Zagreb has a shiny new airport terminal, with – it appears – a shiny new parking pricelist to match. A comparison of regional airport parking prices on April 8, 2017.
As far as airport terminals go, she is beautiful to look at indeed, and a wonderful entrance into the Croatian capital.
Zagreb Airport’s new terminal opened last month, and its elegant look will be matched by the arrival of some elegant new airlines in the coming months, in particular Emirates, who start direct flights from Dubai to Zagreb on June 1.
Soon after the opening, Croatian media picked up on one or two issues on the agency engaged to do the translations, and there were other mutterings about the new airport had a price tag to match, with prices for services far exceeding the Croatian norm.
I paid my first visit to the airport early this week to collect a friend arriving from Moscow. 27 kuna for an hour’s parking. Uff! That was just a little more than the 3 kuna I was used to paying in downtown Varazdin.
Which got me thinking – how do parking prices at Zagreb’s new airport compare to other airports in the region? Obviously, as a shiny new airport, one would expect a higher price, but just how high is that price? Here is what we found, using ww.xe.com as our currency converter – I looked at one hour parking (my experience) as the standard. Prices in Euro.
Zagreb – 3.6
Belgrade – 0.52
Ljubljana – 2
Sarajevo – 1.5
Graz – 2.4
Split 1.3
Dubrovnik – 1.3
Perhaps the most relevant comparison – if we can get past the politics for just a minute – is Belgrade, an airport which has undergone a resurgence with the Etihad investment in Air Serbia. Politics apart, there is a sense of rivalry on the airport front as well, with both airports vying to become the regional hub. While Croatia has the better ariport and EU membership, Serbia has the better airline and prices. It is also benefiting from being outside the EU for certain markets, with its visa policy freedom, as was demonstrated last week when a Chines airline decided upon Belgrade not Zagreb for flights. I have not researched landing charges for both airports yet (but I shall), but my initial question based on the parking is whether or not the new Zagreb airport is pricing itself (and therefore Croatia) out of some markets.
Taking a closer look at the parking prices between Belgrade and Zagreb is interesting. Did you know you can park at Belgrade Airport for a month for the price of a week at Zagreb Airport, and still have change for a beer?
Zagreb seems to be the only airport in the region without a published weekly parking price. Doing the daily calculations, this comes to 59.1 euro a week. By comparison, you can park your car at Belgrade Airport for a week for 32 euro, or a month (limited availability) for 55 euro.
We will be taking a closer look at the pricing structure of airport services in the coming weeks.
UPDATE
We have had several messages in the minutes since publishing this article – Zagreb Airport Parking Photo of the Day – 73 Minutes
