Ljubljana to get Dubrovnik, Greece flights as recovery begins


Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport welcomed its first commercial flight yesterday after two and a half months, as Air Serbia resumed operations from Belgrade, marking the start of its recovery. There was a total of 24 passengers on the ATR72 turboprop and a further forty travellers on the inbound service. Some passengers returned to Serbia immediately upon learning they would be subjected to mandatory quarantine. “This first flight is of extreme importance to us, because it is the first step towards traffic recovery. We are looking forward to it, there is also some excitement in the air. The world needs functioning air transport. And the challenge for all of us is to regain confidence in the importance and safety of air travel", the General Manager of operator Fraport Slovenija, Zmago Skobir, said. Most airlines serving Ljubljana will resume their operations to the Slovenian capital in June and July although several routes have been temporarily suspended for the summer season. These include flights by Finnaair from Helsinki, Air Serbia from Niš and easyJet from Berlin, while planned new operations by Iberia from Madrid and easyJet from London Luton have been cancelled.

Ljubljana Airport will see a number of charters to Croatia and Greece this summer. Leisure flights from Ljubljana to Dubrovnik will commence on June 28 and will be followed by charters to ten Greek islands, starting in July. Croatia’s Trade Air previously announced it would base an aircraft in Ljubljana over the summer and is expected to operate most of the flights. "The race to persuade carriers to resume flights as soon as possible has begun. The result will largely depend on how countries, including Slovenia, react in terms of border reopening and their strategic approach to providing support for market promotion”, Mr Skobir said.

Ljubljana Airport is also looking at boosting its liquidity, which has been severely impacted by the coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic. Since March 17, when a ban on commercial flights in Slovenia was issued, airport operator Fraport Slovenija recorded just 15% of normal revenue. The operator has urged the relevant ministries to provide aid, however, according to Mr Skobir, air transport has not seen any special stimulus measures designed to help mitigate the economic fallout so far. "The number of redundancies will depend on the recovery forecast made by airlines", Mr Skobir said. He added, "Due to our liquidity situation, and in order to be ready for further development, it will be necessary to re-examine all key costs in terms of investments". For the time being, the ongoing construction of Ljubljana Airport’s new passenger terminal will not be affected, however, Mr Skobir warned its completion may be delayed. According to its initial schedule, the project is expected to be completed early next year, while the new facility would come into use from June 2021.

Comments

  1. Anonymous09:20

    Makes sense for flights to Dubrovnik considering the borders with Croatia have reopened

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous09:21

    I don't like that they are asking for money from the government. This is Fraport we are talking about.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:34

      Well why did the Slovenian government allow for JP to go bust? Now they need to clean up their mess. Anyway, if Albania can spend millions on a Wizz base then why can't Slovenia do the same? They can pay them to base on A320 and to launch flights to TLV, DTM, LON, CPH, MXP...

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:49

      True. The Magyar government did the same with Budapest a couple of years ago. The Albanian example should serve the rest of smaller capitals.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous13:26

      So, the idea is to subsidise new routes with tax payer's money, but when Adria was still around nobody wanted to hear anything about saving Adria?! Let's not forget, there were around 600 Adria employees, giving a substantial amount of their salaries back to state. There will be NO such thing with subsidised routes!

      Delete
    4. Anonymous23:32

      Subsidies are more efficient, as you can reduce them as the market evolves.

      Let's say you create a state-owned airline with 5-10 aircraft and in 2 years other airlines start flying on the same routes. Are you going to close it down and fire people? Or spend even more taxpayer money to cover the losses?

      Small airlines were unable to be profitable even before this crisis. Afterwards, only big players will survive.

      Delete
  3. Anonymous09:22

    Great to see that the charters will go ahead after all.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous09:24

    What is that thing about mandatory quarantine?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous12:13

      For non EU citizens quarantine is mandatory.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous14:10

      Not true if you have a permanent or temporary residence in Slovenia and you are not an EU citizen you are not going to quarantine. This is valid from today. It's a new change. We don't know what tomorrow will be.

      Delete
  5. Anonymous09:24

    JU has been really smart to resume most of its flights so soon. Let's see how LJU performs for them and hopefully we see it recover real fast as it has been one of their better regional destinations.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous12:15

      Quite frankly not sure about that bearing in mind that the quarantine is mandatory for Non EU citizens, you can see in this article that ppl giving up on their trips bc of that.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous14:09

      You basically can't lose money for a flight operated by an ATR hah.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous00:58

      Ju twice weekly is something but almost nothing. The true comeback to LJU is LH.

      Delete
  6. Anonymous09:25

    What are the current quarantine rules for Slovenia?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:28

      14 days if you come outside eu and dont have residence in Slovenia

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:44

      Wtf

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:46

      It's also important to note that if you are coming from a transfer flight (let's say Athens-Belgrade-Ljubljana) you need to go into quarantine no matter your citizenship.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous10:05

      So why someone coming from Serbia (one of the lowest cases in Europe) is quarantined while someone from Belgium (highest per capita in the world) or France is not quarantined?

      AFAIK Western Europe (EU) along with US had one of the highest rates of infections globally.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous10:07

      This simply makes no sense..

      Delete
    6. Anonymous10:10

      You can check entry requirements for each country here
      https://www.iatatravelcentre.com/international-travel-document-news/1580226297.htm

      Delete
    7. Anonymous14:00

      Bosnian citizen, permanent resident in Slovenia coming by car to Slovenia from Bosnia:

      timeline
      - 2 days ago no quarantine (and from May 25th this rule)
      - yesterday quarantine
      - today: no quarantine

      It's changing everyday

      Delete
  7. Anonymous09:26

    Good luck LJU! Wishing you a speedy recovery.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:57

      It won't be speedy. LJU is now recovering from two things - loss of Adria and Corona. Even if there were no corona, LJU would have had a 40% decline in passenger numbers and a big decline in revenue this year.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous11:05

      Agree. This couldn't come at a worse time for LJU as it was trying to recover from Adria's collapse.

      Delete
    3. Slovene government has not changed their mind yesterday. The quarantine was in force from 25th of may!

      Delete
  8. Anonymous09:33

    "Some passengers returned to Serbia immediately upon learning they would be subjected to mandatory quarantine"

    How can anybody be that uninformed??

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:50

      And even sit in the plane and not have information about quarantine?? LoL

      Delete
    2. Anonymous11:04

      Because slovene government changed their mind yesterday morning do put also slovenes to quarantine and then in the evening to have them exempt again....
      Rules are changing by the hour and they can change when people are in the air

      Delete
    3. Anonymous11:07

      i was wondering too which one is to blame BEG, JU or SLO? probably all of them a bit :)

      Delete
    4. Anonymous11:09

      Neither. None of them are required to keep you updated on measures in the country of your arrival. It is up to you to call the embassy and check. And neither the airport of origin or the airline is to blame as you can lawfully enter your destination country. It's your problem whether you have to go into quarantine or not and whether you have checked if you have to.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous11:12

      I agree with the last comment. All the airlines say that you have to check on travel requirements before embarking on your journey. If you don't like to sit in self isolation that's your problem. You are allowed to enter the country.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous11:15

      Slo gov. changed the quarantine rules the night before...

      Delete
    7. Anonymous11:40

      That's extremely irresponsbile on their behalf.

      Delete
    8. Anonymous12:01

      @11:09 - A minimum of information needs to be provided on the internet or airport website. This is again a total level of non-coordination between airlines, airports and government.

      Delete
    9. Anonymous14:06

      Slo government changed the rules during the night!

      23.59 was ok, no quarantine
      next day 0.00 quarantine applied
      this day the first flight from Serbia took place

      Important: NO ADVANCE notice for this change was given!
      Yes it was given: minutes or few hours before the change took place.


      Delete
  9. Anonymous09:34

    Can't wait for those Windrose flights!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous09:47

    After Corona, the thing that will kill airports and airlines are these uncoordinated entry restrictions.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Aэrologic10:09

      The level of uncoordination on the global level both during and post-pandemic is simply staggering.

      Delete
  11. Anonymous10:04

    Next airline coming back is Transavia on 11.6

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:54

      Good to hear

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:59

      These should be the next couple of resumptions

      Transavia Amsterdam 11.6.2020
      Turkish Airlines Istanbul 13.6.2020
      Montenegro Airlines Podgorica 15.6.2020
      LOT Polish Warsaw 15.6.2020
      Lufthansa Frankfurt 15.6.2020
      Wizz Air Charleroi 16.6.2020

      Delete
    3. Anonymous11:44

      Transavia resumption date is not correct. They resume flights from 18.6 (at the moment).

      Delete
    4. Anonymous23:14

      Turkish not true.

      Delete
  12. Anonymous11:02

    Seems like part of summer can be salvaged

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous11:04

    Loosing 5 routes is not small.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous11:10

      If you compare it to last summer season its 10+ routes.

      Delete
  14. Anonymous11:06

    It will be more difficult to attract new airlines in the post covid era.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous11:10

      Airports will have to give a lot of incentives and stimulus to attract airlines.

      Delete
  15. Anonymous11:07

    Is there still any chance of the government setting up an airline?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous11:09

      None whatsoever.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous11:37

      This tells you everything

      "The operator has urged the relevant ministries to provide aid, however, according to Mr Skobir, air transport has not seen any special stimulus measures designed to help mitigate the economic fallout so far. "

      Delete
    3. Anonymous13:40

      The economic fallout of this crisis will be enormous and it's not the time to be throwing tens of millions in yet another corrupt, nepotistic and ultimately unprofitable Adria 2.0.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous22:23

      @Anonymous11:37
      Why would Slovenia help foreign airport operator. They need to ask Germany to help them out. When they will go bust we can buy back airport cheap.
      With the rest of the money we can establish a new airline instead of subsidizing foreign ones ;-)

      Delete
  16. Anonymous12:09

    Dobar potez TDRq

    ReplyDelete
  17. Anonymous14:51

    Hej LJU guyz, did U2 do LJU-STN twice daily on some days in summer? U2 seems to have a decent network to the London airports.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous19:02

      I believe they did.

      Delete
  18. Anonymous19:01

    Great to see LJU-DBV back. How many flights did Adria have last year?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous19:18

      Adria flew to Dubrovnik in 2017 (only for that summer) twice per week. I don't think it even survived the entire summer. I think they lasted until September. Things at Adria went south big time from that point onwards.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous20:22

      Oops my bad. Thought that was last year.

      Delete
  19. Anonymous21:37

    With the new terminal currently under construction, I am confident that Fraport will negotiate with more airlines and we will see various newcomers in 2021. That said, here are some possible candidates: QR, FZ, addition of more W6 flights, DY, RO, VY.
    In addition to this, TK is likely to add a 3rd daily and SU deploying A320.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:36

      SU was already deploying A320 on most flights to LJU before Covid-19. Same was scheduled for second daily evening flights planned for summer this year.

      Delete

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