Ljubljana Airport expects for airlines which discontinued flights to the city over the past month to return in 2023 and believes 52% of its pre-pandemic traffic will be reached this year despite their absence. Over the past few weeks, Iberia, Finnair and Aeroflot ended their operations to the Slovenian capital, although the latter was forced to do so as a result of sanctions. Ljubljana Airport’s operator noted that Iberia’s flights to Madrid, which were launched last year and were to resume this August, were cancelled due to logistical issues. “A reduction in demand during the global health crisis forced many airlines to reduce fleets and crew. Now that air traffic has escaped from the grips of the Covid-19 pandemic and demand is recovering, they are struggling with a lack of aircraft and staff”, the airport operator said. It added, “There is interest for flights to Spain. Among the major challenges for airlines is the highly seasonal nature in demand for services to and from the Iberian Peninsula”.
Iberia is expected to return next year, with flights to operate over a limited two-month period. On the other hand, Finnair decided not to restore services from Helsinki to Ljubljana this year due to a lack of transfer passengers from the Far East and the suspension of several key routes in Asia because of the war in Ukraine. “As a destination, Ljubljana has been especially popular among Asian travellers. But as we have now reduced both network and frequencies, for example to Japan, the Ljubljana route has not been included in the summer program”, Finnair said. Ljubljana Airport is hopeful the Finnish carrier will return next year when more Asian markets should be fully reopened.
Despite the loss of a handful of carriers, Ljubljana Airport still estimates it will handle 52% of its 2019 traffic. This would result in the Slovenian capital welcoming some 895.000 travellers through its doors this year. During the first two months of 2022, it handled 75.731 passengers, which is still down 63% on 2019. This summer season will see Lufthansa restore operations from Munich to Ljubljana, Transavia launch flights from Paris Orly, Israir resume seasonal services from Tel Aviv, while other carriers, such as Flydubai, will increase frequencies on existing flights. The airport also anticipates a strong charter season which last year accounted for 20% of all passengers. This year, in cooperation with tour operators, flights will be chartered to Antalya, Barcelona, Jordan, Madeira, Egypt, Malta, the Greek islands, the Azores, Albania, the Netherlands, Sicily, Iceland and Latvia.
Hmm good luck with that.
ReplyDeleteSo it's everyone else's fault except the managements.
ReplyDeleteI more hoping and anticipating that more airlines won't leave.
ReplyDelete*I'm
DeleteAre they serious with the expectation of almost 900,000 passengers this year??
ReplyDeleteThe charter flight plan looks great actually.
ReplyDelete750k tops.
ReplyDeleteI think 600,000 is most likely.
DeleteDej ne sanjite. Adria 2.0 pa so vsi problemi rešeni. Cmokači eni.
DeleteAlso Nordwind, Windrose, Sunexpress, Rossiya, Easyjet on many routes..
ReplyDelete"The airport also anticipates a strong charter season which last year accounted for 20% of all passengers. This year, in cooperation with tour operators...."
ReplyDeleteFinally! The list of destinations looks quite good :) Fraport are finally trying to diversify the product by not only relyiing on regular traffic.
Fraport is doing absolutely nothing to increase offer of scheduled routes.
DeletePre covid numbers will never be reached without national airline or an airline based in LJU.
ReplyDeleteAnd last year they announced how Iberia would increase flights in 2022.
ReplyDeleteThey also announced how BA would extend season but nothing happened either.
DeleteLast year i believe BA flew until the end of October. For this year they have scheduled flights until the start of October.
DeleteGood luck
ReplyDeleteAirport needs to find a solution to Adria's bankruptcy. Until that is done, we can only dream of numbers we had before pandemic.
ReplyDeleteThe only two real successes at LJU in the last 10 years is the opening of the new terminal and the launch of Flydubai (which took them 15 years to negotiate).
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteI'm a bit disappointed with easyJet's reductions at the airport. They were once one of the biggest airlines in LJU. Now just one flight a week. Airport should do more to engage with them.
ReplyDelete6 weekly, not one.
DeleteI said they were once one of the biggest airlines in LJU, not that they fly once weekly.
DeleteYou literally said "Now just one flight a week."
DeleteSo they expect to more than double their passenger numbers this year? No way.
ReplyDeleteHope QR comes in 2023.
ReplyDeleteAll nearby airports are getting new routes and flights on a major scale. Why are we left with breadcrumbs?
ReplyDeleteBecause Fraport runs LJU.
DeleteCompared to other Fraport airports, Ljubljana is developing very slowly.
ReplyDeleteAt least Flydubai is doing great
ReplyDeleteHope A3 comes back
ReplyDeleteAegean just announced new flights from ATH to FLR, CGN and BIO and they resume a lot of destinations cut for covid. Maybe LJU is on their plans ( SJJ too ) as they will announce more routes soon.
DeleteFingers crossed.
Deletewhy are u blaming fraport, look at the world pandemic, war, crisis. Life in slovenia is far better opttion than having a non stop flight to idk berlin.
ReplyDeleteWhy are we blaming Fraport? Maybe because they run the airport and they are responsible for terrible results? Pandemic? Nobody talks about that anymore. War and crisis are the reason LJU is losing flights while other are getting them? So because Slovenia is the most "developed" in EX-YU LJU should have 0 flights while others should have? I don't understand what you wanted to say.
DeleteFraport bashing seems to be what you are paid for! - Do you really think, Fraport is investing millions of Euros in a new terminal and improvement of the infrastructure, - and then loves to see it underutilized and loss-making? -
DeleteIf you would deepen your knowledge about airport statistics you would understand, that many of the passengers of the "good old days" were transfer traffic and as such counted twice (or even 4 times, if you consder round-trip journeys), which blows up any passenger statistic of an airport with high transfer share. Those passengers were starting somewhere in the Balkans, changing planes in LJU and flew to their next destination.
However these type of passengers were absolutely not contributing to the financial success of the airport (or the country), staying for about 15 min in the terminal and then hopping on their connex flight. Charges for those passengers were lower than the related cost.
Of course you can argue, that those passengers filled the planes and as such granted the number of routes served. But obviously the management of Adria was not able to convert enough routes into profitable ones. So no wonder that Adria went bancrupt.
Still, it is the airline's decision wether they serve a route or not. In a post-comunist regime they strictly follow the rules of demand and supply. Of course you can "buy" traffic by subsidizing an airline, but with the hop-on-hop-of strategy of some airlines like e.g. Ryanair, grabbing as much (governmental) money as possible, you should ask yourself, if this is a sustainable business model for an airport or a country, if they attract those airlines.
On the long run it seems much more promising and sustainable to rely on airlines which are interested in building up a market for their routes (like IB, BA, LH etc.). And this leads to the topic of catchment areas: Unfortunately the market for passengers in LJU due to the number of citizens and the aggressive (and not always sustainable) competition of neighboring airports/airlines is a very limited one. Therefore even for a homebase carrier in LJU it is tough to attract enough passengers for a prosperous operation (especially since the Balkan-hub model of Adria is outdated - regardless of how many tears you are shedding).
Thus the message is quite simple: If you want to make the establishment of new routes / higher frequencies in LJU more attractive for airlines, spend yourself more money on the purchase of air-tickets and/or attract more air-traveller from elsewhere to/from LJU. - An airport operator can support, but not decide, if an airline is willing to take the (financial) risk, especially if they are considering other (money-making) route alternatives!
Would be excellent if they come back. AY due to Asian tourists and IB since LJU has no regular Spain connection. At least Slovenians can travel fm ZAG and TRS nonstop to Spanish airports.
ReplyDeleteIn ZRH at least first waves of Asian tourists is arriving again and TG has switched fm B787 to B773 five x weekly.
Wish list LJU:
4 x weekly A320 QR all year
SK at least in SUTT
AY in SUTT
IB fm end April until end of Sep with connex to EZE, GRU and MEX
OS all year
A3 in SUTT
Wizz Air adding destinations such as Rome and maybe even Sofia or Bucharest, KRK, SKP
This would be all nice to have in a healthy environment, but the way it looks now, I am rather pessimistic. If China would start a conflict with Taiwan, than good night economy and Asia-Europe tourist travel. But lets wait and see and hope for the best
We have a similar wishlist. Those would be ideal.
DeleteWhat is SUTT?
DeleteWhich new airlines could we see in Ljubljana?
ReplyDeleteNorwegian, Vueling, AirBaltic come to mind.
DeleteLooks like LJU has really solidified its future with the Germans, Fraport and LH group.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately.
DeleteI really hope for a turnaround will be sooner rather than later but it's not looking good.
ReplyDeleteI still can't believe there are no flights to Vienna!
ReplyDeleteIt's too close. Majority of passengers to Vienna were transfers which have now been taken care of by other Lufthansa group airlines.
DeleteThey should work on getting an airline to fly to Scandinavia. Currently there are no flights to any Scandinavian city.
ReplyDeleteSAS would be a good option.
DeleteThere are no flights because Scandinavia used to be covered by Adria. Fraport has done a bad job at finding substitutes for Adria routes. They only focused on Lufthansa hubs.
DeleteI would say that they covered only FRA, all others are there just for statistic.
DeleteHopefully more new airlines to come.
ReplyDeleteWe only need one and we need it ASAP!
DeleteSad that all passengers on those charters will be catered for by foreign airlines.
ReplyDeletethis is not even funny any more...same "experts" working in management of airport Ljubljana for decades are repeating themselves like broken record...we are negotiating, working on new routes, we expect recovery, we are hoping....total bull....in all those years, nothing has been done in order to secure some connections or to have a strategy, let alone strategic plan...covid has only revealed the problematic managment of the airport to the bone. Almost all income they get is from sale of the plots and long term parking of unused airliners. Sad reminder and a symbol of that is that lone Adria Airways CRJ900 still parked on the main apron.
ReplyDelete