The Slovenian government has exactly two months to find a new operator for Maribor Edvard Rusjan Airport, otherwise it could be forced to close its doors. The airport's current operator, China's SHS Aviation, will terminate its concession on July 15, after cutting short its fifteen-year management and development contract. Despite not delivering on most of what it promised, including transforming Maribor Airport into a hub for Chinese tourists, SHS expressed its dismay with delays by the central government in adopting a zoning plan, which would have allowed it to commune a 660 million euro redevelopment project. The Slovenian Ministry for Infrastructure has conceded it is yet to adopt the new zoning plan which would allow for the extension of the airport's runway.
Stakeholders in various companies utilising Maribor Airport's services called on the government yesterday to prevent its closure. They include the Mayor of the Municipality of Hoče-Slivnica, the head of the Medical Helicopter Emergency Services, the Transport Manager at Maribor Airport and officials from the ACC Air School. "We believe our airport is important. We are concerned because the Ministry for Infrastructure is yet to communicate its plans", Maribor Airport's Traffic Manager, Tone Bračko, said. Štefan Mally, the head of the Medical Helicopter Emergency Services, noted, "If the airport closes, we must quickly search for a new base in order to continue providing emergency helicopter medical assistance. In 2018 we had 280 helicopter movements, and I believe they have saved many lives".
In a statement, the Ministry for Infrastructure said, "The Ministry is working on finding the right solution to ensure the smooth functioning of Edvard Rusjan Airport in the future". However, it is believed the ministry is still undecided whether to offer the airport up for a new concession or sell it. It has been deemed as too expensive for the airport to be state-run. Discussions have taken place with Turkish investors, however, no firm agreements have been made. SHS Aviation purchased the "Aerodrom Maribor" operator for seven million euros in December 2016 and won a concession to run the airport for a period of fifteen years.
What a mess. I hope they find a solution.
ReplyDeletePerfect airport for Ryanair and other low costers.
ReplyDeleteWhy haven't they come then?
DeleteMaribor is an airport no one needs. Operation costs for the limited activities are too high. And GRZ LJU ZAG are too close to justify another airport in the region.
DeleteBut it could serve as s low cost alternative to ZAG and LJU. It's not as if these two have some huge LCC presence.
DeleteVery correct.
DeleteThis airport is ideally located for LCC that could help mostly village and spa tourism in that area to be more developed.
Also it can be LCC alternative for LJU, ZAG and GRZ serving passengers from Slovenia, Hungary, Austria and Croatia.
I hope Slovenian Goverment will recognize it by offering special conditions to FR or W6
And theres also KLU
DeleteTrebalo bi osposobiti i Varaždin kao alternativa Mariboru, kad već...
DeleteWell there were those Ryanair flights for a while.
DeleteThose lasted just a couple of months and stopped as soon as the tourist organisations could no longer pay them to fly.
DeleteYou can't have an "LCC alternative", where the competitive airports (ZAG,LJU,GRZ) aren't operating at full capacity.
DeleteOf course you can have it and it has nothing to do with "full operating capacity" of competitive airports.
DeleteTherefore it is alternative as neither ZAG nor LJU offer decent LCC traffic
BNX is the perfect example of alternative airport to ZAG.
DeleteMaribor would be here even in better position as it is closer to ZAG
No surprise this is the result of the Chinese 'investment'.
ReplyDeleteTrue all Chinese airport investments in Europe turned into a big failure.
DeleteYou expected something, really!?
DeleteChinese haven't done a great job with Gorenje either.
DeleteCan't the state just take over?
ReplyDeleteThe airport has been managed by the state for all bar past 2 years. It's not like they were much more successful either.
DeleteThat would be very bad news for the Slovenian tax payers.
DeleteMaybe we should also close schools and hospotals so tax payers don't have pay for them. Airports are a key part of a country's infrastructure.
Delete*hospitals
DeleteYes, MBX is a key part of Slovenia infrastructure. In September last year there was 50 passenger going through the airport, i.e. less than one full bus.
DeleteThe reason why MBX was built is because of the hard border between Yugoslavia and Austria back in the old days. And nobody had the guts to admit it is not needed in 21st century with Schengen and no borders.
Slovenian taxpayers continue to finance privatized airports too. Portoroz Airport gets state aid even though its privately owned. The Ministry of Infrastructure has so far paid more than 2.7 million euros to the manager of the Portorož airport, the last payment in February this year.
DeleteThat's crazy. Why do they do that?
Delete@10.31 Did JAT used to fly to Maribir during Yugo times?
DeleteAs far as I remember JAT used to fly from Maribor to Belgrade, Split and Skopje.
DeleteInteresting thanks. Benefits of a big single market I guess.
DeleteHard boarder anon 10.31? People from Slovenia could go from Yugoslavia into Austria without any issue.
DeleteGive the airport to Fraport.
ReplyDeleteWhy would they want it? Just to remind you that Fraport sold its stake in Portoroz Airport 3 yrs ago.
DeleteMaybe Fraport could develop it into an LCC airport.
DeleteThat would increase Fraport's costs. They don't need that.
DeleteDid anyone else except SHS apply for the Maribor concession?
ReplyDeleteNope
DeleteYou can't expect anyone to be interested in an airport with no traffic, sandwiched between larger airports.
DeleteSlovenia's only state-owned airport? I thought the Chinese bought it from Delavska hranilnica?
ReplyDeleteMaribor Airport has unfortunately always been a good place for some companies to wash their money. Like these SHS people. Do you remember when that airline Golden Air started flying from MBX. It was set up by the same guy that established Air Slovakia and the plan was for the airline to link Maribor and India!!!
ReplyDeleteHaha goodness I remember that. Crazy.
DeleteMain issue
DeleteMaribor - Graz Airport: 60 km
Graz isn't a great alternative. They mostly have seasonal charters.
DeleteThat's so not true. Graz has Austrian flying to several cities, plus KLM, Turkish Airlines, Swiss and Lufthansa. They all fly year round on scheduled basis. So with one stop you can pretty much reach any place in the world. Same as from Ljubljana.
DeleteBravo Alenka Bratusek. Nice to see you are on top of things...
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteMoney laundering scheme has now been completed and certain government officials got a nice envelop.
DeleteAir Serbia should have introduced Nis-Maribor instead of Ljubljana :D
ReplyDeleteYes that would have been an even bigger success.
DeleteAnd fly with with A330.
DeleteBEG-LJU: ATR72
INI-LJU: A319
INI-MBX: A332
Makes perfect sense.
Tipicna prica sa Balkana. Tek posle uzimanja aerodroma od strane Kineske SHS Aviation pod petnaesto godisnju koncesiju,
ReplyDeleteVlada u Ljubljani vrsi rezoniranje zemljista oko aerodroma. "Uplasili" se.
Verovatno da ce sletati mnogo Kineza... Izvesno jeste da SHS Aviation ne moze cekati tako dugo vreme odluku Slovenacke
administracije. Drzava bogata. Mozejoj se. Kineski koncesionar
je primio "novu" lekciju ispod Alpa. Na kraju aerodrom velikog grada Maribora pada u neizvesnost. Sto se Kine tice, za verovati je
da ce i neuspeh preziveti...
Mnogo srece Mariboru. Za Kineze ne brinem. "Za parice i u carice"
Tako kaze stara poslovica.
Rodney & Aviation Team. ✈☺🔅✨✈🌏🌍🌎✈
Kings Park. NSW Australia.
Why MBX struggles to find airlines to fly there? Its a cute airport but totally unused.
ReplyDeleteLack of demand?
DeleteIt is small airport serving small catchment area and close to many other airports already offering many travel possibilities.
DeleteIf even LCCs cannot generate demand with low ticket prices, then you know it's a failed project.
DeleteBetter that the city invested some money and given it to Ryanair or Wizz air to fly to Maribor.
ReplyDeleteAgree
DeleteWhich routes could work from Maribor?
DeleteMaribor would fit perfectly into FR... don't know how that went wrong
DeleteWell, you know FR's busines model, don't you?
DeleteAwesome article.
ReplyDeleteThe fantasy of Maribor becoming an intercontinental hub was a joke.
ReplyDeleteThe Slovenian government should not give this airport up for concession. It would be good for the state to have full control over one airport in the country, seeing as Ljubljana and Portoroz have been sold.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteGovernment was clueless at running ANY airport in the country. Ljubljana went to the Germans, Portoroz to the Serbs and Maribor to the Chinese. If you sold them to cover losses in your budget then you lose the right to complain and nag.
DeleteI think that if they subsidise some LCCs this could be a successful airport. It would be a shame to close it down, especially since a lot was invested to develop a nice relatively new terminal.
DeleteThe government ran LJU very well. Get your facts straight.
DeleteTraditionally, Slovenian government has had no idea how to run most of the state-owned enterprises, especially in aviation.
DeleteJP and MBX are prime examples. Draining tens of millions of EUR into JP black hole and building a completely new terminal in MBX for < 10k pax a year and making studies whether it would be feasible to build Cat 2 ILS installation.
Yeah, yeah. Still, this hasn't got anything to do with how well LJU did as a state owned airport.
DeleteBtw, I do agree that JP and MBX were/are total mess ups.
I find it ironic that it was SHS that terminated the contract with the government, and not the other way like it should have been done.
ReplyDeleteIt's painfully obvious that there is simply no demand for Maribor. Reminds me of OSI
ReplyDeleteOSI is such a tragic story that could have worked if Tuzla didn't kill it. Maybe Croatia should subsidize flights on OU like Serbia is doing in INI.
DeleteAs if this wasn't expected.
ReplyDeleteBalkan business.
ReplyDeleteThere are examples of these sorts of things across Europe and the world. Remember Spain's ghost airport with brand new terminal?
DeleteAmateurs doing business with amateurs.
DeleteOr with money launderers ...
DeleteIt's sad that such a nice terminal is sitting empty
ReplyDeleteIt is more sad Slovenian taxpayers had to pay many millions for an airport that was empty even before that.
DeleteIt was stupid move from the government to even build that terminal.
DeleteHad Maribor started growing it could have finally forced LJU and ZAG to lower their charges.
ReplyDeleteWhy Zagreb?
DeleteBecause Zagreb is less than 100 km away and is known for highest charges in ex-yu.
DeleteTick tock
ReplyDeleteAt least Maribor Airport's fate is not sealed for the next 13 years
ReplyDeleteYes now it could be closed and sealed forever.
DeleteThat won't happen. Even if they close it, it would be temporarily. Too much effort, money and time had been invested in the airport to calmly allow its doors to be closed
DeleteThis is not looking good. The Ministry of Infrastructure still has not presented a plan on how they plan to operate Maribor Airport after July 15.
ReplyDeleteThey don't care.
DeleteWith high fees in ZAG and LJU, and almost no major LCC presence in Graz, Zagreb and Ljubljana, Maribor with 3-4 EUR fee per passenger could transform itself into Ryan, Wizz or Easy LCC central for the whole region.
ReplyDeleteSHS's accounts in Slovenia have now been blocked. Don't know how they will pay the concession fee for May, June and July.
ReplyDeleteMaybe their concession will be terminated earlier then. That's an even worse scenario for the government.
DeleteMBX should work on promoting itself as a good GA airport with good conditions for training and test flights.
ReplyDeleteNo matter who the operator is, this airport unfortunately has no future due to its location and surrounding airports.
ReplyDeleteWill FR resume flights from STN?
ReplyDeleteRyanair flew there for a few months but local tourist authorities that were funding the flights didn't have enough money and the flights stopped.
DeleteIs it possible to have fee of 1 Euro like we have it in Niš airport?
ReplyDeleteIt's actually 3 euros at Nis ;)
DeleteIn light of the recent developments at smaller airports in ex-Yu such as Tuzla, Nis, Banja Luka, Osijek, I feel like Maribor could have gone the same way and attracted LCCs. Now it has nothing.
ReplyDeleteOf course it could. But not with that level of incompetence.
DeleteThis airport can do much better.
ReplyDeleteExactly. But now it's too late.
DeleteZa dva mjeseca ponekad ne uspiješ stan iznajmit, kamoli koncesionara nać.
ReplyDeleteA oni što govorite kako MBX ne može funkcionirati zbog LJU, ZAG itd. objasnite mi molim kako recimo jedne Pardubice imaju promet. I to puno!
MBX need international train link to compete with GRZ,VIE etc. I am rather as for Ryanair to try Volotea, Transavia, Svoboda etc. copy and paste from BTS.
ReplyDeleteMBX need international train link to compete with GRZ,VIE etc. I am rather as for Ryanair to try Volotea, Transavia, Svoboda etc. copy and paste from BTS.
ReplyDelete