Croatia Airlines will expand its Zagreb network this coming summer season with the launch of five new routes. As previously reported, the additions are primarily the resumption of citypairs served prior to the coronavirus pandemic. The flag carrier will introduce operations to Milan Malpensa, Prague, Bucharest, Madrid and Hamburg. Flights to Milan and Prague will both commence on June 2 and operate three times per week. Services to Hamburg, Bucharest and Madrid will be added in July, with operations to the German city and the Romanian capital to be inaugurated on July 1, with Madrid following suit on July 3. All will be maintained three times per week. The airline will deploy its Airbus A220-300 aircraft on all five routes. EX-YU Aviation News can exclusively reveal the planned timetables below (click on links).
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Croatia Airlines’ network expansion is in line with the carrier’s plan to grow its operations with the arrival of new A220 aircraft. The carrier will take delivery of five A220-300s and one A220-100 this year alone, complementing the two it received last year. Croatia Airlines last served Milan, Prague and Bucharest from Zagreb on a seasonal basis in 2019. They were due to resume in 2020 but were discontinued due to the coronavirus pandemic. The carrier last flew to Hamburg in 2012, however, the route was maintained from Split. Zagreb was linked to the German city in 2019 by Eurowings. Ticket sales for the new routes are expected to commence soon.
Croatia Airlines will face direct competition on just one its five new routes. It will go head-to-head against Iberia on services between Zagreb and Madrid. The Oneworld member plans to maintain between three and nine weekly flights between the two capitals, depending on the month. These include three weekly rotations in April, May and October, five weekly in June and September, six weekly in July and nine weekly during the peak summer travel period in August. Indirectly, Croatia Airlines will compete against Ryanair on the Milan service, with the low cost carrier serving Bergamo Airport five times per week during the summer months. Croatia Airlines planned on adding operations between Zagreb and Lisbon as well but was unable to secure slots.
