The new terminal has been in operation for two months, but delays have increased by 200 percent.
The new terminal of the Franjo Tuđman Zagreb International Airport has been in operation for two months, but the experience of airlines using the services of the new Zagreb airport are not particularly good. They say that the delays of their aircraft have drastically increased since they switched to the new terminal, reports Večernji List on May 30, 2017.
The average delays have increased to 19 minutes, and the number of aircraft delays has increased by as much as 200 percent. One of the biggest problems is a small number of stands for aeroplanes during the busiest periods, in particular between the noon and 3 pm when there are 17 departures from the airport, but there are only 13 stands.
Therefore, those aircraft which cannot find a spot in front of the new terminal have to go to the old terminal building. And that means delays, as both passengers and luggage have to be then transported from the old to the new terminal and vice versa. The airport equipment and workers are scattered in two places, so they also cannot serve in time those aeroplanes which are waiting on the stands of the new terminal.
Airlines also argue that there is too few staff at the airport and that passengers are late with the boarding due to overcrowding at some points at the airport, such as the passport control. The particularly important problem is with the luggage which passengers wait for too long, sometimes for more than half an hour. That is due to too few people working in the baggage sorting and transportation department.
Delays in the upcoming summer months could be even longer because there will be far more passengers. In April, around 5,500 passengers passed through the airport daily, and in the peak season, this figure could climb to almost 10,000.
Croatia Airlines, which accounts for 50 percent of the traffic at the airport, say they are taking part in joint efforts to address all the problems in the operation of the airport as soon as possible, to the satisfaction of passengers.
The airport management acknowledges that in April “there was a certain increase in delays due to various technical and traffic reasons.” They say that most of the delays are related to aircraft arriving late to Zagreb, which has a consequence of them leaving late as well. They also point out that delays have been significantly decreased in May.
