Pula's compact seasonal airport, with its handful of summer charter flights and rail-thin winter schedule, means there's no such thing as a nonstop from North Carolina — so anyone booking business class from Raleigh to Pula is really booking a connection strategy, and the airline you choose determines everything from lounge access to layover comfort. The factual baseline: there is no direct RDU-PUY service on any carrier, and the three airlines worth considering — Croatia Airlines (OU), Lufthansa (LH), and Turkish Airlines (TK) — each route through a major European or Istanbul hub before a short hop down to Istria. My preferred routing threads RDU through Frankfurt on Lufthansan metal, ideally booking into the Allegris business seat where it's been rolled out on the transatlantic leg, then connecting onto a Croatia Airlines regional jet for the final sector into Pula, where business class is more a fare class than a distinct cabin experience on the short Zagreb or Frankfurt connector.
Turkish Airlines offers a genuinely compelling alternative if your schedule allows a longer connection in Istanbul — their long-haul business class comes with proper lie-flat seats and the brand's signature onboard chef service, and IST's business lounge is worth arriving early for, complete with a putting green and live cooking stations that make a five-hour layover feel like a destination in itself. My insider tip, learned after several misfires: book the Zagreb-Pula or Frankfurt-Pula final leg as a separate reward ticket or add-on fare rather than forcing a single through-fare, since award space and short-haul business inventory on these regional hops often opens up independently of the long-haul transatlantic booking class — this alone has saved me from being downgraded to economy on the last leg more than once.
Istria's high season runs June through August, when fares spike and connections tighten with holiday charter traffic, so April, May, September, and October remain the sweet spot — mild weather on the Adriatic, thinner crowds in Pula's old town, and noticeably more availability in premium cabins out of Frankfurt and Istanbul. Given how fluid business class award and revenue fares are on these connecting itineraries, setting up automated fare alerts for the Raleigh-Pula corridor is the smartest way to catch the inevitable pricing dips before they disappear.
