During the first three quarters of 2023, Skopje retained its position as Zagreb Airport’s busiest regional route (excluding domestic destinations), followed by Belgrade, which overtook Sarajevo. Notably, the Skopje route started off strongly during the first quarter of the year, outperforming pre-pandemic traffic levels, however, figures fell sharply during the second quarter and even more so during the third quarter, corresponding with the introduction of Lufthansa flights to the Macedonian capital, as well as seasonal operations by Croatia Airlines between Split and Skopje.

Out of the four regional routes Zagreb Airport aims to subsidise in the coming period, Tirana is the busiest unserved destination based on indirect traffic volumes. It is followed by Bucharest, Pristina and Budapest. Zagreb was last linked to Budapest when Qatar Airways introduced flights to the Croatian capital which were operated with a stop in Hungary. The airline held fifth freedom rights between Budapest and Zagreb. The stop in the Hungarian capital was discontinued in the summer of 2015. In 2019, LOT Polish Airlines expressed interest in adding flights between Budapest and Zagreb as part of its new base in Hungary, however, these never materialised. On the other hand, Croatia Airlines introduced a seasonal service between Zagreb and Bucharest in 2017. At the time it noted, “We are seeing a number of transfer passengers on these flights, keeping in mind that Romania is the second largest market in Southeast Europe". The carrier even considered extending operations between the two capitals into the winter months. Ultimately, the service was not restored in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic and has been discontinued since.

Croatia Airlines also used to link Zagreb and Pristina, with its last service on the route operated in October 2016. That year, the carrier ran two weekly rotations between the two, down from a peak of seven weekly flights in 2009. The Croatian flag carrier also used to connect Zagreb with Tirana in the early 2000s. Twenty years later, just prior to the coronavirus pandemic, Croatia Airlines’ management held talks with relevant stakeholders over the introduction of flights to the Albanian capital. That same year the airline had scheduled the introduction of flights to both Sofia and Podgorica, which never materialised and were later launched by Ryanair.