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Post by BL on Nov 5, 2003 20:53:34 GMT 1
CRO government spent 3 million pounds renovating and updating Osijek Airport in Northern Croatia. This airport handled only 1,700 travellers this year. As the airport is very close to Serbia, Bosnia, Hungary and suitable for many Croats from N. Croatia, why not allow Ryanair or similar to fly there?
Will it happen?
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Post by splico on Nov 6, 2003 2:01:15 GMT 1
Because that will mean death to Croatia Airlines (which we all secretly wish as they are robing us). On other hand, I think Ryanair only fly inside EU. Something to do with, as they call it, "Open Skies" agreement which Croatia did not sign yet. Some more info about that you can find on www.vecernji-list.hr/POSLOVNI/2002/11/06/Pages/irci.html |
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Post by Graham - Bosmere on Nov 6, 2003 13:29:00 GMT 1
Also how much would the town of Osijek be prepared to pay Ryanair to fly there. Ryanair will not fly to a destination unless they can make a profit and with low cost flights to Graz and Budapest the only real market would be NE Croatia and Serbia, neither area having a great deal of money floating around in their economies to sustain a regular low cost service. With Ryanair you are looking at 150 - 180 people in each direction everyday. As soon as load factors go below 80% they will drop the route. Jus tlook at the Zagreb London route. BA were selling tickets at about £130 return in the spring this year and they still could not get high enough load factors.
Low cost airlines are only low cost when they are hitting the 90% load factor. As soon as they get towards the 100% mark the prices rocket. We saw this with the fares to Venice this year and often BA were cheaper than the 'low cost' carriers. Croatia Airlines have to run a year round service and the summer fares have to subsidise the winter operations when with the best will in the world Croatia is not the most popular destination for Brits.
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