Ljubljana Jože Pućnik Airport expects to welcome some 400.000 passengers through its doors this year and to double that figure in 2022. As a result, the airport anticipates handling 47% of its pre-pandemic traffic next year. Ljubljana’s Airport long-time General Manager, Zmago Skobir, who stepped down from his post last week after more than fourteen years and is now an advisor to the management, believes the government will play an important role during the recovery period. "The Slovenian market is interesting for certain carriers, especially larger ones. I’m not worried about flights being maintained to key cities. However, the role of the state will be very important. Given the current number of passengers, carriers will need incentives”, Mr Skobir said.
Airlines that currently maintain flights to Ljubljana are recording an average cabin load factor of between 60% and 70%. As a result, Mr Skobir believes Ljubljana flights are on the verge of profitability for carriers. "Lufthansa says that the subsidy is key. The current aid should be extended. It will then be seen whether the market will take care of Slovenia's connectivity itself. Otherwise, the country will have to find a model for cooperation with a few key carriers offering connections to the world. I am not worried about Lufthansa, British Airways and Air France, as they want to serve the Slovenian market. However, the state will have to work closely with them", Mr Skobir noted, adding that establishing a new flag carrier would be costly. This year, the Slovenian government is providing 1.7 million euros in subsidies to airlines maintaining operations to Ljubljana.
This October, fourteen carriers will be operating flights to the Slovenian capital. They include Aeroflot with a three weekly service, Air France with six weekly rotations, Air Montenegro with two weekly flights, Air Serbia eight times per week, British Airways five times per week, Brussels Airlines three weekly, easyJet two weekly, Flydubai three weekly, LOT six times per week, Lufthansa with sixteen weekly rotations, Swiss five weekly, Transavia two times per week, Turkish Airlines five weekly and Wizz Air with two weekly flights. In December, Wizz Air will launch a three weekly service from London Luton, followed by easyJet on March 27, while Windrose Airlines is due to introduce flights from Kiev next April. In addition, Transavia will inaugurate services from Paris Orly on April 24. Ljubljana Airport is hopeful Iberia, which maintained flights between Madrid and the Slovenian capital for one month this August, will expand its operations next year. Babett Stapel has now assumed the role of Ljubljana Airport’s new General Manager.
Things are finally looking up for LJU with four new routes announced
ReplyDeleteHow many routes were announced in past which never happened?
DeleteUnfortunately, fact of the matter is LJU will never again see passenger number of 1.7 or 1.8 million passengers without a national airline which provided transfer passengers.
ReplyDelete+2
DeleteHoping for the best with the new CEO.
ReplyDeleteReaching just 50% of traffic next year is still very low.
ReplyDeleteOnly thing that can turn the state of affairs at LJU is an LCC basing a plane there. Otherwise these sluggish results will continue.
DeleteA national airlines could turn things around too.
DeleteLCC will never base aircraft at LJU for already known reasons. Only solution is national carrier..
DeleteOf course it will never be a LCC base with high LJU costs.
DeleteAirpost costs are actual minor problem with LCC basing an aircraft at LJU.. Slovenia with no gastoz around the EU and country with very limited tourist accommodation is not interested for LCC.
DeleteAnyone know how Flydubai is performing?
ReplyDeleteI'm sure it will be a successful route.
DeleteIt'd be a huge surprise if they don't pull out by November.
Delete^ I don't know what you are basing your assumption on. They just scheduled the flights for all of next summer.
DeleteThey will wait till end of expo and then good bye LJU
DeleteSo many people hope flydubai will leave LJU.
DeleteI really hope that we would have twice per day DXB-LJU but unfortunately reality is different. Let's hope for the best..
DeleteI just don't see things getting much better at LJU without either a national airline or a carrier basing a plane there.
ReplyDeleteThings are slowly improving
ReplyDeleteI am not sure if we can be satisfied with that as others are improving much faster... The gap between LJU and other airport in region is going to be bigger and bigger
DeleteCountry doesn't seem to be willing to pay more subsidies anymore.
ReplyDeleteThe subsidies are peanuts. 1.7 million divided across 7 or 8 airlines.
DeleteJust calculate how much money you would have to invest to have LH (FRA/MUC) /LX/SN/OS based at LJU. I don't think that 30 mio per year would be enough. For much smaller amount we can have our own airline
DeleteThe subsidies for foreign airlines does very little in attracting new ones. It's mostly to keep the ones flying and even that has not been fully successful.
DeleteInterested to see how last month performed. Should have been good with with BA back, Flydubai starting flights, easyjet coming back and Air Montenegro starting Podgorica.
ReplyDeleteWhatever happened to that Southeast Europe Airlines? They were supposed to launch this summer.
ReplyDeleteThey never took off the ground. Creating an airline isn't easy and they probably realized how expensive it would be.
DeleteIt's seems the project has not succeeded in the planning phase.
DeleteThe odds were stacked against them
DeleteI understand it's a difficult situation everywhere, but LJU is underperforming.
ReplyDeleteHow are other Fraport airports performing?
DeleteBravo Fraport!
ReplyDeleteFirst Skobir publish official statement and then he gives "Bravo" to himself here...pathetic! Check your actual numbers first!!
DeleteI think even 400,000 for this year is optimistic. Although a few months ago they said how they would have 400,000.
ReplyDelete* few months ago they said they would have 500,000
DeleteI'm interested to see weather Ljubljana will overtake Tuzla this year.
ReplyDeleteJAN-AUG
DeleteTuzla: 183.939
Ljubljana: 208.541
So they have overtaken Tuzla.
It's sad that it has come down to comparing these two airports and that the difference between them is barely 24,000 passengers.
Deleteand don't forget that LJU is running EU presidency. Without that we would be behind Tuzla as well..
DeleteI hope we will see more new airlines and routes.
ReplyDeleteFingers crossed that new management is more proactive in attracting more airlines.
DeleteDoes anyone know what her stance is towards new national airline. Or is it the same as Skobir?
DeleteSkobir was just reiterating Fraport's opinion. So I assume the new CEO will have the same approach.
DeleteAt least his last statements were that as Fraport they are happy of very new airline (even if it would be national carrier) but his opinion is that this would cost to much.
DeleteNow I would really like to ask him how much it would cost Slovenian taxpayers if LH would place 2 aircraft at LJU to operate 3x/day FRA and MUC, LX to place one aircraft to operate 3x/day ZRH, OS to operate 2x/day VIE, SN to operate 2x/day BRU. How much would that cost? Everyone would be happy to have major players at LJU, but can they provide same schedule as national carrier? they can, but this would be much more expensive!
Things starting to improve but still far from good
ReplyDeleteI hope KLM replaces Transavia sooner or later in AMS route.
ReplyDeleteI think Transavia is here to stay, especially with the new route launch. But it is good to see Transavia adding more flights between AMS and LJU. They will have five weekly flights.
DeleteThere is demand for both Transavia and KLM.
DeleteIf KLM took over from Transavia when they were operating 3 weekly flights to Belgrade, I don't see why it doesn't take over from LJU where Transavia will be running 5 weekly flights and is introducing a second destination.
DeleteBut isn't it better to have Transavia? You can still make all the KLM connections but the fares are cheaper.
DeleteCan someone explain to me why LJU has been so affected compared to other nearby airports?
ReplyDeleteBecause it does not have national carrier based at LJU, simply as pasulj!
DeleteLJU was also closed for several months due to covid epidemic which was not the case with nearby airports.
DeleteIn ex-Yu all airports were closed except Zagreb. In fact Ljubljana opened before anyone else.
DeleteBut it had no traffic for a month almost after opening.
Deleteif there was a national carrier there would be traffic. At that time no-one operated out/in to LJU. Not that it's much better now...:)
DeleteWill Iberia come back next year? They still haven't scheduled anything.
ReplyDeleteAlso is Finnair coming back?
DeleteFinnair is coming back. Flights to LJU from 28 Mar until 30 Sep 2022, unless they cancel something.
DeleteLet's wait and see. They were supposed to come back this year as well and then cancelled. Their return depends on when China, Japan and Korea open up.
DeleteGood luck
ReplyDeleteAt least something
ReplyDeleteThe government's decision to drop plans for new national airline will slow recovery and we probably won't see LJU reach pre pandemic levels for some time to come.
ReplyDeleteI don't think we will ever see it at the prepandemic level.
DeleteNever say never ;)
DeleteIt's good to see some improvement with a couple of new routes starting up.
ReplyDeleteCrumbs
DeleteGood to see some positive developments. Things are slowly improving.
ReplyDeleteOthers airports are improving much faster...
DeleteIt's even better development for their competition like ZAG, TRS, VCE, VIE, BEG. With such low amount of flight passengers will continue to use alternatives.
Delete"Lufthansa says that the subsidy is key."
ReplyDeleteSo basically without subsidies Lufthansa would not be flying to LJU???
Airport being run in Lufthansa's interests. They also got the most monet from the subsidies.
Delete@13.13 I don't see how the airport is being run in Lufthansa's interests?? The government was the one that decided how much money each airline would get, and this was based on frequencies. Not the airport.
DeleteSure. That's why Swiss which had not flown to Ljubljana for a year and a half got subsidy money but easyjet which was the largest airline in Slovenia got none.
DeleteHopefully more airlines will come soon
ReplyDeleteNational carriers mean something after all. If Adria was still around, recovery would be much bigger.
ReplyDeleteSo would the blackhole in which the taxpayers money would sink.
DeleteBut that blackhole is much bigger now due to consequences of no connectivity...We are losing each month what we inject in JP in whole year.
DeleteTaxpayer did pay 10 mil EUR in subsidies. So that we have lights on at airport and few flights per week.
DeleteWe payed 10 mil to foreign entities with no benefits for local population. I would say this is a definition of blackhole.
5 mil in a hope that current airlines will continue to fly LJU.
5 mil directly to Fraport LJU so that they will not fire people.
The only reason why Skubir likes this is because Fraport is direct recipient of government money.
Exactly. There are no reasonable arguments left for not having a national airline.
Delete"We payed 10 mil to foreign entities with no benefits for local population. I would say this is a definition of blackhole."
DeleteFraport only employs foreigners on foreign contracts, with foreign suppliers and all tax is paid abroad, right?
What did taxpayers benefit from Adria flying routes like PRN-FRA again?
@anon 14:13
DeleteThere were some advantages from those routes as well:
-Adria increased their good reputation among Kosovo/Albania population which helped a lot on routes to LJU as well (TIA/PRN-LJU for example)
-Pilots/Cabin crew were Slovenians so they paid their taxes in Slovenia
-Those routes were uncovered by other airlines and JP did really good job there / most of times it was 319 planned which you couldn't fulfill from LJU so it's also about aircraft utilization.
So yes, taxpayers did have benefit even from those flights!
Anon@13:11, 14:30 +1. Airconnectivity is something like 4g. As long as you have it, you take it for granted. Once there is only GSM network or you are outside the EU, you realize how useful and indinspensable it is. Connectivity is a sine qua non for business. I believe Ljubljana would have been a HQ for more global companies, had it had a better network.
DeleteFraport only employs foreigners on foreign contracts, with foreign suppliers and all tax is paid abroad, right?
DeleteWhat do they do on the days when there is no traffic ?
Long and difficult years ahead.
ReplyDeleteSarajevo had 100,000 passengers in September. By the end of the year, the number of passengers is expected to reach 850,000, and Ljubljana 400,000
ReplyDeleteAnd a few years ago it was impossible to think that Sarajevo would ever be ahead of Ljubljana :(
DeleteSome years ago it was impossible to think that Croatia and Serbia will be more developed nations than Slovenia.
DeleteI'm wondering what is Air France-KLM's strategy behind having both Transavia and Air France flying from Paris. Wouldn't it make more sense for Transavia to have started a different route to Ljubljana?
ReplyDeleteMy assumption is Air France is getting filled with transfer passengers so they introduced Orly for point to point traffic and more price sensitive passengers.
DeleteBecause demand is big enough for two airlines.
DeleteHe doesn't sense difference in marketing, just used to state run companies in exYU.
DeleteOr Transavia will replace Air France, we'll see in April.
DeleteAir France does very well in Ljubljana. I don't think they will leave.
DeleteA two weekly Transavia will replace AF which was double daily before corona? The bullsh*t you read here sometimes..
DeleteSo we have new routes coming Orly (Transavia) Luton (Wizz Air), Luton (easyjet), Kiev (Windrose). Nordwind should soon schedule those St Petersburg flights too.
ReplyDeleteAny idea when those could start?
DeleteYou never know with these Russian airlines. They schedule flights barely a month before starting them.
DeleteBut isn't Adria's bankruptcy the best thing that has happened to LJU?
ReplyDelete