Ryanair to expand Croatia winter operations
Ryanair plans to further grow its presence in Croatia this coming winter season with the carrier to operate year-round flights from Zadar. The budget airline, which maintains a summer base in the city, will run two weekly flights to Vienna between late October of this year and late March in 2023, marking its first winter service from the country outside of its Zagreb base. Flights will be operated by its Malta Air subsidiary using the 189-seat Boeing 737-800 aircraft. Tickets have been put on sale. Ryanair will become the only carrier besides Croatia Airlines to maintain year-round scheduled flights from Zadar, as well as the first foreign carrier to run services from the city in winter and the only operator to provide international flights from the Croatian city over the winter months.
Ryanair will boast its biggest summer network out of Zadar this year with 46 routes on offer. Furthermore, it will have three aircraft based in the city during the peak travel period. However, the airline has delayed the launch of planned new destinations out of Zadar for this summer on several occasions, as well as the resumption of some services. A total of 22 routes have been affected. Despite doing so, it will be, by far, Zadar’s largest airline, helping the airport increase its number of flights by 66% this year. The airport expects to register its busiest year on record, outstripping pre-pandemic levels.
The Director of Operations of Ryanair’s subsidiary Lauda Europe, Tadej Notersberg, recently said the Group sees that Croatia has “huge potential”. “We can see that demand in Croatia is generally very high. We can also see that the Croatian market has huge potential. There were many routes missing and the whole potential of Croatia wasn’t utilised in the past. The Ryanair Group recognised this potential. There is also further growth planned for the future. This year we will operate three aircraft, not only from Zagreb, but out of Zadar as well. We won’t stop with these six aircraft in Croatia”, Mr Notersberg said. He added, “Future growth is planned, and we are quite sure and optimistic that we will be able to increase operations out of Croatia soon”.
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