It should be emphasized that in these extraordinary circumstances, despite all current restrictions, performing all possible flights actually enables many Croatian citizens to return to their homeland and at the same time to many other foreign nationals to return to their home countries.
In addition, the company yesterday, March 20, joined the transport of humanitarian aid (protective equipment) from the United Arab Emirates to Croatia.
Also, as a socially responsible company, appreciating its passengers, in these extraordinary circumstances caused by force majeure, Croatia Airlines has adopted customized rules that are published transparently and promptly on the website www.croatiaairlines.hr.
At this point, we share the fate of the entire aviation industry, which is globally one of the most vulnerable industries and suffers daily a direct amount of the negative effects of the global coronavirus pandemics. Due to extraordinary circumstances, an average of the world coronavirus pandemic averaged 50 percent lower bookings this week (16. – 22. March 2020) compared to the same week last year. The reservation is also expected to be at 50 percent next week, and next week, according to current data, the reservation could be 39 percent. Specifically, in the next week of the planned 407 summers, they plan to do 196. If we go back to the first half of March, when the impact of coronavirus was not so important, it should be noted that between 1 and 15 March 2020, the company performed 3 percent less summer and 31 percent less passengers compared to the same period in 2019. From 1 to 19 March, Croatia Airlines averaged 2,590 passengers per day.
In order to protect the general health of all Croatian citizens and the health of passengers and employees of the company to the highest extent possible, on March 10, scheduled flights on the Zagreb – (via Split) – Rome v.v. Three days later, on March 13, 2020, international flights from the company’s European destinations to Adriatic airports were suspended (specifically, flights Split – Frankfurt – Split, Split – Munich – Split, Dubrovnik – Frankfurt – Dubrovnik and Rijeka – Munich – Rijeka). and passengers from these flights to their final destinations are transported via Zagreb, which enables and facilitates health surveillance of air travelers by Croatian public health authorities.
After that, flights on the Zagreb – Skopje line were suspended due to the closure of the Skopje airport, and from March 19, flights to and from Dubrovnik due to the closure of the Dubrovnik airport.
On the other hand, while respecting the principle of passenger safety during coronavirus, we have significantly reduced the flight schedule in capacity or in weekly frequencies (or both) on the following lines: Zagreb-Vienna, Zagreb-Munich, Zagreb-Zurich, Zagreb-Frankfurt, Zagreb-Sarajevo , Zagreb – Copenhagen and Zagreb – Mostar, while the start of operations on the new routes Zagreb – Sofia and Zagreb – Podgorica was delayed.
Minor changes were made to other routes in accordance with current requirements, while further changes in the flight schedule are expected, given the situation.
The company is constantly monitoring the development of the epidemic and several scenarios have been prepared, depending on the current situation, which would, in the most appropriate way, mitigate direct damage to the overall business of the company. – said Croatia Airlines for Avioradar.
Photo: © Karlo Mudri – Avioradar
