Adria Airways will add a third Bombardier CRJ700 aircraft to its fleet within the next two months, becoming the third jet to join the airline this year. The carrier has arranged a lease of the aircraft which was formerly operated by the Air France subsidiary HOP!. It has been stored at Ljubljana’s Jože Pučnik Airport since August. The fifteen-year old aircraft, registered F-GRZC, has the capacity to seat seventy passengers and will likely be used as a replacement for the carrier’s CRJ200, which has been earmarked for retirement. Adria has already added two jets to its fleet this year, including a CRJ700 and a CRJ900. At the same time, it has wet-leased some its aircraft to other carriers during the summer season.
Adria first began operating the CRJ700 aircraft last year with the lease of a former Lufthansa CityLine jet. Nicknamed Lodz, it is now based in the Polish city. A second CRJ700, also previously operated by Lufthansa, joined the airline in January. The lease agreement for one of the aircraft expires next year, but can be renewed. With the addition of a third CRJ700, Adria will boast a fleet of thirteen aircraft, however, it is expected to lease out at least one jet to another carrier during the upcoming winter season. The Slovenian airline currently owns only one aircraft, the outgoing CRJ200, with the rest on lease.
4K Invest, which took ownership of Adria earlier this year, has said it intends on growing the airline’s Bombardier fleet. Earlier this month, the management outlined plans for the carrier to increase scheduled services by expanding its network, which will include the development of secondary airports, as well as growth in charter traffic and ad hoc charter services. Furthermore, the airline intends on putting a greater focus on Ljubljana as a transfer hub for passengers from the Balkans and eastern Europe towards the continent's main airports in the west. Additional emphasis will be put on management costs and cost reduction, including cuts to unnecessary passenger services and aircraft handling services. The carrier’s maintenance provider and former subsidiary, Adria Airways Tehnika, serves as the regional Bombardier maintenance centre.
Great news Adria! Congratulations.
ReplyDeleteAdria’s goal is to become an exclusive CRJ operator. They would get rid of the Airbuses in an instant if they were not binded by the leasing agreements signed by the previous management which had a completely different fleet strategy development plan for the future.
ReplyDeleteDidn’t they get an additional A319 last year?
DeleteYes but as I say it was done under the previous management, which was even considering an A321 in 2016.
DeleteMakes sense. Having the same type of aircraft throughout your fleet greatly reduces expenses.
Delete+1
DeleteAny chance of Adria purchasing some C series planes? That would be fantastic.
ReplyDeleteNone I would say. They are leasing all of their aircraft which is probably best.
DeleteWith their current finances I very much doubt it. Plus I still think they have a CRJ900 on order.
DeleteThey can barely fill the CRJ900s which is why they are leasing CRJ700s instead. How on earth would they fill up a C series plane.
DeleteReally fantastic. 9 mio € loss last year on top of all the millions from the previous year.
DeleteLet's buy new airplanes! Anon from 9:12 AM for new CEO!
So Adria will have one aircraft more than OU?
ReplyDeleteProbably yes. Fireworks in Ljubljana?
DeleteTechnically, but like the article says they will be leasing out planes too.
DeleteWhat is happening to the Trade Air Fokker flying for Croatia Airlines? Is it still with them and when is it being returned?
Its on lease till the end of October.
DeleteHow smart is it not to own any of your aircraft?
ReplyDeleteIt's not uncommon. Adria did a lot of sale and leasebacks last year.
DeleteHow smart is it to own all of your aircraft?
DeleteWell you don't have to pay lease fees and if you do fall intro financial trouble you can either lease them out or sell them. Adria used to own the majority of its fleet once upon a time.
DeleteA mix is the best strategy. Leasing aircraft on a short to medium term basis gives you flexibility and you can add extra aircraft to the fleet in a moments notice, while it takes significantly longer for new aircraft to be delivered.
DeleteI wonder why this plane has been stored for so long. Before arriving in LJU it was stored for a few months in Morlaix as well.
ReplyDeleteZnaci da je otpad pred D servisom.
ReplyDeleteApparently it will be in Star Alliance livery. Anyone know the future reg?
ReplyDeleteThe other two CR7s are S5-AAY and S5-AAZ. Could we see S5-ABA?
DeleteNice :) the Star scheme looks good on CRJs
DeleteI hope they bring back the vintage cs they had on one of their Airbuses. That was a really nice touch.
DeleteGo Adria!!! They seem to have some sort of strategy and I really hope it works for them.
ReplyDeleteToday last flight from Kiev to Belgrade on Adria's CRJ, it was good while it lasted.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.instagram.com/p/BK5R4ahgx2p/
They have a very good fleet in general. What they need is a route network and strategy to match it. Unfortunately I think their new strategy "to create Ljubljana into a hub for Balkan transfers" is time long gone.
ReplyDeleteI have heard JP is considering launching Tehran.
ReplyDeleteThat would be fantastic. If it happens finally something out of the box for them.
DeleteAre you serious? Adria is the definition of out of the box. They have bases outside their home country, fly from villages in Poland, have a deal with Nordica....
DeleteIt might indeed happen in S17. It makes sense, utilising Airbus part of the fleet to feed CRJs in European network. I am expecting them to match hours to make transfers in Ljubljana as short as possible (being a small airport they can easily have 30min as minimum transfer time).
DeleteHow do you mean 30 minutes transfer time?
Delete10 minutes offload, 10 minutes load, so they have 10 minutes to deliver, check and sort all bagg. Also for NON-SCH pax?
Maybe Teheran, Central Asia and Caucasus could work, if they offered good connections to the Euro network. I think there was much talk about connections to the Caucasus a few years ago. Let's hope it works out for them, they seem to be planning increases in the winter schedule.
DeleteWould be nice if they introduce Ljubljana-Tallinn. Either them or Nordica.
DeleteThat would be interesting. They would offer people connections both to western Europe and the Balkans if they scheduled the flights right. Since Estonian Air collapsed, Tallinn is lacking connections to many airports in the west.
Delete30 minutes turnaround for an airline that has no experience in this (unlike LCCs), with Y144 A319 with ton of bags (connecting flights). Wishful thinking.
DeleteAlso, Iran Air already flies to a lot of European cities and will probably increase their network since the embargo is gone.
Vienna Airport has minimum connection time for *A flights 25 minutes. So 30 minutes is pretty realistic for Adria and LJU...
DeleteTheir finances must have improved if they are able to do a lease during the winter when they use struggle the most.
ReplyDeleteI do wonder what their financial result will be this year. There is nothing to sell. New owners promised profit in first year.
DeleteThey are not losing as much money as they did before which is a good thing. Maybe these guys manage to turn the airline around. That's why they were brought in after all.
DeleteIt is not easy jusy to reset company like this. They will need some time to do it.
ReplyDeleteAre they going to sell Adria after they "fix" them? Or are they in it for the long haul?
DeleteWho knows. Maybe when EBIT will be high enough.
DeleteReturn to Maribor and base a plane there.
ReplyDeleteSince MBX-SEN was such a HUGE financial success, right? And since ALL airlines are just dying to fly to/from MBX.
Delete+1
DeleteHowever i think if they indeed do that they should develop MBX as an LCC base. Without subsidies it is not profitable basing some CRJ700/900 and opening FRA and MUC. This way it would be much better just to boost those rootes from LJU. If they base an aircraft in MBX it should be an A319 and also fly to secondary airports (some 40km away from original destination) and offer some real LCC fares.
Haplek
Let's see how Adria does in the next few months. Apart from decimating its network it also faces increased competition in LJU with Transavia launching flights, Easy Jet launching flights to another London airport, Fly Dubai likely to come and take away some transfer passengers to Germany...
ReplyDeleteAdria is able to compete. Its standard of service is pretty much the same as other European airlines on short haul flights. Remember Swiss gave up on ZRH-LJU route, not the other way around :)
DeleteStill think they should have merged with Croatia Airlines :D Now that would be a nice fleet of Airbuses, CRJs and Dash planes.
ReplyDeleteAnd the name Adria Airlines would remain fitting their geographical location.
DeleteJadrolinija
DeleteGood news for Adria. Does anyone know who they plane to lease the CRJ900 they have been leasing to Air Serbia until today? Maybe they lease it again to JU.
ReplyDeleteIf that were the case the lease would have been extended and would not have ended.
DeleteRumour is OU.
DeleteWell, there's certainly not much maneuvering space here: if there is no mysterious owner in the background, Adria will go bankrupt in the very near future. They are not making profit, their business model is exactly the same as in the past plus they have an enormous amount of debt on their hands. So the only hope here is the mysterious Iranian owner that is supposedly behind K4 invest.
ReplyDeleteTrla baba lan ☺...I am so very fascinating how can samone or many here just troll arround without any arguments. On what assumrions do you prognose JP will bancropt? C'mon ...give us some more infos about that. Please
DeleteFree advice.
DeleteIt's easy to do a spell check before posting.
@ AnonymousSeptember 30, 2016 at 7:23 PM
DeleteOn what assumption? Does JP make a profit? Is it indebted up to its neck?
I would like to hear your explenation - how can a company with a regular yearly loss of 5+ million €, and that has never made a profit in the last decade, survive?
Looks like that all exyu airliners have the same virus
DeleteOT: Seems like Air Serbia suspended KBP flights since you can't buy tickets for the next summer season, it says: "Invalid routes" when you try.
ReplyDeleteIt's a seasonal route and they haven't started sales for next summer for most seasonal routes.
DeleteSta covek mora da sanja da umiruca kompanija treba da pokrene letove za Teheran to ni Kucko ne nudi? Da nema EU pa da sanjaju nekog bogatuna da ih kupi ovako kaput.
ReplyDeleteIf only all ex-Yu airlines unite and have BEG & ZAG as their main hubs such as Germany with FRA & MUC. Oh well, in my vivid dreams maybe.
ReplyDeleteJa pricam nesto drugo ali me mod brise dve kompanije jedna za redovni prevoz, druga za cartere od Trsta do Varne, burgasa. Zahebi bivsu Jugoslaviju to samo kad jedim kroacane.
DeleteWell that's how it's been with JAT in Yugoslavia. It was done pretty smart actually. Circumstances have changed since thus making it harder to happen. On the other hand the infrastucture has improvedwhich should make the transfers go by easier and quicker.
DeleteUnfortunately all the airports want to be hubs hahaha
AB/ HG nece imati vise bazu u VIE .
ReplyDeleteZanimljivo je da ce AB dobiti dodatne A332 i da ce postati full service carrier .
INN-NS
I nece se dirati baze u DUS i TXL bilo bi odlicno kad bi uspostavili BEG.
DeleteINN-NS
Луфтикин ЏВ партнер Ер Канада почиње да лети за Берлин. Не бих рекао да је случајно него изгледа као покушај Луфтике и пријатеља да одврате Ер Берлин од ширења преко океана.
DeleteSve to treba gledati unutar daleko većeg udara.
DeleteIndikativno je da je Lufthansa odlučila svoju long-haul bazu Eurowingsa staviti na Tegel. Kao LCC bilo bi logično da je ona na Shonenfeldu (LCC aerodromu), a još bi logičnije bilo da je na Cologneu, glavnoj Eurowingsovoj bazi. To što je Lufthansa odlučila LCC long-haul letove pokrenuti iz Tegela znači da je to prvenstveno udar na Air Berlin. U tom kontekstu treba sagledati i ovu najavu Air Canade.