Ryanair to fill Zagreb Airport’s network gaps
Ryanair is gearing up for its second round of expansion from Zagreb Airport next week when it stations a second aircraft from its Lauda Europe subsidiary, which will be followed by a third wave of new routes in December when it bases a third jet in the Croatian capital. By mid-December it will operate 24 routes out of Zagreb. The latest additions to its network will include Manchester, Malaga, Dublin, Paphos, Basel, Eindhoven, Thessaloniki, Malta and Naples. Almost all of the new services will be operated twice per week, while Dublin will run three times per week. Ryanair will not be competing directly on any of the new routes, with exception to the Irish capital where it will go head-to-head against Croatia Airlines during the summer months. The low cost airline will provide capacity on busy unserved routes and open up nonstop flights from Zagreb to two new markets which are currently unserved - Malta and Cyprus.
Out of the nine new routes to be introduced in December, Manchester is among Zagreb’s busiest currently lacking nonstop flights. Based on OAG data, in the pre-pandemic 2019, it was the fourth busiest unserved European destination from the Croatian capital with 8.825 indirect passengers. The citypair was previously served by Monarch Airlines, which initially planned to run seasonal summer flights but extended its operations into the winter due to strong demand. However, the low cost airline went bankrupt several months after inaugurating its Zagreb flights. On the other hand, Ryanair primarily serves Cyprus through Paphos Airport rather than the country’s main gateway of Larnaca. In 2019, Larnaca was Zagreb Airport’s tenth busiest unserved route in Europe with 6.017 indirect travellers.
Prior to the pandemic, a total of 3.989 passengers flew indirectly between Zagreb and Malta. Air Malta previously operated seasonal flights to the Croatian capital. Closely behind Malta was Malaga with 3.577 indirect travellers. Thessaloniki saw 3.350 travellers on connecting flights to and from Zagreb. The Croatian capital’s only destination in Greece is Athens, which is served seasonally by Croatia Airlines via Dubrovnik, while Aegean Airlines, which did not restore operations between the two following the start of the coronavirus pandemic, had previously downgraded the service from year-round to summer seasonal. Similarly, prior to Ryanair’s arrival this year, Zagreb’s only year-round destination in Italy was Rome via Dubrovnik or Split, operated by Croatia Airlines. The Croatian flag carrier served Milan on a seasonal basis, although the service was discontinued since the onset of the Covid pandemic. Ryanair has since launched operations from Zagreb to both Rome Ciampino and Bergamo, with Naples to become its third point in Italy. There were a total of 2.114 indirect passengers between Zagreb and Italy’s third largest city.
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