January the 30th, 2025 – Croatia Airlines is preparing for a new fleet, as well as accept the delivery of a third brand new Airbus A220-300 plane.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the ongoing transition of Croatia Airlines to a single-type Airbus A220 fleet is significantly increasing company costs. Naturally, that will impact its financial results for 2024, with the carrier expected to post a net loss of several million euros. This accompanied by the popular Ryanair flying from Zagreb to countless destinations across Europe cheaply certainly doesn’t go in the domestic carrier’s favour.
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Croatia Airlines CEO Jasmin Bajić confirmed the above in a statement to IATA’s “Airlines” magazine. “Costs are rising on the whole. Croatia Airlines is also going through a transition phase which is increasing our cost exposure. For example, our pilots need two months of training to operate a new aircraft, and there’s a constant oversight of all the work we do and many new items and systems we need to purchase. On top of all that, the structural exposure to new regulations and industry crises is ever present.”
Bajić believes that the savings that Croatia Airlines having a new fleet will bring will ultimately impact the carrier’s final results.
“This new fleet will bring us a 25% reduction in fuel and lower maintenance costs. We hope that our new product and our focus on customer service will increase revenues. However, reducing costs and increasing revenues is always a challenge,” Bajić said, according to Ex-Yu Aviation News.
He added that EU regulations regarding the use of SAF (sustainable aviation fuel) will also affect the airline’s costs.
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“There’s a problem with the EU’s 2 percent mandate for OS and its availability. That problem ends up being made even worse for us. If larger airlines and airports are worried about that, imagine the problems now being faced by a small airline and a small airport? Where should we get SAF and how much will it cost when we don’t have the same economies of scale? Our costs will be proportionally higher,” the CEO noted. Croatia Airlines is otherwise preparing to take delivery of its third Airbus A220-300 aircraft by the end of this quarter, as part of its new fleet.