Low cost carriers will be reducing their operations to Ljubljana Airport this coming winter season with Wizz Air, Transavia and easyJet all set to decrease planned services. Wizz Air, which is cutting its presence across the former Yugoslavia, will suspend operations from Charleroi to the Slovenian capital. The last flight between the two cities is scheduled for October 27, with services planned to resume on March 26 of next year. Brussels Airlines will continue to link Ljubljana with Belgium. Wizz Air will retain services between London Luton and the Slovenian capital with two weekly rotations planned over the winter. Three weekly flights will run for a limited time, during the month of December.
Transavia has been hit by capacity and staffing issues at its hub in Amsterdam which will result in the cancellation of some flights to Ljubljana. The airline will suspend operations between the two cities from October 27 until November 15, when four weekly services are planned to be restored. Flights will be reduced to two weekly during the first two weeks of December. However, further changes are possible, as conditions at Schiphol Airport continue to evolve. “Some flights from Amsterdam have been suspended due to the situation at Schiphol Amsterdam Airport. There are issues relating to a lack of security and handling staff”, Transavia told EX-YU Aviation News.
easyJet will also reduce its operations between London Gatwick and the Slovenian capital. The budget carrier will maintain just one weekly flight between the two cities during the month of November. Services will increase to three weekly in December before reducing to two weekly in January. The planned five weekly rotations are expected to be restored from the second week of February, however, changes remain possible at this early stage. The reduction in services by budget airlines contrast with the planned growth of legacy carriers at Ljubljana Airport this winter.
Ljubljana Airport handled 118.787 passengers in September, representing a decrease of 31.1% on the same month in the pre-pandemic 2019, when Adria Airways had already suspended the bulk of its traffic ahead of declaring bankruptcy later that month. During the first three quarters, Ljubljana Airport welcomed 749.771 travellers through its doors, down 48.3% on three years ago, or 701.078 fewer passengers. Aircraft movements stood at 16.621 over the same period.
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I can't believe that easyJet will be down to just 1 weekly flight! They used to be one of the busiest foreign airlines in LJU.
ReplyDeleteThey used to have a daily flight from both LGW and STN. Crazy.
DeleteFor 2020 summer season they planned to have 10 weekly STN, 5 weekly LGW, 4 weekly LTN and 3 weekly BER. 22 flights per week. Now it's just one flight per week. Bravo LJU!
DeleteBrexit
DeleteBrexit? Lol. The worst excuse.
DeleteCartel loves this!
ReplyDeleteLjubljana needs Ryanair.
ReplyDeleteI cannot agree more but the talks between them has ended so there won't be any ryanair flights from LJU anytime soon...
Delete@9:52:
DeleteAre you sure about that? There are rumours in Ryanair that Lauda will open a base in LJU in April 2023.
Any more info on these rumours?
Delete@13:25
Deletei am not sure but i heard that the hiring process for staff that ryanair held in maribor which was romoured to be hiring for LJU base was a big dissapointment, becouse barely anyone applied to it...
@13:53:
DeleteFriend who works for FR told me (don't know were he got the info).
"down 48.3% on three years ago, or 701.078 fewer passengers."
ReplyDeleteyikes. For a small airport that's huge.
I remember how people were trashing Adria and were calling on its demise. This is the result.
Delete+100
DeleteAlternatively, Adria should have kept going and losing money left and right, transferring pax via LJU and the pax numbers of LJU would've been much higher, but bottom line these pax. hardly made any revenue for LJU and whatever was there, was less than what Adria was losing by transferring them through LJU.
DeleteThis is the result of poor managment. They lost almost half passengers, something for example Bucharest didn't let happen with Blue Air. I see more will from SJJ managment to sort the Wizz gap. Fraport is to blame at the first place and, after this time, the regulator (government) too. If they don't want to invest in new company, fine. But summon Fraport and ask for some commitments.
Delete@anon 09:56
DeleteIm surprised that you are not concerned that Slovenian economy is not suffering any damage due to lack of connectivity. Slovenia does not get any high valued tourist anymore, so actually we all are paying for that deficit in tourism. We are also paying for all tickets of government travel, which are in majority out of ZAG, not to mention transport to/from ZAG etc. Or if they use LJU flights then they need to stay 2 additional nights at destination. And you are paying for all that as well. So we can conclude that those 5 mio which we gave for national carrier was a peanuts comparing to what we lose now. Not to mention that Adria with competent management (and not political appointed one) could work much better then it did.
Slovenia had 2.89 million foreign tourists in the first 8 months of 2022. They have 60% of their figures in 2019. Serbia where aviation industry is booming at the moment has the same recovery as Slovenia. So foreign tourism in Slovenia is recovering healthy and is not really hit by the fall of Adria. That's probabaly because the far majority of foreign tourist in Slovenia arrive by car. But I agree it's bad that Slovenians travel form neigbouring airports instead of LJU.
DeleteAnon 12:56 - as far as I read, based on the official statistics, Slovenia is the second most visited country in ex-Yu and has always been the case for many years. Yes, it has a more limited air coverage but like you mentioned many people arrive by car or rail. Should there be more LCC connections with only a few bigger European cities, those numbers are probably going to drastically increase. It being a smaller country similar to Albania, has a lot to offer not only Ljubljana, but Bled, the coast and so on.
DeleteLjubijana had 625.159 foreign arrivals in the first 8 months of 2022. Ljubijana already has 55% of their figures in 2019, which is a bit under avarage recovery rate in Slovenia, but still really good.
DeleteReally good? Most airports are at 85%
Deletepeople who visited Ljubijana compared to 2019. Nothing to do with airports. And there are still 4 months to go.
DeleteHave a feeling that Transavia suspension will be extended.
ReplyDeleteAnyone know how Transavia handles passengers with cancelled flights? Will they transfer them onto Air France on they just offer a refund?
DeleteDisappointing.
ReplyDeleteHow many years has Wizz Air been operating these two routes from LJU? Will they ever introduce some other one?
ReplyDeleteConsidering they are suspending one of the two over winter, highly unlikely.
DeleteAnd let's not forget that Air Cairo cancelled their planned Ljubljana flights.
ReplyDeleteGoOpti appoves! :)
ReplyDeleteThe airport is really not LCC friendly.
ReplyDeleteHow shoud LJU adapt to be more LCC friendly?
DeleteSmall network for a small airport of a small city. Simple economics.
ReplyDeleteAnd when Cartel runs the airport the network is even smaller.
DeleteIf flights to places like Scandinavia and Iberia were economical and profit making someone would fly these routes, it is very simple
DeleteCan one of the Fraport fanboys please explain why are there so few flights to London compared to 2019? Pandemic is over so no excuses.
ReplyDeleteDue to recession in the UK. Our electric and Gas bills have increased from an average of £1000 a year to approx £2500 a year. Interest rates have increased also. People simply don't have the money to travel. Plus the disastrous Brexit will mean less demand for travel also.
DeleteeasyJet are struggling to become profitable again after Covid so are simply cutting less profitable routes.
DeleteMy electric and gas bill in Belgrade is 1000 pounds yearly, they'll be fine.
DeleteSo people in UK can't afford to travel to LJU but can to ZAG, BEG, SJJ, TGD, SKP... got it.
DeleteFrom observing the pax and speaking with them: traditional groups of English people who were coming here for years (young, hen/stag parties, seniors etc) are not coming anymore or not nearly as much anymore ... Now we mostly see couples, young families, students and brexit expats visiting family) ... Also, BA flights and LHG connectios to LHR are pretty popular
DeleteAs a slovenian i need to say that i don't believe that many slovenians even use LJU airport to fly from...I find ZAG very good airport and as a guy who lives in Celje thats not much further than LJU...and even Croatia is getting into the schengen so thats just another + for ZAG
ReplyDeleteTotally agree, this year I flew from Zagreb three times, never from Ljubljana.
DeleteThat will be a real plus for Zg, without losing time at the border, it will be easy to come from LJ also. Lot of people are using BG with double daily to BEG - if JU had enough capacity it could easily turn to 3x on some days. This all shows that it make some sense to subsidize the air travel and a national carrier, in one form or another. What to say to the fact that there will not be any new generations of pilots in SLO - real shame.
DeleteFor sure, Hrvatska Schengen membership will only bring lots of benefits to the airport. In times of war, inflation and recession in Europe ZAG still managed to somehow maintain a good portion of its LCC connections. On the other hand, more foreigners will also passively visit Slovenia via road yet again invest in hotels, restaurants, etc. This is how it works in the more civilised world.
DeleteGood example: Porto airport in Portugal. You go to Santiago which is a smaller place but you will find lots of Americans. Why? Because Porto has transatlantic flights and no borders to reach Spain. Santiago is also quite close.
Another example: Many Wallonian Belgians use Maastricht airport because Liège is badly connected and you can very easily and quickly reach it with no bloody borders.
In the case of Slowenia and Hrvatska Schengen will bring nothing but good benefits for both sides.
i tottaly agree with you but we are here talking about main Slovenian airport and the Croatian schengen situation will make it even worse for them...but as a slovenian I don't have any problem with it becouse i use zagreb for ny flights anyway...(nicer, more flights, cheaper flights)
DeleteI meant my flights not ny flights ...
DeleteWell, LJU airport is also pretty nice. Looks a bit German or Scandinavian. It sure deserves more flights. ZAG airport is also very cool, has got NOTHING to do with the old terminal, which I remember quite well. I hope those boring Euro people wake up and finally allow Hrvatska, Romania and Bulgaria in Schengen in 2023. It will be a win for everybody including Slovenia as for sure it will witness more tourism and visits.
DeleteWill LJU close the year with 1 million?
ReplyDeleteDoubt it but it will be around 900,000 which is better than the airport's initial estimate.
DeleteIt needs 85.000 passengers per next three months. Probably.
DeleteIf they reach a million I think we could say it was a successful year for them.
DeleteMore LCCs desperately needed.
ReplyDeleteWhy?
DeleteWhy not use old terminal for LCC and decrease prices?
ReplyDeleteYou'd need extra baggage handling shifts if the old termial would "specialised" in LCC...that would not decrease prices
DeleteTransavia is no big surprise as AMS airport is currently a joke of an airport.
ReplyDeleteI think what Slovenia needs is more charter flights. After all, the standard of living is not low. Leisure destinations are needed especially in winter. Look how successful Flydubai is now. Dubai has huge demand in winter from almost many parts of EU.
Zanzibar, Seychelles, Maldives have been quite popular during the last couple of years. Not bad to start organising charters there even in December only because this is the only way to stimulate people to begin travelling more.
On the other hand, more connections are definitely needed to Spain and bigger UK cities and more London airports. Those 2 countries have a huge market.
If a small capital like Riga already operates numerous destinations including winter, I see no reason why Slovenia cannot do the same. It even surpassed Belgrade in 2019.
Inbound traffic to Ljubljana from key air connected markets (Western Europe) has only one problem and that is that in these markets party has already finished. Food has already been eaten, Whiskey & Vodka bottles are emptied and the best looking girls already left. It is just reality.
ReplyDeleteThey had it good for long time and now it is adjustment time to lower standards of living. People who had travelled on 4-5 trips during the year will have to reduce it to 1 or 2. People who have travelled 1-2 times during the years will travel every other year or travel withing their own country.
Outbound traffic from Ljubljana has a problem with reduced number of destinations. I believe that the government at that time should have made every effort to find optimal solution in keeping Adria running.
I couldn’t agree more. I hope that days of flying across Europe for a weekend dinner are finaly over.
DeleteI don't know if anyone noticed, but there are 3 new dates for Lauda cabin crew in Maribor this month.
ReplyDeleteIs it confirmed that Transavia will suspend flights to Ljubljana form 27th October onwards because my flight is October 30th and I didn’t get any email yet?
ReplyDeleteI am happy that Transavia will restore flights to Paris Orly in april, the tickets have been put on sale.
ReplyDelete