This has served to further boost volumes of passengers travelling to Croatia, which have been growing steadily in recent years. Last year alone, the number of passengers on Croatian routes increased by 24% compared to 2015. Between 2010 and 2016, passengers travelling to Croatia from Helsinki jumped from 33,000 to 150,000 passengers.
“Passenger records are being broken at great speed,” said Helsinki Airport Director Ville Haapasaari, SVP at Finavia. “The arrival of Croatia Airlines to Finland is indeed a good news for people travelling to South-eastern Europe, because the airline’s onward flight possibilities from Zagreb make new destinations available,” he added.
Croatia Airlines will at the same time enjoy access to new flight connections, for example from Helsinki to Asia.
“We are glad that Helsinki has become the 39th destination in our network. We are now offering to our passengers the fastest travel option between Finland and Croatia,” said Krešimir Kučko, President and CEO of Croatia Airlines, at the opening ceremony held at Helsinki airport on May 30.
The route between Helsinki and Zagreb is open during the summer season until October 15 and will offer three flights a week. In addition to Zagreb, the other new routes between Helsinki airport and south-eastern Europe that will be opened in 2017 are Pristina in Kosovo, Varna in Bulgaria, and Bucharest in Romania.
