Although Croatia Airlines is still not for sale, it seems that could change soon.
Turkish Airlines, one of the world’s fastest growing airlines, on Tuesday started with direct flights between Istanbul and Dubrovnik. Abdulkerim Cay, director of human resources at Turkish Airlines, took part in the inaugural flight ceremonies. According to him, Turkish Airlines is seriously considering buying Croatia Airlines, reports tportal.hr on May 13, 2016.
Turkish Airlines was founded in 1933 with only five aircraft in the fleet, and today it is one of the world’s largest airlines. Cay explains this growth with the fact that the operating headquarters of the company are located in Istanbul, a city which is geographically a natural bridge between East and West.
The connection between Istanbul and Dubrovnik has been recognized as having major potential, since Dubrovnik is a world famous cultural and tourist centre, which has more and more visitors coming each year, so it was natural that Turkish Airlines recognized this and expressed interest in including the city in its network. Interestingly, in took as many as ten years of negotiations for the project to finally become a reality. In addition to flights to and from Croatia, Turkish Airlines is potentially interested in buying Croatia Airlines outright. Cay claims that the acquisition would be to the mutual satisfaction of both companies, unfortunately without revealing any additional details.
One of the reasons why this initiative could come to fruition is the fact that Croatia and Turkey have excellent economic and political relations, which has been recently confirmed by a visit of Turkish President Erdogan to Zagreb, which included a very successful Croatian-Turkish Business Forum.
And since the Croatian government now says it is ready to start selling at least some of state-owned companies, although not without resistance from opposition, the public, unions, and even some members of the ruling coalition, it seems that the acquisition could happen sooner than many expect.
