was always unproductive because it was as incompetent as Croatia. In contrast to Aegean Airlines in Greece, for example
DeleteAnon 09:59;
DeleteBerlin can work, but not with Croatia's flight schedule. Compare how many flights AirSerbia and Wizz have from Belgrade to Berlin.
Anon 14:16
DeleteAegean managed to erase Ryanair and Wizz Air in Athens and keep expanding like crazy, while they starting to expand from Thessaloniki too. If Aegean can do it then OU can do it too...
I don't understand that it is that hard to get interest for OU. The airline is generally in ok shape. New incoming fleet, you have a nice domestic network which is supported by the government and huge market during the summer. The biggest issue to overcome is seasonality. But still, OU isn't a bad investment. I don't understand that they haven't managed to find anyone.
ReplyDeleteOU had a chance before major changes in the region. They have become far less attractive now. In my opinion they should start growing and make themselves attractive.
DeleteOnce any potential investor has a meeting or two with the Cro government and realise the mentality they have to deal with..... they run. No one will put money in OU if they don't get to control it. Difference if they get some guarantee of support from the government (tax exemptions for example) but when you get asked to put money in and not have control.... nope.
DeleteLooks like they have a good and ambitious plan to transform themselves.
ReplyDeleteThe A220 will allow them to cover the entire continent and comfortably reach Dubai or Tenerife.
Definitely a start of a new era in Croatian aviation.
This is OU we are talking about. They had the fleet to cover the whole continent and comfortably reach Dubai and Tenerife for over a decade.
DeleteWith A220 they have less seats to fill and operate with significantly lower costs.
DeleteCosts are significantly higher for leasing 15 new planes. No business plan can cover them. Only taxpayers can
DeleteOh yeah, Dubai... Of course. What's it going to be? Point to point? From this lucrative market? It's it going to be transfer? Where to? Interline with whom? From where? Look sat the connectivity to Dubai from the region. Come on. Just because it's on a map doesn't mean anything
DeleteGood luck.
ReplyDeleteOpen many new routes, schedule the morning flights to West with all those transfers from Middle East, Balkan, Africa etc and they'll be fine....Timing is critical here for those transfer to catch the flights from London, Amsterdam, Paris or Madrid.....This has to be implemented because small Croatian population just cant fill those planes. OU needs to catch transfer passengers too so they can be successful. Don't get me wrong they should have done this ages ago but the incompetent management have no clue how the business works here. So OU, wake up and get to work. We all wanna see you doing better instead of being a lazy airlines with a 1000s of employees. Oh yeah, you need to get rid of half of your staff too.... If this happens, fingers crossed, then we'll finally see some results.
ReplyDeleteWhich transfer? ETF and Trade works with Albanians.
DeleteI like the part about investing in their staff.
ReplyDeleteEmployees are far from happy with the management. Not to mention how unions have sidestepped the employees. That's why he is saying it.
DeleteOU have been a basket case for years. Nothing is gonna change whilst owned by whatever incompetent crooks the locals vote for. I think Bajic has been on here trolling this morning
ReplyDeleteHow will they reduce seasonality? By flying half empty planes in the winter? Mighty United stops flying to Dubrovnik on Sep 12 2025 for the season. If they can't fly longer than that, what can Croatia do?
ReplyDeleteTransatlantic seasonality and European seasonality are not the same.
DeleteUnited’s Last date from DBV 25.9
DeleteUnited is finally going daily in 2025
DeleteOfficially becoming the new Air Dolomiti.
ReplyDeleteIf that would happen, it wouldn’t be the worst case, bc would get new management
DeleteTheir Q3 results will be out soon and they will not be great. They keep saying how they will reduce costs but A220 isn't a magic plane. Most of their losses are result of a flawed and lazy strategy, not aircraft. They are not operating gas guzzling Fokkers, they are operating A320s which are used far and wide across Europe even by their demigod Lufthansa. The A220 isn't a cheap plane to operate and you need a sound strategy for them to make money. Their plans to wet lease turboprops is also beyond logic in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteThey need to obtain new turboprops to work for great Croatian idea, while they do not have enough passengers. A220 is much costly to fly with 40s[-50s passengers, weight is much bigger, taxes and so on...
DeleteCroatian idea?
DeleteIt has now been over a year of them announcing how they will announce big changes once the A220s start arriving and still nothing.
ReplyDeleteOnly thing is I don’t get is what’s the point of single type airline, if you have to wet lease several aircraft of different type.
ReplyDeleteSo no expansion with the new fleet?
ReplyDeleteIt says in the text they plan to expand network but it's not going to be long haul
DeleteMali Losinj-Munich coming soon
DeleteWhat about Mali Losinj - Frankfurt?
DeleteYep, 2 times per week 4 months of the year.
DeleteFirst comes the commercial/market strategy and then comes the fleet strategy to support the market strategy. Since there is no commercial strategy this is all about nothing and more of the same - in which case, all it will add is significant cost without the comparable revenue lift ... In the end, they can do a lot more with the existing fleet they have...
ReplyDelete+100
DeleteI like the cubes under the wings
ReplyDeleteYeah, that will save them.
DeleteCube is a body, square is a shape.
DeleteDefinition of insanity doing the same thing and expecting different results.
ReplyDeleteOU is officially mad!!
How many more times are you going to repeat this phrase?
DeleteLol
DeleteIt's not a phrase.
DeleteNew York, Seoul and Singapore/Bangkok could all work for OU. Pity they have no other plans than to shuttle pax through FRA/MUC.
ReplyDeleteI think there is even more potential. China and Japan even.
DeleteCroatia Airlines could have launched long haul flights over a decade ago and been profitable on long haul services long ago. It would be ludicrous for them to do it now. They have one of the lowest average load factors in Europe. Under 60% and that's just on European flights. Let alone that they fly from Zagreb to Rome via Split.
DeleteWhat are the busiest unserved long haul routes from Zagreb?
Delete60% load factor because they don't know how to and have very little interest in creating demand. Look at how many Croatians Ryan Air all of a sudden has flying. Many of these passengers were taking the bus or driving but now they are flying.
DeleteNo serious attempt at having a transfer strategy either. Major embarrassment.
Bare in mind that this is a load factor with a majority of winter flights operated by Q400.
DeleteCroats fly wirh Ryanair because it cheap, give them possibility to visit and explore new destinations. I don’t believe that young people would use Croatia airlines( or AirSerbia etc) to spend weekend somewhere.
DeleteThey do not have same costumers
@12.18
DeleteI think it was published here a while ago. JFK is number 1.
New York flights are long overdue but not with OU.
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.
DeleteApart 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.
DeleteUS carrier will eventually come to ZAG.
DeleteWhat I do not understand is the fact the Croatian passport holders do not require USA visas and there are still no flights from Zagreb to US!
DeleteZAG-NYC route would be more successful than some of OU's European ones.
DeleteI've lost all hope for the US flights.
DeleteAt 1445. Just because they feed into Franfurt, doesn't mean it's successful. Everytime I fly this route, the plane is nowhere near full so the feeder model has failed them.
DeleteI 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.
DeleteThat ship has long sailed unfortunately.
Delete@09:10 Convenience. Frankfurt is a pain to transit through.
Deletejust a confirmation that they plan to continue to be a Lufthansa feeder airline. I mean he literally says it in black and white. So much wasted potential and so much for change after the A220s come.
ReplyDeleteConspiracy theory!
DeleteDon't be surprised if in a couple of years time OU becomes Lufthansa's wet lease provider in winter with A220s.
DeleteMight as well paint new aircraft with Lufthansa Croatia titles.
DeleteLH don't need in Winter wet leasen, only in summer
Delete^ yes they do
Deletehttps://aviationweek.com/air-transport/airlines-lessors/lufthansa-group-extends-airbaltic-wet-lease-cooperation
I'm reading: for the summer
DeleteThey are talking about decreasing seasonality yet every new route they have launched since 2016 has been seasonal!
ReplyDeleteI can only dream that one day Croatia Airlines will start long haul flights.
ReplyDeleteLufthansa connects everywhere for OU
ReplyDeleteThen let them cover the losses too
DeleteThe only airline reducing seasonality in Croatia is Ryanair by operating winter flights from Dubrovnik, adding an extra 100,000 seats from Zagreb and flying longer from Zadar.
ReplyDeleteWhat if Lufthansa buys Croatia Airlines?
ReplyDeleteThey have OU feeding them now for nothing so why would they buy them?
Delete