Lufthansa cemented its position as Slovenia’s busiest airline, handling 147.150 passengers on its Ljubljana flights in 2022. The German carrier held a 15.2% market share at Ljubljana Airport, ahead of second placed Turkish Airlines with a 12.3% passenger share. Together with its equity partners, Swiss and Brussels Airlines, the Lufthansa Group has played a dominant role in the Slovenian aviation sector since the bankruptcy of Adria Airways in 2019. However, passenger numbers on flights to Germany were still notably down on 2019 when Adria was the sole carrier up until late September, handling 213.985 passengers, within a nine-month period alone. However, it should be noted that the first quarter of 2022 was still significantly impacted by travel restrictions resulting from the coronavirus pandemic.
Passenger traffic on scheduled flights at Ljubljana Airport, 2022
Turkish Airlines was the second busiest in Ljubljana last year, handling 119.337 travellers. Many carriers operating into the Slovenian capital were not present during the first three quarters of the pre-pandemic 2019. Among those that were, Air France has seen the strongest come-back. In June last year, the airline introduced a second daily flight to the Slovenian capital, exceeding its pre-Covid capacity levels. Jointly with Transavia France, which commenced seasonal summer operations from Orly Airport to Ljubljana in late April, passenger numbers between the two capital cities reached 98.7% of pre-pandemic levels. Air Serbia managed to reach 78.5% of its pre-Covid traffic on the Slovenian market.
Flydubai saw its first full year of operations at Ljubljana Airport with the airline handling 45.263 passengers between Dubai and Slovenia. Of those, 22.443 departed Ljubljana for the largest city in the United Arab Emirates, while 22.820 flew from Dubai. The average cabin load factor across the year stood at 60% with a total of 229 flights operated each way on the Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft. Air Montenegro also marked its first full year of flying to Ljubljana in 2022, with the carrier welcoming 22.305 passengers on board its Slovenia flights.
.gif)
wow at the fact that Adria had almost double the passenger to Germany in 9 months than Lufthansa had for the entire year
ReplyDeleteRemember that Adria had transfer passengers from the region on its FRA and MUC flights.
DeleteI think the biggest difference to the Adria era is on the Amsterdam route. Those Transavia figures are poor.
DeleteTrue but you have to know that FRA is the only one with morning departure to EU hub. So difference is still huge!
DeleteWell considering how many flights Transavia has cancelled it is not surprising.
DeleteAnonymous09:08 - AirFrance has early morning departure at 6.35
DeleteSpeaking of Transavia and Amsterdam, is there any chance of them being replaced by KLM?
DeleteAnon 09:12 - it has, but only 3 days per week. on all other day LH is one and only option. At time of JP you have morning departures to FRA / MUC / VIE / ZRH / BRU / CDG / (CPH / AMS).
DeleteThey will have double daily in summer.
Deleteok, that's good addition but still we are missing quite a lot of morning departures. Not to mention that their first inbound flight arrive in the afternoon, so passengers coming to LJU again does not have any other choice but LH. Anyway, we can all agree that schedule is very bad at LJU.
DeleteNo surprise.
ReplyDeleteInteresting numbers.
ReplyDeleteFlydubai's performance is not bad at all. Better than LOT!
ReplyDeleteIt's worth noting that lot is flying e75s
DeleteLOT is mostly transfers and Dubai is an attractive destination in itself
DeleteFlyDubai is performing quite well in LJU.
DeleteIt's just unfortunate it took so long to bring Flydubai in the first place.
DeleteWould be interesting to compare to the performance on their ZAG route.
Delete60% LF on DXB route with a narrow body? It's far from "not bad at all".
DeleteThis LF is probably impacted from the beginning of the year. It was calculated it was around 70% later in the year.
DeleteIt's a brand new route. It needs time to develop.
DeleteSure it does. :) It's not like people don't know about it already. The matter of a fact is, you have cheaper/better connections from VCE.
DeleteActually the DXB LF is getting worse, from September is around 40% or even less... I hope their plans are long term and they will not give up too early.
DeleteAnnon 9:58 this is not possible, otherwise the yearly LF wouldn't be 60%. This would mean it had to be 100% during summer. Do the math.
DeleteI am booked on a flight LJU-DXB on 31 March. Paid around 470 EUR per ticket return (3 tickets total). Checked yesterday and the tickets on the same dates are selling for over 700 EUR. Figured they are probably doing quite well on the route?
DeleteLJU was the cheapest (direct) option when booking, compared to ZAG, VCE or MUC.
As someone who flys on the route fairly regulary, i can tell you that the LF is anywhere from 50% to 90%, the business class is almost always at 75%
DeleteLoad factors per quarters: Q1 little over 70%, Q2 40-45%, Q3 around 60%, Q4 60-70%
DeleteReally interesting to see the passenger numbers. I think things will improve at LJU this year. Let's see.
ReplyDeleteLet's hope so.
DeleteOf course it will improve, but is this improvement gonna be on same level as on other airports? I doubt this will happen without national carrier.
DeleteTrue
DeleteI would say Air Serbia did relatively well considering the restrictions in Q1. Will they be able to overtake pre-Covid levels this year?
ReplyDeleteThey will overtake 2019 this year.
DeleteLet me illustrate with simple fact: it is not uncommon that there more flights per hour with destinstion PRN, that LJU in whole day….
ReplyDeleteTrue unfortunately. Remember the days when LJU was in ex-Yu's top 3 busiest airports.
DeleteYes but it wasn't that LJU was that good, it was just that the others were that bad.
DeleteAir France did really well
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteConsidering how much money Lufthansa gets from the taxpayers, they should be number 1.
ReplyDeleteIt is peanuts all things considered. Like a million euros per year.
DeleteOne million for 2 flights a day on a small plane is a lot.
DeleteThey would have to fly for 50 years to get to just one state injection that Adria got.
DeleteLufthansa paid off everything that they got for the pandemic from the state
DeleteHas Lufthansa started using Airbuses on the Ljubljana route?
ReplyDeleteThey use ther flagship CRJ900. Interesting that people who complained about Adria using CRJ900 don't complain about LH. Double standards and mentality that everything thats foreign is better.
DeleteMade me chuckle. But you are correct
DeleteNot correct. During summer on both routs LH used A319, during winter FRA is served with CRJ900, MUC with mixed CRJ900, E95 and A319/320.
DeleteDepending on the traffic load/operational reasons, Adria used to fly with A319 to FRA/MUC as well. But yes, if LH charges 300€+ for a ticket to FRA it's alright, when it was Adria, it was the most expensive ticket out there. Go figure.
DeleteIt's not alright if they charge that kind of money, but the prices now can't be compared to 10 years ago. Everything is ridiculously expensive and there is less competition.
DeleteAdria at least used jetbridges with crj900, lufty won't do it no matter wheather conditions
DeleteI would like to see Eurowings start flights next from the LH group.
ReplyDeleteI find it very interesting that Eurowings has done nothing in LJU.
Deletethey have done nothing in bigger german markets in ExYu then LJU
DeleteWith Fraport in charge at LJU, Lufthansa will be dominating for many many years.
ReplyDeleteStop with the conspiracy! LJU is the best managed airport in EX-YU.
DeleteWhy aren't LH group airlines dominate all the other airports Fraport operates?
DeleteI would say best managed airport in World! :)
DeleteOr even Universe 😃
DeleteThe UK market was once number 1 from LJU. What happened?.
ReplyDeleteCovid and Brexit.
DeleteDon't forget that Lufthansa's entry on Slovenian market has impacted UK airlines in Slovenia. LH has quite a few transfers to the UK.
DeleteGlad to see Lufthansa doing well in Ljubljana.
ReplyDeleteIs this sarcastic or? :D
DeleteLol
DeleteI don't know what lufty considers "doing well", but it's a really staff's-nerves-unfriendly airline. Would avoid it as a pap either.
DeleteWaiting for the day Wizz or Ryanair become Ljubljana's number 1 airline :)
ReplyDeleteDon't think it will happen any time soon.
DeleteLet's wait and see. You might be surprised :)
Deletečiči pa čaki, izgljedaj ljubko
DeleteSwiss' numbers are a bit disappointing tbh.
ReplyDeleteI don't think they flew during the first quarter but not 100% sure.
DeleteToo expensive for Slovenians too low number working low paid jobs as Serbs and Albanians. Probably mostly transfers.
DeleteDon't forget that ZRH was one of the best routes for JP (operating 3 times per day).
DeleteTransfers from Tirana and Pristina.
DeleteOf course, those transfers again, with like 10 direct flight from ZRH to PRN per day. In addition that would mean that average yield would be very low but ZRH had one of the highest yield among other routes within JP. There were transfers as every legacy airlines have them, but not 80% as some of you claim.
DeleteAnd LX sends widebody airplanes four times a day. Most of flights to CH are now with Croatian companies.
DeleteWhich destinations should LJU get once the gov iniciatives come?
ReplyDeleteHopefully Madrid and Stockholm at least.
DeleteBucharest and Vienna too
DeleteIs there really demand for Vienna? I kind of think Austrian would have started it if there were.
DeleteFlights to Berlin would be welcome. Easyjet did well on BER-LJU route but were forced to suspend it along with several others.
DeleteJP flew there double daily so there is demand
DeleteStill amazed and stunned about those Dubai flights. It seemed there was huge demand for this route. Number of passengers might even surpass Serbia given the route launch date. Which could possibly mean either frequency increases or EK deploying larger planes to LJU. 50 thousand is a pretty solid figure given the size and traffic in LJU.
ReplyDeleteIt might be possible that there is demand to Abu Dhabi as well.
Yet again, still think LJU definitely needs more UK flights and more London airports. The demand is clearly there. It has the typical demand on many other EU airports with various UK connections.
MAN, BHX, LPL, EDI and ski flights in winter.
Babett has some more work to do.
Ljubljana surely has a large untaped potential in vacation rutes; Iberia, Africa still missing
DeleteUK P2P flights and more leisure destinations. I would add Jordan and especially Israel. Israel is a very important market.
Deletestunned about LF of 60%?
DeleteThat is the LF average across the entire year which also included several months of travel restrictions in Slovenia due to Covid.
DeleteI hope we will see more new airlines and routes.
ReplyDeleteDon't hold your breath. There is a grand total of 1 new route this summer which is catastrophic.
DeleteWe will see. Finnair already increased the frequency but the route wasn't even launched yet
DeleteHow did they increase frequency? It is 3 per week, increasing to 4 weekly in high season as originally planned.
DeleteWe need a national airline
ReplyDeleteLoads are quite good all things considered
ReplyDeleteAir Montenegro did well
ReplyDeleteBring airBaltic, bring Iberia and wake up sleepy Easyjet for trunk routes to Paris, Brussels, London.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteIs there demand from the Baltics to Ljubljana?
DeleteI dont know why Slovenians always complain .
ReplyDeleteLjubljana got always flights other would never hear of .
For example Madrid with Iberia or Japan Airlines charters .
Can you imagine them ever flying to Belgrade ?
Comment like this could only come from analyst-neighbour trying to provoke some kind of tension between LJU ans BEG fans. It won't work, we recognze your jealousy.
DeleteBelgrade has flights to five destinations in Spain by two airlines and year-round scheduled services to the US and China by two airlines.
LJU will keep growing so passengers won't have to cross border and fly from your airport.