Rijeka Airport Introduces New Regular and Charter Routes, Expects 40 Percent Increase in Traffic

Rijeka Airport expects a passenger traffic increase of about 40 percent this year, with the introduction of three new regular and new charter routes, it was announced on Friday at a press conference.

The director of Rijeka Airport, Tomislav Palalić, stated that a significant increase in traffic is expected compared to last year, when 140,000 passengers were transported and 5,000 operations were conducted. Last year was record-breaking in terms of profit, with a profit of 2.5 million kuna achieved, and revenues also increased, he said.

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The summer flight season begins on March 26, and in 2018, three new regular flight routes will be introduced to Eindhoven, Frankfurt, and Katowice. New charter arrangements are related to the Polish and French markets – Warsaw, Katowice, Gdańsk, Paris, Nantes, and Lyon.

Deputy of the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, Marko Boras Mandić, stated that this year communication with domestic travelers will be strengthened to bring them closer to the services of Krk Airport, from which they can embark on journeys to about 50 destinations and which is open year-round.

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He emphasized that the County is not satisfied with the PSO concept, i.e., the system of domestic airlines subsidized by the state with nearly 100 million kuna, of which Rijeka Airport, as he said, receives crumbs. He appealed that we should not wait for 2020 and a new tender but that the PSO should be revised along with its performance over the past two years and that domestic connections to Dubrovnik should be strengthened so that Rijeka could be connected to it with a daily line.

In response to a journalist’s question about why Rijeka Airport is stagnating while others are recording growth, Palalić replied with a counter-question – why does Rijeka Airport not have a domestic transport system, which is not negligible and significantly affects traffic? He stated that Rijeka Airport has the highest increase in the number of operations, does not use subsidies, and increases profit every year, and that it is the only Croatian airport investing in a joint advertising system and allocating 20 percent of its budget to that system.

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Boras Mandić responded that if Rijeka were in the position of Split or Dubrovnik, it would have an increase of 200,000 passengers just through the PSO, and that could be achieved with just one administrative decision from the relevant ministry.

Declaratively, everyone agrees with this, but there is no appropriate decision, he said, adding that Pula and Zadar have between 50,000 and 70,000 passengers through the PSO.