The three leading airlines from the EX-YU region - Croatia Airlines, Jat Airways and Adria Airways have all been heavily hit by the global financial crisis and the current economic gloom in the Balkans. The latest passenger figures available, for the month of March, have finally been published for Croatia Airlines and Adria, while Jat’s passenger figures were made public weeks ago. A major problem this March, when compared to last was the absence of Easter which sees high scale travel, especially in Croatia. With Easter falling into April, Croatian airports suffered greatly but Croatia Airlines managed to have relatively good results. The airline only saw a decrease of 9% in passenger figures when compared to last March. Having in mind the current economic crisis and the absence of Easter this is a good result. The carrier’s domestic destinations are now more popular than its international services. Therefore the airline is managing to compensate its passenger loss on international lines with domestic routes. It had 190.700 passengers during the month with an average cabin load factor of 51%. Some economists believe that Croatia’s tourism industry could profit from the current recession which would be good news for Croatia Airlines. Despite widespread public anger at the government’s actions in fighting the crisis, European economists believe that this year’s tourism season in Croatia will be better than the one last year. This can already be seen by the large number of charter and low cost carriers starting up services to Croatian seaside resort town. Analysts believe that because of the recession Europeans are choosing to travel shorter distances and Croatia is their perfect solution. Slovenia’s Adria saw a bigger decrease in passenger figures. Its numbers declined by 14.3%, carrying a total of 68.800 passengers this March. The average load factor on its flights were slightly better than Croatia’s with 55.7%.
Overall European carriers saw their international demand fall by 11.6% where confidence has been dented by unemployment in key markets such as Germany and Spain increased to 8.6% and 17.4% respectively. The newest challenge carriers in Europe must face is the outbreak of the Mexican swine flu. Eastern Europe has been untouched by the virus however there have been confirmed cases in the Netherlands, the UK, France, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Germany, Austria and Switzerland, within Europe. However, the good news seems to be that the spread of the virus has slowed.
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