Ryanair showing interest in Zagreb Airport
Ryanair handled its fourth-millionth passenger on flights to and from Croatia earlier this month since starting operations to the country in 2006, with plans to further grow on the market. The airline now serves five airports in Croatia, including Zadar, Rijeka, Pula, Dubrovnik and Split, but has expressed interest in launching services to Zagreb as well. “Ryanair has held positive discussions with the Croatian Minister for Tourism regarding longer term traffic growth and route development at its existing Croatian airports as well as potential new airports like Zagreb”, the company said recently. For its part, Zagreb Airport noted it was seeking models which would allow low cost carriers to increase their presence in the Croatian capital.
Ryanair has significantly grown its operations to Croatia this year. It has introduced eleven new routes this summer season, eight of which are to Zadar – Cologne, Eindhoven, Krakow, Hamburg, Bergamo, Nuremberg, Poznan and Prague – as well as one service each from Dublin to Dubrovnik and Split, and one from Berlin to Pula. Overall, the budget airline now maintains 32 routes to Croatia. The new services to Zadar have been introduced in cooperation with the Croatian National Tourist Board. It has resulted in overall growth in the airline’s operations to Zadar by 50% with over forty weekly flights maintained to the city.