As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marija Crnjak writes, after several months of falling and stagnant air traffic, Zagreb’s Franjo Tudjman International Airport is recording a trend of gradual recovery, in the summer months they expect continued acceleration of growth, which will peak at the end of the summer season, when the Ryanair Zagreb base is expected to open.
After two US companies (Delta Airlines and United Airlines) launched direct flights to Dubrovnik, Hungary’s Wizz Air, one of Europe’s fastest growing airlines, yesterday marked the launch of flights from Dubrovnik to Rome, Warsaw and Vienna. At the same time, Zagreb Ryanair flights were cancelled, which can only be assumed is the result of the apparent low interest of passengers.
Compared to the second quarter of 2020, during the lockdown, the traffic at Zagreb Airport is 3.5 times higher. This year’s figures are currently at 220,000 passengers, and June alone closed with more than 100,000 passengers. From July, Croatia Airlines will fly from Zagreb on 14 international and 5 domestic routes, and will have a total of more than 150 weekly departures. They expect a significant contribution to the recovery of traffic in Zagreb from Ryanair. At the Franjo Tudjman Airport, the plan is to serve between 90 and 100 daily air operations during the peak period of the summer season, and Zagreb will be connected with 6 domestic and 42 international destinations with regular lines.
However, experience shows that things are not going quite so smoothly yet, as the Croatian Aviation portal published the testimonies of passengers whose flights were cancelled by Ryanair.
On June the 17th, the Irish carrier launched its second of 15 planned routes from Zagreb to Bergamo, an airport near Milan. Since then, planes have operated on this route four times a week, but the portal received a number of passengers who bought tickets for flights in August, only to receive a notification from the company that their flight had been cancelled. It turned out that all 18 flights were cancelled in August, and the passengers were notified in the email that the cancellations were due to new restrictive measures for tourist trips between Croatia and Italy.
This is not clear at all, however, as nothing has changed in terms of restrictions between these countries. Moreover, Ryanair has announced the Rome – Zagreb – Rome route in August, Ryanair flights from Zadar to Milan have not been cancelled, nor have the other four routes between Zadar and the Italian destinations operated by this airline. Croatia Airlines, Vueling, EasyJet, Volotea and Wizz Air also didn’t cancel flights scheduled to fly to Italy in August.
It’s difficult to understand what is really going on here, given the lack of clarity that has dominated flights ever since the pandemic began at the beginning of 2020, but with tickets as cheap as they are and with Croatia Airlines being the other option, it’s hard to imagine the Irish carrier suffering a great deal as a result.
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