The Slovenian government is in discussions with Lufthansa, as well as Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport’s operator Fraport over the transfer of some of Adria Airways’ routes to the German-led group of airlines. Lufthansa’s wholly-owned subsidiaries include Austrian Airlines, Air Dolomiti, Brussels Airlines, Eurowings and Swiss International Air Lines, none of which operate to Slovenia’s capital. Within these markets, Adria’s destination network included Brussels, Frankfurt, Munich, Vienna and Zurich. These were also among the company’s busiest routes and were all codeshared by its fellow Star Alliance members. Prior to suspending all of its operations last week, Adria operated a number of flights for Lufthansa group carriers through ACMI wet-lease contracts. The airline maintained services for Austrian Airlines, Swiss and Lufthansa itself.
The Slovenian Minister for Economic Development and Technology, Zdravko Počivalšek, said around half of Adria’s routes could be transferred to Lufthansa. He further noted that discussion would take place with the German airline over the possibility of jointly establishing a new Slovenian national carrier. However, Mr Počivalšek warned the process could take some time and required a political consensus in the country. He added Adria’s collapse would have short-term economic effects, but that other airlines would eventually step in to pick up demand. “Slovenia has tremendous tourist potential and carriers can take advantage of the country's need for air connectivity”, he noted.
As of this morning Brussels Airlines has scheduled a new six weekly service between the Belgian capital and Ljubljana, which will operate with the Airbus A319 aircraft. Starting November 4, tickets will be available for booking from tomorrow. In a statement, the carrier said, "The flight schedule allows for connections with the rest of the Brussels Airlines network via Brussels Airport. Important connections are mainly Berlin, Copenhagen, Lisbon, London Heathrow, Madrid, Oslo and Tel Aviv". Further flight information for the new service can be found here.
As of this morning Brussels Airlines has scheduled a new six weekly service between the Belgian capital and Ljubljana, which will operate with the Airbus A319 aircraft. Starting November 4, tickets will be available for booking from tomorrow. In a statement, the carrier said, "The flight schedule allows for connections with the rest of the Brussels Airlines network via Brussels Airport. Important connections are mainly Berlin, Copenhagen, Lisbon, London Heathrow, Madrid, Oslo and Tel Aviv". Further flight information for the new service can be found here.
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| Brussels Airlines will take over Adria's flights between Ljubljana and Brussels |
Adria's passenger share at its home base in Ljubljana stood at 56% in 2018, down from a high of over 77% in 2010. This year, the Slovenian carrier was expected to account for around 50% of Ljubljana's traffic. Adria faced no competition on a number of routes from the Slovenian capital. They include: Brussels, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Munich, Prague, Pristina, Sarajevo, Skopje, Sofia, Tirana, Vienna and Zurich. Routes that were operated by both Adria and another carrier in 2019 were Amsterdam (Transavia), Paris (Air France) and Podgorica (Montenegro Airlines). The Slovenian carrier also maintained a number of charters. In addition to services from Slovenia, Adria Airways also operated flights from Pristina to Frankfurt and Munich, as well as from Tirana to Frankfurt. In 2018, the carrier handled 157.931 passengers to and from Pristina Airport where Lufthansa's Eurowings has since established a base and launched several new routes, among which is Munich. The Slovenian carrier declared bankruptcy yesterday, following 58 years of service.
The only solution
ReplyDeleteSlovenia will never hve again a national carrier. Thats also not needed
Agree. Slovenia is was too small to have it's own (profitable, or at least sustainable) carrier.
DeleteHope everything will be ok, with or without national carrier. Good luck, Slovenia!
DeleteAnonym 0907h
DeleteLH will tell SLO ministers same they already told 4K. Too small market for an airline to exist. LH would reconsider if there wld be one airline for all ex YU, since this will never happen again, not even one airline for HR MNE SLO, we can forget about LH.
The only idea I had in my dreams was to create on airline for YU and call it in Belgrade Lufthansa Danube and for SLO MNE HR even Albania to call the same subsidiary company Lufthansa Adriatic. Flight Ops Control all to be done in Germany, local ex YU pilots and flight attendants. But politically this is almost impossible.
thanks for sharing your dreams with us ju520 beglax
Deletelol... so what you are saying is that ex-YU nations should willingly become dominated by Germany in aviation?
DeleteHere in Serbia we would not like LH to reign supreme, thank you very much. We would prefer LH to get their perpetually late flights in order.
DeleteAnonymous@12:03: With Adria's collapse, the number of airlines serving Ljubljana will increase, so there's really no threat of anyone's domination. Even now, Air France-KLM serves the airport and provides a reasonable alternative to the LH Group.
DeleteReasonable alternative? Have you checked how much they increased their prices from LJU?
DeleteAnonymous@14:33: That's temporary because Adria went bust and other airlines are yet to step in. Right now, there's almost no competition for Air France-KLM from Ljubljana, so with the unusually high demand, their prices naturally went up.
DeleteEven SN Brussels isn't competition with their idiotic new schedule.
Delete@anonymous 1217h
DeleteFully understand your reservation against LH, I wouldnt care if TK, IAG, or AF/KL would launch something, its just that AF/KL or IAG are not so much Eastern Europe focused like Germans are
It is in the interest of the mafia that worked hard to shutdown adria to have another airline. Only that how they can launder public money to thwie pocket. LH negotiations are temparary. They will start another airline and push other airlines out of slovenia
DeleteI guess SKP will have a nice lead over PRN now that JP went bust.
ReplyDeleteAs for this whole business of starting a new airline, I would laugh if it wasn't very sad to read. Slovenia is a tiny market and it can best served by foreigners. As for charters, Slovenia can do what BNX and OHD do and have JU handle them.
That's what they said when Germania went bust yet now it has a Eurowings base.
Deletewhat will happen with the ticket that we booked with adria nobody is giving an answer to us?
Delete^Check here about reimbursement options
Deletehttps://www.fraport-slovenija.si/en/press/7898
Adria did not fly to Berlin anymore for a few years now, specially not when Easyjet started...
ReplyDeleteGovt wants to work with LH to create a new airline? That's crazy!
ReplyDeleteTo me this seems like LH Group doesn't want to start Slovenia without subsidies. I guess they need to cover millions in losses of EW, OS and SN.
ReplyDeleteIt is always better to have subsidies than not have subsidies. Because the Slovenian government is under a lot of pressure and apparently agreed nothing when they still had a choice of saving Adria, LH will push him to pay a lot to do what they would probably do anyway, ie start feeding their hubs in FRA and MUC from LJU. They will milk Slovenian government the way Adria never even thought would be possible. This is one of the downsides of not having a national carrier, learned heavy way by Slovenia. What would be enough to keep Adria alive, will now need to be doubled or tripled and will feed LH.
Deletegood joke. if you average out the average loss of JP for the last 10 years and the growing debt and decreasing capital, you get a number of cca. 12,2 million EUR a year average loss not counting the amassed debt and loss of assets (ok, that is kind of incorporated by means of bookkeeping) that would have to be pumped into JP every year to keep a status quo. So 3-times 15 is 45 million a year. Nowhere is a subsidy or whatever that high. Yes even SLO politicians ain't that stupid, or more precisely they don't have money for such escapades.
DeleteThe reality is that between 2008 and 2018 per yearly reports the accumulated loss was 134,5 million EUR, while at the same tame there are no assets and the debt of the company is 90 million at time of DUTB inspection this last week.
There is no way in hell that any subsidy could cost that much any way you like to spin it.
Creative accounting on your part, but good that you know how big the subsidies will be.
DeleteIf you drawn, and Adria has been drawning for a longer period, your losses just skyrocket. Contractors demand prepayments, lessors demand much higher lease payments, credit card companies withold payments, you contract a lot of obligations to pay compensation for delayed/cancelled flights, clients turn their back to you and the sales go down, etc. It is a snowball.
In a stabilized business, losses would never be so huge.
What would be more than enough is 1) stop subsidising transfer routes where you have the least cost sensitive customer and the costs of your segment are just a small fraction of the whole ticket, and 2) get PSO money on routes that are essential for Slovenia but are loss making.
+1 artflyer
Delete“Slovenia has tremendous tourist potential and carriers can take advantage of the country's need for air connectivity”, he noted. aha otimaju se.
ReplyDeleteLH is not in the business of bringing in tourists. Tourists fly direct and mostly on lcc. Having a huge choice of leisure destinations whether for a city-break or vacations, they very rarely go for short-hauls with transfers and obviously LH will not provide any direct flights from LJU to any place other than its hubs like MUC or FRA. So talking about tourists travelling to Slovenia on LH is just far from the truth.
Deleteartflyer, agree.
DeleteNowadays people tend to spend much more money on experiences during the city break than on air fares. In the end, a staylish restaurant and hotels are more instagrammable than a sandwich on a LH flight.
Would love to see Air Dolomiti fly those 7 routes from LJU.
ReplyDeletenot gonna happen, as they have only E195s an they are too big. It can be done by CR9s.
DeleteIn the end they are going to introduce double daily to MUC and that's about it.
DeleteExactly, there is obviously a reason Adria did not work.
DeleteThe fact they don’t want to start routes to *A hubs without subsidies is clear to me. Most of the pax or the break even portion was made due to transfer pax from SEE countries. Now that there are no further connections the business is gone. Adria had a business model which could be evaluated only as a whole. Route by route I assume nothing was profitable.
ReplyDeleteI highly doubt it. There would be too many segments if indeed somebody would travel on Adria to LJU, then on Adria from LJU to MUC or FRA and then onward on LH. Almost always it would be easier to have a direct flight to MUC or FRA hub and then onwards on LH (just two segments). If there were no direct flights to MUC or FRA then the demand was absolutely negliegable. Summing up: LJU to LH hub was always a first segment of flight and LH needs no transfers in LJU to upkeep LJU-MUC or LJU-FRA.
DeleteIf this was the case they would have already stepped in. But they stay away.
DeleteJust waiting for subsidies. Ok they will waste one month business but at the end will get the subsidies that will last years.
DeleteRemember: rich are rich because they never neglect an occasion to get some money.
I haven't seen any lightning reaction from any other carrier offering rescue fares or quickly filling the gap as it was following the Malév demise in 2012.
ReplyDeleteI guess there is indeed no interest again due to the small market.
That said, this reconfirms our theory that LJU is simply surrounded by way too many airports especially a very important one like VCE.
But there is also Treviso and Trieste, ZAG, SZG..
Yes. JU and YM reacted but those additional flights are really insignificant and cannot correspond to the 56% traffic.
What JU did was marketing, nothing more..
DeleteWhat JU did was to re-route some passengers from VIE and MUC to BEG, especially those who travelled to the Middle East and the Balkans plus Russia.
DeleteAlso JU basically took over their market in Tirana. So they did more than marketing.
Reroute would mean they took away passengers that are flying on an alternative route by choosing a product that is better or cheaper or both. In this case there was no choice and JU offered cheap flights, so it was marketing.
DeleteJU was already strong in Slovenia before JP collapsed. Many people switched to JU the moment JP no longer could be relied upon. Sorry if you are bothered by JU's success in LJU.
DeleteJU "success" cannot be claimed by merely 2 daily flights in LJU. In that case we must praise TK having much bigger capacity in LJU!
DeleteJU success is based on overnight increasing Atr to A319/733. Yes, TK's success in LJU is impressive, no one said otherwise.
DeleteSo basically Air Serbia, Air France, Transavia, Turkish Airlines, Aeroflot, LOT... are all supposed to subsidize LH Group flights. How yes no.
ReplyDeleteWould love to see the thinking path that brought you to this conclusion.
DeleteWell they are the ones paying full charges to LJU. LJU then uses this income to subsidize LH Group. Pretty simple.
DeleteDoes the airport actually give the subsidies for the routes, e.g. massive subsidies for the Brussels route - or is it rather government sponsoring it (so it's tax payer's money)?
DeleteLH airlines taking over Star Alliance hubs
ReplyDeleteWizz: ex-yu destinations SKP and SJJ/TZL
no chance Wizz will do low yielding route such as LJU SKP.
DeleteWith daily flights and 3 daily buses between Skopje and Ljubljana, there's more than enough passengers to fill 3-4 weekly Wizz flights.
DeleteNot just transfers, there's growing MK diaspora in Slovenia, both countries have strong business ties, lot's of students are studying in Ljubljana, so there's quite strong O&D traffic between both cities.
DeleteLol what is the price a student is willing to pay for an air ticket? :D
DeleteLet's fill those planes with students!
The return bus tickets are 90-100 euro, so wizz is perfect for this route
DeleteStudents can fly LJU-INI for peanuts, no need for Wizz.
Deletethe Macedonian gastarbeiter market in Slovenia is stil totally UNTOUCHED! Adria with its high prices was catering a totally different kind of passengers (business and transfer). Wizz succeeded in making much SMALLER gasto markets like Malta,Finland and Norway work year round (Malta even 3 weekly) and basically every other destination from SKP.
Deleteand finlly even Nis has 70% LF on this route
Wizz is the perfect airline for making profits on apparently low yield markets like East Europe. The O&D potential of SKP-LJU is great knowing how popular Ljublana is around here
I finally hope LH will come to SKP now that their main feeder is gone. And W6 can take over SKP-LJU market.
DeleteLH already has OS in SKP for that, they tried with EW but the project failed before it even began.
DeleteAnd they are building a new terminal at LJU :D
ReplyDeleteHuge potential indeed, when you have to pay LH to establish a new carrier so you can have flights to FRA, MUC, ZRH
true :D
DeleteWow, so more of taxpayers money is going to the Germans?! Is Germany on social support or something? I wasn't aware we were so rich to offer financial support to Germany. First we sold them the airport, then we paid them to bankrupt Adria and now we'll be paying them to fly to our country.
ReplyDeleteI know which parties won't be getting my vote during the next elections.
can someone explain now that LH financed loss of 90mil€ to receive 10 routes that in total cannot generate that much revenue, not to mention profit?
ReplyDeleteanyone?
LH didn't lose one eur on Adria. 4K used a delicate scheme to extract money out of Adria, look for the chart at the end:
Deletehttps://siol.net/posel-danes/novice/drzavo-prosijo-za-denar-iz-adrie-pa-crpajo-milijone-508166
There is a ? on that chart on who really owns 4K. LH never officially denied being behind 4K. Why not?
LH wanted two goals: Kick Etihad out of European airlines (Air Berlin, Alitalia, Etihad Regional, Air Serbia) and so far managed to achieve most goals. Adria was used to buy Etihad Regional and to later go bankrupt. Second LH goal was to kill small government supported airlines in CEE. 4K took over Adria from government and killed it over time. LH has 100% success on both goals and will now slowly take over: Eurowings taking over PRN-MUC without Adria being in the middle; Brussels and Swiss will start LJU and give LH couple of weeks before they announce LJU from FRA and MUC.
Subsidized or not (well at least for now) Brussels Airlines is introducing LJU from 04NOV.
ReplyDelete6x pw (x6) with A319.
https://press.brusselsairlines.com/brussels-airlines-to-launch-flights-to-ljubljana-slovenia
Great news! Congrats!
DeleteIt must be for bureaucrats flying that route and subsidized by Slovenian taxpayers money.
DeleteIt's a multi million eu (easy) business done by Adria before.
Hope they didn't pay Adria in advance if they did it: the overpaid seats will be bought again for the second time for the same seats. (seats quota bought in bulk for bureaucrats flying from Slovenia to Bruxelles and viceversa (and when seats not booked ready for friends (?) with "magic code" (?)) , price is lower than full time price but not that convenient, it was a good business for Adria).
It must be!
DeleteAnyway pax flying it didn't care about the price as it was free for them and they were (probably) collecting Star Alliance miles too.
Deletewell, as of today they cannot be subsidized. The law hasn't gone into parliament procedures yet. And the Adria contract for tickets cannot be just transfered. You need another public tender.
DeleteAnd no, there was no uprfront payment as already explained 261 times on this site. The route does not get subsidies, but the contract is for plane tickets at a fixed price and some other benefits (saving seats, rerouting, flying at least x-times per week, etc). Payment is per ticket issued (i.e. when the governemnt entity actually buys the individual ticket).
My guess is that SN will start flying and then another tender is going to be given out. Because I thing SLO governemnt wants 2 daily flights, one morning and one evening. If SN will be interested is another matter, cause A319 is a bit big for 2 daily flights. We shall see.
Great news for LJU but bad news for ZAG and OU.
Deleteto get things straight: a subsidy is in its original form a payment for rendering services and covers costs, even if no-one is flying on the plane or for surcharging the loss from the revenue and the costs in order to achieve break-even or some small profit.
DeleteSo generally something called a subsidy is paid out irrelevant of the number of passengers. The carrier just has to provide the flight on the route.
And the JP deal with SLO governemnt is therefore not a subsidy in its classical meaning, because only each ticket is paid as it is issued. And the risk of no-passengers is solely on the carrier.
Just don't forget that tickets were bought in bulk and who can fly and when was decided by the Slovenian contractor (just bureaucratic practice). Not used tickets were "lost" so available seats can be easily used by "friends" with connections. Have you ever seen the bunch of people using that tickets anyway? Many legit an other not I suppose...
DeleteBut no one flying with them cares as they are "free" (paid for).
Deleteno they weren't bought in bulk but according to needs. The custodian of the contract is providing the details of the used tickets and remember seing that some of the agencies and entities had plenty of room..in the half year they used something like 1/4 to 1/5 of the ticked they scheduled.
DeleteWHile I see some tickets sometimes going somewhere, the oversight in a tight budget is something that even in SLO has changed and does not work like you've proposed.
Let's not forget, that the last tenders are structured as such, that the payment for ticket goes from the budget of each individual agency and entity, not the central government. So if the agency for forrestry and fishery had only 1 BRU meeting in a year and sent a delegation of 3, it cannot have expense for 25 tickets.
And there is doble oversight by the custodian (ministry of public administration) and with the court of audit.
So no, no bulk disappearance of tickets is happening. 1 or 2 here and there totally possible, but no bulk shenanigans. These times have past, even in SLO public administration.
Nice to hear ... it if it's true. Hope no surprises later.
DeleteNice, so they will have much more capacity than Adria had. If they manage to fill the 319 double daily at reasonable prices all will be great. If not, the route will soon end again.
DeleteHow come they didn't introduce morning flights?
Deletetime schedule of that flight is not so good
DeleteSeems useless, perhaps they're hoping for another (subsidized) morning flight..
DeleteI guess SN didn't have available planes for early morning departures.
DeleteCould be a form of pressure? I just don't see it fitting into the public sector timetable, possibility of onward connections are also rather poor. Yes, you've got your flight, but it might as well be at 01:30 in the morning.
DeleteNo it is the continuation of the ZAG schedule from summer
DeleteYes but in ZAG they have OU which flies in the morning.
DeleteHow is that bad news for Croatia. 13 CRJ900 flights changed with 6 A319 flights. So 1.170 seats per week changed with 840 seats per week. That should harm Zagreb hard!
DeleteI take it then that Liverpool won't now be happening!
ReplyDeleteSwiss is expected to announce flights very soon. Today they already filed and canceled what seems to be test flight plan. LX2276/2277
ReplyDeleteCorrect me if i'm wrong, but weren't the same flight numbers used few years ago when they flown Avro?
DeleteAlso, what were the codeshare flight numbers?
I am not sure, might be. They use 2xxx for scheduled flights on their own metal. Codeshare flights to LJU were numbered 42xx.
DeleteGreat, thanks!
Deletehttp://shrani.si/f/8/zq/3W2cExpF/screenshot20190930-22442.png
DeleteSo I guess it is true.... Lufthansa must have been behind 4K. All makes sense now. (joking)
ReplyDeleteI would not be surprised.
DeleteSmallest alliance airlines are good only as feeders to largest airlines. Sometimes they are not even good at that. Now that Adria is gone, will LH turn against next alliance member in the area? Croatia Airlines already has LH Group airlines as a codeshare partner but also potential competitor with own metal on some routes. Privatization of OU is coming up, could there be another 4K-like Trojan horse to take over OU and then ruin Croatia Airlines in a couple of years?
DeleteAdria was floundering long before 4K showed up. There was no "Trojan horse," just a troubled airline taken over by a shady investor (because no one else wanted it).
DeleteCroatia Airlines just got approved dozens of millions of EUR government subsidy. How is that fundamentally different from Adria before 4K stepped in? Without it subsidy, OU would be just another 'troubled airline' as you said. Several OU privatization attempts already failed, so the next one might just be a shady investor (because no one else wanted it).
DeleteHow absolutely convenient. Adria goes bankrupt right before winter schedule and Lufthansa is stepping in. Just at the same time Lufthansa group is reorganizing and swapping around flights among its airlines and is able to deploy capacity to Ljubljana.
ReplyDeletewhy not before summer where the money is?
Deleteconspiracy theories are fuel for stupidity
Because it is easier in winter with more free capacity. In same time most of routes will not be restored by other companies in winter (low season), and till summer they will have passengers used to them with increasing frequencies.
DeleteI see Swiss taking over Zurich line, Eurowings taking over Munich, Lufthansa Frankfurt and maybe Croatia Airlines gets Balkan routes.
ReplyDeleteWhy would anyone take Balkan routes when they were there for transfers?
Deletewhat OU can do is to add additional frequencies to SKP and SJJ but i guess its stil "too early"
DeleteSad :(
ReplyDeleteWhen people asked the other day why LH group did not react, well this is why, they have been invited and will be paid to react.
ReplyDeletehaha and count in Wizz too there
DeleteIt is not a question if some airliners will come, but how long will stay.
ReplyDeleteI think the LH group airlines will stick around. They might only decrease capacity on some routes after initially sending bigger birds.
DeleteSorry to say but LJU won't recover quickly from this. In the short term only routes that will be covered are these LH group destinations.
ReplyDeleteMany thanks to farmer Zdravko Počivalšek for the excellent choice of strategic partner of 4K.
ReplyDelete+100
DeleteIt was either 4K or JP bankruptcy back in 2016.
DeleteThere were other options since 3 companies applied for the tender. So 4k was not the only choice.
Deletewhen the stage of preliminary and nonbinding offers was over, only 4K stuck around, the others that were snooping around at the beginning scramed away with mach 3 speed.
DeleteIndeed. Some people are now pretending that Adria was a successful airline until the 4K takeover. In fact, it was in an abysmal shape even then. 4K is (was?) a crooked company, but if Adria had any long-term potential, it would have been bought by a serious investor, perhaps even a major airline.
Deletethe most important lines .. Brussels and Pristina :D
ReplyDeleteThe biggest nonsense will be if other carriers pick up commercially viable lines, and the government then sets up a new airline that will be doomed from the start.
ReplyDeleteThey won't set up a new company. I can guarantee it.
DeleteThe Brussels Airlines schedule is absolutely crap. Hope now people will see what Adria's loss will mean to Slovenia.
ReplyDeleteThose were probably the only slots they had left.
DeleteBrussels Airlines does not care what you think of their schedule.
DeleteThey get their subsidies and thats it.
No one is getting subsidies, people you are delusional. For any subsidies to get in place it will take at least a year - this is a combination of Slovenia and government, nothing can happen in an efficient way!
DeleteWebsite from 4k invest is blocked; M A F I A ! ! ! T H I E V E S ! ! !
ReplyDeleteYes that happened yesterday
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2019/09/adria-airways-files-for-bankruptcy.html
"Since Adria's bankruptcy announcement this afternoon, 4K Invest shut down its website."
Meanwhile JU has once again (today) upgraded BEG-LJU-BEG.
ReplyDeleteIt was reported yesterday that today, tomorrow and on the 3rd A319/733 will operate but now...
04.10 B733 in the morning.
06.10 A319 in the evening
No LCC will come to Ljubljana now because these demented politicians pay Lufty Airlines for flying there empty.
ReplyDeleteAt least Zagreb and OU can sit back and relax.
Ha? Nobody paid anyone anything... Currently they're just examining if it's even feasible to subsidize some lines. If you ask me, there's no chance EU would even allow that.
DeleteYou are deluded by the EU ...
DeleteThey will subsidize the Brussels route and that's about it. LH will probably ask Fraport for some subsidies and they will give them a price list. Meanwhile other airlines in LJU will keep on benefiting from the situation. It's been what? Ten days with no flights to ZRH, VIE and MUC?
DeleteThe latest info is, that all 5 hub destinations (Brussels, Frankfurt, Zurich, Munich, Vienna) will be replaced in November.
DeleteNo need for a new airline. OS to VIE, Air Dolomiti to MUC, LH to FRA, LX to ZRH, SK to CPH and AZ to MXP is all that is needed and a few OU buses to ZAG airport....and Wizz can take care of the rest.
ReplyDelete