April the 1st, 2025 – The popular Irish carrier Ryanair is expecting 2025 to be great with full aircraft and high numbers from Zagreb Airport, a base that has been incredible for the company.
As Sinisa Malus/Poslovni Dnevnik writes, Ryanair handled more than 1.3 million passengers from its Zagreb Airport base last year. Data from the European Union’s statistical office, Eurostat, shows that Ryanair was the main driving force behind Zagreb Airport’s strong passenger performance in 2024, serving a total of thirty destinations during the summer peak season.
The average cabin load factor on the Zagreb network stood at an impressive 87 percent. London Stansted retained its position as the busiest route, while Dublin had the highest average annual load factor of 95.4 percent. Girona and Palma de Mallorca followed, both of which were launched last year, according to Eurostat data compiled by Ex-Yu Aviation News.
ryanair has big plans for 2025 for its zagreb airport base
Ryanair launched five new routes from Zagreb Airport back in 2024, most of which performed very well. Palma de Mallorca, Alicante and Girona had some of the highest average loads on the airline’s entire network from the Croatian capital. A notable exception was Pisa, which had the lowest load factor of 69.5 percent with 20,021 passengers, which is considered a weak figure by low-cost air carrier standards. Ryanair will also increase frequencies on a number of routes over the coming months, with a focus on its April operations due to the Easter holidays. This will make it the largest carrier by available seat capacity at Zagreb Airport for the first time next month. Overall, traffic at Zagreb is picking up.
After exceeding four million passengers for the first time in 2024, reaching a total of 4.3 million passengers, Zagreb Airport has continued its upward trend in passenger numbers thus far in 2025.
In the first quarter and second part of the winter schedule, traffic at Zagreb increased by eight percent, confirming Zagreb’s growing importance as a key regional air hub. With strong traffic during the winter schedule, Zagreb Airport ensured direct connections to numerous destinations throughout the year.
Ryanair included, 2025 is looking great for Zagreb Airport. The summer flight schedule came into force on Sunday. It is realistically expecting the continued growth of traffic and expansion of its destination network, putting Zagreb on the map of attractive destinations for travellers from all over the world. Looking at he increase in traffic in the winter flight schedule of 2024/2025, Ryanair contributed the most, connecting Zagreb Airport with 22 destinations.
additional increases from other airlines
Aegean Airlines, the Greek national airline, also increased the number of frequencies on the Zagreb-Athens route, while Pegasus Airlines, the Turkish low-cost airline, further strengthened the connection between Zagreb and Istanbul, more specifically with Sabiha Gökçen Airport.
Croatia Airlines connects Zagreb with key European hubs, enabling further connections to global destinations. In its 2025 summer schedule, Croatia Airlines announced the opening of new routes to Milan, Prague, Bucharest, Madrid and Hamburg, with three flights a week from the beginning of July to the end of October.
ryanair stands out
Ryanair has high hopes for 2025, and is continuing to strengthen its presence in Zagreb Airport throughout the year. On March the 30th, it introduced another brand new route to Palermo with three flights per week. It is also planning to increase the number of weekly flights on existing routes to destinations such as Milan, Rome, Malta, Brussels, Palma de Mallorca and Frankfurt Hahn. The route to Memmingen, which was previously seasonal, will now operate year-round.
south korea, canada and zagreb
The South Korean T’way Air will once again connect Seoul and Zagreb three times a week from June the 10th to October the 25th this year without a technical stopover. Canadian Air Transat will also continue with direct flights between Toronto and Zagreb three times a week from mid-May to early October.
In 2025, Zagreb will be connected to seventy destinations, six of which will be domestic and 64 international. A total of twenty airlines will operate at Zagreb Airport.
