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| Maribor Airport hopes for new flights with new owner |
Slovenia’s union-owned bank, Delavska hranilica, has acquired a 57% stake in Maribor Edvard Rusjan Airport, in the country’s north-east. The move was made in response to the recent acquisition of Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport by Germany’s Fraport. The bank purchased its majority stake in Maribor Airport for 900.000 euros, ending years of failed sale attempts. While Maribor Airport is currently served only by summer charters and occasional cargo flights, Delavska hranilnica’s Chairman, Jože Stegne, is confident Maribor will soon offer scheduled, year-long services. However, Mr. Stegne refused to speculate on how long it would take to attract new customers. Moreover, he admitted that one of the reasons for the investment was to show that the sale of Slovenia's largest airport operator, Aerodrom Ljubljana, to a foreign owner (Fraport), earlier this year was a mistake.
With the bank becoming a 57% shareholder, the minority stake remains in the hands of Aviofun, a small aviation company which stepped in following the collapse of Prevent, the car-seat cover maker which had owned the airport for many years. Mr. Stegne said he wants the minority owner to stay on in order to provide specialised support in the field of aviation. The acquisition has been welcomed by Maribor Airport’s CEO Marko Gros, who said that this will enable the completion of a three year financial restructuring programme. “A new owner will enable faster development of the airport”, Mr. Gros added.
Maribor Airport saw a 15% increase in passenger numbers in the first eight months of the year and the airport expects handle a total of 16.000 travellers by the end 2014. A new fifteen million euro terminal, with the capacity to handle 600.000 passenger per year, was opened at Edvard Rusjan Airport in late 2012. Further investments are planned with the expansion of the existing runway scheduled in three years time. Despite these developments, the Slovenian national carrier believes it would be unprofitable to maintain year-long flights from the city. In a recent interview, Adria Airways’ CEO Mark Anžur, said, “Adria attempted to fly from Maribor but it is difficult to operate flights out of secondary airports in Slovenia because it is a small country with well developed road infrastructure”. He added, “You can drive from Maribor to Ljubljana within an hour and a half”. In September, start-up airline FlyEth announced plans to launch operations from Slovenia’s second largest city to Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Croatia. The airline intends to inaugurate flights on January 15, 2015 with a fleet of two Dornier 328 aircraft and two to three Bombardier CRJ200 jets.
Nice investment 600 000 passenger capacity terminal built 2 years ago for an airport with no scheduled flights......dreamers.... with CR2s hard to make money nowadays, especially with GRZ LJU ZAG being so nearby with enough presence to cover for the regions need
ReplyDeleteAdmine mozete obrisati to za Fly Eth oni su propali i pre nego sto su poceli sa radom . Nema nista od linija iz MBX .
ReplyDeleteINN-NS
i ja sam to cita
DeleteWouldn't it be just easier to shut it down?
ReplyDeleteCould we see Air Serbia launch flights to Maribor?
ReplyDeleteI think we could. Maribor could become the next BNX.
Deleteako uvedu premuim economy class onda moze
DeletePa najbolje da lete za MBX a ne za INN.
DeleteINN-NS
I think that Air Serbia should not do that. It already lacks ATRs. Plus why would they waste their money on barely developed markets and airports like Maribor, when they don't have connections to cities like Pristina, Split etc. Air Serbia should have something that they could get money from and good loads as soon as possible. JU is not a charity not EU foundation to build and revive airports from scratch!
DeleteYeah but I did not mean to launch it tomorrow but in several months...
DeleteAir Serbia already flies to Split on a seasonal basis. However, it would be nice to have it throughout the year!
Air Serbia is sending its A319 to Tirana today! That's good but I was always hoping they would be adding frequencies over capacity.
DeleteIf they opened this silly Maribor line, there would be less possibilities for adding frequencies. Banja Luka is an exception, and it should remain like that.
DeleteI guess they are sending A319 to TIA because of the lack of ATRs not because of strong demand
DeletePod hitno treba uzeti 8-10 Atr 72-600 na leasing . 1 ATR 72-600 mesecni leasing je od 165000-190000 $, da se zamene oni stari .
DeleteJa islim da nebi bilo lose i uzeti 1 do 2 A321-231SL . 1 A321-231SL na mesecni leasing kosta od 185000 do 400000 $.
I da leti na neke od ovih destinacija AMM-IKA-BGW- KHI ( bi bio pun pogodak kad krenu letovi za USA 2015 )
INN-NS
Air Serbia ce verovatno uzeti jos 3-4 A319-tica i 3-4 ATRovih aviona negde pocetkom 2015, mislim da ce 2015 poceti letove za MAD, BCN, LED, CAI, PRN, DUB, mozda LYS i moguce JFK, YYZ i ORD ako ne pocetkom 2016.
DeleteNeznam sto ste svi navalili na BCN kad je MAD mnogo bolja opcija.
DeleteA svi letovi za USA krecu 2015 ;)
INN-NS
Kako znas? Nije jos potvrdjeno, mada mislim da bi prvo trebali bolje da se povezu sa Madridom, St.Petersburgom, Kairom, Pristinom i Dablinom. Letovi za SAD ce verovatno odmah posle toga, kajem 2015/ pocetkom 2016.
DeleteSomeone mentioned Tirana, it's actually an A319 due to strong bookings. Sorry to disappoint you bud.
DeleteBeijing comes before USA
DeleteNo, Beijing does not.
DeleteBy the way, Aegean has sent its A320 to Belgrade today. Nice to see the new interline producing concrete results.
WTF how do you know now???
DeleteIt's nice to hear speaking about charity those liberal minds who would have been nothing without their parents generosity.
Deletebecause i know someone from Nanjing
DeleteTIA uograded due to strong demand. Around 90 pax both ways
DeleteFirst plane will take off to Beijing. That is so logical.
DeleteTirana has had really solid bookings and this is fantastic simply because November is one of the slowest months in airline industry.
DeleteThe current plan is to have the route upgraded to a daily A319. Let's see if we have enough aircraft by then to actually do it. lol
maybe BEG-MBX with ATR could be an option in summer timetable departing in early afternoon wave, while LJU and ZAG are in the morning and evening wave..?
DeleteWow!!! What a bargain!!!! Congratulations and good luck !
ReplyDeleteGreat catchment area:
1hr to Graz.
1hr 15min to Ljubljana
1hr 18min to Zagreb
It can be really a troublesome position, since those cities respective airports are already running.. Graz airport lacks a lot of year long flights though. Good luck to them.
DeleteTo put it in perspective, they bought controlling stake in the airport with a 2-yr old terminal building for less than the price of 100 year old 3 bedroom terraced house in Zone 2 in London.
Deletemy2cents
hahahha spot on!
Delete"Inteligent buidling" in Belgrade is about 600k.
So yeah...
Is it just me or is that Norwegian's guy forehead a bit too big?
ReplyDeletenot only that
Deletefollow us also ;)
ReplyDeletehttps://www.facebook.com/pages/ExyuPlanespotters/251653228378221
Would there be any hope of getting someone like Volotea interested in this airport, and connect it to Western or Southern France, Southern Italy, or anywhere in Spain that's not MAD or BCN? No airports close by have direct connections to any of these locations... Surely the good road network that Anzur is boasting of Slovenia having would enable many pax to arrive there with ease from neighboring countries, especially if we have the more industrious airport transfer companies in mind.
ReplyDeleteMBX is located on the crossroad LJU-ZAG-GRZ-VIE-BUD, perfect location!, There is no Ryanair flights more than 200 km away, nearest is Trieste 250km away, Ryanair and Volorea must be interested in such location, because there is also no low cost flights from KLU and GRZ. As an aside there is a lot of Italian tourist in summer in Maribor, so flights e.g. BGY or FCO could be profitable, also flights to MAD or BCN since there is no flights to this region. But I have to metion that Slovenia is very closed country,the black hole in the middle of EU, AND IS THE ONLY MEMEBER OF THE EU WHERE RYANAIR DO NOT FLY!
ReplyDeleteHas the airport full of loans or not?
ReplyDeleteIf not it' a bargain.
I love ghost airports.
gosh
A new fifteen million euro terminal, with the capacity to handle 600.000 passenger per year, was opened at Edvard Rusjan Airport in late 2012.
The bank purchased its majority stake in Maribor Airport for 900.000 euros,
Soon ASL will fly on all exYu airports except Tuzla and Nis, Adria will be european LCC and that will be all in exYu.
ReplyDelete