Adria Airways has been warned that its aircraft could be seized over unpaid compensation to an Austrian passenger dating back from 2017. The airline cancelled last night’s service between Ljubljana and Vienna after it was revealed that law enforcement officers, an executor, as well as lawyers for the FairPlane compensation claims company planned to greet the aircraft upon arrival in the Austrian capital. On September 23, 2017 Adria cancelled a charter flight that was due to operate from Cephalonia in Greece to Graz. A passenger filed a compensation claim worth 250 euros but despite numerous warnings issued to the airline and a subsequent court case ruling in favour of the passenger, the Slovenian carrier had not obliged.
In a press release, FairPlane, which acted in the interests of the passenger, said, “The deadline for the payment expired on Thursday September 5, 2019 so at 19.00 CEST, an executor, police and a lawyer were present at the gate at Vienna Airport. Usually, in such cases, sales from on board duty free, as well as other property belonging to the airline found immediately on site is seized. If nothing can be held or there is resistance from the crew, the executor can impound the aircraft”. However, the flight from Ljubljana, which was to be operated by a wet-leased British Aerospace 146 aircraft, never arrived. Passengers on flight JP136, that were to depart to Vienna, boarded the aircraft but were then offloaded from the jet only to be told several hours later that the flight had been cancelled. Meanwhile, passengers in Vienna were informed that their flight had been cancelled five minutes prior to the planned departure time.
It is unclear whether the cancellation was in any way related to the events in Vienna last evening. Had Adria’s flight arrived it would not have been possible to execute any of the measures outlined by FairPlane as the service was being performed by German ACMI operator WDL Aviation, which is no way connected to the case. The compensation claims company said it could not carry out similar measures on two of Adria’s Bombardier CRJ900 aircraft based in Vienna, which are currently operating on behalf of Austrian Airlines, as it needed to secure a “lot of paperwork in advance”. Adria has been heavily criticised for failing to pay out compensation to its passengers following numerous cancellations and delays over the past year. The Slovenian carrier has not publicly commented on last night’s events.
This is sad. They could lose a plane over EUR 250 and now they are cancelling the whole flights to Vienna in order for their plane not to be confiscated? I am shocked to say the least.
ReplyDeleteThis case is about 250 EUR. But if you look at the bug picture, you see that they owe millions and millions all around Europe to suppliers and passenger compensation.
DeleteI'm not even surprised, let alone shocked.
Maybe Adria should transform into a bus company.
DeleteThis is really a new low.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly they also cancelled evening VIE on 4th of September. Two evenings in a row. Let's see if the flights is operated today.
ReplyDeleteAt this point its going ahead and they seemed to have merged Sarajevo and Skopje flight.
DeleteToday's morning flight departed to VIE, operated by Adria's S5AFC
DeleteOne would think they got their act together and simply paid this outstanding compensation claim to avoid any unpleasant scenarios at the airport.
DeleteBut evening flight is also cancelled for today
Deleteis it really? Nothing on LJU website or FR24
DeleteYes, evening's JP137/137 is cancelled
DeleteAny canceled/merged flights today?
DeleteYes Ljubljana-Sarajevo-Skopje-Ljubljana
DeleteSo just one merged flight today? Things seem to be improving.
Delete"Things improving" have you read the news?
DeleteI did but the dust seems to be settling. The flew to Vienna this morning, they are no longer cancelling that many flights and there was only one triangular flight.
DeleteYou really live in a fairytale. Yestarday night their plane nearly got imponded and they created 100 new compensation claim cases. They already have flights cancelled for tomorrow. The Slovenian CAA announced they may revoke Adria's license in 14 days. Oh and are you aware pilots are going on a 3 day strike in 48 hours. Yes, dust has settled. Marvellous times ahead.
DeleteWhat flights are being cancelled tomorrow?
DeletePRN cancelled
DeleteI was transiting through VIE today and there was an CRJ from Adria arriving around 16h
DeleteOS 742 from Kosice arrived at 15.50. The flight is operated by JP CRJ. It also flies to BEG and I saw it fly to BLQ.
DeleteI'm not surprised. They owe millions in compensation in total. They simply ignore it. It's going to bite them on the backside sooner or later.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe they allowed the issue to go this far. I could understand if they owed the passenger €2.500 or €25.000 but €250?! I am sure that ambitious young CEO could have paid it from his pocket as I am sure his salary is never late.
ReplyDeleteThis could be the beginning of the end for JP. Malev's bankruptcy started when TLV impounded their plane as it unleashed a catastrophic chain reaction. Same could happen here.
They have allowed it, because this is just one of the thousands of claims they have managed to create with their excellent operation.
DeleteWell done to the passenger actually standing up for his rights and taking them to court.
Young CEO's are generally brainwashed idiots willing to have huge salaries which they deserve in way to serve for the goals of the global criminal organizations which care only about profits - no laws, no honour, no fair play, no humanity, no equity, those are the terms that were used in some "dark" era in the past
DeleteBravo!
DeleteOpisano 100% pravilno! Neoliberalizam u najboljem izdanju!
DeleteBravo pozdr iz Rijeke
DeleteVery good comment, It is exactly like this. The west after 1989 has today 30 years later, nothing to celebrate anymore. Todays neoliberal system is the same trash as other totalitaric systems
Those CEOs should all rot in jail ... But we know the world we live in now ...
DeleteBravo "pozdrav iz Rijeke". Can't be told better. Yes, this Millenial wannabe CEO's will destroy the world's economy. They don't have the clue how management works, just looking for unjustified salaries.
DeleteGood for the passenger going after them!
ReplyDelete+1
Deleteit is very probable an online portal like flightright thats doing the work.
DeleteIt literally takes 5 min to submit your claims online and they take it over from there.
They usually take 30% from the claim, and if the case goes to court there are no costs for the passenger
Flight to VIE departed and returned this morning. What happened?
ReplyDeleteIt's possible they made the payment over night. As soon as they pay those 250 EUR plus court costs, the case is dropped.
DeleteSoon the financial books for JP in 2018 will be available for some specific JP employees. There is rumours that 4K has moved 30 mio EUR fm JP to their accounts. This is not confirmed but a rumour. Lets wait and see. I hve 11 open tickets btw, no comp paid
ReplyDeleteHow long have you been waiting for compensation so far?
Delete30 M Eur on JP account is the rumour.
DeleteFirst ones we sent Aug 2018
DeleteWow so over a year :O that's crazy.
Delete:(
ReplyDeleteThis is going from bad to worse.
ReplyDeleteI believe it's only a matter of time before their plane gets impounded somewhere, be it for unpaid compensation, debt to suppliers or so on.
ReplyDeleteI said that they will close it in September, after charter season. I guess in 10 days, they will close it. Sad days for Slovenian aviaton are comming. I hope that people from 4K never show their faces in Slovenia ever again. :-(
ReplyDeleteThey probably would not have been able to impound the plane since it's not actually owned by Adria so it's not their property. In fact they lease all of their planes so I don't think they would actually be able to do it in the end.
ReplyDeletePerhaps not, but there's nothing stopping airport operator or handling company to park one of their snow ploughs in front of the aircraft until ALL debts are repaid.
DeleteAnd when first supplier does this, so will the others, resulting in a chain of groundings as seen with Malev, SkyEurope, etc.
That's why they were going to collect money from sales as well as other things that are owned from JP. Furthermore they probably would have forced the lessor to pay the charges.
DeleteThere are already 134 compensation claims made against Adria this year!
ReplyDeleteI would be very surprised if the numbers are this low, given all the cancellations and delays in the past 18 months.
DeleteIf they are then either the passengers don't know about their rights or they don't care. But what is clear is that Adria hasn't been paying most of the claims for more than 2 years now.
That figure is for up to mid-June. The figure is correct. Most people don't know about their rights and even those that do, they don't bother going through the compensation process. BTW the number has almost exceeded all the compensation claims filed for last year.
DeleteNo, 134 customers complained to CAA.
DeleteThere are thousands of claims. We can guess how much: when I filed a claim in July 2018, my claim number was around 3000. For another claim in July 2019 I've got a claim number around 17000. Now you can count.
I filed my claim on 28th of August 2019 with ID number 20762.
DeleteIt has been confirmed that last nights flight to VIE was cancelled because of this issue.
ReplyDeleteBecause of 250 euros they probably created another 20-30 compensation claims.
DeleteBut passengers were told it was a technical problem.
DeleteThis is mostly BS: the plane is not owned by Adria, so it could not be impounded. That's the key principle of calim enforcement: you can only seize what is owned by the debtor. Only the income generated from SkyShop sale (or any cash owned by Adria on the plane, as well as movable property owned by Adria) could be seized.
ReplyDeleteEven so having an executor come on board to collect Skyshop revenue is really a sign of what sad state the company is in.
DeleteDon't forget that in some countries debt collectors can even seize fuel inside the plane. It's not just the plane itself that can be sold off.
DeleteJust to hold plane and Adria could not use it for several days (because of that they have to cancel flights with more compensation and rerouting), is huge amount of money that Adria would spent. And for sure lessor will not care if plane will be parked in Vienna, they will ask to be paid, for plane that would not be used. So, it is not that simple and for sure by hold plane Adria will still spent huge amount of money.
DeleteI wonder where is that PR company 4K said it hired to help Adria with bad press? Haven't seen a single positive article relating to Adria anywhere in the media for months, except here a few days ago about the winter increases in network but I highly doubt that had anything to do with them.
ReplyDelete1. As much as Adria snd their fanboys like to claim, this is not a PR problem, but an operational disaster. PR company cannot sort out crew planning, maintenance planning, scheduling, etc.
Delete2. They can't pay 250 EUR to one passenger, what mskes you think they can hire a PR company?
This PR company is probably unpaid too...
DeleteMaybe the increases in network were actually increases in cancellations.
DeleteWhat's worse, the total amount owed for all compensation is not that huge (we are mostly talking about relatively low figures per passengers), so for a company of Adria's sizze it really should not be a problem to pay. Obviously not the case for JP.
ReplyDeleteThis is getting sad to watch. And prepare for even worse news in 2 days when pilot strike begins.
ReplyDeletePilots clearly have no idea about how the real world works. The strike will bankrupt the company in hours.
DeleteNo, pilots have no idea how anything works. They are just selfish, spoiled a*holes who don't want to work and earn a lot of money. Am I right?
DeleteCut the crap. Pilots know exactly how things stand at this moment in Adria. They know that things have become unbearable and this shenanigans has to stop. You could even go as far as saying they are doing it for the fare paying passengers. Do you really want to travel with Adria, not knowing 1 hour before the flight if you'll reach your destination?
You'd have to be very stupid to buy ticket with Adria today unless you've got plenty of spare time and good travel insurance policy.
Delete@Anonymous6 September 2019 at 09:33
DeleteCould you go run your imaginary company in your parents' attic room and cut the bull, please?
Working at flight operations in ZRH for a big US carrier, my experience was that the pilots were the most professional factors of all including the maintenance guys responsible for the flight. Cooperation with them was excellent and very smoothly. Definitely healthy characters and proper attitude. Worked 3 years there so I got to know 100s of pilots
Deletefrishki by the look of things JP pilots will soon be looking for a anew job. Most of them will have to get new type ratings for either A320s or 737s. And pay it by themselves.
DeleteTheir age will not help matters either.
@JU520 BEGLAX: I meant Adria pilots. Those US pilots probably weren't planning a strike days when airline was going slowly out of business?
DeleteAnonymous 6 September 2019 at 12:34:
DeleteYes, spot on. Those US pilots are waaaay smarter than these Adria a*holes. Like I told you, these pr*cks want to have a 365 days off, 0 days on roster while earning 20k+ eur salary. Uh, wait. Never mind, these are the terms Adria's management have.
This is all over Slovenian and Austrian media this morning. Nice work Adria.
ReplyDeleteBrace yourselves. Passengers on VIE-LJU flight were bussed to Ljubljana!
ReplyDeleteThat must have been nice after most paid 200 euros for a ticket.
DeleteOMG I'm starting to wonder how few passengers Adria has. How can you put the entire plane on one bus!?!? Also these mergers of flights also indicates to me there are very few passengers.
DeleteThis morning?
DeleteWhat's surprising? It's much worse how in the middle of summer they have enough unsold seats to merge two regional destinations on a single, small regional jet.
DeleteNo these were passengers that were supposed to fly last night from VIE-LJU. They did arrive in Ljubljana this morning though.
DeleteBusses have become a common mode of transportation for people who have booked with Adria.
DeleteMaybe they've found a niche business. Balkan bus tour.
DeleteI dont believe the cancellation was due to this 250 euros. It is not Adria plane so they dont have risk. They will pay that 250 euros and send the lawyer back and not logic that they cancel flight with more costs to save that 250.
ReplyDeleteAnd this is a Star Alliance airline.
ReplyDeleteHigh standards.
DeleteStar Alliance is not what it used to be, just look at some of their members like Egyptair.
DeleteI'm surprised Star hasn't reacted in any way to all of this. I'm not saying they should be kicked out but there is probably some standard of service they must uphold.
DeleteYou really think there was someone in Adria at 7pm last night that could authorize payment?
ReplyDelete"They will pay that 250 euros and send the lawyer back They will pay that 250 euros and send the lawyer back "
ReplyDeleteThey don't seem to have bothered to do that for the last 2 years.
...meaning their winter expansion was just a diversion to create an illusion of stability. I don't see them surviving for much longer.
ReplyDeleteIs it possible that this kind of situations are reason why they have this unexpected new wet lease of aircraft?
ReplyDeleteI mean, they wet lease their own fleet to Austrian and others, and fly from wet leased aircrafts from third party?
Or it could be the company that is supposed to do maintenance on their aircraft..and which does not have a certificate for it...
DeleteWell if you book a ticket with Adria nowadays you really have to prepared for anything.
ReplyDeleteAir France seems to be the smartest, they knew JP won't be able to survive the winter so they made funeral arrangements in time. Dropping the code-share, doubling flights... and so on.
ReplyDeleteI'm waiting for OS to announce LJU flights.
I really don't see all this ending very well for Adria.
ReplyDeleteThis could be great news for OU and definitely OS too!
ReplyDeleteIf OU gets its act together it could benefit from these developments at Adria.
DeleteLOL!!! OU is not capable of doing business properly at its home let alone another market. They could have a slogan : Company of missed opportunities LOL. I mean if anyone would be happy with ANY action taken by OU, anywhere, it would be me, but unfortunately you can forget about it.
DeleteThe company is already dead. Their social media channels have not been updated in months. On Twitter for example since May. They don't reply to any passenger inquiries online. They haven't even responded to this story about their flight to Vienna.
ReplyDeleteThey are ignoring absolutely everything so I wouldn't hold my breath that they will respond to this incident.
DeleteI've been calling passenger service centre for the last three days. Nobody answers.
DeleteSad :(
DeleteA serious company would have at least issued a statement concerning these reports which have been published by all media. Adria hasn't.
ReplyDeletethe pilots will have nothing to strike for. things have very clearly imploded at jp. wouldn't surprise me if instead of the yearly report they send to the court motion for bankruptcy proceedings.
ReplyDelete^What are they going to say? Whenever they did say something their usual line was "It's not our fault. The media is to blame".
ReplyDeleteUnless the Slovenian government takes back Adria it wont be flying by next Summer.
ReplyDeleteI think even October is very optimistic at this point.
DeleteAdria really used to be the best company in ex-Yu 10 yrs ago. What went wrong?
ReplyDeleteMismanagement to the state followed by sale to absolute crooks.
DeleteAdria has truly become an embarrassment to a country that is part of the EU and that is supposed be well regulated with strong independent institutions. Where is the CAA to react? Where is the judiciary to launch an investigation?
ReplyDeleteAn investigation should be launched into CAA practices as well.
DeleteSlovenian CAA is partly responsible for this mess. They should have withdrawn their AOC already.
DeleteAgree with last two anons. The CAA has a lot to answer for.
DeleteSomeone said about Adria: From a national airline to a national disgrace.
DeleteSpeechless.
ReplyDeleteI must admit it is sad watching Adria die a slow death in front of our eyes.
ReplyDeleteThe beginning of the end
ReplyDeleteThis is all over the news. I doubt that Adria will survive the winter.
ReplyDeleteAdria has violated EU law for months, refusing to pay passengers delay compensation (EU261)
ReplyDeleteThis is a great opportunity for ZAG above everything else. Even more Slovenes will use the airport. The only thing that could spoil their plan is if some LCC comes and opens a base in LJU. I mean FR, W6 or U2, not those fake LCC like EW.
ReplyDeleteThere will be no benefits for either ZAG or OU as they are not capable of anything but protecting small private interests of the "managing" teams of the both Croatia is the land of missed opportunities, especially in the aviation sector. And it is likely to remain like this until OU reaches the phase of the final "success", in which JP is today. With these people leading country, OU and ZAG, that 's what I expect soon to happen. The only two that can benefit here with JP and soon with OU are LH and OS. And that was probably the plan from the very beginning.
DeleteThis is just making the point. Nothing to do with if it is 2,50e or 25 000 000e.
ReplyDeleteThis company is dead.
CAA has just issued a warning that Adria may loose its license in 2 weeks.
ReplyDeleteinsider info or is this warning publicly available?
DeletePublic
Deletehttps://www.finance.si/8952235/Adria-Airways-lahko-v-dveh-tednih-ostane-brez-licence-za-letenje
paywall .... could someone provide excerpt of the relevant paragraph regarding the caa stance/reasoning?
Deletethis is going to end very soon. I think in maybe a month at the most. 4K will blame pilots and strike for the company's demise.
ReplyDeleteCould there be a last minute miracle? What if Lufthansa spares Adria by taking them over from 4K?
ReplyDeleteWould be only possible by politics but Slovenia usually does damage instead something good for it.
DeleteWhy on earth would LH do that? They already have a flaming mess called Eurowings that's keeping them busy. On top of that the war in VIE is nowhere near to being over... do they really need JP?
DeleteAlso when they go bust LH will have daily CRJ flight from MUC and double daily from VIE on the Q400. Voila.
Why should LH be so stupid ?!
Delete"Poslovodstvo Adrie Airways in Sindikat prometnih pilotov Slovenije sta v petek, 6. 9. 2019, dosegla sporazum, da napovedane stavke za 8. 9., 9. 9. in 10. 9. ne bo, sporočajo iz družbe. Podrobnosti ne razkrivajo.
ReplyDeleteDodajajo pa, da bodo "redne in čarterske polete opravili po predvidenem voznem redu".
https://live.finance.si/8952248/Adria-Piloti-ne-bodo-stavkali
Strike cancellation just announced - agreement reached.
ReplyDeleteHuge financial injection incoming.
Are we bearing witness to the craziest comeback in the aviation industry? Will this telenovela have a happy ending?
Stay tuned on EX-YU AVIATION. :)
Who will provide them with a cash injection? Don't forget that they got a massive cash injection last December yet here we are today.
Delete@anon 19:34:
DeleteWho knows.
Maybe O'Leary will do another Lauda or Malta Air move (so either without or with the local govt). Buy the brand and ditch all the crappy CRJs and even crappier Saabs and base a couple 737-800's in LJU. Or MAXs when (if) they come back.
Or maybe the Russians change their minds, their planes are standing idle, they might as well fly. Maybe revenue will be enough to cover fuel.
I love how unpredictable the whole situation is. Wouldn't be surprised to see bankruptcy or a firm A220 order (that someone mentioned a couple days ago) next week.
#drama :D
I live in Liverpool, I hope they get things cleared up by May 2020 for their new Liverpool route .
ReplyDeleteI used to work for old Cyprus Airways. The moment rumours about stability started, Fraport demanded a huge deposit for handling. They changed their policy after the Malev collapse. They have a whole department just reading / following reports, specialized news channels and web sites!
ReplyDeleteWe are also still waiting since June -each of us will get 250 € for cancelled flight fom Sarajevo to Ljubljana. When flight was cancelled Adria was telling us fairytales and lies. And the way they handle at airport all with passengers had been contemptuous.
ReplyDeleteAdria belongs with 54.3% to STBE and 45.7% to 4K Invest. One of the owners is a german advocat with seat in Malta. Capitalinvestment companies are only interested to make money - all other dorsn’t matters them. They are modern Vampires: they let companies bleed out and then they throw them away - human feelings don’t exist. All this troubles started when slovenian government sold out one of their prestige objects.
But we will not give up to get our money!