Croatia Online - Travel News:Ryanair Flights

Apologies to regular readers for the lack of postings. Our Cruising Companion is now finished and off to the printers so things are returning to normal. The finalisation stages have been very demanding and intense but, though we say so ourselves, it's got all the signs of being a great book. More news soon.

There's been plenty happening in the outside world, not least of which is Ryanair's announcement that they are pulling out of flights to Pula and Zadar in Croatia. The advent of low cost flights to these two relatively small airports was heralded with a great fanfare earlier this year. Everyone started to believe that the tourist season would finally extend beyond July and August and that Istria and the Zadar region would prosper as a result. It was a serious financial comittment too though reports of the cost for each destination varies between a subvention of €500,000 per year for five years, to £500,000 for the length of the five year contract. Apparently the contract had a clause saying that Ryanair could pull out any time they liked, for whatever reason, without returning the cash - not a bad deal for them!

Ryanair cite a number of reasons for the decision, including increasing costs at Stansted, and seem to be focusing on Spain now. Sad news for Croatia indeed and perhaps a reversal of fortunes for out of season tourism on top of British Airway's decision to stop winter flights to Split. For the full story as reported in a Croatian online newspaper, link to http://www.nacional.hr/en/articles/view/37366/18/

Today's photo is a rather hazy picture of Rogoznica and Frapa Marina from the air.