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.
Eurowings seems all over the place. They announced many routes which they haven't launched.
ReplyDeleteThey don't have enough aircraft for the scale of expansion they planned.
DeleteThen they should be thinking about their planning!!
DeleteTrue. They also planned Brac flights this summer, Podgorica, increased frequencies in Croatia but nothing will materialize.
DeleteThat;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@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.
DeleteNo 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.
DeleteEurowings/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.
DeleteGood comments about Eurowings.
DeleteCrew 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.
DeleteIt's not a secret that Eurowings is one of the lowest paying A320 jobs in Europe, SE Europe standards...
DeleteWould they launch Munich or Dusseldorf?
ReplyDeleteAdria flies double daily to Munich. Don't see much space for Eurowings.
DeleteAdria launches DUS as a precaution but will eventually be forced out it EW stars. Any other destination does not make sense.
DeleteMaybe colonge or barcelona
Deletei doubt they will fly against JP.
Deletemore likely STR, TXL, CGN or HAM
Not flying against JP? HAM? CGN which is a twenty Min ride from CGN? Against EZY to TXL?
Deletethere 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.
DeleteYou can book all LH and LH Code Share flights on the EW page, which just links to the LH page.
DeleteNice to see more and more LCCs considering LJU.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time they downgrade OMO and will use turboprops on the route.
ReplyDeleteAn LCC with Dash 8s? Seriously?
DeleteWhy not? Turbo props are cheaper to operate, they could have decent LF and good yields.
DeleteThey 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
DeleteUnlikely they will make it in the top three.
ReplyDeleteWell LJU airport could have done some promotion. This is the first time I hear about it.
DeleteIt started yesterday and more or less every other airports besides LJU shared competition on their social media.
DeleteLJU finally shared it on facebook a few minutes ago.
DeleteWe could all help LJU to get new flights
ReplyDeleteYou 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!
DeleteWhy? Lju airport is growing for feb there was more then 100000 pax, it has the biggest growth of all ex-yu airports.
DeleteU apsolutnim ili relativnim srazmjerima?
Deletebiggest growth? o_0
DeleteNice. How many passengers can we expects Ljubljana to end up with this year?
ReplyDelete2 million.
DeleteHAHA!
DeleteWith this growth will be around 1.8 to 1.9m
DeleteLink to we fly u vote is not working
ReplyDeleteWorking fine for me.
DeleteMe too.
DeleteWorks for me.
DeleteMakes 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.
ReplyDeleteAttracting 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.
DeleteEW 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.
DeleteI 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.
ReplyDeleteIt's good for marketing.
DeleteIt’s purely marketing ploy. Routes have already been selected and voting is just for pumping up the routes and such :)
DeleteI 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.
DeleteTheir video for Ljubljana is nice
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/aZLr3EIvGDY
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.
ReplyDeleteThe 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.
+100
DeleteEW really is an ok airline, better than Wizz and Ryan for sure - but it's just a LCC
DeleteAttracting more and more LCCs is the best way to compete against Zagreb.
ReplyDeleteEurowings 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.
ReplyDeleteIt won´t! They just look up destinations throwing darts at a map. The DASH8 will leave the fleet and then again- BIG MESS.
DeleteI think SKP and SJJ were suspended because of poor advance bookings
DeleteExactly- 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.
DeleteLet me give you an inside tip - W6 also had poor advance bookings on most of their SKP routes. We all know how that ended.
DeleteI don't trust EW one bit.
Wizz Air was subsidized during the period of poor advanced bookings.
DeleteAway 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.
ReplyDeleteFinally some more low cost options from Ljubljana.
ReplyDeleteLJU 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.
DeleteI would love to see an LCC takeover some monopoly routes by Adria. Vienna would be nice.
ReplyDeleteOr BRU/CRL more than 2pw...
DeleteEW 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.
ReplyDeleteseizing 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.
DeleteAnd EW is an Airline which has its own AOC.
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.
ReplyDeleteFirst a foremost Ljubljana Airport could share the voting link!!!
DeleteIf LJU doesn't care it means that they have already negotiated a future route with EW and it will launch regardless of voting.
DeleteThere is still a chance they could be in top 3. Third place is still wide open.
DeleteLjubljana Airport finally shared the voting link on their facebook page a few minutes ago.
DeleteSeems to be working, they are almost at 4%.
DeleteSo Adria is basically launching LJU-DUS just so Eurowings doesn't open it in the future?
ReplyDeleteMost probably.
DeleteBut aren't they all Star Alliance members under heavy influence (or direct ownership) of Lufthansa. So why does it matter who operates the route?
DeleteThey 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.
Deletema nemoj. thats why the flew to Pula with half empty airplanes
DeleteSwiss and JP are members of the same alliance but they still have different owners :)
DeleteI heard JP was planning to start DUS anyways, but didnt get slots until January.
DeleteAs 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.
ReplyDeleteDoes Eurowings have a base in Zurich. ZRH-LJU might be a good route for them to start.
ReplyDeleteThey don't have a base in ZRH. They just fly to there from Cologne, Düsseldorf and Hamburg
DeleteIf they eventually launch flights to Ljubljana, I have a feeling it will be with a Dash plane.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteI still find it interesting how small their presence in Serbia is. Just one route for a couple of weeks per year. How come?
ReplyDeleteThe issue is that BEG has too many flights to Germany, served by Lufthansa, Air Serbia and Wizz Air.
DeleteThe Wizz effect
Delete...and on top of that easyJet is entering the market with its own flights.
DeleteBut 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).
DeleteWell, it's still easyJet's first German destination. Maybe we'll see more in the future though I think it's not very likely.
DeleteI 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.
Insane! They have basically kept their old fares but charge people for checked baggage, seats and "fantastic new BoB product".
DeleteGO Ljubljana!
ReplyDeletethe future of airline industry lies in fast railways ;)
ReplyDelete+1000
DeleteCouple 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...
DeleteUnfortunately 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.
DeleteCome on Ljubljana! I voted. We need more LCCs.
ReplyDeleteLH 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.
ReplyDeleteHow is that related to the topic?
DeleteLH Group expanding in EX-YU!
DeleteBTW: EW is controlled by LH and no route can be started without the permission from FRA.
DeleteThey are definitely moving seats and frequencies from Zagreb to coast. Logical because the coast is booming.
DeleteThey are not moving anything. ZAG has 5 flights a day to FRA of which LH is increasing from CR9 to CRK twice a day.
DeleteYou mean permission from CGN?
DeleteEW has to obtain all ok from mother LH in FRA.
DeleteLH used to operate mainline flights into ZAG last year. Now they are all on regional aircraft, that's a reduction
DeleteThis 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.
DeleteYou had the EXACT SAME discussion 2 days ago. How do you people not get tired?
DeletePeople some people still didn't understand it despite all the explanation.
DeleteAlso I am more tired of your condescending tone.
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.
DeleteGood news :) It means they will launch Ljubljana sooner or later.
ReplyDeleteEurowings is not low cost at all. Their fares are quite high when compared to Ryanair or Wizz.
ReplyDeleteTheir fares are like Vueling and Transavia.
DeleteTransavia is quite cheap from BEG.
Delete@12:32
Delete... neither of which is a proper LCC after all.
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.
DeleteLjubljana is growing in tha rankings. It's fifth now and has 6% of vote.
ReplyDelete7% now
Delete9,4% :)
DeleteWhat is with rumors about UAE carrier starting LJU flights?
ReplyDeleteReally? That would be great!
Delete