Although in the first four months of the year the national carrier holds 60% of the market, losses follow. From May to October, it operates with profits.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 31st of January, 2018, travellers are increasingly using technology for travel, flights and reservations, and the situation has been particularly advanced when it comes to air transport, according to the Innovation Conference held recently in the Croatian capital of Zagreb.
The organiser is the IT Travelport Group that has around 3400 employees, 2.3 billion dollars in annual revenue, and is one of the largest B2B technology players in transportation. Gavin Teale, the travelport manager for eastern Europe, points out that 33% of travel around the world is being booked and reserved using smartphones today, and more than 60% of passengers in air transport consider an Internet connection at airports, hotels and aircrafts essential.
“Statistics show that 43% of travellers are constantly using their phones during the trip, 59% are concerned about possible technical failures, and 70% think that using digital check-in and boarding passes is much easier than using classic methods and printed documents. Statistics show that the average traveler uses 16 different ‘travel” applications on their journey,” says Teale.
“Croatia Airlines (CA) holds about 22% of the aviation market in Croatia, and if we exclude low-cost (budger) travel, then this percentage is 42.2. According to the data from 2016, classical operators held a total of 51.2% of the market in our country, behind us are Lufthansa, SAS, Austrian, British Airways and Turkish Airlines. Lowcosters had 48.8 percent of the market, but I expect the data for last year to show that they’ve exceeded 50 percent, the biggest in this segment being EasyJet with 10.8 percent of the market, Germanwings/Eurowings with 8.6, and Ryanair with 7.4%,” Croatia Airlines’ Jasmin Bajić said. He argued that Croatia Airlines has, through its profitability, a very seasonal business model.
”Looking at the months for 2016, we held 60 percent of the market from January until April, but then we lost 96.3 million kuna. From May until October, the share increased to 60 percent again, but the loss was at 9.1 million kuna,” Bajić said.
He added that Croatia Airlines has the primary European routes of Frankfurt, Munich, Vienna, Zurich, Amsterdam, London, Paris, Rome, and Brussels, while other destinations are secondary or public – subsidised domestic lines.
