September the 15th, 2022 - The Croatian national carrier is set to attempt to fight the competition with some new Croatia Airlines winter routes for the 2022/2023 schedule.

As Morski writes, the national carrier recently announced that it would introduce several new Croatia Airlines winter routes this season. These are international which will run from October the 30th, 2022 to March the 25th, 2023 and offer a total of 28 percent more flights and seats compared to last year's winter flight schedule. Croatia Airlines will as such be directly connected with thirteen international destinations owing to nineteen international routes in the upcoming winter period.

The company plans to carry out more than 8,500 regular flights and offer about 869,000 seats on them, which is 28 percent more flights and seats compared to the 2021/2022 winter flight schedule. These Croatia Airlines winter route flights are direct ones between Split-Zurich and Pula-Zurich, which will run twice a week from the end of October to mid-January 2023, and flights on the regular route between Rijeka-Munich will run three times a week owing to increased demand for them.

By the end of January 2023, flying on the regular Zagreb-Dublin route will be carried out twice a week, and the Osijek-Munich route which also flies twice a week, will continue.

During the winter period, Croatia Airlines aircraft will directly connect Zagreb International Airport with a total of thirteen European destinations - Amsterdam, Vienna, Brussels, Dublin, Frankfurt, Copenhagen, London Heathrow, Munich, Paris, Rome (Via Split), Sarajevo, Skopje and Zurich, While from the Split Airport, there are currently planned flights to four international destinations: Munich, Frankfurt, Rome and Zurich.

When it comes to domestic flights, Croatia Airlines has announced their plan for the continuation of the air connection of the following Croatian cities this winter: Zagreb, Split, Dubrovnik, Zadar and Pula.

The network of international and domestic flights during the upcoming winter season has been adapted to current demand, which is continuously monitored from within the company, and the planned flying order is subject to changes depending on the development of both epidemiological and security situations in Croatia and across the world.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated travel section.

ZAGREB, 19 July 2022 - The HSSKL trade union of Croatian flight controllers on Tuesday said that its members will go on strike at 0700 hrs Thursday over burnout and exhaustion issues.

On the first day of their industrial action, the number of planes flying over Croatia will be reduced to 40% of the total prescribed capacity, and the traffic at airports will not be affected until Saturday.

However, on 23 July the union threatens to reduce the capacity of the total planned planes at all the Croatian airports, except in Osijek, by 50%.

The HSSKL union today expressed hope that the unionists will reach an agreement with the management of Croatia Control in charge of the air traffic management in addressing the issues of burnout and exhaustion of flight controllers.

The negotiations on this matter started on 24 March according to the union that demands changes in the organization of shifts for flight controllers and has warned of the shortage of professionals in this sector.

For more, check out our politics section.

August the 27th, 2021 - Croatian passenger transport for 2021 so far is significantly stronger than that of the comparable period of pandemic-dominated 2020, by as much as 124 percent.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Jadranka Dozan writes, the restrictions imposed on travel that came with the outbreak of the global coronavirus pandemic last year have left a strong mark on Croatian passenger transport activities, and in recent months this has been reflected in a significant increase when compared to 2020.

While the first quarter of this year was still very much marked by a decline in the number of passengers transported (34 percent) because in a good part of last year's first quarter there were no such restrictions in force, in the second quarter of 2021, state statisticians recorded significant annual growth.

According to the latest CBS data, a total of 13.9 million passengers were transported from April to June, which is 124 percent more than in the same period last year, although this still means that there has been a 35.8 percent decrease when compared to the same period in 2019, equal to 7.7 million fewer passengers.

Of the less than 14 million passengers transported, road line transport is expected to account for 7.9 million passengers. And that is far from the pre-pandemic figures (35 percent less), but compared to last year, it represents an increase of a very encouraging 157 percent.

At the same time, slightly less than 3.4 million passengers were transported by rail, almost twice as many as in the observed period of 2020, with a relative lag for 2019, as was the case in road transport.

The same percentage decrease compared to the year before the appearance of SARS-CoV-2 was recorded in the period April-June by Croatian shipping companies in maritime and coastal transport with close to 2.5 million passengers, which is four fifths more than last year.

The biggest gap compared to pre-pandemic achievements is, unsurprisingly, in air transport. Airlines carried 173,000 passengers in the second quarter of 2021, and although this means an increase of as much as 176 percent when compared to last year, it is also only 27.2 percent of the realisation in the same quarter of pre-pandemic 2019.

If we add up the total decline in the first and growth in the second quarter, the result of the first half of this year is 25.2 million passengers carried or 11.2 percent more people using Croatian passenger transport than last year, but 38.3 percent less than in 2019.

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