Lufthansa and Lufthansa Group are planning a sizable expansion of operations in Croatia this August, to link the holiday destinations on the Adriatic sea to all of Europe. In fact, Lufthansa will operate almost as many weekly flights to Croatia as Croatia Airlines will.
Lufthansa will fly to five Croatian airports
Croatian Aviation reports that the confirmed Lufthansa schedule for August includes a total of 60 weekly flights to and from five Croatian airports. These are the airports in Zagreb, Split, Dubrovnik, Zadar, and Pula.
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Ordinarily, Lufthansa also flies to Rijeka Airport from Munich. However, this route has been canceled for this summer season. Instead, Lufthansa will serve Rijeka Airport through a codeshare agreement with its Star Alliance partner Croatia Airlines.
To the remaining five airports, the thirty weekly rotations are still considerably less than the number of rotations Lufthansa operated to Croatia last year. The capacity is also reduced: some routes that were previously operated by Airbus A321 aircraft at least once daily are now operated only several times weekly with a mix of Embraer E190 and Airbus A319 aircraft.
Dubrovnik and Split
To the two biggest Croatian coastal airports, in the Adriatic towns of Dubrovnik and Split, Lufthansa will fly as follows:
- Frankfurt – Dubrovnik, three times weekly (Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays)
- Munich – Dubrovnik, five times weekly (Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays)
Flights are times at different times of the day each day, ranging from 07:25 to 16:10 for departures from Munich. This way, Lufthansa is enabling quick connections to its European and North American networks in both directions.
To Split, which recently opened a new terminal, Lufthansa will fly as follows:
- Frankfurt – Split, four times weekly (Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays)
- Munich – Split, five times weekly (Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays)
Pula and Zadar airports
To the smaller Croatian coastal airports of Pula and Zadar, both of which ordinarily see between half a million and one million passengers annually, Lufthansa will operate the following schedule:
- Frankfurt – Pula, three times weekly (Mondays, Fridays, and Saturdays)
- Munich – Pula, two times weekly (Saturdays and Sundays)
- Frankfurt – Zadar, three times weekly (Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays)
- Munich – Zadar, once weekly on Saturdays
Only one route to the Croatian capital, Zagreb
The airport serving the Croatian capital, Franjo Tuđman Airport Zagreb, has been plagued by a string of canceled routes in the year prior to the recent crisis in the aviation industry.
Lufthansa’s confirmed flight schedule for August continues this trend. The airline will operate only four weekly flights there, as follows:
- Munich – Zagreb, four times weekly (Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays)
However, Lufthansa will remain well connected to Zagreb despite its low presence there. Croatia Airlines flies six times weekly between Munich and Zagreb, both in the early mornings and late evenings. Lufthansa code-shares with Croatia Airlines on the route and feeds its international and domestic network this way.
Croatia Airlines also operates 26 weekly rotations between Zagreb and Frankfurt, which Lufthansa also sells tickets for. This explains why Lufthansa has not restarted flights between Frankfurt and Zagreb. Normally, Lufthansa operates an overnight rotation in Zagreb with its CRJ aircraft, along with another daily rotation, year-round.
This does not appear necessary at the moment, and Lufthansa’s coordinated schedule with Croatia Airlines appears to have covered the demand to a sufficient degree.
How long do you think it will take for airlines to resume flying as frequently as they used to fly before? Let us know what you think in the comments below.