September 14, 2018 - Seaplanes and the Mediterranean - after another summer of no flights, are things finally about to start happening?
It is just over four years since a Twin Otter landed in the channel outside the harbour of Jelsa at just after 09:00 on August 27, 2014, the first scheduled seaplane operation in modern European aviation history. After a 14-year fight with Croatian bureaucracy, it seemed that the European Coastal Airlines dream of connecting Croatia's coast and islands with a network of quick and scenic seaplane flights would finally be realised. Over the next two years, the network was expanded with coastal seaports and landing points at Dubrovnik, Split, Resnik, Rijeka and Pula, island connections to Hvar, Korcula, Lastovo, Pag and Losinj, and even two international flights to Ancona and Pesara in Italy.
ECA's flights continued for just under two years until they were grounded by the Croatian Civil Aviation Authority following a damning report about safety by Croatian portal Index.hr in the peak of the season, and although one plane took to the sky again for a few weeks, the company - already in financial trouble - did not recover, and seaplanes on the Croatian coast were no more. ECA is still in pre-bankrupcty proceedings, and its owner is suing the Civil Aviation Authority for 25 million euro, according to a recent report in CH-Aviation.
Since the demise of ECA, there have been several rumours of seaplanes returning to Croatia with a different company. The infrastructure is still in position from the ECA era. ECA CEO Klaus Dieter Martin has clearly not given up, and CH-Aviation reported last month on his plan to return with Chinese investors, although it would be interesting to see how that would work with his company suing the CCAA. Airways Europe, based in Montenegro, showed strong interest in entering the Croatian seaplane market, even buying some of the assets of ECA, but they confirmed their position earlier this year in a statement to TCN, which you can read here.
The hopes of island-hopping seaplane tourists were raised once again back in March with the launch of a new website from an alleged seaplane company called Split Air, which promised to be delivering services from June 26 and online sales from May 1. Their website remains untouched since it went live in March and, needless to say, no flights commenced.
Another summer with lots of rumours of seaplane flights resuming, but nothing actually happening.
Meanwhile, in the rest of the Mediterranean...
One other country blessed with many gorgeous islands which would benefit from quick seaplane access is Greece. Seaplane operators have been having their own bureaucratic challenges with seaplanes over a similar timeframe as ECA, but it seems that, at last, seaplanes will fly from a base in Corfu in 2019, according to the Greek Reporter:
The country’s first seaplane network will start operating in 2019, according to a bill submitted to parliament on Wednesday.
The bill will give the “green light” for the development of this network after 15 years of waiting and tens of millions of investments that fell through.
The first seaplane network is expected to be set up at the Ionian Sea and Western Greece, with its base on Corfu.
It is envisaged that more than 100 waterways will be created to bring a new dimension to Greek tourism. Two companies, Hellenic Seaplanes and Greek Waterways, will operate, and there is at least 250 million euro of investment from the UK and China involved.
Should the venture be successful, the base of Corfu is an interesting choice for potential international expansion, with a number of tourism countries in the vicinity - Albania, Italy, Montenegro and Croatia.
And while the main seaplane action looks set to take place south of Croatia, in Greece, there is also an interesting development taking place to the west, on Lake Gerosa in Italy, as the description of this recent YouTube video explains:
On 21st July, on the Italian Lake of Gerosa, in the Marche Region in the Province of Ascoli Piceno, a new waterway for the landing of seaplanes was inaugurated.
It is another step forward in the Fly2Italy project, a kind of ideal motorway in the sky that will offer a series of equipped landing areas for flights arriving from the North of Europe.
The other towns that are getting organized to provide this aviation tourism service are Costa Volpino on the Iseo Lake in Lombardy, the Caccamo Lake in the Marche, and Gallipoli in Apulia.
The main objectives of the local administration of Lake Gerosa are to promote this stopover as a reference point for central Italy for seaplanes that are travelling from north to south, to guarantee incoming quality tourism to the area, as a potential stopover to connect Italy to the dozens of waterways that are available in Croatia, as a tourist destination with spectacular attractions, and as a specialized centre for people who wish to train in flying seaplanes.
The creation of a flying school is in fact planned in an existing lakeside building, which will offer pilots from all over Europe the chance to obtain the licence that is required to pilot these planes, during a specific period of study.
The waterway in Gerosa, which complies with the Italian ENAC regulations, is now authorised to welcome seaplanes, and soon jetties and docks will be created to provide safety for the planes and crews, providing mobility all over the country.
Let us listen to the comments of some of the people who have worked on this new and important innovation in the European small aircraft sector.
With so much positive seaplane news with Croatia's neighbours, could is simply be a matter of time before the 15-minute island-hopping reality is once more in Croatia?
