August 9, 2022 - How will the Ryanair Zagreb base work its winter operations this year? A look at how the capital city airport will transform into a weekend-only base for the low-cost airline. 

Simply Flying has revealed what the Ryanair Zagreb base has in store once the seasons change - precisely, the airline's plan to transform the capital city airport into a weekend-only base this winter. A first for the airline. 

Namely, the Irish low-cost airline will not reduce the number of aircraft based in Zagreb, with its three Lauda Europe Airbus A320s staying at Zagreb Airport, but what will change is the number of days the planes fly. Making it a weekend base means that the planes will only operate from Friday to Monday this winter. Thus, all flights on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays will be operated from other Ryanair bases.

So, how will this work?

Simply Flying reveals that all routes launched as year-round routes remain on sale and operate throughout the week, on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, with Boeing aircraft from its other bases around Europe. The busiest London Stansted-Zagreb route will also continue to run daily. 

Currently, all the three Lauda Europe A320s in Zagreb operate a full day of flights all week. The changes will be made with the end of the summer schedule at the end of October when nearly all routes will be at least partially operated by aircraft from other bases. As it stands now, only the Bratislava, Milan Bergamo, and Malta routes see aircraft from other bases. 

Simply Flying adds that this should not impact the capacity of flights, as Boeing planes actually offer higher capacity than the Lauda Europe Airbus A320s, but since frequencies will decrease after summer, so will the number of seats on offer. 

"Most interestingly, even aircraft that connect Zagreb Airport to airports that are not Ryanair’s bases will see non-Zagreb-based aircraft there.

This will be done with the help of a w-rotation, whereby an aircraft from one base will operate four flight segments on two rotations on two different routes from Zagreb Airport," adds Simply Flying. 

This will be done with a 'w-rotation', or when aircraft from one base operates four flight segments on two rotations on two different routes from Zagreb Airport. You can find examples of how that will look here. 

The July stats for Zagreb Airport are also in, with 329,203 passengers traveling through the capital last month - almost 175 thousand more than in July last year. When compared to the busiest year, Zagreb Airport hit 90% of the July 2019 figures. 

Zagreb Airport accepted and dispatched 1,628,437 passengers in the first seven months of this year, approximately 100 thousand more passengers compared to Split Airport, reports Croatian Aviation. 

A total of 1,782,871 passengers passed through 8 Croatian airports (Zagreb, Pula, Rijeka, Zadar, Split, Brač, Dubrovnik, and Osijek) in July this year.

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