Turkish Airlines cemented its position as Slovenia’s busiest airline in 2023 with its service between Istanbul and Ljubljana continuing to perform strongly. According to the Slovenian Statistical Office, the Turkish flag carrier welcomed 174.926 passengers between the two cities, increasing 11.9% on the pre-pandemic 2019. Istanbul was Ljubljana’s busiest individual destination during 2023, ahead of London (all airports combined), Frankfurt and Zurich. On its 1.268 flights between the two cities (includes operations in each direction), the carrier utilised the Airbus A321 aircraft on 51% of rotations, with the A320, A330 and Boeing 737-800 jets deployed on the remaining services.
Ljubljana passenger performance on scheduled flights, 2023
Lufthansa has placed as Slovenia’s second busiest carrier, having taken top spot in 2022. The German airline, which maintains operations from both Frankfurt and Munich to the Slovenian capital, handled a combined total of 166.714 passengers in 2023. Figures on flights from the two German cities are still down on the same period in 2019 when Slovenia’s former national carrier Adria Airways was the sole operator on the two routes. Back then, it handled a combined total of 249.262 passengers. Last year, Lufthansa used the CRJ900 jet on 91.7% of its Ljubljana flights. Other jets used included the A319, A320, E190 and E195.
Swiss performed strongly on its Zurich - Ljubljana flights, outstripping Adria’s performance in 2019 by 17.3%, with the former Slovenian carrier discontinuing flights at the end of September of that year. The Swiss city had more passengers out of Ljubljana than the Frankfurt route during the final two months of last year. LOT Polish Airlines and Air Serbia also put in a strong performance with the pair growing over 32% and 9% respectively on 2019. LOT has increased its operations between Ljubljana and Warsaw by 10.5%, using larger aircraft than it did prior to the pandemic, while Air Serbia’s operations grew 22.2% on its Belgrade and Niš service, although the carrier utilised the smaller ATR72 on flights to the latter compared to 2019.
It will be interesting to see if Turkish can remain on top in 2024
ReplyDeleteThey won’t have a serious contender. They started double daily in the middle of the year or so. If they will maintain them through the whole year they will be easily first
DeleteTime for third daily on some days.
DeleteI am surprised they don't have 3 daily yet..
DeleteI'm interested if they'll deploy wide bodies year round instead of third daily, would be interesting
DeleteTurkish workers rise the numbers of passengers not tourist...
DeleteLol
DeleteNot surprised. They are a good airline
ReplyDeleteTurkish deserves to be on top especially in the current comparison to Lufthansa group airlines.
DeleteTheir service can be an example for the Germans.
+1 agree completely with Viktor. The two can't be compared service wise
DeleteSurprising Zurich had more passengers than Frankfurt in the last months of the year.
ReplyDeleteI find Swiss to be much better than LH.
DeleteAnd typically half the price of LH for intra-Europe flights.
DeleteLJU-ZRH has that many passengers just because of Croats. They don't want to travel with Croatia's Q400 but with Swiss A220 and A320.
DeleteWhat about subsidy tender that closed on February 11th? Any news if anyone has applied?
ReplyDeleteNo info. It could mean that nobody applied.
Delete"Their opening will not be public and will be carried out by the Aid Granting Commission within fifteen days of the tender deadline. Airlines will be notified of the outcome of the selection process no later than thirty days after the opening of the bids."
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2024/01/slovenia-allocates-168-million-in.html
This is true, but at previous calls there was a public statement of the ministry a day or two after the deadline, stating which airlines applied for how many new routes, with no further details.
DeleteCan someone explain how come such growth for LOT?
ReplyDeleteStrong transfer market to Eastern Europe, Scandinavia and even North America
DeleteNo more Adria flying to Scandinavia
DeleteLOT is a much better option for Scandinavia and the Baltics than LH. Normally, shorter duration of the trip and faster/easier connections.
DeleteOverall, LOT offers a better experience than LH that bases itself on a good reputation (but the good product is long gone).
I travelled from Ljubljana to Prague via Warsawa in December. I was off the inbound flight at 15:10, and 15:40 already boarding the flight to Prague. Gates between flights were 2 minutes walk.
DeleteImagine what would happen if Slovenia didn't require any visa for Turks (like Serbia).
ReplyDelete4 daily flights with wide bodies? :)
No, but certainly the 3rd daily flight.
DeleteThey are in Schengen so they can't take such decision autonomously. Even without Schengen they would not be interested to do it.
DeleteHope we see more TK widebodies this year
ReplyDelete13.216 pax to & from Macedonia and wizz only operated this flight like 4 months? Great job!
ReplyDelete+1
Deleteits actually 3
Delete82 one way rotations, A320 was deployed on 80% of the flights so there were around 16.000 seats on sale and a LF of around 80%.
Delete@12.20 Nope
Delete15:08 What are you talking about?
DeleteQuite a good result by Air Serbia
ReplyDeleteThis is why I'm surprised that Turkish is not increasing frequencies to LJU this year.
ReplyDeleteAlso today, yesterday, tomorrow and next week on thursday, friday and saturday, Flydubai has 2 daily flights to LJU.
ReplyDeleteNice!
DeleteSchool vacations in Slovenia and you are not "in" if you don't fly far.
DeleteLH group is still much larger at LJU
ReplyDeleteTrue, but they fly to Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich and Brussels
DeleteTK flies only to Istanbul
LH group is like 3 airlines. You can't compare them all to 1 TK.
DeleteI would like to see Eurowings start flights next from the LH group.
DeleteExactly, one should look at LH group as a whole and not as separate brands. Then we have LH group as a clear winner, then long time no one, then TK with almost half of their figures. Anyway LH group hub carriers (LH, LX, OS, SN) are basically performing as one airline with separate brands something similar like VW group.
Delete13.216 pax SKP-Ljubljana for just 3 months operating , thats pretty much good numbers , easily we can say that this route will be succesfully in future.
ReplyDeleteIt will be daily or at least 5x weekly for sure, once they sort the NEOs out
Deletewhere is the high-density expert now to elaborate lol
DeleteAmsterdam behind Dubai... This route was once one of the busiest from LJU.
ReplyDeleteAdria was flying daily and Transavia 4x weekly; so 144*7+156*4 = 1632 seats one way weekly, now that's a monthly capacity in both ways
DeleteAMS would perform better if KLM took over the route.
DeleteThere is obviously room for both considering the huge decline in AMS figures compared to pre pandemic numbers.
DeleteAMS was 50% transfer to SKP, SJJ PRN,TIA and TGD
DeleteWell deserved. TK is one of the best airlines out there.
ReplyDeleteAir Baltic is going to affect LOT big time.
ReplyDeleteThat one will be interesting to watch
DeleteMy guess is that AirBaltic is the reason why we won't see any additional flights this year compared to last
DeleteNo way, Air Baltic has way different policy than LOT, and lacks so mamy conx compared to Warsaw, plus compare 9 weekly of LOT to their 2xweek service
DeleteWill Finnair ever go year round to Ljubljana?!?
ReplyDeleteCould as well happen this year, They are flying 6x weekly, and they removed Zagreb, so if they apply for the next tender, we could see some E195s flying
DeleteSeeing JU performing so good on market that is completely open and transparent makes me think that someone in JU really KNOWS how to do their job. Great work.
ReplyDeleteIs 2.744 pax a good number for Luxembourg? How does that translate to a load factor?
ReplyDeleteLoad factor was 56.4%
DeleteI don't think that's bad at all for a new route, most of which operated during the winter last year.
Delete@10.22 ok i will take that as a threshold for other routes
DeleteI just wish we had flights to MAD, BCN or LIS…
ReplyDeletefun fact LJU-SKP:
ReplyDeleteNov (4450pax) and Dec (4553pax) are the second best Nov and Dec results on this route since 2007 (have not checked for earlier years). Only in 2008 Adria Airways had slightly better results
So Adria was flying half empty planes to SKP? If the A320 of Wizz has 180 seats operating three times per week, then that is one daily flight with Crj900 with 90 seats, what happens to the second daily flight Adria had in 2019, 13 weekly in 2018 and so on? Also Wizz was sending A321 on some rotations, on Thursdays mostly. If there were 15.760 seats on sale on 82 one way rotations, that means that the average LF of Wizz was 85% if A321s were used on 20% of the flights eventhough i am sure that the procentage is even less than that.
DeleteYou again. Start from scratch. 2x weekly in Oct 3x in nov and dec
DeleteOh i forgot it was two weeklyyyyyy, soo the LF is even better then. So 74 rotations in total, 14 of them with A321 is a total of 14.200 seats, so LF around 95%, very good, awesome!
DeleteI think a lot of people are forgetting that there are currently quite a lot of Turkish workers working on 2TDK and Karavanke tunnel.
ReplyDeleteand? if they fly thats on holiday once a year
DeleteCome on, put two and two together. The Turkish workers often fly back home.
Deletelol sure
DeleteIt is true. LJU-IST has zero demand. It is all workers from those few passengers.
DeleteAnd Croatians who love to travel
DeleteWe will see, it the tunnel is finished with a delay then they flew home every second day 😂
DeleteBenelux region still far behind 2019 and Adria numbers.
ReplyDeleteDid Adria fly to Warsaw in 2019?
ReplyDeleteThey discontinued Warsaw at the end of summer 2018.
DeleteFlydubai's performance is excellent
ReplyDeleteAgree. Turkish is impressive as usual but the most stunning performance is no doubt Dubai being such a new route and already more pax than Warsaw!
Deletebased on what? They had 5.043 pax in Dec. what was their freq that month?
DeleteFinnair's recovery will be helped by them ending Zagreb.
ReplyDeleteReally interesting to see the passenger numbers. I think things will improve at LJU this year.
ReplyDeleteLet's hope so.
DeleteIt would be nice also to see load factors of the main routes.
DeleteWhich aircraft type is TK mostly using to LJU?
ReplyDeleteIt says in the article.
Delete"On its 1.268 flights between the two cities (includes operations in each direction), the carrier utilised the Airbus A321 aircraft on 51% of rotations, with the A320, A330 and Boeing 737-800 jets deployed on the remaining services."
Oh oops I looked directly at the table and not text. My mistake. Thanks.
DeleteTK did really well across ex-Yu last year.
ReplyDeleteThe main question is how many Slovenian passenger flew with Ryanair from ZAG.
ReplyDeleteZero
DeleteUK-Slovenia market completely destroyed. And this one has nothing to do with Adria.
ReplyDeleteS kom pa? Adria je pokrivala London in Manchester, in to redno, ne pa kot nizkocenovniki, ki vsakih nekaj mesecev spreminjajo vozni red. Z uničenjem Adrie se je Slovenija v letalskem prometu ustrelila v koleno, pa če nasprotniki Adrie še tako iščejo razloge današnjega stanja vsepovsod.
DeleteDo the Belgium numbers include Wizzair until it stopped serving LJU? Seems they fly 5x weekly usually with A319 which would be just under 300 pax per day (calculated at 5x a week) but their A319 only seats 141, or 282 total both ways, which wouldn't make sense. Even fully booked everyday it wouldn't account for the passenger numbers.
ReplyDelete"Seems they" being Brussel airlines not Wizzair.
DeleteIts 61,482 pax. It works out. They had a LF of 80%. Not bad at all
DeleteNo surprise here, really. Slovenia does not really need European flights because of its geography. Did you see what happened with Dubai and its huge success? Slovenia needs more Eastern connections. Doha will work very well for sure, maybe Caucasus capitals and for sure more leisure charters not only in winter. Slovenes have the highest purchasing power in the Balkans. Enough of going to Venice or Klagenfurt. The airport is beautiful and modern, the mountains.
ReplyDeleteSlovenia also needs UK flights and is NOT promoted in their country. Even with Brexit, UK remains a big and important country especially no visa regime. Ski charters can be easily organised. Same goes to Ireland. Fraport want to promote Germany I know, but even the Baltic states have way higher figures and same population. Slovenia must wake up faster.
+1
DeleteHow many weekly flights will LOT have this summer to LJU?
ReplyDeleteTUI should look into potential ski charters to LJU, like the ones they have to Sarajevo
ReplyDeleteSorry, but LJU is sleeping. Just like ZAG. 2 countries with huge potential. Look what Serbia is doing. They advanced their network in Belgrad, they study new routes, etc, etc. Find new planes, and thinking of Miami. Okay, the country is bigger, but they are doing just well. If you compare Serbia with Austria, they have have much smaller economy, but a good airline. They connect Balkan capitals even if Westerners say oh, it it is only 3 flight per week. Yes and so what? OU is also sleeping instead of basing a plane in LJU for example. Very easy with EU passporting rights. LJU and ZAG are so close as capitals. Until when will the Balkans always be looked at just because we are much more interesting and countries.....will not use bad words because of the forum rules.
DeleteBA has bumy faaaar the worst customer service... you wait 11 weeks to hear back from them...ridiculous...I am done flying with them
Delete