Ljubljana Airport is around fifty minutes by road from Klagenfurt and has some five million people in its catchment area. Mr Deischl called for closer cooperation across the Alps-Adriatic region, which he said appeals to international visitors looking for a slower pace away from crowded tourist hotspots. “The pie is big enough for everyone”, he said. “We need to join forces”.
Mr Deischl expects United Airlines’ new New York service to help draw more passengers from Austria. The carrier will launch four weekly flights in May 2027 with its Boeing 767-400ER aircraft. He said demand for tickets was already strong and that Ljubljana had secured the service without substantial incentives. The CEO described Slovenia’s government scheme for new routes, which reimburses 50% of airport charges, as “the spark”, adding that the route still had to be commercially viable. “For us, New York is only the beginning”, he said, pointing to potential for long-haul services to Asia.
Ljubljana’s passenger traffic is up 15% this year, while its route network expanded by 23% in 2025, a figure Mr Deischl described as a “European record”. “Diversification and a resilient portfolio make us strong”, he said. Mr Deischl singled out Dusseldorf, Berlin and Brussels as additions for the 2027 summer season and said flights to Scandinavia were also on the agenda, with SAS recently scheduling operations between Copenhagen and Ljubljana. He described Lufthansa’s winter suspension of its Munich service as a setback and noted that Ljubljana had secured TUIfly as a new carrier.
Bravo Fraport!
ReplyDeleteIf you live in southern Carinthia, why wouldn’t you check Ljubljana? I’d compare the fare, parking and flight times before deciding which side of the border to fly from.
ReplyDeleteThe wonders of Schengen.
DeleteWhy would someone who sees Slovenia and it's people as a lesser equivalent to them fly form a less developed country where they will need to navigate in a language that they do not know?
DeleteWho views Slovenia like that? What a load of rubbish.
DeleteGo to Kärnten and speak to people. The younger ones have no problems flying from Slovenia. The older ones on the other hand, rather take the train to Wien. There is a reason why FPÖ is polling at 60% in Kärnten.
DeleteYes bigotry sadly stalks and haunts our continent far too much.
Deletehahah i cannot belive what i am reading. oh gosh.
DeleteOh my, you people clearly never read Austrian newspapers. And never know what you're talking about. The head of the FPÖ gov. in Styria is of Czech descent and his wife is of Slovenian. Austrian newspapers, which I read quite often, generally talk of Slovenia as a reliable partner and are actually very respectful towards it. As are German, Italian and Swiss newspapers. The only place where Slovenia is constantly being put down and devalued is, sadly, when I read Balkan newspapers, especially Serbian ones. And often when I read comments here. I also live close to Kärnten, just across the border in SLO, and I never, ever feel less than welcome when I go there. Ever. Many things are written in Slovene and the other day I could order in Subway in Slovene in Celovec.
Delete:)) when somebody is voting for JanezAirlines several times should not point the finger to other countries ;)
DeleteIf they’re serious about getting more passengers from Austria, how about a bus from Klagenfurt timed around the main departures? Fifty minutes by car sounds great if you have a car.
ReplyDeleteA shuttle would be worth testing.
DeleteOr just a shuttle from Kranj to LJU airport. You have train every 2 hours from Villach to Kranj, it takes 1 hour.
DeleteWhen is the new bus/train station supposed to be finished in Ljubljana city? I saw it under reconstruction last time I was there. Sorry I'm not sure if it's the bus or train station (or both).
DeleteI think the train station is supposed to be finished by February 2027. Not sure when they'll finish the bus station, but probably at the end of 2027/start of 2028.
DeleteThe bus station is not even being built yet because one civil initiative made a complaint that the construction will be too loud. This has prevented the start of the construction, and from past experience, this could take the court 5 years to resolve. We are not getting a new bus station any time soon.
DeleteThere used to be a bus between Ljubljana and Klagenfurt, serving main bus stations, both airports and also Kranj. It was called AlpeAdria Line, and had 4 departures a day I think? Not sure if this is still going or maybe Covid killed it.
DeleteI remember taking a bus from Kranj to the airport in the early 00s. I remember clearly some American evangelicals were on board trying to convert the locals who were doing all they could to avoid eye contact.
Delete@11:04 It was called "The ghost bus" because it was running empty. I think it was initiated by the Klagenfurt airport when KLU had an ambition to become a regional player.
DeleteAustria can scrap the tax tomorrow and people will still drive to Ljubljana if it has the flights they want.
ReplyDeleteThe tax may matter more to an airline deciding where to add capacity.
DeleteLooks like this new CEO is really pushing things that were stuck for years.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteAsia already? Let’s see how the first summer to New York goes. I’d be interested to know which Asian city they think has enough demand for a nonstop from Ljubljana.
ReplyDeleteI'm assuming a city in China
DeleteChina looks like the most concrete lead so far. The airport has already held talks with Chinese carriers. The Japan discussions have focused on a possible codeshare via Helsinki.
DeleteMalta and Malaga should be a no brainer…
ReplyDeleteLets be honest… Ljubljana should have 3MIO pax …
Deletewhy? Its a city of under 1/2 a million.
DeleteInbound tourism is driving demand at the moment, not Ljubljana city residents.
DeleteIts the only airport tin the country of 2 mio… 3 should be no brainer
DeleteWhich of the two has stronger demand outside July and August? Malaga would be particularly welcome as a winter sun route if an airline could make a couple of weekly flights work.
Delete'no brainer' seems to be popular today, 60s American slang is back!
DeleteAnon 9.14. look winter season flight schedul.and destination. You can only cry. No demand from inside. Check GRZ . In first of 5hour od the day you have 4 flights to Germany..
DeleteIf they get close to two million and raise the Austrian share to 15–18%, that’s roughly 300,000 to 360,000 passenger movements from Austria, up from around 180,000 this year. That’s quite a jump.
ReplyDeleteTwo million would be a good result.
ReplyDeleteCongrats!
ReplyDeleteFunny how two million sounds like a milestone when Ljubljana was already close to it before the pandemic.
ReplyDelete2018 is probably the better comparison. Ljubljana handled around 1.82 million that year, before Adria’s collapse brought the figure down to around 1.73 million in 2019. This year’s forecast puts the airport close to its 2018 level, with a very different mix of airlines.
Deletethey will break record this year ...
DeleteMy favourite thing about flying from Ljubljana is how little time you spend getting through the airport. Hopefully it still feels that way on a busy summer morning with a 767 going out alongside the European flights.
ReplyDeleteIt’ll be interesting to see how the first few peak Saturdays go. The Newark flight adds a lot of passengers at once, and the real test will be how smoothly check-in and passport control work when several other flights are departing around the same time.
DeleteUnited's B767-400 has 8 fewer seats than a WizzAir A321neo (231 vs 239).
DeleteGoing from 1.8 million to just under two million is roughly another 10%.
ReplyDeleteThey will probably reach 2 million
DeleteIt seems like Slovene aviation fans realllllly fixate over numbers. Why is this?
ReplyDeleteAnd others don't?
DeleteNot in the same deep detail I feel. Outsider observer here.
DeleteI see you are not very often on this site.
DeleteGreat to see how much things have changed at Ljubljana in such a short time.
ReplyDeleteAnd if I counted correctly, already 5 new routes are scheduled for next year.
Delete^ yep 5 new routes scheduled so far
DeleteAnd we are also gonna have LTN which we didn't have this summer.
DeleteGenerally Ljubljana should come into the summer season with 8 additional routes compared to what we had last year. Maybe even more...
DeleteBER, CPH, BRU, DUS, LTN, EWR + ARN, PRN/TIA, PEK?
DeleteDon't forget Cluj and Kosice!
DeleteLets talk abaut winter schedule and conections. Easy for summer...
DeleteGreat to see that United bookings are good, I really hope it sticks
ReplyDeleteDefinitely a good sign +1
Delete4x EWR, and then on the days that EWR isn't flying PEK or SHA 3x per week...All before we get Stockholm, Prague, Bucharest :D
ReplyDelete"said flights to Scandinavia were also on the agenda" - Stockholm is coming ;)
DeleteOr the interview was done before the SAS announcement...
Deletehe was referring to stockholm ...
DeleteI had too much time on my hands and did a (crude and unprofessional) analysis of United’s Ljubljana flights 😅 I counted the taken seats on the seat maps for all 23 flights in both directions this coming May.
ReplyDeleteAltogether, I counted 334 passenger seat assignments: 251 in economy, 23 in Premium Plus and 60 in Polaris. That works out to 14.5 passengers per flight, averaging 10.9 in economy, 1 in Premium Plus and 2.6 in Polaris. Also note that on each flight, 8 seats in economy are reserverd for the crew, which I didn't count in.
The inaugural on 12 May is of course the most occupied with 72 assigned seats, including 13 in Polaris. It alone accounts for almost 22% of all assignments across these flights! Excluding it, the average drops to 11.9 passengers. The quietest flights are EWR–LJU on 23 and 24 May, with just one seat bought each.
Of course, seat maps don’t show everyone who has bought a ticket. Basic Economy passengers in particular might not select a seat beforehand. Playing around with AI gave me roughly 17–26 booked passengers per flight, which would mean approx 10 % of the seats are already sold multiple months in advance.
Also interesting to see - if your starting point is EWR, your prices are multiple times higher than if you are flying from LJU. You can hardly find an economy ticket cheaper than 2k usd if flying from EWR, and it often goes up to 6k usd. This could also mean the sales are doing well.
I don't think the data you have at your finger tips can tell you anything of the sort regarding how many seats have been sold.
DeleteOf course it cannot, that's why this is an unprofessional analysis. But judging by aviation trends and statistics about it, which AI dug up, there can be a (very) rough estimate made.
DeleteIf you check the seat maps of the flights announced in this batch, Slovenian ones are at the top, not a single flight has no assigned seats, so that's a good sign. In RTV interview someone said that Ljubljana loads are 2nd highest out og all new routes for the 2027
DeleteWhats the deal with LJU not catching any summer routes ?
ReplyDeleteby summer i mean: Cyprus, Greece, Spain ? And not CPH
DeleteYou need LCCs for that. LJU is not a big fan of them.
Delete1.1m Slovenians drive to Croatia every year for summer vacation. Maybe that has something to do with it.
ReplyDeleteThat figure will include mult-visits, and there is a reason why they do...
DeleteRyanair will increase its flights from KLU: next summer FR will fly daily from KLU to PMI, 3x weekly to STN and new 2x weekly to BDS and OPO.
ReplyDeleteI think they are trying to compete with easyjet and BA on STD route, but they aren’t that succesful
DeleteFR first launched KLU in April 2002 in a very different era of aviation and flew daily initially. It would be another year and half before they launched their first destination in a formerly socialist/communist country and that was Riga.
DeleteKlagenfurt has come and gone as a destination for Ryanair over the years but it remains a good jumping off point for a wide region of three countries.
Very encouraging signs coming from LJU this year.
ReplyDeleteI still think we are missing an LCC base.
Deletewith WIZZ base, Ljubljana should easy reach 2,5MIO
Deletewith Wizz base 3 mio is realistic in 2 years. But Fraport decided against due to the risk to other (better paying) carriers.
Deletewhere is there logic to bet on this business model like existing airlines cover the routes LCC would. They say they want to attach austrian passengers? They could also bring back at least 5% of 20% Slovenians that fly out of Trieste? Where is Zag etc. If I would like to fly to lets say Cyprus in this case there is no way anybody will fly via MUC,ZRH or FRA if you have return tickets from ZAG and VCE for 75eur. Fraport doesnt support other airlines with this thej just sabotage themselves
Delete>Sabotage themselves.
DeleteOk bro, most likely record year this year, at least five new routes next year, including a long haul service. Why did you stop saying LJU should be more like Tuzla and Banja Luka?
Ask Fraport, but for sure they have better data that we have. I know a lot of people who use i.e. Swiss for leisure flights to Valencia, Palma, Canaries... even though that there are direct LCC flights available from close vicinity. This is only a small sample... but it seems it's big enough to be relevant for decision making.
Delete
DeleteThe logic at LJU is simple: higher yields and profit. And for those who pay a bit more, the experience is certainly better. LJU simply has no desire to be a "€29.99 airport"—there are plenty of those nearby, just an hour and a half’s drive away, if that’s the kind of service one is looking for.
Ah the "premium airport" brigade strikes again.
Delete
DeleteExactly. LJU really doesn't need to be a "Flixbus on Air" hub. The region itself (Alpe-Adria, with 5 million inhabitants) is wealthy enough to support more than just Wizz and Ryanair.
Fraport Slovenia as a company had 60 mio eur income last year and a profit of 14,5 mio eur. Income grew 13 % compared to 2024 and profit grew almost 30 %! Im sure they have a clue what they are doing and they are quite good at it.
DeleteAnd to add to that, ZAG airport operator achieved 88 mio eur income in 2025, down 4 %. Last year they had 1,9 mio eur loss, in 2024 79k eur profit and in 2023 a 5,6 mio eur loss.
DeleteConsidering they have more than double the passengers of LJU, it doesn't translate into actual good business for them, since they are mostly relying on Ryanair, and we know how that airline works. LJU airport is actually operating great as a company.
Bad operating results may also explain why they have been so cautious about giving extra subsidies to Ryanair. It clearly isn't working out for the airport.
DeleteWhy do people drive to other airports if LJU is more "premium" than them?
Deletebecause they are not so premium. What would Slovenia be without TRS
DeleteSome people are driving also to Bologna, Bergamo or Budapest to fly with LCC, but some are choosing LJU (as aforementioned Swiss users) instead. It is a hard battle between airports for sure, but in average (Slovenian) citizens interest should be not only to have cheap and affordable options to fly everywhere (for instance, Cyprus) one can imagine but also to have profitable airports, eventhough they are in foreign ownership. Why? Because profit for Fraport is also profit for Slovenia via taxes. Too hard to understand this 14:23? People is returning to LJU (from TRS, ZAG..), but not only because of LCC. All in all, it is clear that Slovenian are using LJU more and more because economy is doing well.
DeleteWe all would like to have LCC with high quality experience directly from LJU, all would want profitable new national carrier, but in aviation things has to be cost-effective, always. Fraport has to support in first place themselves and (they have all right for such policy/for their business model), they don't have to support airlines that would like to fly with lowest cost possible. We can stay rationale and admit that we are getting really good combination of choices of everything (LCC, national carriers, even long haul), and we can just wish that both parties (Fraport/W6,FR..?) will agree on more business in future. But clearly we cannot demand it.
I am @14:23, and its true and we can agree on what you say, if you look from perspective from FP probaby yes. But if we look from slovenian turist side that wouldnt kill us to have 3 LCC routes with existing business model
Delete@14:57 what a snob. Being rich and being shafted for money is a classic combo.
DeleteI am pretty sure LJU will get more LCC routes, because there is obviously enough demand. Question is for what price (for ticket buyers on one and for carriers themselves on other side) in these uncertain times. I can imagine what people will think then whose fault is, if tickets would be 150+?
DeleteAnd I am not protecting nobody, just trying to be logical. It would be perfect if LJU management would look more after average traveller, (especially young tourist), but this is not their job. Guilt is on people who sold airport.
first reading the title i though they target OS growth :)
ReplyDelete