Ljubljana shortlisted for new Eurowings service


Lufthansa's fast-growing low cost subsidiary Eurowings has shortlisted Ljubljana along with a further five cities as potential new destinations in its route network for the 2018/19 winter season, which begins in late October. Ljubljana is featured in the second instalment of the carrier's "You Vote, We Fly" campaign, giving the public the opportunity to select the airline's newest destination. The first round of voting is currently under way and will run until March 12, with the top three progressing to the second and final round the following day. As of this morning, Ljubljana is trailing behind the competition, garnering just under 3% of the vote. Other cities in contention include frontrunner Cork in Ireland, Košice in Slovakia, Friedrichshafen in Germany, Stavanger in Norway and Aarhus in Denmark.

Eurowings initially planned to launch flights between Dusseldorf and Ljubljana this winter season and tentatively scheduled the service at two times per week. However, after scrapping the purchase of Austria's Niki following the European Commission's indication it would veto the deal, and the slower arrival new aircraft, the airline shelved plans to fly to Slovenia. Sensing an opportunity, Adria Airways has stepped in and will introduce four weekly flights between Ljubljana and Dusseldorf from April 26. Eurowings is now in talks with former motor racing champion Niki Lauda and others to lease planes and crew to reach a goal of growing its fleet to 210 aircraft. It has hired 2.000 new crew over the past few months, or 90% of those needed to staff all of its planes.

In its first "You Vote, We Fly" campaign last October, Mostar came out on top, beating the likes of Podgorica and Brač. The airline will launch flights from Dusseldorf and Stuttgart to Mostar this May. Furthermore, it will add services between Munich and Pristina later this month. Eurowings has made Croatia the focal point of its expansion in the region over the past few years, with the carrier opening up eleven new routes to the country in 2017 alone. However, its Senior Manager for Network Development and Airport Relations, Ivan Oreč, noted last year that the carrier was "in talks with airports in Slovenia", adding, "We anticipate for a greater presence there in the coming period".

You can take part in the "You Vote, We Fly" campaign here and cast your vote for Eurowings' next destination.

Comments

  1. Anonymous09:04

    Eurowings seems all over the place. They announced many routes which they haven't launched.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:10

      They don't have enough aircraft for the scale of expansion they planned.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:10

      Then they should be thinking about their planning!!

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:12

      True. They also planned Brac flights this summer, Podgorica, increased frequencies in Croatia but nothing will materialize.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous09:14

      That;s probably because the Balkans are not a priority for them. They are opening a bunch of new routes, but obviously their focus now is on western Europe.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous09:15

      @9.10 their growth wasn't preplanned. They couldn't predict Air Berlin would collapse, Niki would collapse, Monarch would collapse and Alitalia is near collapse.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous09:19

      No one has flown those destinations before. So why the heck would the after the consolidation of the Airline Industry focus on niche destinations like OMO or LJU instead of filling the gaps on much larger routes. So their planning is disastrous. If there is any. They announce routes and cut the. In Germany EW is gaining a bad reputation among fliers. You never know if its safe to book a flight with them.

      Delete
    7. Anonymous10:13

      Eurowings/Germanwings was never the best LH had to offer in any aspect. It was always a bit of mess and eventually ended in tragedy in Germanwings case. On the other hand, they are trying to make a timely reaction to the collapse of Etihad projects in three European market including LH domestic. But all the other players are doing the same simultaneously trying to get a share of German market and Italian in couple of months time. There are numerous regulatory challenges and we can expect for the European Commission to raise a number of concerns or even block some future transactions. Having all this in mind, we can only expect to have more and more of scheduling/cancellations in coming period.

      Delete
    8. Anonymous10:33

      Good comments about Eurowings.

      Delete
    9. Anonymous10:41

      Crew at EW is also unhappy. There are more and more leaks in the media about the working environment and bad corporate culture in the company.

      Delete
    10. Anonymous14:15

      It's not a secret that Eurowings is one of the lowest paying A320 jobs in Europe, SE Europe standards...

      Delete
  2. Anonymous09:04

    Would they launch Munich or Dusseldorf?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:06

      Adria flies double daily to Munich. Don't see much space for Eurowings.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:11

      Adria launches DUS as a precaution but will eventually be forced out it EW stars. Any other destination does not make sense.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:20

      Maybe colonge or barcelona

      Delete
    4. Anonymous09:26

      i doubt they will fly against JP.

      more likely STR, TXL, CGN or HAM

      Delete
    5. Anonymous09:34

      Not flying against JP? HAM? CGN which is a twenty Min ride from CGN? Against EZY to TXL?

      Delete
    6. Anonymous09:42

      there is no way they will fly against JP (in that case JP will cancel its route). you can even book JP through eurowings.com LJU-SKP, LJU-MUC, LJU-FRA.

      Delete
    7. Anonymous10:33

      You can book all LH and LH Code Share flights on the EW page, which just links to the LH page.

      Delete
  3. Anonymous09:04

    Nice to see more and more LCCs considering LJU.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous09:05

    At the same time they downgrade OMO and will use turboprops on the route.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous11:13

      An LCC with Dash 8s? Seriously?

      Delete
    2. Anonymous21:44

      Why not? Turbo props are cheaper to operate, they could have decent LF and good yields.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10:03

      They downgraded OMO not because of a low demand but because the Eurowings doesent have enough jet planes on dispolsal....they even leased one A319 from Adria about a month ago...Eurowings is having some serious issues with fleet shortage...my guess is that Eurowings will have to deploy A319 to OMO in the peak summer months....and the fact that first four rotations are no longer bookable because the flights are full, shows that there is enough demand to and from OMO....and i also heard from the first hand that passengers that booked their flights to OMO first on A319 but were left with no seats when equipement changed to dash q4 were offered a seat on other flights that are to operate a week or two later with an additional discount

      Delete
  5. Anonymous09:07

    Unlikely they will make it in the top three.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:07

      Well LJU airport could have done some promotion. This is the first time I hear about it.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:18

      It started yesterday and more or less every other airports besides LJU shared competition on their social media.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous11:06

      LJU finally shared it on facebook a few minutes ago.

      Delete
  6. Anonymous09:08

    We could all help LJU to get new flights

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:12

      You dont have to. Flights are already negotiated and will launch. JP will lose out and after one season flight by EW will be suspended due to poor loeads. Even on the Dash!

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:17

      Why? Lju airport is growing for feb there was more then 100000 pax, it has the biggest growth of all ex-yu airports.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:33

      U apsolutnim ili relativnim srazmjerima?

      Delete
    4. Anonymous10:13

      biggest growth? o_0

      Delete
  7. Anonymous09:08

    Nice. How many passengers can we expects Ljubljana to end up with this year?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:26

      2 million.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:34

      HAHA!

      Delete
    3. Anonymous13:07

      With this growth will be around 1.8 to 1.9m

      Delete
  8. JU520 BEGLAX09:09

    Link to we fly u vote is not working

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:10

      Working fine for me.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:11

      Me too.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10:42

      Works for me.

      Delete
  9. Anonymous09:12

    Makes sense. LJU probably offered them much cheaper charges than ZAG and on top of that EW/LH do not want to leave the market to U2.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:16

      Attracting Ryanair would be the biggest win for LJU in my opinion. Eurowings is not bad but Germany is now well served with all the new Adria routes to Germany.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:26

      EW will come, kill off JP on the route to DUS and suspend it shortly afterwards. LH business style. Look at Friedrichshafen. They killed Intersky on the route from CGN , which was Interskys most profitable route with the AT7 at a load factor of 30%. EW used the 319 had 20% LF and the route was suspended shorty afterward afetr being their wors performer. Now its again in Vote competition. Just until the have the DH8 in the fleet. Next year they will again suspend the route because the equipment is too big they will have by then. Endless story with EW.

      Delete
  10. Anonymous09:23

    I really don't understand these voting campaigns they organize. Last time Mostar won but like someone wrote they had to halve capacity on this route. At the same time people could vote for TGD and BWK yet these destinations are nowhere to be seen in their future plans.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:24

      It's good for marketing.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:41

      It’s purely marketing ploy. Routes have already been selected and voting is just for pumping up the routes and such :)

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:43

      I hope so and I thought that as well during last voting but except for Mostar, they have not launched any routes which were listed then.

      Delete
  11. Anonymous09:24

    Their video for Ljubljana is nice
    https://youtu.be/aZLr3EIvGDY

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous09:25

    Honestly, I think EW is a bit of messy airline. Following the germanwings rebranding, it all went a bit strange. Their aim is to compete with FR, U2, etc but there seems to be a lack of strategy.
    The fleet is a mess too, you also have low cost long haul, yet combined with LH flights.
    Not sure really, I personally never used them to critisize, but this is just a personal opinion.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:31

      +100

      Delete
    2. Anonymous20:33

      EW really is an ok airline, better than Wizz and Ryan for sure - but it's just a LCC

      Delete
  13. Anonymous09:31

    Attracting more and more LCCs is the best way to compete against Zagreb.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous09:32

    Eurowings has become very unreliable when scheduling ex-Yu routes. They schedule Dusseldorf-Sarajevo, put tickets on sale and cancelled the flights just before launch. They scheduled Munich-Skopje, put tickets on sale and cancelled the route just before launch. I hope Ljubljana is different.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:56

      It won´t! They just look up destinations throwing darts at a map. The DASH8 will leave the fleet and then again- BIG MESS.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:59

      I think SKP and SJJ were suspended because of poor advance bookings

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10:25

      Exactly- poor advanece bookings- which they could have known if they did proper market research. The same goes for LJU. It is for good reason there were no flights between DUS and LJU with approximately 8 PAX flying the route daily.

      Delete
    4. Tranquilis14:44

      Let me give you an inside tip - W6 also had poor advance bookings on most of their SKP routes. We all know how that ended.

      I don't trust EW one bit.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous15:16

      Wizz Air was subsidized during the period of poor advanced bookings.

      Delete
  15. Anonymous09:34

    Away from concentrating solely on London's airports, flights to Ljubljana are needed from further north in the UK. Adria's summer LJU-MAN service is heavily used by package holiday companies, which makes obtaining a seat anything but a foregone conclusion.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Anonymous10:04

    Finally some more low cost options from Ljubljana.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:11

      LJU still has to win for Eurowings to come ;) But I agree. Transavia, Wizz Air and wasy Jet is not bad for a smaller market and easy is adding new route.

      Delete
  17. Anonymous10:04

    I would love to see an LCC takeover some monopoly routes by Adria. Vienna would be nice.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous14:16

      Or BRU/CRL more than 2pw...

      Delete
  18. Anonymous10:10

    EW is not an airline and it has never meant to be an airline. It is more of a digital platform with linked flight operations. Something like Flixbus, and if you look at the things from that perspective, their strategy is quite clear. Their year-on-year growth compared to 2017. is 77% and it is understandable that their strategy to some people seem messy and not quite clear. It is a dynamic market, things and opportunities are changing on daily basis and EW is adapting to it and seizing opportunities quite well.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:28

      seizing opportunities? They are cancelling so many routes because the results are a catastrophe. DUS-WAW, DTM-VIE launched only months ago, MUC-FCO, many DASH routes have a load factor of 30%. But its good they concentrate on niche markets with 2 weekly flight to cash in some subsidies from airports desperately needing traffic.
      And EW is an Airline which has its own AOC.

      Delete
  19. Anonymous10:18

    Seems LJU has grown a bit - 3.1% now in the voting :D but there is little chance they will succeed unless some influential social media pages in Slovenia get involved.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:20

      First a foremost Ljubljana Airport could share the voting link!!!

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:25

      If LJU doesn't care it means that they have already negotiated a future route with EW and it will launch regardless of voting.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10:29

      There is still a chance they could be in top 3. Third place is still wide open.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous11:05

      Ljubljana Airport finally shared the voting link on their facebook page a few minutes ago.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous11:09

      Seems to be working, they are almost at 4%.

      Delete
  20. Anonymous10:28

    So Adria is basically launching LJU-DUS just so Eurowings doesn't open it in the future?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:32

      Most probably.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:34

      But aren't they all Star Alliance members under heavy influence (or direct ownership) of Lufthansa. So why does it matter who operates the route?

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10:45

      They might be from the same alliance but they certainly want to make money. Swiss and JP competed against each other between Zurich and Ljubljana but Adria won. There are numerous examples of Star Alliance airlines competing against each other on key routes.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous12:23

      ma nemoj. thats why the flew to Pula with half empty airplanes

      Delete
    5. Anonymous15:57

      Swiss and JP are members of the same alliance but they still have different owners :)

      Delete
    6. Anonymous07:49

      I heard JP was planning to start DUS anyways, but didnt get slots until January.

      Delete
  21. Anonymous10:40

    As they keep growing their fleet and consolidate after a crazy year, we will definitely see more of them in ex-Yu. There are a lot of untapped opportunities in the region.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Anonymous10:48

    Does Eurowings have a base in Zurich. ZRH-LJU might be a good route for them to start.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:53

      They don't have a base in ZRH. They just fly to there from Cologne, Düsseldorf and Hamburg

      Delete
  23. Anonymous10:49

    If they eventually launch flights to Ljubljana, I have a feeling it will be with a Dash plane.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Anonymous11:09

    I still find it interesting how small their presence in Serbia is. Just one route for a couple of weeks per year. How come?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous11:15

      The issue is that BEG has too many flights to Germany, served by Lufthansa, Air Serbia and Wizz Air.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous11:24

      The Wizz effect

      Delete
    3. Nemjee11:30

      ...and on top of that easyJet is entering the market with its own flights.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous15:53

      But Easy is only opening Berlin route where there is still space to grow. Many people are now traveling to Berlin through neighboring cities as AirSerbia is ripping us off on the route (transit passengers/hub concept effect).

      Delete
    5. Nemjee16:26

      Well, it's still easyJet's first German destination. Maybe we'll see more in the future though I think it's not very likely.

      I agree as far as JU goes. Today I was looking at fares to Berlin and their white tariff was 29.000! The only thing they have going for them is the schedule.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous18:48

      Insane! They have basically kept their old fares but charge people for checked baggage, seats and "fantastic new BoB product".

      Delete
  25. Anonymous11:13

    GO Ljubljana!

    ReplyDelete
  26. the future of airline industry lies in fast railways ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous11:39

      +1000

      Delete
    2. Anonymous14:19

      Couple of decades at least in this part of the world. Try to take a train from Bucharest to Ljubljana or Skopje to Vienna. Days are the units used...

      Delete
    3. Anonymous15:48

      Unfortunately there is no sufficient demand within region for high speed trains. We could easily see many inter-regional routes going to 3x daily, but one high speed train composition usually seats 400+ people so not realistic.

      Delete
  27. Anonymous11:24

    Come on Ljubljana! I voted. We need more LCCs.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Anonymous11:30

    LH is considerably increasing its Croatia operations. New route from ZAD and PUY to FRA is performing so well that they will be increased to 4x per week and 6x per week respectively.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous11:32

      How is that related to the topic?

      Delete
    2. Anonymous11:33

      LH Group expanding in EX-YU!

      Delete
    3. Anonymous11:34

      BTW: EW is controlled by LH and no route can be started without the permission from FRA.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous11:35

      They are definitely moving seats and frequencies from Zagreb to coast. Logical because the coast is booming.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous11:38

      They are not moving anything. ZAG has 5 flights a day to FRA of which LH is increasing from CR9 to CRK twice a day.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous11:39

      You mean permission from CGN?

      Delete
    7. Anonymous11:44

      EW has to obtain all ok from mother LH in FRA.

      Delete
    8. Anonymous12:32

      LH used to operate mainline flights into ZAG last year. Now they are all on regional aircraft, that's a reduction

      Delete
    9. Anonymous12:39

      This is expected. Direct flights to Canada, Warsaw and Dubai have taken away a lot of LH's customers. Five daily flights is definitely too much.

      Delete
    10. Anonymous12:40

      You had the EXACT SAME discussion 2 days ago. How do you people not get tired?

      Delete
    11. Anonymous13:04

      People some people still didn't understand it despite all the explanation.

      Also I am more tired of your condescending tone.

      Delete
    12. anon@12:32PM - to be exact, LH operated a319/20 only until June 30th, 2017., then switched back to CRJ900. This year it's 100 seater aircraft all season through. This is a smarter way to capture pax all throughout the season. During preseason, OU will get some of those FRA pax from LH and all the FRA flights will be full, while in the peak season, LH will actually have a bit more capacity - so the LF will stay high. LH on the other hand upgraded MUC route out of ZAG. It's 4 x a week using A319/20, while last year it was only airbuses on Wednesday...All that + what anon@12:39pm has said, demand will be taken care of...LH can always upgrade a319/20 to 321s on days when needed.

      Delete
  29. Anonymous11:33

    Good news :) It means they will launch Ljubljana sooner or later.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Anonymous11:41

    Eurowings is not low cost at all. Their fares are quite high when compared to Ryanair or Wizz.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous12:32

      Their fares are like Vueling and Transavia.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous13:38

      Transavia is quite cheap from BEG.

      Delete
    3. Tranquilis14:45

      @12:32

      ... neither of which is a proper LCC after all.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous15:43

      Ryan and Wizz really do have a limited number of very cheap tickets. However, if you are buying ticket close to the date and in the summer season you can for example easily end up paying 500 eur+ for their basic offer for short return flight within Italy.

      Delete
  31. Anonymous12:31

    Ljubljana is growing in tha rankings. It's fifth now and has 6% of vote.

    ReplyDelete
  32. What is with rumors about UAE carrier starting LJU flights?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous07:53

      Really? That would be great!

      Delete

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