Adria Airways to add six turboprops in September


Adria Airways will add six fifty-seat Saab 2000 turboprop aircraft to its fleet this September, which were formerly operated by the now-defunct Darwin Airline (operating as Adria Airways Switzerland), following months of delays. As a result, the carrier's fleet will grow to 21 aircraft, making it the largest in its 57-year history. The turboprops will be deployed on a select number of routes, most notably to some of the seven new destinations launched by the airline this summer, as well as points within the region. In a statement, Adria said, "By adding six additional aircraft, the Slovenian carrier equals the largest fleet by number of aircraft in the Balkans".

Commenting on the addition of the six turboprops, the airline's CEO, Holger Kowarsch, said, "I am extremely proud that we have achieved a very important milestone in the history of Adria Airways. The latest acquirement confirms our commitment to investing in the company's development since our acquisition of the company. Our goal is to keep growing and strengthening, and we believe that we are able to further transform the company into a stable, strong and important carrier in the region, by developing it for a prosperous future". Previously, Mr Kowarsch noted, "The market is showing a strong interest in Saab 2000s. Part of this fleet will operate in our network, while other aircraft will be available for charter and our ACMI business, which is growing in Europe".

The six Saabs are being leased from the American company Jetstream Aviation Capital. The turboprops have been grounded in Ljubljana since the demise of Darwin Airline late last year. Their reentry into service on behalf of Adria was expected several months ago, however, in May, the Swiss regional carrier SkyWork Airlines lodged a complaint with the Lugano Bankruptcy Office over the manner in which the sale of the aircraft was conducted. SkyWork argued that it was provided with misleading and incomplete information by Darwin Airline's liquidator concerning the aircraft sale and that its inquiries relating to the turboprops during the sale process were left unanswered. As a result, an appeals process delayed the aircraft's entry into service, forcing Adria to wet-lease equipment and crew from other airlines in order to maintain its schedule.

As of September, Adria will operate a fleet of 21 aircraft including three Airbus A319s, nine Bombardier CRJ900s and three CRJ700s, in addition to the six Saab 2000s. In a recent interview with EX-YU Aviation News, Mr Kowarsch noted that the Slovenian carrier will be adding at least another three aircraft to its fleet next year.

Saab 2000 seatmap


Comments

  1. Anonymous09:04

    "the Slovenian carrier equals the largest fleet by number of aircraft in the Balkans".

    What are they smoking? I'm quite sure Turkish and Aegean have bigger fleets.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:55

      I think they probably meant in ex-Yu because it would equal Air Serbia's fleet size.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous11:01

      You are right ofcourse
      These obsession of all exYu airlines about who among them is the "leader of Balcana" is ridiculous!
      We also see many posters post such nonsense but really, who can blame the posters when airlines and politicians say these stupid things first?

      Delete
    3. Anonymous11:07

      +1 last anon

      Delete
    4. Dejan11:08

      Romania's LCC Blue Air is also based in the Balkan peninsula and it has 29 aircraft and all of them Boeing's.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous12:07

      But Slovenia is not in balkan... balkan starts after river kolpa

      Delete
    6. Nemjee12:46

      Technically neither is Romania, only a small part of it is in the Balkans. Then again, they don't mind calling themselves Balkan so neither do we.

      Delete
    7. Anonymous13:33

      I remember a lot of Slovenians saying that they had absolutely nothing to do with the Balkans.
      Now they are part of them in some quest for regional leadership status?

      Delete
    8. Anonymous15:46

      I think that majority of Slovenians love Balkan because of its food , good parties, music, nature, friendly people etc and they are not ashamed to be part of Balkan. That question can be offensive for Hungarians, but not Slovenians.

      Delete
    9. There are more comments about geography than aviation :(
      I for one am happy that Adria didn't collapse and it is actually expanding and adding
      both destinations and frequencies. Hope more carriers will come to LJU though.

      Delete
    10. Anonymous16:10

      +1

      Delete
  2. Anonymous09:04

    Finally!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous09:05

    Will they now return the wet leased BMI and Carpatair plane?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:19

      No, they will lease more CRJs and A319 to Austrian and Eurowings while leasing more WW2 relicts for theirselves

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:55

      Probably unfortunately.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous11:47

      BMI will be returned for sure but Carpatair might stay for a while, depends how fast they can train new crew for the CRJs.

      Delete
  4. Anonymous09:06

    Why wait till September to our them in service?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:09

      Maybe crew training required

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:13

      firsti you should re-register all a/c from Swiceralnd to Slovenian AOC, then all a/c will be repaint to full Adria's livery and so on.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10:56

      Adria doesen't paint its livery, they just use stickers.

      Delete
  5. Anonymous09:11

    Let's see now if they open that base in Germany like they planned?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous11:10

      With the Saabs, they may target secondary airports in exYu in the future. We will see.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous18:41

      According to a local newspaper, there will be a press conference in PAD next Tuesday regarding Adria Airways flights.

      Delete
  6. Anonymous09:14

    Can't wait to see them in JP colors :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous11:10

      Hope they change the livery soon to full JP colours.

      Delete
  7. Anonymous09:41

    Will BWK be increased in summer 2019?
    Any chance to see flights to INI soon ?

    ReplyDelete
  8. They could fly from Portoroz????

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:01

      With an aircraft this size they could.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:43

      Yes, the plane could fly to POW without any restrictions.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous14:17

      Unlikely to be possible with full load in the summer. Might be able to do shorter hops without payload restrictions...

      Delete
  9. Anonymous10:20

    I think Dash 8 could be more efficient plane for ADR, plus it is Bombardier product, but then again Q400 might be just too big and expensive now. However I hope that one day ADR fleet will be a healthy mix of Q400s and CS100/300.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Come on. CS100 is a terrible airplane. Small and unconfortable. You can not beat EMB in this class

      Delete
    2. Anonymous12:30

      They could also get smaller Dash 300s for example but they are not as economical.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous12:32

      Most Saab 2000s have extremely comfy leather seats and a great interior. You gotta love this bird - no comparison to ATR and Dash.

      Delete
  10. Anonymous10:41

    Maybe they could resume BEG flights with this aircraft.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:44

      JU flies 10 per week and is codeshared by JP. Don't see much point in them starting their own flights.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous22:07

      JU flies 12 times per week to LJU, not 10.

      Delete
  11. Anonymous11:08

    Adria actually used to operate a Saab long ago. A cargo version Saab340 :)

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous11:09

    This is shaping up to be a great year for Adria and a lot of expansion is involved. New routes, extra frequencies and extra planes. I think Adria is on its way to recovery and is looking more and more as serious player in ex-Yu.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous11:09

    Those Saabs would be ideal for JU.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous11:22

      What JU badly needs is regional jets around the 100seat category.

      Delete
    2. The smart thing for ASL management to do would be to swap most of the NEOs on order for A220s 100 and 300 now that Airbus owns the C Series programme.
      But unfortunately ASL management and smart decisions do now go together...

      Delete
    3. ^^Really good idea actually. The A220-300 is about 145 seats in standard 1-class configuration so it would be the ideal replacement for JU's 144 seat A319s.

      A220 also has more cargo area, lower empty weight, and slightly higher cruise speed.

      A319 has higher MTOW (which is also bad for airport fees), and greater range.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous18:08

      CS or A220 is smething you dont wanna operate at the moment as the plane is under developed or you have a very good ops and maintenance team

      Delete
    5. Anonymous07:52

      Anonymous at 18:08
      You are probably thinking of the Sukhoi Superjet.
      The C series is fully developed and used daily by many highly reputable airlines.
      And it know has the backing of Airbus as well.

      Delete
  14. Anonymous11:11

    Etihad did a fantastic job retrofitting those planes. They are more comfortable than Adria's CRJs.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Anonymous11:24

    Anyone know what's the biggest market out of LJU?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous12:16

      Germany

      Delete
    2. Nemjee12:54

      Actually the single largest market last year was Istanbul!

      1. IST - 144.282
      2. FRA - 141.989
      3. STN - 113.032
      4. ZRH - 108.711
      5. MUC - 87.607
      6. CDG - 85.633
      7. AMS - 77.041
      8. BRU - 72.878
      9. VIE - 65.490
      10. LTN - 64.309
      11. BEG - 62.474

      AMS has exploded in 2017 which I guess has to do with Transavia. Numbers went from 33.352 in 2016 to 77.041 in 2017.
      IST did really well as well, it had 100.807 in 2016 so in a year they added some 44.000 passengers.
      WAW went from 35.415 to 51.768. PRN from 40.564 to 51.768 and HEL from 31.983 to 34.356.

      Overall it seems like LJU grew quite nicely and this trend continued in 2018.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous13:12

      IST?!? WTF?! How is that even possible?!

      Delete
    4. Anonymous13:14

      Remember last year there was the european basketball championships in Istanbul where Slovenia was in the final and I think Turkish had 10 flights per day to Ljubljana and was operating B777s.

      Delete
    5. Nemjee13:22

      I think TK does generally well in LJU. Here are their quarter numbers. I forgot, was the championship in May?

      Q1 2016: 18.429
      Q1 2017: 23.554

      Q2 2016: 27.914
      Q2 2017: 38.898

      Q3 2016: 30.217
      Q3 2017: 47.847

      Q4 2016: 24.247
      Q4 2017: 33.892

      Delete
    6. Nemjee13:25

      TK does well in DBV as well.

      2016: 25.794
      2017: 55.513

      Delete
    7. Anonymous13:26

      Championship was in September.

      Delete
    8. Anonymous13:59

      Great growth overall. No wonder they are adding a third flight next year.

      Delete
    9. Anonymous20:12

      TK in DBV has great numbers, thanks Nemjee!

      Delete
    10. Do we know which new destinations are on plan to be inaugurated when this 6 planes come to the fleet? MXP? LED? GOT? MAD? BCN? ATH? or just stocking more flights to DBV and BKW? Will they try to start charters to POW?

      Delete
    11. Anonymous22:48

      And, by the way, Slovenia not only participated in the Finals, but won the Championship against Serbia .....

      Delete
    12. Anonymous23:07

      So because it won somehow there were more passengers to IST in the end?

      Delete
    13. Anonymous06:19

      Yes... for final game 15000 fans went to IST by plane

      Delete
  16. Anonymous12:15

    Flew with these Saabs last year when Adria was using them. Very enjoyable experience.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I agree! I flew on Saabs from Geneva to Ibiza still under Darwin. Very very comfortable!

      Delete
  17. Anonymous12:16

    How many cabin crew members per this Saab? 2?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous13:26

      Two members of the crew in the cabin.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous13:45

      I once flew with one when it was still under Etihad and there was 1 cabin crew member. It was a 45 min flight tho

      Delete
    3. Anonymous14:20

      All of Darwin's Saab 2000s were in Y50 configuration, so only one cabin crew member legally required. Service requirements might call for the second one, although with JP's service levels in mind, I think they'll stick with one.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous18:04

      You need legaly 1 CCM per 50 pax with some exemptions. These Saabs are 48Y

      Delete
  18. Anonymous13:45

    So 232.140 new seats with a single daily rotation of each AC

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous13:47

      ... yearly basis

      Delete
  19. Anonymous18:12

    Seems impossible to crew these 6 birds till september.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous22:50

      How may pilots is needed per plane to utilise it daily ?

      Delete
    2. The crew is here, type rated, current and waiting to start flying

      Delete

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