Great news for travellers between the UK and Croatia. One of the leading European budget airlines is in talks to open new routes from the UK to both Split and Zagreb. There is currently no budget airline route between the UK and Zagreb, since the collapse of Monarch airlines. Budget airline Eurowings do currently fly into Zagreb, but not from the UK.
Ryanair were one of the first budget airlines to offer flights to Croatia, when it started flying to Zadar airport over ten years ago. Since then it has faced tough competition from other airlines offering routes to the Croatian coast. Ryannair has previously tried to expand its portfolio in Dubrovnik, including talks of a year-round route, however, the desired fee concessions for providing such a route have not yet materialised. Dubrovnik airport is currently seeing a huge amount of growth, due to new international routes being introduced from the US and Ireland with discussions also underway for a new route from Canada. This winter, Dubrovnik airport is undergoing large works to cater to this expansion of capacity.
Franjo Tuđman airport, Zagreb
News for travellers to Croatia and for Croatian airports is almost wholly optimistic at present. Croatia's only major airport that seems to be falling behind such trends is Osijek airport, which lost its only flight to the UK over one year ago. Again, unsuccessful negotiations over the concessions asked by the budget airline running the route were given as the reason for the removal of the flight; budget airlines ask for concessions on fees for landing, in return for providing a service that will help the local economy from tourism. The loss of the flight is yet another setback to the tourist potential held by one of Croatia's regions least discovered by tourists. Slavonia holds huge tourist potential, not least in its beautiful capital city of Osijek. Osijek airport does however currently have cheap flights to two airports in Germany and one in Switzerland.