Austrian Airlines is considering operations between Vienna and Ljubljana, three and a half years since services between the two cities were last maintained. The Austrian capital is one of the destinations the Slovenian government will subsidise for an airline that is willing to launch operations from either Ljubljana, Maribor or Portorož. “We continue to assess Ljubljana as a potential destination within our network. Currently, we offer our Ljubljana passengers an alternative to Vienna through Klagenfurt”, the Austrian carrier said. Following the demise of Adria Airways in September 2019, and the discontinuation of flights to Vienna as a result, Ljubljana Airport said it anticipated for services to the Austrian capital to be restored during the 2020 summer season, however, the pandemic altered those plans.
The Lufthansa Group was quick to respond to the collapse of Adria Airways in 2019 by covering key routes served by the former Slovenian flag carrier and ensuring the continued flow of transfer passengers through its hubs. Lufthansa commenced operations from Munich and Frankfurt, Brussels Airlines from the Belgian capital and Swiss from Zurich. However, Austrian Airlines has notably skipped the opportunity to introduce services between Vienna and Ljubljana, despite passenger figures indicating there is solid demand. Services to the Austrian capital were one of Adria’s better performing routes, with double daily flights maintained over the summer months and an average of around 60.000 passengers per year.
Ljubljana - Vienna route passenger performance
Adria Airways relied on transfer passengers between the two, both those headed or originating from regional markets such as Kosovo, Albania, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as those originating or heading to Ljubljana from other destinations in Europe and North America. However, a sizable number of travellers were still point-to-point. Notably an additional 10.925 people flew indirectly between the two capital cities in 2019, although this was mostly generated in the third and fourth quarters when Adria was cancelling a number of flights before ultimately declaring bankruptcy. Austrian Airlines had previously operated its own flights to Ljubljana, discontinuing its daily service at the end of the 2005 summer season. Adria Airways then increased its operations to the Austrian capital, maintaining four daily rotations until the 2009 global financial crisis. In its final summer season of 2019, Adria Airways served Vienna twice a day.
Crazy there are no flights between Ljubljana and Vienna.
ReplyDeleteIf 60k pax is not enough for them, than i don't know what is
DeleteYields are most important, not necessarily passenger numbers.
DeleteIt's OS's stupid idea of thinking that people from Slovenia will just drive to Klagenfurt to use their flights. Austria has been always treating Slovenia as a 3rd world country.
DeletePerhaps if SLO stopped acting like one our neighbours might begin to treat us as such, too!
DeleteUnfortunately, what I have noticed is that Slovenians are very much willing to fly from neighboring airports. Even when there is a nonstop flight from Ljubljana many will drive to another airport to save a few euros a fare.
DeleteIf you have 1h drive to LJU and 1h drive to ZAG/TRS or a bit more to Venice/Treviso and tickets are way cheaper than in LJU, then the choice is clearly visible.
DeleteI'm trying to figure this and it could be a thing of mentality that amuses me: Slovenians prefer to drive 1-2 hours (it's not like they have a choice but usually they do save money) rather than paying some debts of national company through some collective fund that is filled by all Slovenians (state budget)? Would that be bottom line general public opinion on this matter?
DeleteCorrect me if I am wrong but i think Klagenfurt is even less connected to the rest of Europe than Lljubljana. How on earth, OS ithinks that someone who wishes to fly for example to the US will choose Klagenfurt over Ljubljana??? First of all, you have to drive for 1 hour or more depending on the traffic. You have to pay for the parking. You still have to take at least 2-3 flights to get anywhere in the US or Canada. How is this convenient? Not to mention the prices they charge. OS has been playing some protectionist game with Klagenfurt and avoiding Ljubljana on purpose. I am so happy to see JU getting stronger and taking away their market in the region, including Slovenia.
DeleteReally hope they will start flights to Ljubljana but I'm wondering if Vienna was put in there for Ryanair.
ReplyDeleteOr Wizz Air
DeleteYou think an A320 would work on this route?!
DeleteVIE was out there with Austrian in mind. See the selection criteria.
DeleteAn 09:53 well Adria flew 2 times a day usually one eith crj900 and one with A319 and you see that the passenger numbers aren’t low. However I still think that daily E195 is perfect for this route but if there are wizz A320 flights I think that they wouldn’t be empty
DeleteAgree completely with last anon.
DeleteFrom 60,000+ passengers per year to 0
ReplyDeleteAnd not just Vienna but many routes. And then people argue we don't need a national airline.
DeleteAnd LJU did nothing to find alternatives.
DeleteTypical...
DeleteWhat alternative could you find for a nonstop Vienna flight? Austrian obviously did not want to fly to Vienna. The only alternative is either Lauda or Wizz which have bases in Vienna and both have made their reasons vocal why they don't fly to Ljubljana.
DeleteEven if those two or at least one flew to LJU I doubt we would see them on this route as they don't have the right aircraft. The A320 is too big for just P2P pax.
DeleteTheir Dash 8s would have been perfect for this route. Now their smallest plane is Embreaer which still ahs 120 seats.
ReplyDeleteSurely an Embraer could work at least a couple of days per week.
DeleteYes, but sometimes customers want more frequency vs capacity.
DeleteEmbraer is much cheaper to operate than Dash despite having more seats.
DeleteDoes anyone remember what aircraft they used when they flew to Ljubljana in the early 2000s?
ReplyDeleteFokkers
DeleteThanks. Forgot they had Fokkers in the fleet.
DeleteThey had Fokker 50s, 70s and 100s but to LJU they flew with F70s.
DeleteFormer Tyrolean planes.
DeleteAustrian used to have an excellent feeder fleet and was able to fly to places like Mostar and Banja Luka because of it.
DeletePerfect fleet of gas guzzlers. There is a reason they got rid of them.
DeleteIf Adria flew twice a day with CRJs then there is no excuse for not having at least daily E195 flight between Ljubljana and Vienna.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteIt's not about the 62K but about the p2p passengers, how many did JP have? If 50%, than LJUVIELJU would be 85 per day. Thats not enough for an Embraer 195
DeleteIf Adria flew twice a day *with a loss*... then there are a lot of excuses for not flying. Remember, costs and air fares are fixed. I could sell 1 million seats from PRN to JFK for 100 USD each but that does not make the route sustainable or profitable simply because I sell 1 million seats.
DeleteFast train would be more helpful..financially and environmentally friendlier.
Deleteof course let the Austrians run it and do the job..ministry of transport Slovenia too slow with evrrything
With the green politics dominating in Austria, I doubt we will see them start Ljubljana,
ReplyDeleteThe goverment does not tell OS where to fly- OS is a private company.
DeleteAnd you also may wanna update your file: Austrian politics is dominated by conservative parties.
They fly to Klagenfurt which is closer than LJU.
DeleteIt isnt that close...
DeleteThey have flights from Vienna to Graz, so much for Greens dominating.
DeleteVienna transfer network is much different from FRA/MUC, more oriented to the east and it was a great added value.
ReplyDeleteCan't you just use JU now? They also have a pretty good network in Eastern Europe.
DeleteThe east is not just the Eastern Europe.
Delete"pretty good" debatable when you compare it to TK
DeleteJU is the best in ex yu judging by connections but nowhere near TK or OS and the others
DeleteAustrian is becoming smaller and smaller. Unfortunate impact of being a Lufthansa stepchild.
DeleteI think LH has imposed this on OS so they can remain the more dominant German airline in the airport.
ReplyDeletelol
Deletelol indeed. the conspiracy lovers
DeleteThe reason Austrian didn't start flights to Ljubljana when Adria collapsed is because they had no spare capacity and their winter scheduled for 2019/20 was already set and they didn't have additional aircraft. Then came corona and they never came around to starting Ljubljana. With these discounts it is possible that they add LJU or at least, like they say, asses it.
ReplyDeleteThen why didn't they add the flights this summer?
DeleteWhy would they if the government was announcing they would subsidize flights through a tender, which, thanks to the government was 6 months too late.
DeleteThere is any Austrian Airlines bus from Klagenfurt to Ljubljana too?
ReplyDeleteThere is no OS bus. You have Alpe Adria line conneting Klagenfurt and Ljubljana (via Ljubljana airport), but schedule doesn't fit OS flights to VIE.
DeleteLJU-VIE only worked because JP flew the route at a loss.
ReplyDeleteWell now the government will cover 50% of the costs so it could be profitable.
Delete50% of the airport tax is far from 50% of costs.
DeleteTrue, my mistake
DeleteMaybe its too early for them too?
ReplyDeleteAs I am no aviation expert can someone please explain to me how come ZAG can handle 2 daily flights to VIE per day, and LJU 0 at the moment?
ReplyDeleteBecause its a much larger city and the drive to Vienna is far.
DeleteDrive to Vienna from Zagreb is three and a half hours. It has to do with the size of the city and the distance, but main reason in my opinion is much more transfer passengers from Zagreb to other cities in OS network, which OU failed to take care of
DeleteWould love to see them back in Ljubljana! Minimum connex time in VIE is 30min. The airport is not too big. That makes VIE very attractive to transfer.
ReplyDelete+1
Delete“We continue to assess Ljubljana as a potential destination within our network. Currently, we offer our Ljubljana passengers an alternative to Vienna through Klagenfurt”
ReplyDeleteIn other words:
We will not further diminish the viability of Klagenfurt by introducing flights to Ljubljana.
Its a huge pitty that VIE cant be used any more as a hub. AUA is also the star aliance member, so for those collecting miles, loss of link is surelly a loss.
ReplyDeleteYou can connect the same miles with LH from LJU
DeleteAnd as somebody said above: VIE is nice, clean, comfortable and easy to transfer.
DeleteI agree that VIE is much more practical for transfers than the German LH hubs - especially Frankfurt.
DeleteYes. Love MUC and VIE.
DeleteFast train Vienna..Ljubljana..Trieste..like the times of K u K
DeleteI wonder if anyone from Ljubljana uses Klagenfurt to fly to Vienna.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure there are some passengers here and there
DeleteIn sure some do. I used to use Ryanir flights to London from Klagenfurt for access to Slovenia.
DeleteI did a few times after Adria collapse. But from pandemic recovery I don't use it any more, mostly because Austrian discontinued the second morning flight to VIE (was departing 8:20 if I remember correctly). 6:00 is just to early and the road conditions are risky during the night in winter period. But I miss VIE hub a lot...
DeleteInteresting. I did notice that they have reduced flights. I remember there being triple daily flights in winter 2019/20. Now I think there are 2 daily or 10 weekly.
DeleteI noticed just now that even the 6:00 KLU-VIE flight is gone.
DeleteWhy isn't there some fast rail between Vienna and Ljubljana??
ReplyDeleteWhy isnt there a moonbase? I mean things take time. The road links are great and the railways follow Habsburg routes and wouldnt be used as much as roads are.
DeleteI know but considering Slovenia and Austria are in the EU, both countries are very developed and neighbor each other I would have thought there would be a good rail link between them.
DeleteI dont think reations between them are that good tbh but I dont want to step into the field of politics now. And there is defo less demand for travel from AUT into Slovakia and Slovenia then to ITA and D
Delete@ 11:47
DeleteDefinitely less? Care to provide some statistics? If you had actually done your research, you’d see that there are plenty of tourists travelling between AT and SI. Not to mention businesspeople!
Hope the subsidies will convince them to start flights.
ReplyDeleteFingers crossed.
DeleteP2P would have few pax, transit is well covered via FRA and MUC, I can't see that viable on a commercial profit bases.
ReplyDeleteIn 2018/19 only 18% pax were P2P. The strongest transfers were to SOF, TXL, KBP, PRG, OTP, TLV and LCA. So we need OS, not FR or W6 on that route to recover the network.
ReplyDeleteAnd it can still work. Notably none of those routes are included in the governmens subsidy program.
DeleteThat 18% is ridiculous, when JP flew to VIE there was always between 40-50 % (depend on month) of PTP traffic. What was different from FRA/MUC/ZRH is that VIE did not have any long haul traffic, but on other hand there was higher percentage of short haul transfer passenger but still PTP share was much higher than 18%.
DeleteWell, your feeling is wrong. 18% is the statistic from Jan18-Sep19. Be aware that not all pax traveling to VIE as final destination were P2P - there were many transfers from the Balkans as well (like PRN-LJU-VIE, TIA-LJU-VIE).
DeleteAdria was useless company without market. Hard to swallow.
DeleteLooking at how many passengers Ljubljana had when Adria was around and how many it has now, I would not say it is useless.
DeleteI think the government put VIE on the list purely to attract Austrian.
ReplyDeleteand why not
DeleteI don't see a problem. Lufthansa and Swiss also benefited from the subsidies. Hell, Swiss even got subsidies for flights it didn't operate.
DeleteOS info
DeleteOS is definitey not interested in operating VIE-LJU. So any hopes that OS will restore operations in near future are unnecessary.
ReplyDeleteElaborate this statement pls.
DeleteOS info
DeleteOS is not interested to fly to LJU because they are becoming smaller and smaller Airline.
ReplyDeleteIt would be fantastic if they restored flights. Fingers crossed.
ReplyDeleteWho flies between Klagenfurt and Vienna? Is there really demand but none from Ljubljana?
ReplyDeleteUm it is a domestic route so there certainly is demand.
DeleteIf you compare these figures from the past with the figures the Vienna route has from other ex-Yu cities, it is still the lowest
ReplyDeletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2023/04/two-ex-yu-capitals-see-complete.html
Take into consideration that Ljubljana is the closest to Vienna out of the lot of them.
Deleteand well connected via highway and for the longest period with no border.
Delete