February the 20th, 2026 – Ryanair has announced its largest summer flight schedule to Croatia yet, with a massive 4.3 million seats and 118 routes on the cards.
As Sinisa Malus/Poslovni Dnevnik writes, this week in Zagreb, popular Irish low-cost carrier Ryanair presented its summer 2026 flight schedule from seven Croatian airports. As of summer 2026, it will fly along 118 routes and have an enormous 850 weekly flights. It is also introducing two new routes, connecting Dubrovnik with Gdansk and Budapest.
This is therefore Ryanair’s largest summer flight schedule to Croatia recorded so far, and it will offer five percent more seats compared to 2025. For comparison, before the 2020 coronavirus pandemic and all of the related travel disruption, Ryanair had only 40 routes to Croatia. This new expansion includes seven Croatian airports and three bases – Dubrovnik, Zadar and Zagreb.
“This growth further confirms the strong recovery of Croatian tourism and air traffic after the pandemic, with competitive operating costs enabling the expansion of year-round routes and increasing the availability of travel for all,” Ryanair’s Chief Commercial Officer, Jason McGuinness, emphasised.
ryanair cites croatia’s tax and fee advantages
Ryanair points out that Croatia currently has an advantage compared to some other European markets such as Austria, France and Germany, where high taxes and fees are slowing the recovery of air traffic. Thanks to more favourable conditions, some of these capacities have been redirected to Croatian airports. The company believes that the additional abolition of certain tax burdens could further stimulate growth, increase traffic and ensure the long-term competitiveness of Croatia as a tourist destination.
“Ryanair is proud to announce its largest summer flight schedule to Croatia yet, with 4.3 million seats and 118 routes on offer. This investment, supported by nine aircraft based in Dubrovnik, Zadar and Zagreb, ensures strong year-round connectivity and supports thousands of jobs and further development of tourism. We also want to encourage year-round tourism with the routes offered in our winter flight schedule,” added McGuinness.
He said that competitive conditions enable further growth and expansion of the low-cost flight network, which further strengthens Croatia’s position as one of the most attractive European destinations.
no new routes for zagreb, but frequency will be up
Regarding Zagreb, he stated that in the summer of 2026 the focus will be on increasing the frequency of flights on existing routes. There will be no new routes introduced from the capital’s airport. It will fly to London Stansted almost twice as often as last year, i.e. twelve times a week.
Regarding Dubrovnik, he said that before the opening of the base there, the company had two routes, and two years after the opening of the base there were 24. Starting this summer, Ryanair is also introducing two new ones – to Budapest and Gdańsk. He pointed out that the increase in capacity by almost 30 percent this year is particularly important for Dubrovnik, as well as ongoing winter flights.
price wars
On the occasion of the announcement of this record number of flights, Ryanair launched a limited three-day sale of tickets, with prices from 30 euros upwards. The offer is available exclusively through the company’s mobile app.
“The announced growth confirms the continuation of the strong expansion of Ryanair in Croatia, with expectations of a further increase in the number of passengers, the strengthening of the tourism sector and the development of the domestic economy”, they concluded from the Irish airline.
Ryanair has thus established itself as the most present company of all on the Croatian market, but there have also been some capacity reductions as a result of the cancellation of hundreds of thousands of seats in Europe as part of Ryanair’s war on high-cost airports, cities and countries.
Commenting on the Balkans and Central Europe region, he said that he sees a lot of competition for capacity between countries and their relatively small airports. He cited Albania and Tirana Airport as examples, where Ryanair plans to open a base with four aircraft this summer and introduce 30 to 40 new routes. He called on the Croatian Government to ensure that Croatia remains competitive for airlines compared to other countries.
“Low airport access costs mean more traffic, more tourism and more jobs,” McGuinness concluded simply.
