Ryanair to open seasonal Dubrovnik base

Low cost carrier Ryanair will launch a seasonal summer base in Dubrovnik next April, making it the company’s second in Croatia after Zadar and the third overall alongside its year-round base in Zagreb. The development will be officially announced today at a press conference in the coastal city, which will be attended by Ryanair’s Chief Commercial Officer, Jason McGuinness, and the General Manager of Dubrovnik Rudjer Bošković Airport, Viktor Šober. As flagged by airline schedule analyst Sean M, the carrier is expected to add thirteen new routes from Dubrovnik, complementing its existing seasonal flights to Dublin and Vienna for a total of fifteen. Notably, operations to London Stansted, as well as the existing Vienna and Dublun routes will be year-round.

Destination	Launch date	Weekly frequency
London Stansted	02.04.2024	6
Memmingen	02.04.2024	2
Weeze	02.04.2024	2
Bergamo	02.04.2024	2
Krakow	02.04.2024	2
Rome	03.04.2024	4
Berlin	03.04.2024	2
Stockholm	03.04.2024	2
Wroclaw	03.04.2024	2
Beauvais	05.04.2024	2
Baden Baden	05.04.2024	2
Manchester	08.04.2024	1
Poznan	05.04.2024	1

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Ryanair and Dubrovnik have had a fraught relationship in the past. The carrier initially planned to commence flights to the coastal city in 2016, however, at the time, the airport said conditions put forward by the airline were unacceptable and too demanding. Following some back and forth, flights to Dubrovnik were finally launched in 2019, although the airport maintained the budget carrier could only fly under the same conditions as others. However, with Dubrovnik yet to recover its traffic from the pre-pandemic 2019, it has now offered discounts to the airline resulting in the new seasonal base. During the January – October period, Dubrovnik Airport handled 2.358.683 passengers, down 15.9% on the same period in 2019.

Ryanair has three aircraft stationed in Zadar over the summer and three jets in Zagreb throughout the year, with a fourth expected to be based in the Croatian capital next year. In 2023, the airline has a total of 2.798.138 seats for sale on the Croatian market and 15.397 scheduled flight operations. This makes it Croatia’s largest carrier by seat capacity and second largest by the number of operated flights, behind only Croatia Airlines. In Zadar alone, Ryanair accounts for a whopping 77.2% of the airport’s total annual seat capacity. As reported by EX-YU Aviation News back in July, Ryanair plans to make Central and Eastern Europe a major part of its upcoming expansion. Yesterday, the airline announced the launch of five routes from Sarajevo.