wow this would be fantastic!

Could their really be enough traffic to sustain scheduled seasonal flights?

Nice. Hope it materializes.

Why not? Makes absolute sense.

Thank you for the charter schedule ex-Yu was looking for it everywhere

How?

JAL is coming too this year? Nice! So ANA + JAL. Hopefully there will be seasonal flights soon.

This would be great if it happened.

Honestly I think LJU needs to pull something out of the bad to remain competitive against all the nearby airports which are attracting a lot of Slovenians. This would be a very good start.

Yes but JAL just one flight like it says in the article.

Because LJU has the best location for tourists to arrive. Venice, Budapest, Istra, Plitvice, Vienna, Budapest ... are all close.

Plus, LJU is quite affordable as an airport.

Does any nearby airport offer scheduled nonstop flights to Japan?

They've been doing exactly that.

Do they dock the B777 in LJU onto the air bridge? Or they park it at the stand?

6 flights this year and only 2 last year so this.... go LJUBLJANA

Huh, it will be a long shot, as ANA afaik only fly to UK, Belgium, France, Germany in Europe (maybe I’m wrong), but on the other hand, it may serve as another gateway to discover this part of Europe. Anyway, time will tell. (Hope it goes trough tho :) )

"as well as with a Chinese carrier for the establishment of flights from Xi'an."

WTF? Why Xian of all places in China?

Because Xi'an Airport is operated by Fraport.

Japanese tourists represent a large market potential for Slovenian tourism.

They could dock it (and loose space), but they park it at the stand near to where transport planes park (NW part of the airfield)

Yes, VCE and VIE.

Priorities should be flights to the Middle East and better connections to the Scandinavian and Russian markets. When they do that then they can think about Japan and China.

Ahhh ok I see. Makes more sense now.

Hahahaha.... Yes yes, A380 to Maribor this season, maybe even Emirates hub... C'mon people, that aircraft is bigger than the country itself.

Does Croatia have more Japanese tourists than Slovenia?

No. 5 charters is not enough to deploy scheduled flights with 777-300 to the city with size of Ljubljana. This article is "trla baba lan da joj prođe dan".

And yet that plane flies to Ljubljana...

I would assume so. 30,000 is not that big of a number.

Yes but adria more regional network then croatia so maybe thats the choice over

Sorry, is this ANA or JAL that fly to VIE and VCE?

For scheduled flights you need bigger market in 2 way. Some Japanese toursts is not enough to introduce long range flight in LJU.

ANA is a Star Alliance airline like Adria. If I were Adria I would lobby the government to seal this deal. It could provide a great feed to Adria's network.

I think even Dubrovnik alone has more Japanese tourists than Slovenia. Btw, how many Japanese charters will DBV have this summer?
Anyway, congrats, Ljubljana, hope this materializes!

Yes there were 142,043 Japanese tourists in Croatia in 2017. There are some ANA charters to Dubrovnik each year too.

everyone claims to be the best location. amusing

I know Austrian will resume Tokyo but Venice I can't remember. I think ANA.

Sure, lot of Japanese will to TIA/SKP/PRN/TDG via LJU. I bet it will be daily year round flights.

If BUD managed to make YYZ year round this year, then there is no reason why LJU cannot have year round flights to HND or NRT.

Croatia has been extremely slow to secure flights from far away markets. Look at what happened with the Chinese.

for scheduled flights is planed B788

Sure, so comparable.

What's your problem?

And they should attract more low cost airlines and make flying more affordable.

Maaaan this will never happen, the market is simply to small to justify scheduled longhaul to Japan. These routes are hardly sustainable even from bigger markets.

LCC offer is not bad from Ljubljana - Wizz, easyjet, Transavia. Could be better but its not bad.

And before someone bashes me I find this very odd and put it down to inaction from airports and government because Croatia has the best potential in attracting these flights at least on a seasonal basis.

Ok, shvatili smo da ne moze nista nadmasiti Emirates u ZAG... Mislim let za Dubai ima svaki drugi grad ovde.

norwegian is a must though

Hope JAL sends their B747 again :)

Fraport is working super hard to promote its European siblings. LJU is in a constant growth and will be looking forward to see a 773 or 788 land in LJU.
I read also that 5 or 6 Greek airports are being prepared for summer 2019.
Also BOJ will have a bigger terminal by 2021 as it is expected to reach around 3,2 million this year.
LJU will easily reach 2 million in 2 years time.

Japanese tourists are not really into beaches. They prefer mountains and lakes, rural tourism which is exactly what Slovenia has. They can then hop to Venice and the surrounding areas. Also LJU is a much cheaper airport compared to ZAG.

HV already extended LJU-AMS for winter 2018 ;) ;) ;) ;) ;)

Is there still a scheduled service between Venice and Japan? Alitalia once offered flights between VCE and NRT, but that services were discontinued. Don't found any information that All Nippon resumed that particular route. Yes, Austrian will fly to Narita again and VCE will get a seasonal service to Seoul operated by Asiana.

Mihael

In the words of Michael Jackson; Who's bad?

If these flights were about Zagreb I bet you world speak like that.

Let's hope easyJet is next.

That is all nice and well, but is it realistic? Is there enough potential?

Yes but LJU is. No doubt about that.

ANA seems to think so.

With Fraport operating the airport I wouldn't say it's impossible.

Things are finally starting to move at LJU. Next up should be Fly Dubai announcing new flights.

For starters, Croatia have 5 times as much Japanese tourists as Slovenia

lol

Maybe it does, but ANA is interested in LJU and not ZAG obviously.

For the time being.

Agree. Good to see Ljubljana Airport bouncing back.

A small explanation: London and Paris are huge O&D-markets, FRA and MUC are big transfer-hubs from ANAs joint venture partner Lufthansa, BRU is the politcal centre of Europe and also a (smaller) Star Alliance hub and DUS (again Germany) is a special case - the japanese community there is one of the largest in europe. A few charters may work, but it will be hard to fill regular scheduled services to an airport, in this case LJU, without good transfer opportunities.

Mihael

Hope so about Flydubai.

It would definitely make the airport more competitive. If you attract a major carrier especially operating long haul it attracts other airlines.

I think B777 is more realistic but you never know. They have sent the B747 in the past.

Yes I thought it would take up too much gate space. Thanks.

We don't know the traffic flow between Japan and Slovenia. Slovenes have the money to travel.

Great news for Slovenia!

@Anonymous (09:39): Of course, now ZAG would be also a too small market for regular flights to Japan. Take a look at ANAs cabin configuration - a lot of premium seats to fill.

Mihael

The main reason Japanese tourists could be drawn to fly to Slovenia is the nature and outdoors.

Both, ANA and JAL, retired their 747 fleet. :(

It is actually a great market for the Japanese. Has absolutely every they want to see.

Is Slovenia waking up? Possible flights to Japan, China and UAE. Good to hear.

I will be happy when ANA actually touches down in LJU. Until then, wishful thinking.

Yes all possible but nothing concrete.

+1

@AnonymousApril 20, 2018 at 9:26 AM

I think there's market, Croatia and Slovenia...

It all depends if fares are competitive enough for people in northern Croatian and Zagreb using Ljubljana instead of Zagreb or Vienna.

Croatia has 177000 Japanese visitors in 2017, some 120 000 visited Zagreb. In 2016 the number of Japanese visitors to Croatia was around 255000. Getting these numbers would be nice.

Perhaps direct flights to Ljubljana could play well for both countries.

you can laugh or be serious, but it is up to the carrier to decide where they will fly and how often...

The cheapest, quickest and most convenient way for a Japanese to reach Europe is with SU. They have amazing prices via SVO. Instead of relying on the load factor of those flights it would be better if JP increases flights to SVO and code sharing with SU. But because SU is Skyteam, I don´t think this is possible.

They already fly to Ljubljana.

JP and SU have code-share because of that Adria fly to Sheremetyevo insted of Domodedovo where is the most SA airlines

Ah, I had no clue, thanks for the info. Well yes, I wouldn't mind flying SU. They significantly improved their fleet. The sole issue is that Russia has a very poor flight safety record.

Maybe ANA wants to introduce some other European destination with a stop in Ljubljana.

Slovenia has a good Tourist Board that could market the country well to Japanese tour operators.

Would be good for LJU and Slovenia.

Highly doubt it. There are more lucrative destinations in Europe.

And how would you know what's lucrative for them?

Hope it happens. There are a lot of Japanese tourists visiting Slovenia and they could also use Slovenia as an entry point to Croatia.

Anon 9:34, if you think Croatia is only beaches and sun, you can google Istria, Dubrovnik, Dalmatia, Zagreb, Slavonija, Varaždin...

I am waiting for a certain someone to write that this is a political route since it is being negotiated by the government and then say how they are copying another country.

I think Slovenia as a country has a lot to offer. It's already doing well in attracting Japanese tourists. It is also close by to many countries so a good entry way to Central/East Europe. We will see.

Are there any factories or big projects related to Japan in Slovenia?
I read about Sumitomo a big tire company, anything else?

LJU Airport is far away fromg being ready to accept regular scheduled long haul flights. Check in, Gate areas and arrival is a huge mess with almost 300 passengers at one time. Skobir is a ridiculous dreamer with trying to promote such flights. First expand the terminal and than go out and look for new opportunities. Its exactly in cases like this where they show how much they care for customer satisfaction and convenience

There are 5. 3 are announced I think and 2 are kept secret for now. More are said to come in the coming years

They are expanding it. Skobir said few days ago that they are changing blueprints and that T2 will be somewhat bigger then presented in 2017.

Japan people as well. And with 130m people there's bound to be enough to travel to nieche desstinatdns like slo

So maybe this is the reason why flights to Japan are needed.Combine this with the leisure travellers and there you go. It all makes sense now and why the need of these flights is essential...

If Wizz Air already flies with their 230 A321 seater (can be considered almost "long-haul" compared to a 767 or 330 and if LJU is already capable of this job, then what is the problem? Why is everybody so sceptic when a small country has the money, has a current 4% economic growth, is the most developed of all in the region, has a stable banking, has perfect nature and what the Japanese are looking for, has serious Japanese investments, has ambitions to grow big and not to focus on Europe - which is a super competetive airline market.
LJU is trying to attract destinations what would bring money in and not rely on poorer ones to constantly feed their hub.
Slovenia as a rich country should look into destinations such as LCY, SIN or HKG and try to attract serious airlines such as CX or SQ.
Slovenia doesn't have the Croatian beaches that rely on massive tourism but has a BUSINESS capital ready to give it all. Economic routes should be launched and not just cheap routes to secondary or tertiary airports to Europe with 1 or 2 weekly departures.
Just look at PRG or KTW and not to mention RIX.
At the end of the day, if you want money, call the bigger ones to join your club so you can gurantee some money for at least a couple of years in the future before the aviation sector changes again.
We might be able to see a 321LR flying from LJU to BOS.
I just think it's a matter of very short times for LJU and Fraport to sit down together and speak about the future long haul flights.
Good examples will be financial centres: SIN, NYC, HKG, BRN, SHA.
Touristic routes do not bring that much money compared to bank ones.

No doubt about that.

There are no direct flights to Japan from VCE. Even from VIE there is only a 4x weekly ridiculously expensive connection.

i stopped reading at Slovenia as a rich country ...

LJU has better geo location vs ZAG.

Can I get some of what you are smoking? Seems to be good stuff.

LJU at the moment cannot,sustain a single non-LCC route to London, let alone LCY. When somebody will fly daily to LHR, then we can talk about LCY.

About the long haul flights... Even though Slovenia is the most developed country in the exyu region, it is a very small market. It is unrealistic to expect somebody to launch multiple longhaul routes from LJU. There’s simply not enough demand.

As for the A321LR going TATL from LJU, I would be very sceptical. Even A320 is performance limited out of LJU, let alone A321LR...

Last year, more than 100,000 Korean tourists came to Slovenia, so the potential for tourism from the Far East is huge.

No doubt about that.

LUX is half the size of LJU and oh boy, look how they're doing. LJU needs to get really serious about aviation and to start promoting LJU and MBX instead of relying on JP, the same as BEG does with JU. Wake up and move on...!!!

Good one.

Trieste airport (in Ronchi dei legionari) location is even better. From mid March 2018 it's directly connected by rail to Trieste, Mestre, Milano, Roma etc.

@AnonymousApril 20, 2018 at 11:14 AM

You talk nonsense, it is quite embarrassing to read your childish comments. Please stop.

@AnonymousApril 20, 2018 at 4:45 PM

Why, is Slovenia not rich ? It is a high income economy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Bank_high-income_economy

No idea what a rich country is tbh, but i presume being high income economy is one of the criteria.

Anonymous @ 0325pm

Tell Skobir to add 4 jetbridge stands. Old or handicapped people dont like to board CR7/9 from the ground
Once he s ready by 2020, lets attract new airlines.

All: SLO is indeed increasing its living standard. This is obvious if you visit Restaurants and Malls outside LJU. People spend money and if I judge my friends, they are travelling more and more abroad and to long haul destinations. Nice to see actually the progress

Yet Trieste barely has any flights to outside ifeItaly.

400 000 Koreans in Croatia, 3 times more charters from Korea in ZAG, and yet no scheduled service from Korea, and LJU would make it with 30 000 Japanese and 5 charters per year, yeah right. And just btw announced by a politician :)

So interesting to hear how Croatia , which actually is the only exyu country with decent number of tourists from faraway markets, should have Japanese coming via LJU, Chinese coming via BEG, Koreans via PRG, Americans via VCE and so on and so on .. And I just repeat what I read here several times

@ An.4.10
The diagnosis for what you wrote is "kompleks vise vrednosti". If you don't understand foreign languages southern of Slovenia, you can google it. Btw. I think too Slovenia is one of the most beatiful countries in Europe at least. But all other you wrote is big BS, pardon my french.

Well it makes sense. If there are flights to LJU that brings tourists, do we really need them at ZAG?

And how many Croats live in the UK and how many Slovenes yet LJU has more flights to LON.

Lol. What an argument. Thats only because of LJU being the only proper airport in the country which is also and evrn centrally located. In Croatia ZAG serves only a part of the country, there are 6 other large international airports all with traffic serving the other parts of the country and many of them also have LON traffic.

If S.A. membership would be that important, don't you think ANA would first start serving VIE?

Also OU is also a S.A. member, same applies to them and ZAG has more traffic than LJU.

Yaskawa (industrial robots) is making a new factory in Kočevje and Sumitomo in Logatec.

WorldwideUpdate: "Last year, more than 100,000 Korean tourists came to Slovenia."
Has LYU had charter flights from South Korea last year?

Are these flights only for japanese people or can anyone book those flights(for example slovenian people)??if that’s possible does anyone know how much those tickets cost?!