Croatian Aviation reports that the low-cost company from the United Arab Emirates will not resume traffic between Zagreb Airport and Dubai this summer.
FlyDubai had initially announced that it would resume traffic between Dubai and Zagreb in the summer flight schedule in 2021, as a replacement for Emirates, which has permanently withdrawn from the same route due to the pandemic.
The airline originally planned to resume traffic beginning the year, and flights were then delayed from month to month. The last announcement from the airline was that the traffic on this line would be resumed from the end of May, but as of today, all flights have been canceled until September 1 this year.
The airline was to offer 57,000 seats between Dubai and Zagreb in the summer of 2021, however, significantly less than in 2019 when Emirates operated on this route with a B777-300ER wide-body aircraft and an average capacity of 358 seats per flight. Recall, in 2019, more than 152 thousand seats were available on this line.
Apart from the smaller capacity, the Dubai – Zagreb line will also no longer have a first-class seat offer for which Emirates is world-famous. The number of offered seats in business and economy class is also drastically reduced.
But Zagreb isn’t the only victim this summer, as all planned flights between Dubai and Dubrovnik for this year have also been canceled. Recall, Flydubai planned on operating the Dubai – Dubrovnik route from May 13, twice a week, on Thursdays and Sundays. From June 25, the airline was to add a third weekly flight (Fridays), with scheduled flights until the end of September.
FlyDubai’s return to Zagreb on September 1 is not yet certain. If the airline is not able to fill its capacity on narrow-body aircraft in the summer months, then the occupancy of this line is even riskier after September 1, when demand is usually lower.
As a reminder, in the summer months of 2019, Emirates connected Zagreb and Dubai daily with wide-body aircraft type B777-300ER, while FlyDubai operated on the same route in the winter months.
Nevertheless, the return of Flydubai to Zagreb will eventually enable Emirates passengers to continue their journey to Zagreb with a partner company.
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