NEWS FLASH
KLM inaugurated daily flights between Amsterdam and Ljubljana yesterday, with a welcome ceremony held at Jože Pučnik Airport earlier today. It marks the carrier’s official entry onto the Slovenian market, although its low cost subsidiary Transavia has been operating the route for a number of years. Some of the passengers onboard today’s flight included Raymond Reedijk, KLM's Director of Sales, as well representatives of various Dutch tour operators. The service is codeshared by both Air France and Delta. KLM has scheduled three different aircraft types on the route during this summer. The overwhelming majority, or 92% of flights, will be operated by the 100-seat Embraer E190 aircraft. Four flights are scheduled on the 88-seat E175, while three will operate with the 132-seat E195-E2 jet. Transavia will continue to run four weekly rotations between the two cities with the 189-seat Boeing 737-800 aircraft. Last year, Transavia handled 60.656 passengers between Amsterdam and Ljubljana, with an average annual cabin load factor of 84.4%. Ljubljana Airport anticipates for KLM to handle some 40.000 passengers on the new service this summer and hopes the carrier will extend operations into the winter months.
Commenting on the service launch, the CEO of Ljubljana Airport operator, Babett Stapel, said, "We are excited about KLM's arrival at Ljubljana Airport, as this enables our passengers to have better connectivity through Schiphol's extensive network. The seven additional flights a week to Amsterdam are in response to growing demand for this connection, which serves both leisure and business travel. We are confident that this connection will be successful and look forward to a strong partnership. KLM, welcome to Slovenia". The Managing Director of KLM Cityhopper, Maarten Koopmans, added, "This service will enable both tourists and business travellers from Slovenia to discover the world through KLM's extensive network and our hub in Amsterdam. At the same time, other travellers will be able to start discovering the beauty and opportunities of Slovenia. We look forward to working with you".
Congratulations to Slovenia and KLM!!! Love from Amsterdam
ReplyDeleteThis is one of the biggest additions to LJU in years! Congratz. From what I’ve seen during booking, a lot of their flights for the coming days are 80-90 % full. Hopefully they increase the frequencies.
ReplyDeleteHow on earth can you tell that from "booking"? Why do people in these comments make things up?
DeleteThis is a great alternative to Lufthansa, especially when it comes to Transatlantic flights.
DeleteNot the OP, but, to be fair, you can tell a lot by the prices of the tickets, not a specific load factor, but I find it hard to belive they would be selling 400€ one way tickets to Ljubljana if the flights were empty
DeleteI am the OP, and yes, the last comment + if you try booking a ticket, when you get to the seat map, you can count the amount of seats that are already taken, which gives you a rough estimate
Delete@15:48 Some seats are BLOCKED before a certain number of hours before departure
DeleteKLM blocks back row seats in case it swaps Embraer types
DeleteYeah, not counting those in ofc. But a day or so before departure those should be unblocked, so you can see the real situation.
DeleteHopefully they go year round.
ReplyDeleteIf I'm not mistaken the flights are already on sale for winter too.
DeleteI don’t think so
DeleteIf you go and look theirs web site and search flight LJU to AMS in winter season you can book the flight.
DeleteThat might be Transavia codeshare
DeleteIt's not. Is KLM cityhopper operator.
DeleteCEO of Ljubljana missing, as she had meetings with Lufthansa about how they let KLM in!!!!
ReplyDeleteHahahahahhaha love the comment!
DeleteThe CEO and Krasnja discussed the role of Etihad in JU and its impact on Serbian air connectivity with China and the US. They unanimously agreed Etihad plays a vital role in maintaining flights between BEG and China.
DeleteAMS-LJU for 7.4. ist already sold out.
ReplyDeleteWell easter holiday starting. Would be strange if any destination out there would not be "full"
DeleteFrom someone working at the airport, the flights are close to sold out on some days...we might just see additional flights in the future.
ReplyDeleteJust goes to show that A LOT of us were flying from Zagreb, and I wonder how OU and their own KLM operations will be effected, especially in the winter months
Tell us more about the LJU-SKP flights
DeleteWhat is there to say? LF was 95% last year, probably similar now, they are increasing to 4 fpw for the summer.
DeleteStop spreading falls news. There is NO demand from Ljubljana and the existing network and the capacity is more than enough. Maybe double daily to MUC and thats all.
DeleteFRA, not MUC :)
DeleteGreat loads. An increase should definitely be doable, there is just the AMS slot restriction to overcome...
DeleteCongrats to LJU
ReplyDeleteThere were 1st Transavia flights and they switched to KLM, or what is the story of LJU AMS connection?
Why not read the text?
DeleteSoon Fraport will leave Ljubljana and slovenian air connectivity will be liberated 🙏🏾 #expropriation
ReplyDeleteWho says that?
DeleteIf Fraport leaves, there will be even less connectivity.
DeleteIs it Fraport's fault that Ljubljana is a small city, that Ryanair is in Trieste and Zagreb, that Slovenia is small, that the coast is nearby, that Adria went bankrupt, that no airline wants to apply for the government's tender?
DeleteRead today's interview in Finance, and you'll see where the problem with Fraport is...
DeleteThis interview confirms everything what is wrong with LJU. Old crooks running the airport with the same mentality which destroyed Adria. They do not even pretend anymore. My lord. Get out of the business.
DeleteWhat was in that interview?
DeleteBasically they tell us airport operator has nothing to do with air connectivity
DeleteIn Slovenia, the old corruption and cronyism are still rife, you can feel it in many places. Where the state is involved, many things are still going on as they did in the old days. Instead of business development, they control what is happening and hardly allow any real competition. This is especially true for the hotel infrastructure in Bled, Kranjska Gora or Piran/Portoroz. Due to this cronyism, there is also a lack of know-how. I have to say that as far as tourism is concerned, Croatia/MNE and even Serbia are a few steps ahead of Slovenia. Zagreb Airport has 70 destinations in its program this summer, LJU only manages 26. Unfortunately, the infrastructure, where the state is involved, leaves much to be desired. Things are happening, but far too slowly. I have the feeling that the government in LJU is shirking low-cost carriers because it doesn't fit into the image of green Slovenia. Nice idealism, especially when you consider that travelers then take a shuttle to TRS KLU ZAG VCE and take the planes to the warm sun from there. Ljubljana should easily have 2 to 2.5 million passengers a year. It does have a certain range of destinations, but mainly to Western Europe. Southern Europe is a real disappointment. Nobody needs to tell me, that flights to Tirana, Sicily or Spain from LJU would not be feasible. The strong numbers of Ryanair in ZAG show that the market is there. Look at smaller non capital cities in all Europe, everywhere there are LCC flights to Spain, Italy etc, just from LJU not. Super strange 😉
DeleteIn the interview LJU representative says that Serbia is connected to China and US because of Etihad Airways....THE LJUBLJANA AIRPORT REPRESENTITIVE!!!!!
DeleteUnbelivable direct quote:
Delete"Treba se je zavedati, da gre zasluga za to tudi partnerju Air Serbia, družbi Etihad Airways, ki
je sposoben narediti dovolj veliko promocijo na kitajskem trgu. Enako velja tudi pri povezavi
z ZDA. V tem pogledu je Air Serbia močno odvisen od Etihad Airways. Kako donosni
oziroma stroškovno učinkoviti so ti leti, mi ni znano. Želimo pa si tudi sami takšnega
preboja na mednarodne trge, ki nam ga je sicer deloma že uspelo doseči z družbo Flydubai,
ki leti v Dubaj."
Embarrassing level of knowledge of a Fraport LJU employee, and this in a public interview, but typical.
DeleteThis interview alone should get him fired....
DeleteThe guy was for sure already there, when LJU airport was still in the hands of the government.
DeleteHe was at the board of Adria a couple of years ago
Delete@17:35 You’re comparing apples with oranges. A city with one million population in a country which focuses on mass tourism and has nearly a million of its people scattered around Europe vs a small city airport in a valley that essentially serves only around 800.000 people and a country that focuses on sustainable tourism and a population that has no diaspora. Add to that, that Ryanair is in ZAG with Lauda only to kill off Croatia and spite VIE for their fee hike a couple of years ago. Once Croatia dies, this party in ZAG will come to an abrupt end.
DeleteYou‘re also free to start your own airline and see for yourself how profitable the charter market or scheduled flying to sunny part of Europe is.
This guy shows how incompetent the whole management in LJU is. Etihad exited JU in 2023. The Etihad’s exit enabled JU to grow. Who ever has any insight into Air Serbia - Etihad relation knows that the later never helped JU in any way, the other way around. It was taking advantage of JU through selling its know how to JU and leasing its aircrafts to JU under unfavourable rates. But Krasnja is just lost in the past and so it is LJU. The main airport is run by incompetent third tyre management.
DeleteAnonym 1820h
DeleteNot true, I compare LJU also with other airports. One fact is that Slovenia of all EU nations, has the worst air travel connection and thats no coincidence. Ryanair generated a lot of extra business and was not just moving numbers away from OU. That competition often generates more business is nothing new. And of course u can not compare ZAG and LJU just 1:1, but 70 against 26 destinations is evidence enough, that things in Slovenia are not as they could/should be. Slovenia is already 21 years in the EU, the salary levels are among the highest in Eastern Europe, so there is more potential than just ethnic traffic or foreign tourism.
@anon 15.48, can you provide me the link of this interview pls ?
DeleteBravo Fraport this time!
ReplyDeleteFraport didn't know flights are going ahead until a week before they were put in the system
DeleteFraport was trying hard to prevent these flights to happen. They even spread fake news about the demand. There are crookd nothing more
DeleteWhy no water salute ??
ReplyDeleteDon't worry there will be two for Eurowings
DeleteIts still cold there , then they will need de-icing the plane :D
DeleteGood job LJU.
ReplyDeleteSKP should learn from this, KLM flights are much needed.
Inaugural flight on Monday, 31MAR25, for pretty pictures with Fraport Administracija. Promo for passengers that might not even care nor appreciate it. Nothing for aviation enthusiast employes working the flight. First flight on Sunday, 30MAR25, nothing special planned, Slovenian pilot, one that we are always happy to see. Disappointment for staff, missed PR story opportunity. No surprise though, it's just KLM, not dear mama, Lufthansa Group.
ReplyDeleteThis was a personal choice, Fraport had nothing to do with this in their defence ;)
Delete