Adria Airways suspends three routes

Adria Airways has quietly discontinued three of its routes out of Ljubljana, with services to Bucharest, Kiev and Warsaw no longer operational or on sale. The airline advertised the three destinations in its recent winter season line-up just two weeks ago, but has since updated its press release, removing all mention of the three points from its network. Flights to Kiev and Warsaw were to run three times per week this winter, while Bucharest was to be maintained twice weekly. As a result, Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport will no longer be linked with Kiev and Bucharest, while LOT Polish Airlines continues to maintain daily flights between the Polish and Slovenian capitals, with the route codeshared by Adria.

Flights between Kiev and Ljubljana were launched last winter season, while services to Bucharest were inaugurated in March together with a further six other new destinations. Of those seven, only two have made it to this year's winter schedule - Dusseldorf and Sofia. Services to Warsaw were introduced in 2014, prior to LOT's arrival, with the latter quickly upping frequencies and capacity on its Ljubljana flights. The long-term fate of the three discontented routes is unknown as neither is yet on sale for the 2019 summer season, which will begin on the last day of March next year. Adria has wet-leased a number of its aircraft this winter, including three Airbus A319s to Lufthansa (all of which will leave Ljubljana by mid-December), three Saab 2000s to Swiss, two Bombardier jets to Austrian, and one to Luxair, whose lease contract has been extended until the end of next year.

Commenting on the suspensions, Adria said, "Taking into the account available capacities and given circumstances, we decided to further optimise our operations with the start of the winter season and decided not to continue flying to these three destinations at the moment, namely Bucharest, Kiev and Warsaw. Our long-term goal remains growth, but we want to keep it sustainable and stable and our services reliable and safe".

Adria Airways' Chief Commercial Officer, Christian Schneider, recently said the airline must be "smart" when growing in the future. "We are open to new opportunities and cooperation, but we need to be smart when growing. Before opening a new route, we always focus on a detailed analysis that shows us which markets and destinations could be interesting and sustainable for the company". He added, "We are interested in a destination on the Iberian peninsula in the southwest of Europe, a point in Italy, and more further afield we are looking at Dubai. So far, we have decided to strengthen links between Western and Central Europe with the Balkan region". The Slovenian carrier will take on a further three Bombardier CRJ900 aircraft in 2019 after signing an agreement with lessor Regional One to acquire the jets earlier this year.