Ryanair is dialling up its winter presence at Zagreb Airport, growing from 73 to 78 weekly flights and offering travellers 18 routes across the 2026/27 winter timetable. The figures, compiled by aviation portal Zamaaero and reported by Poslovni, also confirm one brand-new route and a handful of cancellations — so it is worth checking the fine print before booking.
The standout winner is Malta, which jumps to ten flights a week from Zagreb, three more than last winter. It is a sensible boost: while Malta is marketed as a summer sun spot, its real charm in the colder months is the climate. December highs hover around 17°C, easing to 15-16°C in January and February — mild enough for sightseeing without the summer crowds or the scorching heat. Base yourself in Valletta, whose UNESCO-protected old town is all Baroque facades, tight lanes and those famous enclosed wooden balconies. Don't skip St John's Co-Cathedral, home to Caravaggio paintings, or the Upper Barrakka Gardens, the best perch for watching the Grand Harbour.
Elsewhere on the network, London Stansted gets the biggest lift among the classics, rising to 13 weekly flights — three more than before. Bergamo grows to six weekly (two more), Basel and Rome each gain a flight, and Malaga, Weeze and Charleroi-area frequencies also shift. Alicante, Beauvais, Eindhoven, Gothenburg, Paphos, Lanzarote and Memmingen hold steady at two flights a week each, while Dublin runs five.
New for this winter is Warsaw Modlin, served twice a week — handy for a city-break pairing with Zagreb's Advent festivities, which have put the Croatian capital on the winter map in recent years. On the flip side, routes to Hahn, Pisa and Thessaloniki have been dropped entirely, and Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden loses a weekly departure.
One caveat: these are announced frequencies, and Ryanair typically trims or reshuffles the schedule as winter progresses. Zamaaero expects 98 departures in the first week of the timetable, dropping to 86 in week two and 75 by early December. If a specific date matters, book early rather than assuming the fuller early-winter schedule will hold.
Why it matters: Zagreb has quietly become one of Ryanair's stronger Central European bases, and this winter's expanded list gives Croatian travellers — and anyone using Zagreb as a gateway to the region — more cheap links to Western and Southern Europe than last year. For sun-seekers, the tripled-up Malta service is the headline act; for city-breakers, Stansted's 13 weekly flights keep London within easy, affordable reach all season.
