Lufthansa, Turkish and Air Serbia to expand Ljubljana operations


Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport expects a solid year ahead with the likes of Lufthansa, Turkish Airlines and Air Serbia to increase their operations. The German national carrier, as the busiest airline in Slovenia, will introduce a new daily service from both Frankfurt and Munich, starting March 26. As a result, it will maintain three daily rotations from Frankfurt and a double daily service from Munich. The airline will operate an additional fourteen weekly flights into the Slovenian capital for a total of 35 weekly rotations. All flights are currently scheduled to be performed with the CRJ900 aircraft, however, equipment changes are likely and may vary.

Turkish Airlines will be growing its frequencies to the Slovenian capital as early as February 1. It will introduce an additional two weekly flights between Istanbul and Ljubljana for a total of twelve per week. As a result, services will run each morning, and five times per week during the evening hours. Most of the flights will be maintained with the Airbus A321 aircraft. According to Ljubljana Airport, Turkish will further grow frequencies to fourteen weekly during the summer, although these are yet to be scheduled. On the other hand, the airport notes that Air Serbia will boost operations from Belgrade to eighteen weekly flights next summer season, while services from Niš will be increased to three weekly. The airline is yet to indicate the changes in its timetable.

Besides the trio, Flydubai plans to maintain daily flights to the Slovenian capital from late June, Transavia will run five weekly rotations from Amsterdam and two weekly from Paris Orly, Brussels Airlines and easyJet will operate six weekly flights from Brussels and London Gatwick respectively, British Airlines will restore its five weekly seasonal service from London Heathrow, Wizz Air will run two weekly rotations from London Luton, while Air France plans to maintain up to ten weekly rotations from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport. Swiss will operate nine weekly flights from Zurich during the summer, LOT seven weekly from Warsaw, while Air Montenegro will fly from both Podgorica and Tivat, although frequencies are yet to be finalised. Finally, Israir plans to restore its two weekly seasonal service from Tel Aviv.

As previously reported, Aegean Airlines will inaugurate its new two weekly service between Athens and Ljubljana on June 6 with its Airbus A320 aircraft. Furthermore, Slovenia’s busiest airport will continue to grow its leisure flight offering. “We expect an abundant offer of charter flights in the summer season to the most popular destinations on the Greek islands, Egypt, Turkey and Spain, to which a wider offer will be available (Vittoria, Santiago di Compostela, Barcelona, Sevilla and Girona). Holiday packages tailored by Slovenian tour operators will also be available to Madeira, Porto, the Azores, Faroe Islands, Scotland, Iceland, Tenerife, Cape Verde islands, Cairo, Jordan, the Netherlands and Riga”, the airport said. 

Starting next year, Ljubljana Airport will also have to contend with Croatia entering the Schengen Area, which will enable quicker cross boarder travel and use of nearby Zagreb Airport. However, the General Manager of Ljubljana Airport operator Fraport Slovenija, Babett Stapel, notes, “Passenger traffic is recovering well in the winter season. Some carriers have or are still expected to strengthen their frequencies, which shows that flight demand is continuing to recover. The initial announcements for the summer season look promising - frequencies to the biggest hubs (Frankfurt, London, Paris, Brussels, Zurich, Munich, Istanbul and Dubai) will be significantly increased thus expanding the possibilities for travel from Ljubljana Airport to all around the globe. Our flight network will be richer by a new scheduled destination - we will be welcoming flights of Aegean Airlines to Athens. A wider selection of charter flights will be available too”.



Comments

  1. Anonymous09:03

    Finally some good news for Ljubljana!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous21:45

      little by little

      Delete
  2. Anonymous09:03

    I'm pretty sure LJU will manage to have over 1 million passengers next year.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous09:04

    This is LJU we are talking about. Everything can change 10 times until summer season.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:05

      Took the words out of my mouth haha

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:27

      let's wait for windrose announcment for this year

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10:29

      Hahahaha

      Delete
  4. Anonymous09:04

    Peanuts if you take into account that Wizz Air has discontinued Charleroi, that Finnair is not coming back and that easyjet still has significantly fewer flights than before the pandemic.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous09:05

    Why charter flights to Netherlands?!?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:05

      And to where in Netherlands

      Delete
    2. Anonymous13:04

      And where to in the Netherlands?

      Delete
  6. Anonymous09:06

    Better than this year at least

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous09:07

    LCC with a number of routes still much needed

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:17

      Ryanair is needed. We were close to getting them but the government had different ideas.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous21:47

      So 4 more years without Ryanair?

      Delete
  8. Anonymous09:08

    I still think that small base with two regional aircraft would improve connectivity of LJU. Just to complement existing schedule.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:09

      Agree and that way you can secure vital connectivity without relying on anyone else.

      Delete
  9. Anonymous09:08

    Does it mean Air France will decrease flights? Didn't they have 14 weekly this summer?

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous09:09

    I think they could easily attract a few carriers - Iberia (or Vueling), Luxair and Air Baltic.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:10

      Iberia came and left.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:14

      They came in summer 2020, in the middle of corona, a year when Spain was one of the most affected countries in the world. I'm sure they would have more success now.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:15

      AirBaltic to Riga as a gateway for Northern Europe. 2 to 3 weekly should work. And Iberia of course. Thaey just don't have aircraft small enough for daily service.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous09:16

      They came in 2021.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous09:17

      I remember there was an article here about point to point demand between Baltics and Ljubljana and it is actually quite healthy. Considering they don't fly to Zagreb, if Ljubljana secured flights they could attract some passengers from/to Croatia, plus on top of that there is the transfer demand that can be generated by Air Baltic.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous18:21

      Unfortunately they didn't include LJU in their latest expansion.

      Delete
    7. Anonymous07:08

      Air Baltic is screwed. The last thing they need is to connect LJU.

      Delete
  11. JU520 BEGLAX09:11

    OAG shows AF to operate in Summer peak 13 flights and BA 6 flights to LJU.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:14

      The frequencies were announced by Ljubljana Airport. I guess they foresee certain cuts compared to what is officially planned.

      Delete
  12. Anonymous09:18

    Will there be some exotic long haul charter like to Zanzibar last year?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:19

      There is no need anymore with Flydubai.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:20

      To clarify, I mean there is no need for special charter with Flydubai operating. Most people going to places like Zanzibar go with FZ.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:32

      True, that makes sense.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous09:38

      09:18
      Yes ,Funchal,Lajes (Madeira,Azores),also Reykjavik and Fore Islands.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous18:21

      Nice :)

      Delete
  13. Anonymous09:19

    Interesting about Air Serbia planning to increase Nis-Ljubljana. Isn't that a PSO route?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:20

      It is. I guess it is performing well.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:32

      Also I'm wondering what times the additional flights from BEG will be added.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10:32

      middle of the day ... it's the old ju193 flight

      Delete
  14. Anonymous09:21

    I think things are going well.
    We already have the passenger flow from before covid.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:24

      Yes, but most Slovenians don't think so.
      I support you, but in my opinion, there are no connections with Berlin, the Balkans, Manchester, Scandinavia.
      Do not forget that 500,000 were transfers, that is, p2p traffic has been restored.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:34

      I definitely think they could hit pre Covid numbers before 2026 like they originally estimated.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:37

      What was the 2019 result?

      Delete
    4. Anonymous09:40

      2018 1,818,229
      2019 1,721,355

      Delete
    5. Anonymous09:42

      Thank you. 2018 was the record year right?

      Delete
    6. Anonymous09:47

      Yes,before Adria bankruptcy.

      Delete
  15. Anonymous09:26

    I'm glad that something is being restored.
    It would be nice to have two more transfer airlines like Pegasus, AirBaltic, Austrian, KLM.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:28

      It is a bit odd that Pegasus does not fly to either Ljubljana or Zagreb. I'm sure there is demand.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:03

      Qatar Airways also.

      Delete
  16. Anonymous09:28

    Realistically could we expect around 1.2 million passengers next year?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:31

      I think that is too optimistic, but we will see.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous14:20

      between 1.0 and 1.1 million i would say...of course if nothing big happens like some airline creating a base there or a huge amount of new routes but i highly doubt things like that in the next year.

      Delete
  17. Anonymous09:32

    I wouldn't underestimate the impact Croatia's entry into Schengen will have on LJU.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:02

      Also what impact will Austrian start up Liliair have which is based in Klagenfurt.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:09

      Where do they plan to fly to?

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10:13

      multiple destinations in Germany initially, then expanding further around Europe.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous10:27

      Interesting. What aircraft?

      Delete
    5. Anonymous11:39

      Croatia entering schengen wont have that big impact on Ljubljana. People using Ljubljana today will continue to do so in the future. Low cost customers will probably shift from Venice/Trieste to Zagreb but only if price and frequency will be competitive.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous18:24

      @10.27

      They have taken delivery of 1 CRJ900 and will take delivery of another soon. They plan to start flying in April.

      Delete
  18. Anonymous09:33

    Good

    ReplyDelete
  19. JU520 BEGLAX09:36

    So what do we have

    Frankfurt 3 x daily LH
    Munich 2 x daily LH
    Zurich 9 x weekly LX
    Brussels 6 x weekly SN
    Amsterdam 5 x weekly Transavia
    Warsaw daily LO
    Paris CDG 13 x weekly AF
    Paris ORY 2 x weekly Transavia
    London LHR 6 x weekly BA
    London LGW 6 x weekly Easy
    Luton 2 x weekly Wizz
    Istanbul 2 x daily TK
    Belgrade 18 x weekly JU
    Nis 3 x weekly JU
    Dubai daily Fly Dubai
    Athens 2 weekly A3
    Podgorica and Tivat several weekly Air Montenegro
    Tel Aviv 2 weekly Israir

    Definitely missing Spain, Scandinavia and maybe Rome.
    I doubt OS will return to LJU but some LCC to fly Rome, Spain and Scandinavia would be great, maybe even SK to CPH.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:02

      Very good!

      Delete
    2. Anonymous21:52

      Will the government give money for existing routes or new ones?

      Delete
    3. Anonymous07:11

      Rome was never working out of LJU neither in JP DHC7 times. SKP is missing.

      Delete
  20. Anonymous09:37

    More growth is needed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:42

      They are on the right track at least after some challenges.

      Delete
  21. Anonymous09:43

    Come to think of it, Ljubljana actually has a nice collection of legacy airlines - Air France, Lufthansa, Turkish Airlines, Air Serbia, Air Montenegro, British Airways, Swiss, Brussels Airlines, LOT.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:47

      KLM would be a nice addition to the list

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:51

      @9.43 don't forget Aegean from next year :)

      Delete
  22. Anonymous09:44

    I can hardly understand posters complaining about LJU.
    This seems like excellent connectivity: 3x daily to FRA and 2xdaily to MUC would be "more than enough" and all the others are great hubs also: IST, ZRH, AMS, CDG, BEG for the region...also DXB great hub for intercontinental.
    On the other hand I get the point that a higher LCC presence would not hurt.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:47

      +1

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:55

      Balkan mentality!09:44(for negative comments for LJU).

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10:04

      Far from excellent from what we had.

      Delete
  23. Anonymous09:52

    think traffic has been restored.
    We must not forget that there are many transfers from the Balkans, that is no longer there.
    We only have p2p traffic.
    Slovenia is already connected, it's not like in 2020, 2021 (winter).
    But there are no connections between LJU and Europe.
    I think we have the most important routes.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Anonymous09:54

    Scandinavia and Iberian peninsula are missing big time from Ljubljana's route network.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Anonymous09:55

    With Lufthansa buying ITA, maybe we see them in Ljubljana. Is there demand for flights to/from Rome?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:56

      Yes.This will be perfect.
      Also they have good transfers to South America,USA,Japan,Asia.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:03

      I do hope we see ITA with their A220 in Ljubljana :)

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10:03

      Speaking of, what will happen with Air Dolomiti when Lufthansa acquired ITA?

      Delete
    4. Anonymous10:04

      They will continue to be Cartel feeder.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous11:40

      ITA is serving SLO market from Trieste with triple daily ... i fly them quite often.

      Delete
  26. Anonymous09:55

    As the previously said that they will focus on individual routes here are some of them: sas to Stockholm an Copenhagen, klm to Amsterdam, austrian to Vienna, vueling to Barcelona, eurowings to Hamburg, croatian to Skopje, jet2 to Manchester, easyjet to Berlin, tarom/wizz to Bucharest

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:57

      I would rather say Wizz Air is more realistic to Skopje, but I don't understand why Croatia Airlines hasn't considered Zagreb-Skopje-Ljubljana-Skopje-Zagre.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:59

      1
      Super!
      Also add TIA ,PRN,SJJ,SOF with regional operator as Air Dolomiti,OU,Trade Air,Amelia.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10:01

      They did consider it. I remember OU's CEO proposing this vey routing. But they probably wanted to get paid for it.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous11:18

      I hope its Wizz to SKP. Only they can use the real potential of this route. OU would be more expensive thus less pax

      Delete
    5. Anonymous11:27

      Jet2 to Manchester would be very welcome.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous11:43

      Austrian will probably start Ljubljana once rail link between Klagenfurt and Graz/Vienna is finished (cuz than they will probably be forced to stop this route - same as Salzburg-Vienna).

      Delete
    7. Anonymous22:06

      Serious question. So, Balkan pax on Wizz LJU-CRL flights are the kind of pax who are not the happiest to pay the airport checkin fee and large cabin bag airport fee. Would Wizz LJU-SKP flights mean the whole plane of pax arguing about that or is Wizz business model understood at SKP and checking and gate will go mostly smoothly if/when LJU gets Wizz SKP flights? Thank you for the answers.

      Delete
  27. Anonymous09:59

    +1
    Super!
    Also add TIA ,PRN,SJJ,SOF with regional operator as Air Dolomiti,OU,Trade Air,Amelia.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous16:03

      why Amelia?

      Delete
    2. Anonymous18:42

      Amelia is Slovenian airline .
      It's time to launch LJU flights.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous21:44

      I know it's Slovenian airline ... but why would that mean LJU flights?

      Delete
    4. Anonymous08:15

      They have E145,ATR42/72 -ideal for LJU base.

      Delete
  28. Anonymous10:04

    2023 truly is looking much better for Ljubljana. I hope Finnair returns at some point when they are in a better financial situation.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:08

      Happy for LJU

      Delete
    2. Anonymous11:44

      They will be back as soon as they are able to fly over Russia again.

      Delete
  29. Anonymous10:06

    Where are tourists staying in the Netherlands and Latvia?
    In which resort?

    ReplyDelete
  30. Anonymous10:10


    My idea for PSO:
    LJU-SKP 3x weekly
    LJU-TIA 3x weekly
    LJU-SJJ 3x weekly
    LJU-OTP 2x weekly
    LJU-VIE 7 weekly
    LJU-CPH 2x weekly
    LJU-PRN 2x weekly
    Opwerator: Amelia International.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:19

      I agree with that list. It's unlikely anyone else will launch those flights, except maybe Copenhagen.

      Delete
  31. Anonymous10:12

    Will be interesting to see Qatar Airways to compete with FZ,TK.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:19

      First they need to launch flights to Ljubljana

      Delete
  32. Anonymous10:12

    Operator with E190 is ideal for LJU base(PSO).

    ReplyDelete
  33. Anonymous10:39

    I so wish I could start my own airline at LJU AP.
    5 medium haul planes like E2 or A220 with 15 or 20 destinations. Would be perfect.
    Anyone know anyone in the biz to talk more about this? :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous11:08

      I mean if you really get yourself into this this is possible of course. But you will need a lot of money:)

      Delete
    2. Anonymous11:18

      A dream of mine. To have my own airline.
      What destinations would you fly to on these planes?
      I have thought about such a project, even seriously, but I need a lot of moneyyyyyy!
      If I had this money, I would start:
      Fly Adria
      3X A220-100
      VIE 1X daily
      MUC 1 X daily
      FRA 1x daily
      SKP, SJJ, TIA, CPH, BER, DUS, PRN 2-3 weekly
      seasonal to Barcelona, ​​Helsinki, Tel Aviv, Greek islands.
      + charters with tour operators.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous11:51

      It's not up to "what I would fly". It'd require market research and to fly where the market would want to fly to.
      This website is full of people who say: "this destionation would work" based on no avio knowledge whatsoever.
      A220-100 would be a good size to fill a plane for SKP, SJJ, TIA, PRN on a regular basis, based on disapora in Slovenia. It would also be full enough to start flying to bigger cities, given good local marketing to not rely on Slovenes flying but for others to use this airline to fly to Slovenia. A big marketing campaign for Slovenia would have to be launched, to make the country more recognised. You could achieve that in several ways, one of the ways the airline could help with is custom liveries in Slovenian theme, to make the airline be published for their crazy liveries in various papers across the globe.
      So the Balkan countries you could easily rely on due to disapora, but for everything outside you'd need to do local marketing in the countries and not only for the airline, but for the destination which would be Slovenia.

      Delete
  34. Anonymous22:07

    Amelia already said that they are willing to station a few ERJs in either MBX or LJU if they get PSO flights, with their ATR-s and 2 new A319s it's looking more and more likely that they'll start flights soon.


    Also it's funny how official announcement wrongly stated that LOT will have 7 weekly flights, while in fact they'll have 8-9; not to mention that Dubai is going daily for about 2 weeks, and then getting back to 5x weekly

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous22:12

      What routes does Amelia fly now and where is it based?

      Delete
    2. Anonymous08:17

      22:12 -domestic flights in France from Paris +1-2 international flights to Germany.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous08:19

      ^
      Now I saw that they fly to Bora Bora - quite interesting!

      Delete
  35. Anonymous10:04

    a perfec t airline for LJU: 2x E190-E2
    CPH: 3-4 weekly
    VIE: daily
    TIA: 3 weekly
    SKP: 3 weekly
    SJJ: 2-3 weekly
    SOF: 2 weekly
    MAN: 3 weekly
    LHR: 4 weekly
    ARN: 2-3 weekly
    OSL: 2 weekly
    PRG: 3 weekly
    BER: 3 weekly
    PRN: 2 weekly

    ReplyDelete

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