Croatia's flag carrier Croatia Airlines and Zagreb Tourist Board announced on Thursday a collaboration during this year's summer months to promote Zagreb as a tourist destination on 15 of the airline's international flights.

The airline company’s summer flight timetable officially starts on 27 March and will last until the end of October. During this time, Zagreb-based Croatia Airlines plans the promotion on flights to 15 cities abroad – Barcelona, Amsterdam, Athens, Vienna, Brussells, Dublin, Frankfurt, Copenhagen, London, Munich, Paris, Rome, Sarajevo, Skopje, and Zurich.

“The summer timetable is expected to strongly contribute to developing Zagreb as a tourist destination,” Director of commercial operations at Croatia Airlines, Slaven Zabo, said in a news conference.

Head of the Zagreb tourist board, Martina Bienenfeld, described Croatia Airlines as their “strategic partner,” which “is logical because more than 50 percent of visitors to Zagreb arrive by plane, while 30 percent come by car, and the rest via other transport means.”

“We hope the situation in Ukraine will not disrupt our plans. Over the past two pandemic years, Croatia Airlines continued to fly. We never stopped. In 2021 we generated 70 percent of our 2019 turnover. This year the result could be even higher, because on some days during the summer we have up to 100 flights a day planned. Nevertheless, getting back to the turnover that we had 2019 is not expected before late 2023 and maybe 2024,” said CEO of Croatia Airlines, Jasmin Bajic.

He said that Croatia Airlines will fly a fleet of 12 planes during the 2022 summer season, the same as last year but two fewer than in 2019. Croatia will be connected with a total of 21 international destinations with about 16,000 flights and just over 1.76 million seats.