airBaltic plans to commence flights between Riga and Ljubljana during the 2024 summer season, which begins on March 31. The carrier was also the only one to apply for the Slovenian government’s public call aimed at improving the country’s air connectivity in return for subsidies. The state commission for the granting of aid will now determine if airBaltic meets all the set requirements. The new service will mark the first time Riga and Ljubljana have been linked with a scheduled air service. Although the Slovenian government’s efforts to attract carriers by offering subsidies has resulted in a new entrant onto the market, it will be considered a disappointment considering the low interest shown by the aviation sector.
airBaltic recently hinted at its interest in the Slovenian market. In an interview, the airline’s Vice President for Network Development, Mantas Vrubliauskas, said, “I think we can all agree that air connectivity in Slovenia should be improved, but I am not sure if a national carrier is the answer. The forces within the EU’s single aviation market will inevitably lead to the consolidation of airlines, and only the fittest carriers will survive. Having said that, economic development is so closely linked to air connectivity, and countries should do more to increase it. I think it is difficult to solve this, but countries should find legal mechanisms to incentivise airlines (for example, PSO schemes or similar), they should invest into airports and make them commercially attractive, and they should also do a lot of destination marketing. I think Slovenia is doing quite a lot already in all of these areas, and I sincerely hope they will soon see the results”. He added, “Slovenia is definitely interesting for us too, and I think A220s is the right aircraft type for this market”. LOT Polish Airlines has benefited the most from Ljubljana’s lack of connectivity to the Baltic states, with Tallinn, Vilnius and Riga all ranking highly with connecting passengers on its Ljubljana service. airBaltic has expanded its presence in the region this year with the launch of new routes to Belgrade, Tivat, Split and Dubrovnik.
This is the second public call the Slovenian government has issued for airlines to launch flights to the country in return for subsidies. During the first call earlier this year two carriers applied – Luxair and Air Montenegro. The latter, which already serves Ljubljana from Podgorica and Tivat, intended on linking the Slovenian capital with several regional destinations but has shelved such plans under new management. On the other hand, Luxair will commence services from Luxembourg this September. Despite airBaltic being the only carrier to apply for the second public call, a third one will be launched this November. The government is considering the establishment of a new national carrier with a private partner from the aviation industry and plans to reveal more details on the matter this autumn.
What this result is is a pathway to the new national carrier. It makes pitching to the EU Union very easy, and the general public is slowly starting to realize that Slovenia really isn't connected.
ReplyDeleteI myself was at least hoping for KLM, EasyJet, but to get 0 out of 10 priority destinations from two tenders speaks for itself...
The “general public”, at least the one that I speak to, work with and live with, is absolutely livid with the way things are being run in Slovenia and would never, ever approve of throwing even more state money into bottomless pits, which is what a national carrier for a country of Slovenia’s size would be! It’s the LCCs that could benefit the public the most, yet a national airline is what we are looking for? No, no, no. What this is is an attempt at grabbing even more money from the average Joe through already record high taxes. Few people will benefit enourmously while most people, already poorly off, will pay for it. This is at least the Slovenia I live in! The rest of us will still have to use the LCCs at Zagreb or Venice, like we have done so far. No, thank you for a country like this. And no arguments break through you guys calling for a national carrier. It’s like you’re in a trans: national carrier, national carrier. Do you even fly??? Do you realise what most people flying today use? It’s Ryanair!
DeleteDidn't know Ryanair is the only airline in the world!
DeleteDear lord, when will people realise that everyone's experience and needs are different. Don't live only in your bubble of like-minded people. For everyone wanting to fly Legacy, you have someone wanting to fly LCC, and someone wanting to fly with National Carrier. It's nothing wrong. Don't use absolute statements. The facts are that air connectivity is not great, something needs to be done about it, but spreading overall negativity is doing no one any good.
DeleteI don't think Luxembourgians are complaining thair government is throwing any money in endless pit, yet they benefit of nice connectivity. Luxembourg is 4-5 times smaller than Slovenia. They have small and efficient turboprops and they are able to fly even to places like Slovenia. With profit!
DeleteBut do you think Slovenians, with Balkan mentall, would fly their national carrier using turboprops?! Noooowaaay.
We should learn from the best in class and they certainly know how to earn money in Luxembourg.
@11:39 I agree with everything that u said. We all like the idea of having a national carrier, but at the end the most important thing for us when we travel is to have a direct flight. Some of us want to spend more money on a good product, while most of us just want to find the cheapest ticket which is totally normal. Again, at the end we all want a direct flight from the nearest airport. I dont think that Slovenia needs a national carrier, but more direct routes by different carriers. With this model there will be more competition and more choises for the travelers, plus the government and the people wont spend lots of money in order to support the national carrier.
DeleteSorry, but the last comment omits a big fact. Luxair operationally is loss making, but it is owned by the Luxembourg airport, which is very profitable, so they offset Luxair's losses.
Delete@11:39 - If most people would use Ryanair as you have stated, then Ryanair would have huge monopoly in the aviation. In 2022, major airlines transpored approx. 810mil passengers in total in Europe. Out of those approx. 810mil - Ryanair accounted for 160.4mil passengers. That means Ryanair transported around 20% of all the passengers that flew with major European airlines in 2022. The data is available to everyone with few easy clicks to Wikipedia.
DeleteAnon 13:42 Exactly! And Slovenia should do the same. But when this idea was on the table in Slovenia were not capable to negotiate. One company would mean half of power and influence, so the two playgrounds stayed separately and now there is none.
Delete" Air Montenegro. The latter, which already serves Ljubljana from Podgorica and Tivat, intended on linking the Slovenian capital with several regional destinations but has shelved such plans under new management."
ReplyDeleteWe were all thinking Mark was the reason for them applying, oh boy were we wrong
Even he learned that flying out of LJU is unprofitable. And people here are calling for a national carrier! Good grief!
DeleteBravo 11:42! Air Montenegro should teach Luxair and AirBaltic on how to be profitable!
DeleteI think that the fact almost no airline is applying for the subsidies shows us a lot how the market demand is very small for p2p traffic. Sure we'd all like better direct connections, but if bigger airlines can't make them work, how would a small national carrier? It's just bound to fail again and sink millions into the ground and select few pockets.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is that national carrier is there to protect national interests at the start (it's in the name), you need to differ between big players (KLM,LH,LOT,JU) and smaller ones (Luxair, AirMontenegro etc.)
DeleteThe carrier planned for Slovenia would serve to fill the gap, where the routes (or even frequencies) are needed, but the yields are too small for big players to cover them.
It's really a matter of overall image not just the profitability on the routes directly.
Try to buy bread with your image then, when your wallet is empty and not only that, you owe money to others, huge amounts even. What a stupid answer. Profitability is the number 1 important thing within any company. How will you pay for employees, planes, services, fuel? EU is very strict with government injections of money, so that's out of the question.
DeleteWhat is not profitable for an airline, might be profitable for the state in general.
DeleteExactly anon 11.11.
DeleteI guess people expect everyone to fly A380 to Ljubljana. There are beautiful, elegant and cost efficient turboprops, but hey, we are too good to fly turboprops, no?!
Delete@12:32 Yes they just love the idea of having a good national carrier with the most modern planes of course A320 family, but they will probably never fly with them. Turboprops? What a shame for Slovenia! Why would we want to prove the truth that turboprops have the perfect capacity for such country, i mean Adria used to fly three times per day to FRA with CRJ9 and A319!!!
DeleteBravo Fraport!
ReplyDeleteThe funny thing this has absolutely nothing to do with Fraport. Air Baltic is coming because of state subsidies. State subsidies so a private company (Fraport) can benefit.
DeleteWell to be honest, Fraport also is offering 70% discount for anyone opening new routes, so that helps...it's just that the yields are too small for airline to risk it
DeleteExactly, so the state subsidies are almost insignificant. 70% discount and the state covers an additional 15% (50% of the remaining 30%). I don't know why that support was made such a big deal out of. Aircraft, crew, fuel etc. are huge costs for an airline. The state paying 15% of the airport charges in LJU is tiny and is not going to make any airline want to take a bigger risk. They need to already believe in the business case without that support.
DeleteMoney talk's. Hope for year arround timetable. Perfect to Hel via Riga.
DeleteLeave something for others 😝
ReplyDeleteWell it will be nice to have flights to Riga.
ReplyDeleteNot good news for LOT.
ReplyDeleteDepends, if there are 2 weekly flights at impossible hours (like 8pm) it doesn't make a difference for many.
DeleteLot has perfect timetable for check-ins and check-outs from hotels
If in response LOT were to reduce flights to LJU, it would indeed be a great achievement for the subsidies scheme:)
DeleteI heard LOT is planning morning departures soon, so let's wait and see!
DeleteThat would be great
DeleteInteresting development. This probably means they won't start flights to Zagreb even though ZAG is offering incentives to an airline to launch Riga.
ReplyDeleteI'm starting to believe more and more that Zagreb would be preforming worse than Ljubljana (percentage wise) if not for Rynair, and even they are scaling down
DeleteStop hating, Croatia including Zagreb has more demand for passengers than Slovenia ever will.
DeleteNo one is saying that demand in Croatia isn't larger. Because it of course is. What people are saying is that Zagreb is underpreforming. Let's take Flydubai, BA Finnair for example - they all are reducing frequencies whilst nearby airports are increasing them
DeleteIt's not hate, it's just LJU pulling its act together and actually reducing the number of passengers leaving for other airports in the region.
DeleteWe all saw how well airlines like flydubai, British Airways, Turkish Airlines, Air Serbia... all perform in LJU. Finnair even does better in LJU than they do in ZAG!
Anonymous 9:14, so, considering this huge demand from Lj and Slovenia, how comes there is 0 interest from other companies to establish a base? Slovenes love to travel but you are underestimating Zagreb. Just check who flies there and then compare it with Lj.
DeleteThe "underperforming" airport had one of the best recovery rates in 2022 and will be one of the few airports having surpassed 2019 level this year.
DeleteSometimes you need to accept, instead of going insane.
yes we are looking to get connections like Barcelona, Madrid, Lissabon, Porto, Milan, Dublin and get Riga. Riga is super but way to small market to bring us PAX. :( a shame.
ReplyDeleteVilnius is more super, sorry :D Most enjoyable of all 3 Baltic capitals, imo. Kaunas is also very nice and looks like a German city.
DeleteDepends of personal preferences, for me by far the most interesting of the 3 Baltic capitals is Tallinn.
Deleteair Baltic is such an interesting airline. Coming from such a small country and a large and very well organised fleet compared to its population and yet have an amazing coverage. Absolutely incredible are the Baltic people, so different from the Balkan mentality. Well done LJU.
ReplyDeleteAir Baltic received Latvian state aid in 2010 and 2011, then in 2020 (250 million euro) and again in 2022 (11,6 million euro + 33,4 millon euro). Absolutely incredible.
DeleteLiterally every national carrier received financial aid during those times, but you don’t hear these criticisms for AF or LH. Fact is that AirBaltic is extremely well run, with a large number of destinations which greatly helps with the connectivity of such a small place like Latvia. This benefits Latvian economy greatly, because of the huge amount of foreign investment it has received in the last decade or so.
DeleteWonder how many frequencies they will have
ReplyDelete2 weekly for sure.
DeleteWe don't deserve them here.
ReplyDeleteWhy the hell not? lol
DeleteNo new routes - we complain
DeleteNew routes - we complain
Yesterday there were like 150 comments on this topic on both 24ur and rtv and not a single one was positive. Even on Luxair topic it was the same. We complain about everything and the more I'm thinking, more I'm sure that its because of our mentality we are lagging behind whole region.
Ann 9:30, the thing is that most of the general public have no idea why air connectivity is important and all they see is "waste of my money"...so air connectivity is hard to pitch to common folks
Deletehave in mind that halve of the negative comments are from people that comment negatively under every article for every airport
DeleteNice to get another legacy carrier in LJU!
ReplyDeleteBT has been building a serious hub for years now. Good addition.
ReplyDeleteGood alternative for transfers to CPH, ARN, OSL.
ReplyDeleteIs there really demand between Slovenia and the Baltics?
ReplyDeleteFlight will be 90% for transfers to Scandinavia.
Delete+10% p2p
DeleteFor Stockholm, maybe, but Oslo and Copenhagen via Riga is a bit of a detour compared to connecting in for example Frankfurt or Warsaw.
DeleteIs it still possible for them to open a base in LJU. If so, how many aircraft could they base and which destinations to operate.
ReplyDeleteIs it possible? Yes
DeleteWill they do it? No
It will happen only if Slovenia pays for it, but I think they aren't looking for that rn
Only Riga?
DeleteThey didn't say anything about whether Luxair took subsidies.
ReplyDelete"V prvem roku razpisa je bil za upravičenca do pomoči izbran le prevoznik Luxair, ki bo zagotavljal novo letalsko progo Luksemburg – Ljubljana – Luksemburg dvakrat tedensko v obdobju od 14. septembra 2023 do 14. septembra 2025."
DeleteThey did.
Delete09:00
DeleteThank you
09:36*
DeleteI will say it again that there is no need for a national carrier.
ReplyDeleteFRA, MUC - restored.
ZRH - Swiss, restored.
BRU - SN
PRN - IV
SKP - W6
AMS - HV
CDG - AF, HV( ORY)
TGD - MNE
There is no point from Tirana, Pristina and Sarajevo - there are no transfers.
Charters to Greece and Turkey - C3.
I will say it again that there is no need for a national carrier.
ReplyDeleteFRA, MUC - restored.
ZRH - Swiss, restored.
BRU - SN
PRN - IV
SKP - W6
AMS - HV
CDG - AF, HV( ORY)
TGD - MNE
There is no point from Tirana, Pristina and Sarajevo - there are no transfers.
Charters to Greece and Turkey - C3.
TIA - W6 via Triest.
DeleteYou are delusional
DeleteThe only problem you have here is that there were 10 priority destinations and none of them got filled
DeleteSKP is a paid route though and makes sense.
Delete@9.47 lmao 7euro paid route?. most stupid thing I have ever read here.
DeleteSKP its the only destination from the priority list that has actually demand from LJu
DeleteYes, 7 euros per passenger. There is a reason it is given.
Deletehavent heard you saying the same for RIG ...
Deleteif lowering half of the pax tax is equal to "paid route" then LJU would have had all destinations they wanted and not only LJU
DeleteFRA - restored
DeleteMUC - partly restored, daily morning flight missing
ZRH - Swiss, partly restored, morning flight missing
BRU - SN - not restored, schedule not useful for P2P pax
PRN - IV - restored ip to the demand
SKP - W6 - will hopely be restored up to the demand
AMS - HV - partly restored, the route would survive higher frequency
CDG - AF, HV( ORY) - restored, but the route will be degraded as the morning flight is cancelled in W/S24
TGD - MNE - restored
There is no point from Tirana, Pristina and Sarajevo - there are no transfers. - there is good demand for PRN, true for TIA and SJJ. What is still missing is Scandinavia - OSL, CPH, ARL and Iberian - MAD, BCN and even LIS. The post-COVID demand is very high here.
For those who think that there is even one route restored I reccommend that they immediately step out of aviation business. Even FRA is not restored completelly, not to mention all other routes.
DeleteFor those who think that the routes will be restored as they were during JP, no, they will not, even if a new airline is established through a public-private partnership to ensure the profitability of the routes. The routes would only be renewed if profitability didn't matter. Most of the profitable and interesting routes have already been renewed, but there is still room for a new airline, especially if it is strongly connected to at least one of the key players in the European aviation industry. Otherwise, no company will be profitable, given the limited opportunities in niche market. And yes, while we desire greater connectivity, it won't happen unless the routes can be made profitable, as the state financing that existed during JP's time will no longer be possible due to EU regulations.
Deletelet's wait and see, but when (not if) national carrier will be established, some of the routes will be completelly restored, not partially as FRA is currently. Regarding profitability we could talk for months as it's not everything black and white. Most of the routes could be profitable if certain conditions would be in favour of carrier (lower airport fees, fuel, etc etc).
Deleteso much for the SJJ fanboys and A3
ReplyDeletethere is only one solution to this mess - state should take over LJU and install competent management.
ReplyDeletelmao
DeleteI heard that in 2012 there were talks about merging Ljubljana Airport and Adria Airways to balance the losses - so airport being profitable would cover for Adria losses... If they did that back then, Slovenian aviation would prosper
ReplyDeletehttps://www.planespotters.net/airline/Elitavia-Malta
ReplyDeleteHas anyone seen this!!!!😯😯😯😯😯😯
This airline is headquartered in Slovenia. First Jumbo ;)))
Sadly that all Slovenian airlines operate in other countries...
I think they just have a company in Slovenia, but it's not their HQ
Deletesorry but LJU is just doing fine
ReplyDeleteLately there were quite some positive news for ljubljana!
DeleteYes amazing. It currently has the biggest decline in traffic among European capital airports behind Kiev.
Deletedude please learn english. i wrote positive news not positive results ... jesus some people are just ...
DeleteI was responding to the comment at 10:32, not yours.
Deleteand I will repeat : Yes LJU is doing just fine. If you looking for the inflated JP times keep on looking
DeleteInflated? You are suggesting the demand then was somehow fake? Crazy what you can read.
DeleteWith 20-30% transfer traffic.
DeleteStop spreading the false data. Transfer at LJU was only 15% of all pax in 2018.
DeleteThis would be a very nice addition, however, I was really hoping for some key destionations to be covered in this public call.
ReplyDeletenice addition but the amazing disinterest in slovenian tenders at all :D
ReplyDeleteI like the variety of airlines in LJU.
ReplyDeleteAround 21 airlines flying to Ljubljana, right?
DeleteI'm not sure but I think that currently there are 20, well in fact 18 (Wizz air and Wizz air UK, Transavia and Transavia France) with regular flights (Luxair will be the 21st) and 8 charter airlines.
Delete21
DeleteLufthansa
Swiss
Brussels Airlines
Trade Air
Turkish Airlines
Air Serbia
EasyJet
Wizz Air
British Airways
Transavia
Air France
flydubai
GP Aviation
Air Montenegro
Finnair
Aegean Airlines
Luxair
AirBaltic
LOT Polish Airlines
Israir
EL AL
Trade air doesn’t have regular flights and El Al doesn’t fly to LJU, Sun d'Or, wholly owned subsidiary of El Al is. Luxair starts in September and AirBaltic only next summer. So, Anon 18:11 figures are correct.
DeleteFantastic. Can't wait to try them and discover the Baltics.
ReplyDeleteI thought the subsidy scheme only was for routes launching at really short notice, already this year. How can airBaltic qualify if their flights start next year? But who cares anyway when the "subsidies" were next to nothing. Fraport already gives big discounts for new routes and the subsidy scheme requires a lot of administration and comes with restrictions...for getting 50% off the small charges that remain. Almost no other airline thought it was worth their while.
ReplyDelete