engleski

Determinants for choosing air carrier in connecting North America and Croatia

Before the Croatian War of Independence the Republic of Croatia was connected with many destinations in North America. Scheduled flights were operated by air-carriers JAT, PAN-AM and AIR CANADA, that connected Croatia with Toronto, Montreal, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. During the War these flights were suspended. After the War Croatian airports are constantly trying to reopen direct flights to destinations that had once been directly connected. In the meantime, only for two summer seasons, there was organized a series of charter flights for Canada by Boeing B757. Because of the aircraft short range they should have always land on Iceland to refuel, and thus the time of flying was longer and the quality of service lower. With aim to incite air carriers to evaluate the project of establishing direct flight to new destination, this paper is going to analyze the existing market potentials, search for transport services towards particular destination, make projections of demands in case of direct flights, consider benchmark of surrounding airports, state of economy, and benchmark prices of basic airport services. After the analysis of domestic market potentials and determining of destinations that generate the highest demand for transport services, there will be identified air carriers which operate from North American destinations towards the European, analyzed types of aircraft which operate on scheduled routes, and analyzed number of weekly frequencies, i.e. how many seats are being offered on the market. On the basis of collected data and carried out analyses, potential air carriers which might connect North America with Croatia will be determined, which aircraft types they possess, what optimum capacities in accordance with market potential and demand, and what kind of commercial conditions would attract them to fly to Croatian airports.

intercontinental flights; Croatia – US routes; airport strategy; airline network development

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