Croatia’s national air carrier currently has airbuses on loan during the summer, in addition to their existing fleet.
As Poslovni Dnevnik/Darko Bicak writes on the 4th of April, 2018, seasonality is a phenomenon that is, to some either greater or lesser extent, in every world economy and in most sectors, but in Croatia, it is rather extreme in its nature, especially when it comes to tourism and when it’s related to traffic.
Of course, this has been confirmed by the statistics, according to which almost 25 percent of the national GDP is tied in with tourism. This also includes the national air carrier, Croatia Airlines, which is mostly profitable only during the summer months and as far as the rest of the year is concerned, results are almost at a positive zero.
Large demand
According to Krešimir Mlinar, the air carrier’s network and revenue manager, this company would need 70 airbuses during the busy summer season, while during the winter, in stark contrast, the existing six are ”too many”, along with six smaller Dash-8’s. “Every year, we consider twenty new lines, but we have to take many limiting factors into account, and usually, the fleet is too small. We’re particularly proud of the fact that for the first time ever in the company, we managed to introduce regular flights from Zagreb to Dublin, which will run twice a week from the 3rd of May to the 28th of October. We managed to stabilise the business and decided to expand the network. Everything we introduced in 2016 and 2017 will fly this year as well, because the plans and decisions proved to be good,” stated Mlinar.
Due to the high seasonal oscillations, Croatia Airlines doesn’t plan to extend its fleet by purchasing more planes, but in recent years, they company is regularly renting two aircraft from its Spanish partner, Air Nostrum. Croatia Airlines recorded a steady increase in its passenger numbers, which stood at a record at 2.1 million last year. For the first three months of this year, 330,000 passengers were recorded, which is approximately seven percent more than there were during the same period last year. During the summer season, the national carrier will fly directly to 40 destinations in 24 European countries.
Otherwise, Zagreb’s Franjo Tudjman Airport is Croatia Airlines’ base, making up for more than 60 percent of total air traffic. Adjustment to the new terminal cost them about 12 million kuna last year.
