Swiss International Air Lines is unlikely to resume its service between Zurich and Ljubljana this year, although a final decision is expected in the coming weeks. In a sign of things to come, the carrier has discontinued sales on the route until the start of the 2021 summer season on March 28, when flights are expected to be restored through its partner Helvetic Airways. Swiss was the first among the Lufthansa Group airlines to commence operations to the Slovenian capital last year following the collapse of national carrier Adria Airways. Daily services were launched on October 17, 2019. Among other members of the Group, Lufthansa will maintain its Frankfurt service throughout the winter, but will not resume its Munich route until summer 2021, while Brussels Airlines plans to restore its Ljubljana operations on October 25.
Earlier this month, Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport urged for the Slovenian government to provide incentives to airlines in order to encourage them to resume operations to the city. “Maintaining existing connections and restoring the rest will be a challenge due to the continuing uncertainty over the health situation in the world. Therefore, carriers are increasingly cautious and selective about which markets they enter. We hope that the country, following the example of other European Union member states, will use funds to promote Slovenia in key markets to help restore its air connectivity which was accessible to locals and foreigners alike prior to the pandemic. Such an incentive would be crucial for the recovery of the Slovenian tourism industry and the economy in general", Ljubljana Airport’s Head of Airline Management, Janez Krašnja, said at the time. The Slovenian government had previously expressed interest in subsidising flights to key Lufthansa hubs - Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich and Brussels - in order to increase frequencies.
Zurich has historically been Ljubljana’s sixth busiest route. Nine carriers presently maintain operations to Ljubljana Airport. They include Air Serbia (Belgrade), Montenegro Airlines (Podgorica), Lufthansa (Frankfurt), Wizz Air (Charleroi), Transavia (Amsterdam), easyJet (Berlin), Air France (Paris), Turkish Airlines (Istanbul) and LOT Polish Airlines (Warsaw). easyJet’s Gatwick flights are set to resume this coming Friday, while it will launch a new service from Luton to the Slovenian capital on October 28. Its service from Stansted to Ljubljana is being discontinued as a result of the base closure on September 1.
Well it seems LJU management was right about there being a need to provide subsidies to keep airlines flying.
ReplyDeleteIf tax payers will be paying for something, it shouldn't go into something that will be more expensive than having a national carrier again.
DeleteYou know what,
DeleteAm is surprised?...
No.
Subsidising airlines is less expensive than national carrier.
DeleteAnd less reliable.
Deletesorry wasn't precise enough : expensive not only in money that goes into making airlines fly - not being reliable costs a lot of money too (and nerves)
Deleteat this point we can't afford to go cheap
Even more evidence we don't need a national airline. While we are at it, we don't need an airport either.
ReplyDeleteSorry, that is a stupid statement. We don't need an independent country then either...
DeleteSorry, that is a stupid comment. We don't need an independent country then either...
Deleteamateurs, we should go big - world needs only one government, only one airline and only one airport operator
Deleteno need to worry about the interest of more powerful, all will go well
can we sell the country, as it is not profitable ?
DeleteWe already sold our country when we sold our banks to foreigners.
Delete:(
ReplyDeleteMore and more reason Croatia Airlines should establish a base in LJU.
ReplyDeleteDash 8 would work perfectly on this route.
DeleteThey can barely fend off competition at domestic airports imagine them trying to do so elsewhere! LJU needs someone like Wizz or Ryan to expand there.
DeleteBecause both Wizz and Ryanair fly to Zurich and a B737-800 or A320 make sense on such a short route...
DeleteIf it makes sense to send it from Tuzla to Basel then why not from LJLJ?
DeleteCare to have a look at the Bosnian immigrant population in Switzerland and compare it to that of Slovenia?
Deleteamen to that anon 09:38
DeleteI'm not so convinced all these will return in summer as planned.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, I'm not sure Brussels will return this winter.
DeleteLet's wait and see. I doubt Slovenian politicians will be happy with no flights to Brussels, especially as EU presidency approaches.
DeleteDue to COVID, Slovenian government only allows travel to a handful of countries, it's getting insane... Just had to cancel my Amsterdam trip since Transavia discontinued all their fligths from 13.9. forward due to Netherlands being on a red list. If the government doesn't stop panicking, more airlines will cancel connections and it will take years to regain connectivity.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteGood news is that from yesterday Slovenia removed quarantine for Serbia. Hopefully JU does better and adds more flights now.
DeleteI didn't know there was quarantine for Serbia. lol
DeleteI assumed there wasn't since JU already increased LJU from 2 to 4 weekly flights. I suppose it's because of transfers.
Quarantine applied to transfer passengers if they passed through a "red" listed country.
DeleteSo who was flying then? Maybe people going to New York on JU?
DeleteSlovenians are not allowed to enter the United States or anyone that has been in Slovenia within 14 days of entering the US.
DeleteNot true, Slovenes who hold a US passport or a Green Card are allowed to enter the United States. They are not allowed to enter the US if they have been transiting at an EU airport, that's what JU, LX and TK are massively profiting right now.
DeleteYes, only if you have a US passport or are a resident are you allowed to enter the US from the EU. If you are a US resident or passport holder living in the EU, then you can transfer through any point in Europe from where there are flights - Lufthansa and the likes included.
DeleteLJU will really struggle this winter. Government should really make some coherent aviation policy.
ReplyDeleteWhat can the government do? Pay airlines to fly?
DeleteAmong other things.
DeleteFor starters it should finally begin to take aviation seriously.
DeleteIT IS ONE MORE INDICATION THAT SLOVENIANS SHOULD START TO TAKE CARE OF ITS PROBLEMS THEMSELVES.
ReplyDeleteIf this continues all the international firms that have started to migrate its operations to Slovenia will pull out due to bad connectivity.
DeleteThink Novartis will be first on the list.
Airlines are not flying because demand is so low.
DeleteIt's not like airplanes are full and they just don't want to make money in Slovenia.
Anon 10:31
DeleteWhat was the average pax number on the flight?
What were the load factors on the city par LJU-ZRH-LJU?
So much for the Lufthansa Group...
ReplyDeleteThe real problem are these quarantine lists. Only people from 19 countries can enter Slovenia without any form of quarantine measures.
ReplyDeleteThat is not a problem unique to Slovenia.
DeleteMaybe when the last airline will have discontinued their flights to LJU, aiport management will realize there's no one to subsidize anymore and will start talking with the government about long term solution which is the new airline with competent management that will provide support and infrastructure to slovenian economy and people. Otherwise as someone mentioned, existing corporations now present in Slovenia will start to move to other countries with at least the basic infrastructure, such as air connectivity for example.
ReplyDeleteFull support. Slovenians do not need neighbouring problematic airlines to fly from their country, but to establish efficient and modern Slovenian airline.
DeleteWell done Skobir & Krasnja!!
DeleteI hope they reconsider.
ReplyDeleteNo worries ladies and gentlemen
ReplyDeleteThey are in the end talks with a lead regional airline, to base airplanes here.
They will get golf airlines to fly to LJU.
22 airlines operate LJU (guess this include 9 real and 11 virtual).
The only thing that I’m confused of is the terminal, when they started the construction, they stated it is absolutely necessary to be built because current one is too small. But in the last communicate, they did say it is a long-term investment.
I guess we are just not capable of seeing the big picture, their master plan.
Or maybe they have absolutely no ethical standards when it comes to validity of their statements.
Bravo LJU! Bravo Slovenia! Let’s se how low we can go...
ReplyDeletelet's see if someone will go be responsible and smart before we hit the rock bottom
DeleteIs that an A220 in the photo?
ReplyDeleteYes, A220-300 but now without those ugly stickers
DeleteI actually like the livery :D
DeleteAnyone know the ocassion?
DeleteFete de Vignerons 2019, vine festival in the french part of Switzerland
DeleteThis chaos will continue until we have a vaccine and until the situation become slightly more normal. Look at what's happening in Hungary. They are introducing mandatory quarantine from tomorrow and Debrecen is staying with just two weekly flights while Budapest will have just a handful of flights. LJLJ is lucky to have what it has now given its size.
ReplyDeleteZAG is not much bigger city and they have much worse situation with Covid and still we can't even compare connectivity of ZAG and LJU. Even before Covid connectivity was a disaster in LJU so you can't blame covid for situation in which LJU currently is...
DeleteI don't really agree. Recovery after JP collapse was quite nice. Without COVID-19 there would be 22 destinations (15 countries) with over 160 flights a week this summer. There should be 23-weekly flights to LON, 17-weekly to BEG, 10-weekly to WAW, twice daily flights to CDG, FRA, IST, SVO, daily to BRU, HEL, MUC, ZRH etc. plus 21 charter destinations in Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia, Spain Israel and Cyprus. How can you stated that LJU can't blame COVID-19 for the situation in which airport currently is?
Deletebecause relative performance compared with other airports LJU performed the worst. In doubt check fraport financial statements
Delete@anon 22:54
DeleteActual recover was under every expectation of Fraport and occasional passengers which are loudest one on Forum. Not to mention that number of destination does not mean much if schedule is complete crap. Let's what we had before Covid but with really weak schedule
-FRA twice per day, but at least they have changed schedule to decent one in S20 (JP 3x/day)
-MUC, ZRH one flight per day (JP 3x/day)
-BRU once per day (JP 2x/day)
-VIE no flights at all (JP 2x/day)
-SJJ, PRN, TIA, SKP no flights at all (JP 1x/day)
While other airports in region had 10-20% increase, you were satisfied with 30% loss?
And this loss is compared to situation where JP was not in good shape anymore and there were already many flights operating for other airline (ACMI) and not out of LJU.
Without carrier which will place at least 4 aircrafts in LJU, situation will never get better. Either is this national carrier or any other carrier which will get subsidies from SLO government but something has to change with aviation policy in Slovenia.
Let's hope no one else drops out.
ReplyDeleteWhy does Helvetic operate the Swiss flights (when flights are operational)?
ReplyDeletePoliticians said it was bad that Slovenia had to subsidize poor Yu republics. Now it will be much better to subsidze other airlines flying to rich Lufthansa hubs in FRA, MUC, ZRH and BRU.
ReplyDeleteto anon 01:19 - because mama Lufthansa has ordered Swiss to fly to LJU, and they don't have suitable small aircraft.
ReplyDelete