Low cost carrier Eurowings has tentatively scheduled its first nonstop service to Slovenia, between Dusseldorf and Ljubljana. Dusseldorf Airport has confirmed that the flights will commence on January 15, 2018, with the service to run three times per week, each Monday, Friday and Sunday. All operations will be maintained with an Airbus A319 aircraft. The Lufthansa subsidiary is yet to put tickets on sale, although the airline has filed its schedule until March 23 and has begun entering fares into the system. At this point, changes to the schedule are possible. Earlier this year, Eurowings' Senior Manager for Network Development and Airport Relations, Ivan Oreč, noted, "We are in constant talks with airports in Slovenia and we anticipate for a greater presence there in the coming period".
Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport is yet to officially comment on the new service, however, the airport previously said it expects a low cost airline, based in northern Germany, to launch flights to the Slovenian capital soon. At the time, Ljubljana Airport said, "We have introduced an updated and flexible tariff system, as well as incentives available to airlines, which has improved competitiveness. The system will contribute to the introduction and expansion of new and existing flights, as well as to the engagement of new carriers". It added, "By working on marketing, we aim to encourage airlines to launch new routes and attract passengers, particularly those using airports in neighbouring countries, and thus reduce the outflow of local travellers. We will focus our marketing activities on raising our profile and strengthening the airport’s competitive position in the region".
Low cost airlines have recently increased their operations to the Slovenian capital. Late last year, easyJet launched flights from London Gatwick, while the Dutch-based Transavia commenced services from Amsterdam in April. Eurowings has expanded significantly throughout the former Yugoslavia this year and has already announced new services to Mostar, Pristina and across Croatia for next year. The carrier provides passengers with the opportunity to transfer onto Lufthansa flights from Germany on a single ticket and has codeshare agreements in place with a numbers of Star Alliance operators including Air Canada, United and All Nippon Airways. The carrier faces no direct competition on its planned new service between Dusseldorf and Ljubljana. Further flight details can be found here.
Bravo Slovenia!
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised Adria does not fly from Dusseldorf considering the passenger flow between Slovenia and Germany.
ReplyDeletesame for OU. DUS is Germanys 3rd biggest airport. What a wasted oportunity
DeleteHopefully they will fly from Munich too.
ReplyDeleteNo chance. They won't create competition for Adria. Hell they even sell Adria tickets MUC-LJU on their website.
DeleteAdria is flying to MUC 3 times per day so I don't think that this route is very possible.
DeleteHaplek
No, MUC is only 2 times per day.
DeleteStill wondering how Eurowings gave up on Macedonian market so easily. They could it try and pull out after some time if it didn't work out. I believe there was something else behind the scenes which caused the cancellation of Munich-Skopje.
ReplyDeleteIt is especially odd because a week before they discontinued sales they had a huge promotion in Skopje with airport officials and everything.
DeleteThere would be competition with Adria, Croatia and Austrian.
Deletea mix of not having enough aircrafts and so-so ticket sales perhaps. Dont forget EW is starting inner-German flights from MUC this winter. They want to block all the slots at MUC keeping FR and EZY out of the game.
Deletethat is BS. If they don't have enough planes they would not open some other routes instead those which were canceled. They were canceled because of poor demand.
DeleteCare to explain then how the lack of aircraft is not an issue for launching MUC-PRN commencing on the same date?
DeleteGive it a rest, just because he think a route or an airline "could" succeed, it doesn't mean it coincides with the reality.
Oh yeah, and I've also heard the arguments about the "potential."
conspiracy: they launch PRN in summer not in Winter. Get ready for JP to cancel MUC-PRN
Deleteim sure you are the famous "croatian" guy mentioned yesterday
Oh, JP already serves MUC-PRN and EW still opted to serve a route where it faces competition over a route to SKP without any competition?
DeleteIf that's the case, it doesn't look like they'll consider SKP for a while.
Even more proof that there's no conspiracy, just market conditions that everyone should be able to see.
haters gonna hate
DeleteHas Lufthansa ever flown to Ljubljana? It's great that Eurowings is starting flights but it would be even better if LH came on this route.
ReplyDeleteYes, long time ago.
DeleteSome years ago it did, but I don’t know how, or why, LH group is keeping routes from LJU to it’s hubs for JP only.
DeletePity. Thanks for your responses guys.
DeleteEW had never regular flights to LJU
DeleteAre you serious with you comments- Lufthansa is keeping sth to Adria, Croatia etc? Really? If they could make money they would fly immediately. They are one of the most profitable airlines in the world. The reality is that the market is soo small that they cannot make any mony there. Unlike Adria, which of course prints money and flies everywhere with its A321 full of course.
DeleteGreat news for Ljubljana Airport. I'm glad things are finally picking up with new airlines and routes, plans for a terminal expansion and passenger numbers growing.
ReplyDeletefuture looking good
DeleteApparently they will covert part of the current terminal into a LCC terminal once the new one opens.
DeleteGood they are starting. However this will be a short intermezzo. Easyjet couldn´t make Berlin work which is totally different market. They will have difficulty filling those flights with the right prices. The market is simply too small.
ReplyDeleteNot so sure about it as Easy was for P2P traffic. Eurowings has a broad list of (cheap) connecting flights via DUS and that’s what, imo, will sustain the route.
DeleteYes but EW never plans connections. They just "happen" coincidentally. Will be interesting to see how it develops.
DeleteI don't think so. There is quite large slovenian diaspora in Koln/Duseldorf/Bonn. There are also strong economic connections, tourism. I think that this route will work fine.
DeleteMaybe, just wonder why Adria cancelled CGN last year due to poos sales.
DeleteThe airline was in a shambles at the time they were supposed to launch those flights.
Deleteah ok if the airline was in shambles then there was no demand.
DeleteNice. How many passengers can we expects Ljubljana to end up with this year?
ReplyDeleteOctober was +16,3%, meaning probably just under 1.7M. Hopefully more :)
DeleteGreat :) I was hoping they will manage to get it over the 2008 record but it seems we will have to wait for next year.
Deletewhat was the record exactly?
DeleteOops I though the record was 1.8 million but I'm wrong. It was 1,673,050 in 2008 so if it manages 1.7 then it will be the busiest year.
DeleteYes, they LJU is only 19000 behind 2008 as of October and november and december of 2008 were not so good.
DeleteCan they offer a connection flight from dus?
ReplyDeleteYes.
DeleteTo how many destinations if you know? Or do you have some route map from dus?
DeleteWell all their flights out of DUS. It just depends if the flight from LJU arrives at a time which allows good connecting times. Like someone said, this is not a priority for EW. If a flight connects it connects but they don't strategically schedule their flights to offer connections.
DeleteEurowings expansion in ex-Yu has been crazy.
ReplyDeleteAnd that is just the start of it.
DeleteThey will pretty soon abolish most of them again, as they get confronted with the prices and yields they can achieve.
DeleteDusseldorf is one of the top unserved routes from LJU so I wish them all the best.
ReplyDeleteIt is but unfortunately on a very low level. maybe EW can use their Dash-8??
Deletedoes anyone know some other busiest unserved routes from Ljubljan?
DeleteBerlin, Cologne, Dublin, Dusseldorf and Madrid.
DeleteDidn't Adria fly Berlin, Cologne and Madrid and cancelled all three?
Deletewhat does busiest unserved route mean? If 5 passengers want to fly to XX and 3 to YY then XX is the the busiest? If Berlin does not work, DUS will certainly not as well. Business people will not fly over the weekend, and the diaspora is not large.
Delete@anon 10.51
DeleteAccording to stats they are top unserved routes. That is probably the reason why the routes were launched in the first place. But it does not have to mean that the routes would be successful. It could be that LJU is connected to all destinations where there is sufficient demand.
The top unserved route is actually stockholm
DeleteYes... in summer season we would need a direct flight
DeleteLJU is really moving forward this year! Good luck, Slovenia!
ReplyDeleteAttracting more and more LCCs is the best way to compete against Zagreb at the moment. And also the best way too boost passenger numbers. Just look at what Sofia has done in less than a year.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteAs charges and fees keep on rising in ZAG, LJU will start to become far more appealing to many out there.
DeleteGiven that charges at LJU are going down and that they are attracting new lowcost carriers, numbers will keep on rising and I see many people from Croatia using Ljubljana to fly.
DeleteThere are other issues at LJU which the management can't impact on. That is the high price of fuel and state taxes which make it unappealing to LCCs.
DeleteNow really? Which LCC routes exactly?
DeleteTransavia to AMS. Diferance between KLM or CTN price from ZAG for sure is not that high that people will pay for 280 km + parking + highways costs.
Wizz Air to London Luton and easyJet to London Stansted and Gatwick same think as British and Croatia usually have low price on that route (till few days there was Monarch with very low prices).
Wizz Air to Charleroi is the only real route but still Croatia and Brussels flies to Brussels.
Eurowings to Dusseldorf already fly to Zagreb 3 time per week. So, why will someone use same route from Ljubljana and spent much more money and time for extra travel.
Zagreb has more LCC than LJU.
Ljubljana:
easyJet: London Luton, London Gatwick
Wizz Air: London Luton, Cherleroi
Transavia: Amsterdam
Eurowings: to start Dusseldorf
Zagreb:
Eurowings: Dusseldorf, Berlin, Stuttgart, Hamburg, Cologne
Norwegian: Copenhagen, Stockholm
Vueling: Barcelona
Air Transat and Air Canada Rouge to Toronto they are leisure airline but still it is almost as LCC (on concept, price, service...)
So Ljubljana: 6 routes by 4 airlines
Zagreb: 9 routes by 5 airlines
Anon at 11:31, so you also like to watch your dick from close by because it seems bigger?
DeleteIn terms of LCC frequencies, both ZAG and LJU have 22 flights per week done by LCCs.
Not true. ZAG had 32 flights per week last summer.
DeleteWhat about this winter when there is no Monarch?
DeleteAlso, are you seriously comparing OU's prices with Wizz Air and Transavia?! LOL
ZAG-BRU is never under €200
Monarch is 5 flights pw, not such a big deal.
DeleteNot true about ZAG-BRU especially on Brussels flies.
I am not comparing British/Croatia/KLM prices, but for sure if the difference in price is 70-100 EUR passengers will not travel to Ljubljana (time, gas, highway, parking...).
SN no longer flies to ZAG and we don't know if they are going to be back so fares will be back to €250. You obviously never fly on this route if you claim otherwise.
DeleteThere is GoOpti or prevoz.org, where you can find a ride between Zagreb and Ljubljana even for 15€
DeleteI think Norwegian is coming soon too.
ReplyDeleteWhat makes you think that?
DeleteI think Norwegian could easily start a weekly flight to Scandinavia from LJU.
DeleteThey did say last year that they were looking at Slovenia and Macedonia but still nothing.
DeleteThey totally could start a weekly flight from Scandinavia, I agree. And I'm one who would use their flights extensively, not just a direct to either Stockholm or Oslo (whichever would be the one to exist on a direct route) but also their connections to other pars of Scandinavia
DeleteI hope they do. They could also offer transfer options to the US.
DeleteManchester/Liverpool-LJU would be extremely welcome!
ReplyDeletefor 180 Pax both ways 3 X per week? 80% LF. Makes almost 900 pax a week.... How would fly?
DeleteNice :) flights are in the system. Even bookable on some search engines.
ReplyDeleteWhat are the prices?
Deletereturn for around 120€
DeleteDo not forget that Eurowings has flights from Klangenfurt to Köln/Bonn... which is similar to LJU-DUS.
ReplyDeleteAnd from Zagreb to Dusseldorf, Cologne, Berlin, Stuttgart and Hamburg.
DeleteLJU +16,3% in Oct!
ReplyDelete153 641
It just shows how the aviation business is always changing. Last year were disappointed with declining figures at LJU and overall bad situation. This year we are celebrating strong growth, up to four new airlines and new terminal.
Delete4 new airlines? Last time I checked only Transavia launched flights. And if Eurowings materialises, this will be the second airline. Where are the other 2?
DeleteIt's great to see some positive news coming from Slovenia again with both Adria and Ljubljana Airport recovering.
DeleteGood result
Deletethe economy is also on fire! Bravo
Deletelast anon. LOL
Delete4.7% gdp growth, that's huge....
Deletehttps://seenews.com/news/ec-revises-up-slovenias-2017-gdp-growth-to-47-590444
@AnonymousNovember 10, 2017 at 2:27 PM
DeleteThat is really great result.
Hopefully Croatia also has good year, projected GDP growth for this year is around 3.7%, as low as 3% to high 3.7%.
Agrokor dented possible better result. However tourism has generated significant revenue, Croatia for the first time had more than 100 million nights in single year.
Exports also grew @11% yoy, we'll see how things turn out at the end of the year, but with economy recovering strongly this year, and tourism growing at 15%, things are looking up.
Eruowings is expanding fast in Balkans
ReplyDeleteWith Air Berlin gone and them getting so much aircraft I think more growth in the region is on the cards.
DeleteWow, impressive schedule and DUS, really important for Slovenia}
ReplyDeleteI would not get too excited. 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.
ReplyDeleteTrue. Not very professional on their part.
DeleteLet's not forget the best of them all, the one and a half months they fly to BEG. lol
DeleteFinally some more low cost options from Ljubljana.
ReplyDeleteAbout time. Eurowings, easy, Wizz and Transavia. Now we need Ryanair and Norwegian.
DeleteJust those 5? Why to stop there? Also Vueling, Volotea, BlueAir, Joon, Jet2, Pegasus, Pobeda and flyDubai
DeleteYes, but in the meantime you can book a flight and enjoy the beauties of Düsseldorf.
DeleteDüsseldorf is not a particularly beautiful city for German standards.
DeleteOMG guys you get one Eurowings route. SPU has 9 Eurowings routes, DBV 8, PRN 6 routs, ZAD 7 routes, PUY 6 routes, RJK 6 routes, ZAG 5 routes, even OSI, SJJ, TIV has Eurowings flights.
DeleteYou make this small progress like Ljubljana become Eurowings base.
Well they are making it a base while you are presenting Croatian's 'success' as if it has nothing to do with the unrest in the Middle East.
DeleteDude, what?
DeleteLJU has a great option to position itself into a hybrid airport with a mix of legacy and LCCs.
ReplyDeleteI would love to see an LCC takeover some monopoly routes by Adria. Vienna would be nice.
ReplyDeleteI doubt it. It does not seem that the LH group wants to provide extra competition to Adria, unlike in Croatia. They seem to be very close to Adria which only fuels my speculation that LH is behind 4K invest.
DeleteAdria's greater competitor on Vienna route is Flixbus - low cost bus.
DeleteFirst A320 already in colours of VLM Airlines.
ReplyDeletehttps://scontent.flju2-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/23472865_10155172417444389_6517095618928416599_n.jpg?oh=8eb16c5e5da2fd840cd8677a199a79fa&oe=5AB004E6
Haplek
Wonderful! Looks great in that grey-orange livery.
DeleteSo they just put over some stickers on top of the Thomas Cook livery :)
DeleteHonestly I was expecting that more and more airlines would launch flights to LJU after Fraport took over but so far not too much action. I really hope things change. I'm happy Eurowings will start flights.
ReplyDeleteBad news for Adria.
ReplyDeleteHow? This impacts Adria in no way whatsoever.
DeleteIt does. Those passengers flew from DUS to LJU via MUC and FRA. Unfortunately it was just 10 or so a day. So EW will have to find another 150 who will fly from LJU to see the beauties of Düsseldorf ;)
Deleteonly that there are no beauties in Düsseldorf :D
Deleteflights only for the diaspora
This route could probably work just fine. NW Germany is one of the most populated regions in Europe and big economic/business centre. Together with good connectiong options from DUS and good pricing it's going to be interesting option for travelling out of LJU for a mixture of business and leisure passengers.
ReplyDeleteAnd for all those who say that Adria couldn't keep the Cologne and Berlin route, so that DUS wouldn't work either - yes, but Adria is different model and it was at different times. Also in Slovenia people just think by default that Adria is expensive and LCCs are cheap (which is not always the case). So every LCC route that we have out of LJU is doing great. For example CRL with no connections onwards, questionable tourism demand and those who travel to Brussels business wise are mostly using Adria to BRU with much better scheduling.
+1
DeleteAdria was different times? It was one year ago they suspended the route. As concerns the business travellers, yes they will have meetings on Fridays and Sundays. Or they simply stay longer. CLR cannot be compared as EW needs much higher yields to sustain that route. They need those pax that pay 400€ return while they need a solid base load. DUS is an expensive airport and the cost structure od EW is pretty high compared to Wizz or Ryanair.
DeleteAdria announced flights in late 2015. 4K took over in early 2016. If you remember, 4K did a lot of cuts in first year.
DeleteYes and because the CR7 with its 70 Seats was already well booked they cancelled it.
DeleteWhatever floats your goat
DeleteWondering how DUSLJU will work after LJUCGN JP was no success.
ReplyDeleteOn the other side EW has more and more internal troubles with flight crews going to public via press infg them about bad employee culture and messy working environmenz
Makes sense they are expanding in Croatia and Slovenia as Serbia, SKP, Montenegro and Bosnia are Wizz Air and Ryanair playground. It's not easy to compete with them for the diaspora traffic. They got burned in both BEG and SKP
ReplyDeletethey didn't even start in Macedonia so they can get burned.
DeleteGood work Ljubljana. Hope to see more new routes and airlines next year.
ReplyDeleteI really wish the airport had more low-cost options, at least during summer season. This is a good first step :)
ReplyDeleteNice to see 3x per week. Hope there are enough passengers.
ReplyDeleteProbably not for the yield EW needs. But what else should they do, the just got 85 aircraft they have to fly somewhere, and looking into the route results of AB, they certainly will not take every route of AB especially since AB was a network airline, that filled Long haul flights as well and planned as such. So they desperately need new routes with a hight yield they can deploy their AC to. LJU, OMO, they will certainly try everything they can. Otherwise they will have a problem with those AB A/C.
DeleteApparently still not enough A/C to launch SKP though :)
DeleteThey tried- put flights on sale and the resonance was - well not that good ;)
Deleteanon 3.02: haters gonna hate
DeleteDotle smo mi samleli Izidjet. He he.
ReplyDeleteOT
ReplyDeleteA few weeks ago someone called Aegean's model unsustainable so I would like to share with the ex-YU community the airline's results for the first nine months of 2017.
Revenue: €896.300.000 (+9%)
Profit before tax: €101.900.000 (+40%)
Profit after tax: €71.700.000 (+40%)
Passengers: 10.221.000 (+4%)
LF: 82.9% (6.2%)
Passengers per flight:
9 months: 120 (11% from 108)
Q3: 126 (7% from 119)
Overall solid performance ahead of their major fleet renewal decision.
In 2018, Aegean will add 18 new destinations out of which 11 are from Athens while in total 700.000 new seats will be offered next year.
DeleteAll that in bankrupt Greece. Bravo.
DeleteNice! Let's hope we see them in SKP soon!
DeleteAegean had a loss of US 20 mio in H1- its logical that they've increased their profit now, since Q3 is always the strongest quarter because of summer season.
Deletewhile these results do seem very good, lets wait for the results of the last quarter and the final annual results, because that is what counts- and then we could continue the discussion about the sustainability of their model
H1 might have been loss-making but Q2 wasn't.
DeleteIn Q2 2016 they lost some €2.2 million while this year they recorded a post-tax profit of €15.8 million.
It means they already started making money before the busy summer season started.
The airline said that they focused on sales from outside of Greece and on optimizing their network so as to offer more connections.
In my opinion, Aegean has managed to prove to us all that they know how to run an airline. Especially in a challenging market like the Greek one.
In related news... Eurowings will lease Adria's A319 in December
ReplyDeletehttp://www.routesonline.com/news/38/airlineroute/275677/eurowings-outlines-leased-adria-a319-service-in-dec-2017/
Monarch is 5 flights pw, not such a big deal.
Delete