The Lufthansa Group of airlines are preparing for a difficult summer season after reporting a combined loss of 6.7 billion euros in 2020. It expects for the summer to be dominated by leisure destinations as Europeans look for an escape following a long winter spent in lockdowns. Overall, Lufthansa’s airlines are prepared to deploy up to 70% of their 2019 capacity levels in the short-term. The group envisions that it will return to 90% of pre-crisis capacity levels by 2025. This summer, the group will discontinue a number of routes to the former Yugoslavia but will also launch six new services..
The below summary of its planned operations in the region is based on July's timetables. At this point, further revisions are likely.
Lufthansa
The German national carrier will reduce its operations out of Munich, suspending flights from the Bavarian capital to Sarajevo, Ljubljana and Zagreb this summer season. Services are not due to resume before October 31, at the earliest. Over the peak summer period, the airline will maintain thirteen weekly flights from Munich to Belgrade, eight weekly to Dubrovnik, two weekly to Pula, one weekly to Rijeka, eight weekly to Split, one weekly to Tivat and three weekly to Zadar. From Frankfurt, the carrier will fly double daily to Belgrade, daily to Dubrovnik, three weekly to Pula, triple daily to Ljubljana, six weekly to Split, one weekly to Tivat, four weekly to Zadar and double daily to Zagreb. Lufthansa will introduce a new service from Frankfurt to Sarajevo, which will run on a daily basis, as well as a one weekly rotation to Rijeka.
Austrian
Austrian Airlines plans to serve nine cities in the former Yugoslavia from its hub in Vienna. This includes 24 weekly rotations to Belgrade, ten weekly to Dubrovnik and Podgorica, thirteen weekly to Pristina, double daily to Sarajevo and Skopje, daily to Split and Zadar, as well as thirteen weekly to Zagreb.
Swiss
Swiss will operate flights from both Zurich and Geneva to former Yugoslav markets. From Switzerland’s largest city and its main hub, the airline will run three daily services to Belgrade and daily to Ljubljana (through its wet-lease partner Helvetic Airways). It will also introduce new flights to Sarajevo and Niš twice per week during the high season. From Geneva, Swiss will serve Pristina four times per week, while operations to Dubrovnik will resume following last year’s seasonal launch with one weekly service. The carrier will commence new summer flights between Geneva and Split, operating twice per week. Swiss’ sister company and leisure airline Edelweiss Air will run two weekly services from Zurich to Dubrovnik and Ohrid, twelve weekly to Pristina, one weekly to Pula, four weekly to Skopje, and six weekly to Split
Brussels Airlines
This summer, Brussels Airlines will operate two weekly flights to Dubrovnik, six weekly to Ljubljana, as well as one weekly rotation to Split.
Eurowings
Eurowings will have an extensive presence on the Croatian coast, as well as Pristina over the upcoming summer. The airline will fly from Stuttgart to Pula once per week, Pristina five times per week, Sarajevo, Zadar and Rijeka twice per week, daily to Split, and five weekly to Zagreb. The low cost carrier will also inaugurate a new three weekly service between Stuttgart and Belgrade. From Munich, the airline will run five weekly rotations to Pristina, while from Hamburg it will serve Pristina, Dubrovnik and Zadar once per week, Rijeka three times per week and Split six weekly. The budget airline will operate one weekly flight each between Hannover, Pristina and Split. Pristina will also be maintained from Frankfurt with three weekly flights. From Dusseldorf, the Kosovo market will be served with five weekly rotations, while services will also be maintained twice per week to Tivat. The airline plans to make a comeback in Mostar with one weekly service from Dusseldorf, while two and seven weekly flights are planned to Dubrovnik and Split respectively. The airline will also fly from Dusseldorf to Rijeka and Pula twice per week, as well as Zadar with three weekly rotations. From Dortmund it will maintain a two weekly service to Split. Out of Cologne, the carrier will operate three weekly flights to Sarajevo, Rijeka, Pula and Zadar, one weekly to Dubrovnik, daily to Split and six weekly to Zagreb. Finally, Eurowings will fly out of Berlin to Dubrovnik once per week, while services from the German capital to Rijeka and Split will operate twice weekly.
With 3 daily flights Lufthansa will have complete dominance in Ljubljana
ReplyDeleteThey will be de facto national airline of Slovenia.
Deletethose schedules from network airlines for the middle of summer are stil "under construction". wouldnt bet too much on it. not only for LJU but for every other airport
DeleteI just dont see it triple daily
Well they officially published their schedule last week and publicized it, so I assume this is their plan.
Deletei know but we will see
DeleteSwiss' treatment of their Ljubljana route is most disappointing to me.
DeleteLJU can see 3 daily FRA flight earliest in 2024, let alone this July. Mark my words!
DeleteAnd I have a feeling that the expectations in leisure traffic is overrated this year with capacities getting close to 2019 levels at intra-EU level, while the demand is significantly questionable.
@9.58 same like last summer.
DeleteThey should reduce (or keep 3x daily) FRA but on other hand it would be much better to have twice per day ZRH and BRU. As other guy mentioned, schedule will change a lot in upcoming weeks..
DeleteLH has made all of its cuts to the summer timetable by the end of February and no further cuts are planned unless something catastrophic happens. There will be no monthly "updates" like we saw last summer and winter.
DeleteActually we are living in catastrophic time so nothing is for certain..
DeleteI find it interesting Austrian will fly four times per day to BEG. Hopefully there will be enough demand.
ReplyDeleteYes, even more than Swiss.
Delete
DeleteThey clearly aiming to carry Serbian market traffic on other points in Europe through their hubs.
That would be bad for JU.
They also send smallest planes to Belgrade from LH Group.
DeleteTomorrow they are flying with Embnraer 195 which is not that small. At the moment they are sending E195 the most.
DeleteConsidering they are currently only flying to BEG, TGD and PRN in ex-YU, it's no surprise.
Delete... and to add, currently also flying to SKP and SJJ
DeleteWhy has Lufthansa suspended so many flights from Munich?
ReplyDeleteI think they had to give up slots in Munich to get state aid.
DeleteFrankfurt is Lufthansa's main hub.
DeleteBecause it's too much to have three hubs so close one to the other plus AF KL has been attacking them left and right.
Delete@9.08 lmao
DeleteI heard that MUC has planned some construction works this year which is expected to reduce its capacity.
DeleteFRA has a massive catchment area, MUC doesn't. Also, FRA is the traditional LH hub that passengers are used to by now. MUC was still developing when covid hit so it collapsed like a house of cards. I don't see them returning to their former glory before 2025.
Delete@11.03 lol
Delete"MUC was still developing when covid hit"
DeleteWTF?!
MUC still had a large number of flights operated by regional jets while FRA was almost exclusively by A320 series. Also the intercontinental network at MUC was still weaker compared to FRA and total number of passengers and runways was 50% less than in FRA.
DeleteMUC's average gauge size has actually increased drastically in the past 15 years. Gone are the Dash-8-300s which then became CRJs then CR9s/195s now many flights from MUC are Airbus operated.
DeleteMUC has the advantage for LH of having substantially lower unit costs than FRA. Overall, MUC serves a different purpose for LH, aiming a lot more to connect to the East and to Italy than FRA whilst also having a larger % of connections that are intra-Europe (MUC is also helped by a much more efficient layout of runways and terminal).
LOL at Brussels Airlines. They are avoiding this region.
ReplyDeleteI remember reading an interview with them here how their first priority is to fly to capital cities of EU states. So that's the reason they don't fly to most ex-Yu countries. Plus they have had little success here anyway. They failed in Zagreb and Zadar.
DeleteDoes it really mean Brussels won't fly any longer to ZAG?
DeleteYes, they ZAG was terminated last year (not suspended)
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2020/05/brussels-airlines-terminates-zagreb.html
That is good news for OU.
DeleteBrussels Airlines has cancelled a ton of routes, not just Zagreb/Zadar
DeleteOhrid is gone too.
DeleteBrussels is still in ZAG.
DeleteNo it isn't. There are no tickets on sale.
DeleteAll in all not bad considering the situation.
ReplyDeleteBravo Hrvatska!
ReplyDeleteGood news but the frequencies are still low for some cities.
ReplyDeleteAt least flights are slowly being restored.
DeleteI'm sure LX will increase BEG and PRN as the time approaches.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure we will see Edelweiss A340 in Pristina again :)
DeleteSeems that despite all the doom and gloom and despite constant media bombardment people are still willing to travel.
ReplyDeleteThe frequencies are way down on 2019.
DeleteLH Group is not giving ex-Yu priority, that's for sure.
Deletethat was the case last summer too but the planes were empty (look at DBV and SPU numbers despite having lots of flights resumed)
Deletecapacity on the market is one thing. passenger numbers will need to be achieved
Seems like Belgrade will remain pretty high on the list of priorities
DeleteGreat news
ReplyDeleteLong road to recovery ahead.
ReplyDeleteI think it will be much quicker than most expect. At least on short haul routes like these.
Deletebut not for transfer routes
DeleteGood ol' Lufty
ReplyDeleteI still can't get over at how few routes Swiss has in the former Yugoslavia. I mean this should be their goldmine! What happened?
ReplyDeleteMy guess is they were carrying low yielding passengers to the region. Not making enough money.
DeleteTrue, they failed in so many cities. Sarajevo, Zagreb, Skopje, Nis... But it's good to see they will give SJJ and INI another go.
DeleteThey failed in Sofia too.
DeleteCrazy
DeleteThey just seem not to care. If one Chair and the family reisebüros are more successful then them ...
DeleteIt's mainly low yield trash except PRN where there's volume and yield.
DeleteThe low yield destinations are being taken care of ex-BSL by Wizz. It leaves a very small piece of the pie for Swiss/Edelweiss ex-ZRH.
Not bad for BEG I guess.
ReplyDeleteSo LH with 27 weekly flights, OS 24, LX 21 and EW 3.
lets see if all those materialize
ReplyDeleteAt least they cover all ex-Yu markets.
ReplyDeleteWell we are talking here about 6 airlines!
DeleteWhat they cover is really questionable. If they fly once per day to ZRH and BRU from LJU then I wouldn't say that those routes are covered.
DeleteVielen Dank liebe Lufthansa for letting us the whole german market for ourselves again and again.
ReplyDeleteSpeaing of the Lufthansa Group, it's interesting that Air Dolomiti never considered this region, not even seasonal flights to the Croatian coast.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever checked the prices for flights operated by Dolomiti? Super ultra extra overpriced. Guess that's why we don't see them here.
DeleteAir Dolomiti is basically a feeder airline whose operations are fully decided by LH. LH flies its own metal to the Croatian coast because there's enough volume to fill Airbus aircraft.
DeleteLufthansa has it really easy in ex-YU. Am I wrong or is FRA-BEG the only route where they face actual, real competition?
ReplyDeleteDespite all of my criticism for OU, you are wrong because not only that FRA-BEG is not the only exyu route where they face competition, but in terms of some fanboys here, they are completely smashed and beaten on FRA-ZAG, where they operate two daily with smaller equipment, compared with OU's three daily with bigger aircraft. And LOL of course, both for your statement and my response
DeleteBut Lufthansa and Croatia Airlines are close partners. They codeshare with each other.
DeleteAnd what you think my LOL is for? :)
DeleteLH is smart, they get the corporate contracts with two flights and have OU fly transfers for next to nothing. I mean look at their FRA schedule, it makes no sense to have two departures so early in the morning.
DeleteLH and OU codeshare only on flights between HR and D but not beyond HR like SKP or SJJ which is bizzare because Adria did that
DeleteGood to see
ReplyDeletewow at Austrian's ten weekly to Podgorica. I guess they don't plan on ToMontenegro posing any competition :D
ReplyDeleteOf course not.
DeleteToWhat?
Deletedoes Oneworld stil exists?
ReplyDeleteIn ex-Yu only in the form of Qatar Airways :D
DeleteWoeful.
DeleteConsider that Serbia is not the only country in the exyu. British, Finnair and Iberia are flying to Croatia while S7 to Montenegro.
DeleteYes and you have Macedonia and Bosnia with no oneworld airline at all.
DeleteBA and Finnair both fly to LJU. And LJU would have Iberia, but unfortunately they canceled flights
DeleteNotice how Germany Pristina market is pretty much non existent?
ReplyDeleteEurowings operates some.
DeleteLosing LH on MUC-ZAG is a massive blow to Zagreb's prestige. Hopefully the airport works on getting them back.
ReplyDeleteIt's good to see LH is finally resuming FRA-ZAG today.
DeleteKudos
DeleteI am not surprised about their commitment to BEG. China announced that they will be issuing covid passports for all those who want to travel abroad. LH Group wants its own share of China-BEG market.
ReplyDeleteTotal overview for ex-Yu for Lufthansa group:
ReplyDeleteLufthansa
BEG 27
LJU 21
DBV 15
SPU 14
ZAG 14
ZAD 7
SJJ 7
PUY 5
RJK 2
TIV 2
Austrian
BEG 24
SJJ 14
SKP 14
PRN 13
ZAG 13
DBV 10
TGD 10
SPU 7
ZAD 7
Swiss
BEG 21
PRN 16
SPU 8
LJU 7
SKP 4
SJJ 2
INI 2
OHD 2
PUY 1
Brussels
LJU 6
DBV 2
SPU 1
Eurowings
SPU 32
PRN 20
RJK 13
ZAG 11
ZAD 10
PUY 6
SJJ 6
DBV 5
BEG 3
TIV 2
OHD 1
All together
BEG 75
SPU 62
PRN 49
ZAG 38
LJU 34
DBV 32
SJJ 29
ZAD 24
SKP 18
RJK 15
PUY 12
TGD 10
TIV 4
OHD 3
INI 2
you cant count like that, some of these are only running for weeks
DeleteLet's also not forget that LH is expected to have a huge expansion to 15 summer destinations as well:
ReplyDeleteCorfu (CFU) Two weekly flights Start: April 4
Chania (CHQ) Three weekly flights Start: April 1
Djerba (DJE) One weekly flight Start: April 3
Hurghada (HRG) One weekly flight Start: April 3
Mykonos (JMK) Two weekly flights Start: May 4
Kos (KGS) Three weekly flights Start: April 2
Kavala (KVA) Two weekly flights Start: May 4
Gran Canaria (LPA) Two weekly flights Continuation Winter
Paphos (PFO) Two weekly flights Start: March 29
Preveza (PVK) Two weekly flights Start: May 2
Rijeka (RJK) One weekly flight Start: May 8
Lamezia Terme (SUF) Two weekly flights Start: April 3
Tenerife (TFS) Two weekly flights Continuation Winter
Varna (VAR) Two weekly flights Start: May 1
Jerez de la Frontera (XRY) Two weekly flights Start: March 28
RJK needs LH!
Let's be honest :RJK needs anything, to anywhere, like for 3 decades or more, but nothing serious ever happens. Just crumbs and leftovers
DeleteIt would be nice if eurowings could launch LJU-BER now that easyjet is gone
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteGreece announced today that from May vaccinated Serbs can enter the country. Those who did not get the vaccine can enter with PCR. I think LH Group knows that other countries will follow so they are preparing themselves in BEG.
ReplyDeletethey announced that everone can and not only Serbs ... you should also read international news not only domaci
DeleteLH Group will have big competition now as Air France-KLM " miraculously discovered " the existence of Belgrade airport .
ReplyDeleteFor Oneworld the word still ends east of Croatia, they still live in their dark ages ...
Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the Eu in the second part of this year must be virtual because I don't see huge connections that they were talking about; including the new termnal must be open for it and similat blabla.
ReplyDeleteObviously in these circumstances there won't be much traveling involved with the EU presidency.
DeleteThey can close Ljubljana airport, overall it means 6 flights/day, shame
ReplyDelete