Four carriers operating to Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport plan to double their services next summer season when compared to this year. Air France, Aeroflot, British Airways and Montenegro Airlines will all increase flights from their respective hubs to the Slovenian capital, with Air Serbia and LOT Polish Airlines yet to finalise their summer timetables. Finnair, which maintains seasonal operations from Helsinki to Ljubljana will also add flights, while Lufthansa, Brussels Airlines and Swiss International Air Lines, which launched services to Slovenia this winter season, could increase their offer next summer but are yet to schedule any additions.
Air France plans to maintain double daily services to Ljubljana, up from seven weekly for the majority of the 2019 summer season. Russian flag carrier Aeroflot will introduce a second daily flight from Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport starting March 29. Both daily operations will be carried out by the Airbus A320 aircraft. British Airways will increase its seasonal services from London Heathrow to Ljubljana, which were launched in 2019, from two to four weekly. The flying season will also be extended and will start almost two months in advance, on May 22, and last until September 26. Montenegro Airlines plans to run six weekly services from Podgorica, up from three for the majority of the summer of 2019, and increasing to daily during peak months. In addition, Finnair will operate daily flights into the Slovenian capital during the peak summer months, up from five weekly.
The German national carrier has also made changes to its planned 2020 summer operations with the airline’s evening service from Frankfurt to remain in Ljubljana overnight. Therefore, as of March 29, Lufthansa will offer a more convenient early morning departure to Germany. On the other hand, just days after launching six weekly flights from Brussels, Ljubljana Airport said it expected for the Belgian airline to introduce additional frequencies from next summer, while strong demand and solid advanced bookings would likely result in a more convenient schedule. The airport is also courting carriers for the introduction of flights from Prague, Copenhagen and Skopje.
Fantastic news for Ljubljana.
ReplyDeleteRecovery is on the way.
ReplyDeleteCudos to Air France they really stepped up.
ReplyDeleteAir Serbia as well, from 12 to 17.
DeleteRead the article. They haven't finalised their summer schedule yet. So far 12 flights are in the system for summer.
DeleteCheck down @ anon 09:13
DeleteI don't recall LJU upper management commenting at all about Air Serbia's 2020 summer operations. That only talked about winter. But fingers crossed.
DeleteI work for LJU so they mentioned it internally when discussing 2020. ;) Management probably spoke to guys from JU. From what I've seen flights have really good loads, around 40 to 50 passengers these days.
DeleteIt will be interesting to see how JU did in summer 2019. Last available month was May:
DeleteMay 2018: 5.751 passengers
May 2019: 6.032 passengers
That's an extra 281 passengers in a single month. In May 2019 BEG overtook TIA to become the 10th busiest destination.
Istanbul was number one with 15.381 passengers so JU isn't doing that badly in Slovenia.
That's like 8 extra passengers per flight? On an Atr that's a lot. So JU had 97 passengers per day to LJU in May or 49 (for double daily flights). The year before it was 93 or 46 per day for double daily flights,
DeleteI am sure than Air Serbia's number in LJU will explode for October and November 2019
DeleteI wonder if they might be similar to TK ones since most flights were on larger aircraft.
DeleteTK is still way ahead of JU with double daily A320/21 with good load factors.
DeleteRead above, they are at 15.000 in May and JU is at 6.000. October is about the same (probably) so JU will be for sure over 10.000.
DeleteTomorrow's JU 192 BEG-LJU-BEG at 13.15 is operated by A319. ;)
DeleteGood to see British coming back after all.
ReplyDeleteWill they use A321s again?
DeleteIn the system the A320 is scheduled
DeleteWith double the flights it would be too much to have A321.
DeleteI was hoping they would fly it thought the entire summer season to be honest.
DeleteOnly thing missing (other than Adria obviously) is Wizz which won't resume Luton.
ReplyDeleteYes but they will introduce third weekly flight on Charleroi route much earlier in the summer.
DeleteThey should launch Skopje-Ljubljana!
DeleteThere is no market, JP carried mostly transfers on a regional jet. Flying a high density A320 would be an overkill.
DeleteWay too big aircraft for the routes O&D demand.
DeleteIt was used primarily for connections when JP flew it.
the guy with the "high density A320" nonsence again.
Deleteif Malta can work with a 4k diaspora then calculate whats going to happen with 40k in SLO which were avoiding JP because of their high prices. lcc markets and Legacy markets have zero in common. Malev had 95% transfer pax with virtually zero diaspora in Hun but Wizz has no problem to fill a A320 ...
And you are the guy who comes with the same arguments but in the end nothing happens and there are no flights from SKP to LJU. As for Budapest, you are aware that the Hungarian government subsidizes those flights to SKP so they are not commercially viable?
Deletenonsence.
DeleteYou mean nonsense?
DeleteWow Finnair daily. Nice!
ReplyDeleteHopefully in 50 years Finnair will finally have the balls to make it a year round route.
DeleteHaha +100
DeleteThey will be feeling a lot more competition this summer because of Aeroflot. Almost all of Finnair's passengers to/from LJU are Asian tourists. SU offers fantastic prices to Asia and now connecting flights too.
DeleteWith two daily flights SU wil be as strong as TK, always good to have more competition.
DeleteYes we might see TK reduce their prices.
DeleteTK and SU are totally different stories at the moment. While TK has 90% of transfer passengers, SU has 90% O&D traffic. Finnair's competition in terms of Asian tourists is TK, not SU.
DeleteLO is as well competition to AY.
DeleteLufthansa seems to have a lot of overbooking issues on the Ljubljana flights. Perhaps time to up capacity?
ReplyDeleteNot just Lufthansa, the whole group: e.g. Two Wednesdays in a row all 3 afternoon flights LX, SN and LH to FRA overbooked.
DeleteThey probably will increase capacity but all the airlines have issues with the lack of equipment. Remember they were leasing Adria planes after all.
DeleteSomeone still missing Adria?
ReplyDeleteFraport being the first. What people read and cheer and boo here and the financials of airports differ significantly.
DeleteThe only people missing JP are those who worked for it.
DeleteJust like any other state owned carrier that closed around Europe is missed only by the overpaid and underworked former staff.
Well I'm still missing flights to Scandinavia and significantly more frequencies to major European cities like we had before.
DeleteWhat you had before wasn't supported by the market though.
DeleteAll those year round destinations and frequencies were loss making for JP.
"Fraport being the first. What people read and cheer and boo here and the financials of airports differ significantly."
DeleteI'm pretty sure Fraport prefers a bit less cash in the account than some fictional revenue that will never be paid, or paid very late.
@Anonymous10 December 2019 at 09:17:
DeleteI'm one of those "overpaid and underworked" employees and I really hope you lose your job in 2020.
Everybody knew Adria was going bust sooner or later. It's just that some people decided to wait until they were jobless.
DeleteMost people in Adria were not underworked and I know people personally they were heavily overworked, not to forget working in a company on the edge of banruptcy is mentally another burden u wear around day by day. And this burden they have worn for several years
DeleteAdria is history, lets respect their achievement, under other circumstances they were quite succesful and have still some very nice stories to tell.
Yeah, so did workers at Primorje, Mura, Labod, ... So what?! You're trying to say as if they deserved it jsut because they were there until the end. What an arse.
Deleteyou are such an idiot, I hope you go jobless and homeless soon.
DeleteI hope you are referring to Anonymous10 December 2019 at 09:17 or Anonymous10 December 2019 at 11:14.
DeleteHopefully JU keeps LJU as 17 from BEG.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised Turkish hasn't added more flights...
ReplyDeleteTransavia too.
DeleteAt least TK is using A321 on all flights in winter schedule. But I agree, it would be better for onward connections to add third daily flight on some weekdays
DeleteIn my opinion Transavia is the biggest looser up until now. All other carriers managed to schedule additional rotations but Transavia couldn't even do it in winter time (while Amsterdam was one of the top destinations in Adria era). Is the problem getting AMS slots? Is KLM launching flights soon?
DeleteAMS has no more slots until 2020 when new ones are supposed to be released. All increase have to happen only once something else has been decreased.
DeleteI hope Transavia/KLM get some of Adria slots for flights to LJU. Dutch people love Slovenia and more direct flights are a must
DeleteWould there be sense in transferring the Transavia flights to KLM?
DeleteI don't think so. AF has the connecting passengers covered.
Deleteand Transavia as well.they offer connection/transfer on KLM flights
DeleteDelta too.
Delete@ Nemjee. Please elobarte:
DeleteAMS has no more slots until 2020 when new ones are supposed to be released. All increase have to happen only once something else has been decreased.
So AMS has no slots, but in 2020- in 3 weeks time they will have them? Who will bring them? Santa Clause?
No, Santa Clause only allocates slots at Rovaniemi airport. AMS is not restricted in the same way LHR is, as in they have enough runways and gates but the Dutch government was bullied by ecotalibans to limit the number of aircraft movements to, I think, 500.000 a year.
DeleteFrom what I recall in 2020 that cap is supposed to be changed by being increased. I said it will be changed in 2020, not on 01.01.2020. :)
Indeed, real shame for not getting back (yet, hopefully) daily AMS flight. Transavia operates very choppy schedule and many people tend to avoid CDG. If KLM can operate daily to GRZ, I don't see why not to LJU as well. Whenever I flew to AMS and back, CRJ900 seemed quite full and I've also noticed there were many transfer passengers. I'd rather fly via AMS with KLM than via CDG with AF, since connecting in CDG is really messy.
DeleteHopefully all this is enough to put an end to the discussion of a potential new national carrier.
ReplyDeleteDon't count on it
DeleteSo we will have double daily Air France, Turkish, Aeroflot, Lufthansa and Air Serbia (probably). Not bad at all.
ReplyDeleteJU will be 17 weekly from what we are told here by LJU upper management.
DeleteIt is nice to see JU in the good company of AF, TK, SU, LH with the most frequencies to LJU.
DeleteWell done Air Serbia!
Good to see LJU recovery is on the way!
DeleteYou do realize that with all these additions the number of flights will still not reach the Adria levels.
DeleteStep by step...
DeleteBravo Slovenija!
ReplyDeleteLjubljanas good development continues, glad to see that foreign carriers are investing into LJU
ReplyDeleteAny ideas when we could see the passenger decline end and LJU return to growth?
ReplyDeleteSeptember 2020.
DeleteAfter the anniversary of Adria's demise
DeleteMaybe even earlier than september 2020. Summer season will be interesting for sure
DeleteEasyjet has kept quiet. They will keep all flights but no additional frequencies.
ReplyDeleteOther than Berlin they only fly London routes from LJU which were in no way affected by Adria's bankruptcy.
DeleteThere were rumours Iberia might also start LJU seasonally in summer.
ReplyDeleteThat would be nice
DeleteAustrian not starting flights is the big shocker for me.
ReplyDeleteIt means the flights were probably not profitable.
DeleteOS is losing millions thanks to Wizz Air. They are attacking them on every single market out there, from Tirana to Athens to Tel Aviv. Imagine how happy OS was when they found out Wizz Air will be flying double daily VIE-TLV.
DeleteYes OS is having quite big issues. LJU is probably the least of their worries.
DeleteOS has bigger problems than loosing couple of transfer pax from LJU: Wizz Air and Lauda.
DeleteHow often do we need to mention that Austrian serves very near KLU instead or LJU and will not cannibalize themselves
DeleteI think Turkish Airlines will triple LJU when the 737 MAX gets back into the sky.
ReplyDeleteWell if nothing Turkish benefited from Adria collapse by getting one of their A320s :D
DeleteWho will operate the summer charters next year with Adria gone?
ReplyDeleteForeign airlines from Greece, Turkey, Tunisia and Egypt.
DeleteThere are tons of charter airlines in Europe - most of them don't last long, because charter business ultimately isn't very profitable, so names change every couple of years.
DeleteAfter Adria collapsed in September local tour operator wet leased planes for charters. Maybe they do the same next year too.
DeleteAnother 4 times?
DeleteWell it seems Fraport did some work. It's not easy to stage a recovery but they agree doing it relatively quickly.
ReplyDeleteThe writing was on the wall for months that Adria would go bust stop they had time to prepare.
DeleteAnd exactly what most people said would happen happened. Other airlines have stepped in and taken Adria's place.
ReplyDeleteThere are still a lot of routes missing though.
DeletePatience
DeleteWhen the new terminal is completed, more airlines will come.
DeleteWhy? It's not like there are capacity constraints at LJU at the moment
DeleteFantastic news. I think some exciting times are ahead for LJU. Hopefully some new airlines come too.
ReplyDeleteAnd let's not forget DHL increasing capacity to LJU :P
ReplyDeletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2019/12/dhl-increases-ljubljana-capacity.html
Could this have had something to do with Adria too? I mean Adria did carry some cargo.
DeleteRegarding Wizz and them not resuming London-Ljubljana, I think they simply got smashed by easyjet. And British starting flights probably won't help.
ReplyDelete*didn't help
DeleteAnyone going to pick up Adria's seasonal Manchester route? I think there is potential there.
ReplyDeleteDidn't Adria itself plan to dump that route from 2020 and start Liverpool instead?
DeleteYes they did.
DeleteAt 1pw it was more like seasonal charter, so very unlikely.
DeleteExpected. Budapest scenario just on a much smaller scale, comperative to the airport's size.
ReplyDeleteIt was posted on the FB group 'Slovenes in Brussels' a few days ago that SN is planning three daily flights to Brussels. It is apparently already in the system?
ReplyDeleteIt's not true. At least the part about it being in the system. There are only 6 flights scheduled for summer.
DeleteFor a while (until last week), there were three flights a day to BRU in ST2020 showing up in Momondo (the first departure at 5:55 in the morning, another in the late morning and one in the afternoon). No prices. These are now gone, so the FB group you are mentioning could have picked up that. I seriously doubt there will be 3xdaily, but I can imagine late evening arrival (overnight) and the early departure is the best bet for ST2020. If you look at SN network, they operate such flights to quite a number of EU cities, even those smaller than LJU with a smaller catchment area and more nearby competition.
DeleteMy guess is that the A319 is too big for that route to be operated three times per day. If they had the SSJ or AVRO then sure.
DeleteI wonder if Pegasus considers to fly to LJU. They have a strong presence in ex-yu.
ReplyDeleteThey have a strong presence in ex-yu, where there are no visa restrictions for Turkish passport holders. That means, ex-yu except Slovenia and Croatia.
DeleteThis seems like very positive and sustainable development for LJU. Of course it doesn't beat having a home based carrier when looking at non-stop connectivity but it is much more long-term sustainable than having JP around was. I do think Fraport should court LCCs a little bit more however not necessarily for a base but certainly for O&D routes and city break routes such as London or Germany. This would help the local economy as well as giving Fraport higher revenue and passenger numbers.
ReplyDeleteAgainst all odds, it seems that JP did LJU a huge favour going bust and letting more carriers boost in.
ReplyDeleteLJU will be dominated mainly by Star Alliance and will get back to positive figures as early as March 2020. Excellent achievements¡
+1
DeleteFinally, after many years waiting for this...
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/Iberia_en/status/1204792663444197376