The sides of the state with Croatia Airlines in spitting Ryanair
The Croatian government has said the national carrier should be offered similar terms and conditions at Zagreb airport as Ryanair. It comes after Croatia Airlines accused Zagreb airport of favoritism towards the low-cost carrier which will park two planes in the city in September. “You cannot offer a discount to Ryanair, while you have different criteria for Croatia Airlines, on which you depend the most,” said Croatian Minister for the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure, Oleg Butković. He added that the two sides would hold another meeting in the next few days to try to reach an agreement, noting that there was “goodwill” on both sides for the matter to be resolved.
Ryanair will launch flights to Zagreb with one route each in June and July. This will be followed by the introduction of ten additional destinations in September and the parking of two planes from its subsidiary Lauda Europe. Based on the existing timetables, Ryanair will become the second largest airline at Zagreb Airport based on the capacity offered this summer season. It has 134,190 seats on sale to and from the Croatian capital until October 31. At the same time, Croatia Airlines has 1,014,608, although this is revised as the carrier changes its schedule on a monthly basis. Ryanair has announced plans to launch new routes from Zagreb next year and become the city’s largest airline.
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| Zagreb airport market share by capacity, summer 2021 |
Commenting on Ryanair’s arrival and criticism of Croatia Airlines, Zagreb Airport Managing Director Huseyin Bahadir Bedir said: “Ryanair’s business model often provokes different comments around the world, especially from the share of traditional carriers. This is exactly what happened in Zagreb. This is the nature of our business in today’s world. Competition entails a risk of declining revenues and profitability and requires certain adjustments to new market conditions ”. He added: “Nevertheless, Croatia Airlines is our most important and most important business partner and it is absolutely in Zagreb Airport’s interest to see it succeed. We can and want to help our national carrier and will offer it our know-how and our valuable statistical data, because Zagreb Airport is part of a large group of airports managed by our shareholders, which jointly handled over 250 million passengers in 2019 ”.
