Low cost carrier Wizz Air will temporarily suspend its sole service to Slovenia over the coming winter, as well as eight routes from its base in Tuzla. With this latest development, Wizz Air will have temporarily suspended 36 routes from markets in the former Yugoslavia.
The final service this year between Charleroi in Belgium and Ljubljana is scheduled for October 24, with two weekly flights to be reinstated on March 30, 2021. Wizz had made plans to downgrade its year-round operations on the route to a seasonal summer service last year but reconsidered following the collapse of Adria Airways in September 2019. Ticket sales for flights past this October were suspended this week. Wizz Air began serving the Slovenian market in October of 2012 and has continuously maintained flights from both Charleroi and London until last October, when operations from Luton Airport were discontinued, while services from the Belgian city were briefly suspended in October and November. During its last full year of service from Charleroi to Ljubljana in 2018, Wizz Air carried 33.642 passengers on the route.
Wizz Air will be adding a further four routes to the other four which have already been suspended from its Tuzla base. The airline will discontinue services to Berlin, Cologne, Baden Baden and Vaxjo over the winter season, with plans to restore them in late March 2021. Services to Salzburg, Vienna, Billund and Friedrichshafen, which have already been suspended but were to be reinstated in late October, will not return to the network until the 2021 summer season next March. As a result, Wizz Air will run flights from Tuzla to Basel, Dortmund, Hahn, Memmingen, Eindhoven, Gothenburg, Malmo and Skavsta over the winter.
Wizz Air warned last week that its industry-leading recovery could stall as Covid-19 warnings and restrictions hamper travel across Europe. The low cost airline has been one of the fastest to recover from the ongoing coronavirus crisis, currently flying at 80% of last year’s capacity. However, ticket data shows Europe’s travel recovery began to stall in August after a stronger performance in July, and Wizz said 80% capacity was as high as it could go under current circumstances, and that capacity might fall again. “From here on, either you’re going to be able to hold the line or somewhat come down on capacity”, CEO Jozsef Varadi said.
Quo Vadis Slovenijo
ReplyDeleteProbably to ZAG to fly from!
DeleteIt's not like they have much choice there, my guess is that they are going to Venice
DeleteThink they will run out of the money joust about now.
DeleteDo they even qualify for a loan, with the current cash flow?
Wizz Air's mega expansion in these times is not bearing any fruits.
ReplyDeleteNot in the region, but in rest of the Europe and Abu Dhabi it is.
DeleteIn last 15 days:
- 6 new routes from Doncaster, on top of 7 already announces,
- 2 new routes from Milan Malpensa
- 5 new routes from Vilnius,
- 1 new route from Tallin,
- 4 new routes from Gatwick and
- 7 new routes from Riga.
These are all just announcements. Do they actually launch any of these routes?
DeleteThey sell tickets, and till now they did launch all routes they announced. 250 new routes and 10 new bases since May were or will be opened till end of 2020.
DeleteThey announced 9 new routes from BEG and they didn't launch them. They moved them for next year.
DeletePurger, I may add TIA and VAR to the list additional planes. Even though they were announced a bit earlier.
DeleteWay of money collecting
DeleteAnnouncing new routes, selling tickets, operating the flights and finally making profit (or at least breaking even) are four very different concepts in these times.
DeleteTirana was already downsized so Purger should not mislead the public on here
DeleteHe didnt metion TIA at all.
Delete@Purger: The majority of those bases (you call an expansion) were open with 15 aircraft taken away from existing bases resulting numerous cancelled routes and frequency cuts. Since then huge cuts in frequencies were done at the new bases (eg. TIA and MXP) as well. Wizz Abu Dhabi will be started with only 2 aircraft (and only 14 weekly flights altogether) instead of the 6 originally announced. 25 destinations out of Budapest were suspended for September. Per their latest announcement only 60% of the capacity is being used in this quarter (ending in September) and even less flights will be operted in the winter with 30+ aircraft grounded. They are expanding only in words and theory so that they can take the money from ticket sales.
DeleteBut still they are expanding around (or reshuffle planes and capacity), i region just cutting.
DeleteThe way things are going, there will be no airlines left in LJU this winter.
ReplyDeleteSo who is left now?
Delete"Iako je broj tjednih redovnih letova za Ljubljanu u kolovozu bio ekstremno nizak, tek 36 (5 dnevno), ove zime taj broj će biti značajno niži.
DeleteOd letova je odustala Transavia za Amsterdam (2 leta tjedno u kolovozu), a LOT je prekinuo letova od 16.9. do 25.10. pri čemu je vrlo upitno hoće li letjeti ovu liniju zimi (u kolovozu 5 letova tjedno). Od obnavljanja linija je odustao i British, Brussels, Windrose i Israir.
Istime je broj letova za Ljubljanu pao na tek 29 tjedno (4 dnevno) i to za Frankfurt (12 tjedno), 6 tjedno za Paris, te po 3 tjedno za Istanbul, London Luton i Beograd, jednom tjedno za Berlin i za Podgoricu. Za Ljubljanu lete sa po jednom linijom Lufthansa, Turkish, Air France, Air Serbia, Montenegro i sa dvije easyJet.
Da je Adria na životu ovakva tragedija za Ljubljanu ne bi se desila. Isto je evidentno u Beogradu i Nišu (gdje većinu letova leti Air Serbia), Zagrebu, Splitu, Dubrovniku i Braču (Croatia), te Podgorici i Tivtu (Montenegro).
U ovom momentu Ljubljana ima manje dnevnih letova od Pule, Zadra i Podgorice (koji su uvijek bili daleko od nje), a na razini je Sarajeva i Tuzle."
(Dnevni bilten yesterday)
he is comparing Ljublana with Pula, Zadar i Tivat in high season (first week of Sept). priceless.
Deletedid you compare those figures in 2019? LJU had much more flights than those cities even that JP already had huge problems at that time. So actually comparison is fine, we can easily see that LJU had highest drop in every possible KPI among other airports.
Delete@Anon 10:15: Not only that, it is extremely clear that business travel (of which LJU had a very large percentage) has collapsed almost completely and will take a while to recover, unlike leisure travel.
Deletewe will see in Oct how many flights Pula, Tivat and Zadar will have ...
DeleteYou still don't get it. For Pula, Tivat and Zadar it's normal that they will have less flights but what is not normal that LJU has now less flights than all those airports and this was not a case last year.
Delete"tragedija" - how pathetic
DeleteFor sure those 3-4 daily flights in winter from Ljubljana will be more than 1-2 flights from Zadar and Pula, but will be less then number of flights from Tuzla or Sarajevo. That is not normal on any way.
DeleteMy point to compare it with Zadar and Pula was that last year even in summer Ljubljana had much more flights than Zadar and Pula, but now it does not.
This is really bad for Tuzla. Their entire traffic depends on Wizz.
ReplyDeleteFrom the biggest winner to the biggest loser, Wizz. Hungary completely closing borders will definitely not help them.
ReplyDeleteMega expansion must have caused significant loss this summer, with most of the flights operating under the break-even loads. What a mistake.
ReplyDeleteThere was no "mega expansion". They just downsized some of the bases and put the extra aircraft to new places. And they fired a bunch of pilots in order to rehire (some of) them under worse conditions.
DeleteSensible airlines didn't open 10 new bases since March.
DeleteWizz Air placed a bet that this thing will be over by winter and it hasn't worked.
What's worse is they have become extremely unreliable, even more so than other airlines at this time. Especially since they sell tickets mostly to the very last day before they suspend a route.
DeleteWizz doesn't want to accept responsibility for bad decisions. New wave of cases is hitting many countries and another one is expected during winter. Going against the grain and keeping large capacity in the air is a losing bet for Wizz.
DeleteBad news for LJU just keeps on rolling
ReplyDeleteOk, let's hear it from the "everything is normal, blame the COVID, let's subsidise foreign carriers" brigade.
ReplyDeleteSubsidising foreign carriers (which hasn't happened yet, btw) will always be cheaper than creating a new perpetually loss-making and nepotistic state-owned airline.
Delete@anon 09:24
Deletedo you really believe that LH group would base an aircraft in LJU if you give them 10 eur/pax? Even with that price Slovenia would spend 10 mio EUR per year (which is much higher than it was yearly loss made by JP)
Not to mention that new carrier would employ Slovenians which would not take money from Employment institute anymore. In addition those employees contribute to Slovenian economy 40% of salary.
At the end it's much much cheaper to establish own carrier rather than subsidize foreign carriers.
Why would they need to base the aircraft in LJU? Slovenia mainly needs hub connectivity and this can easily be achieved with LH Group's existing business model.
DeleteJob creation for jobs sake is always a bad economic idea. It never works in the long term.
Only LH had quite solid business model as they had aircraft here over night. There were still space for improvement but ok. For other LH group flight it was complete disaster in any aspect. One flight per day and even this one was in the middle of the day. With such business model LJU connectivity will remain as it is - catastrophic.
DeleteDidn't say that company should be established because of job. But among all other advantages, this is another one to reconsider that option.
@Anonymous09:24:
DeleteUnfortunately, there is one tiny, albeit fatal flaw in your plan. Nobody will want to fly to LJU if there are other markets were more money can be made. Even if someone would be willing to fly empty planes (with costs covered by Slovenian taxpayers), as soon as a new, more lucrative market emerges, they would move there. That's how profitable airlines work.
Now, on the other hand, with a national carrier, if it can break even, you do not have such a problem.
But what do I know, I've only been in aviation for 15 years.
If the flights will be empty despite the subsidies, there's probably not enough demand to justify the route to begin with.
DeleteEven if the flight is full, if the ancillary revenue is not good enough, airlines will move to other places.
DeleteBasically LJU is left with 2 LCCs – easyjet and Transavia.
ReplyDeleteIt's questionable whather Transavia will come back this winter.
DeleteWell I see this more as a fail on Wizz Air's behalf than Ljubljana's.
ReplyDeleteWow, good for you. The way I see it, it's a huge fail on behalf of the country. No more flights, so to speak, whereas neighbouring countries still have flights.
DeleteAnd idiots here preach on about not needing a national carrier. Is it to hard to admit about being wrong?! Do it guys, you'll feel better.
Let Adria go bust they said. Airlines are waiting in line, they said. Now we can use Flixbus.
ReplyDeleteSaving Adria would be extremely cheap. Almost 100 EUR per every pax in 2019 just to pay off the debts and keep the lights on, let alone to restructure and find a sound business plan.
DeleteSure, why not?
Where do you plan on travelling right now? The airlines will return once there's passengers willing to fly, keeping some CRJs wouldn't have solved anything in this climate.
DeleteSaving Adria was not an option, but in meantime they could establish new company. And yes, few CRJ would make much better connectivity as we are seeing now.
DeleteNew company with same routes, same aircraft, same employees, same business model? Great plan.
Deleteno airline, no routes, no aircrafts, no passengers, different business model? That plan is even greater! We can all feel it!
DeleteHere we go, the motonic, know-it-all brigade. 100 eur/pax?! Would love to see that analysis. Sure you didn't just pull it out of your a**?
DeleteGuys, while we're at it, let's get rid of national railways and buses. I never use them because they suck. Is it normal for the bus travel to take two and a half hours from NG to LJ? Or half a day by train???
Adria had 537k pax in H1 2019. Extrapolate this to 9 months (bankrupt late September), that's 805k.
DeleteTotal confirmed debt by administrator was in excess of 73m EUR, so that's about 90.6 EUR of Adria's debt at time of bankruptcy per passenger carried in 2019.
And how much of that debt was accumulated during the last two years of Adria's existence, with the crazy expansion going on and greedy Germans stealing the money?
DeleteIt's not difficult to manipulate the numbers to justify your agenda, is it?
So much for people's predictions on here how they will open a base in LJU.
ReplyDeleteThis is catastrofa
ReplyDeleteLet's hope these routes are actually coming back. I remember with London-Tuzla they said how its going seasonal, they started selling tickets for the following year and then they completely terminated it.
ReplyDeleteThey did the same with TZL-Oslo
DeleteParty seems to be over. Reality strikes...
ReplyDeleteThey are simply responding to current market demand.
ReplyDeleteThis is certainly the biggest number of routes they have suspended one season from ex-Yu markets.
ReplyDeleteWell you know, there is this thing called coronavirus going around.
DeleteEverything will be back to normal next year
Deleteeverywhere except LJU. Fraport will still be happy with 20 destinations even if that means that they operate few times per week.
Delete@anon 09:38
DeleteYeah, because from 1st Jan 2021 everything resets, Covid-19 will vanish, all will be good.
I'm under the impression that many of these LCCs will simply implode.
ReplyDeleteUnlike. Once the Covid economic impact kicks in, people will start cutting down on their expenses and paying 20 EUR for a ticket will always have higher yield than a 200 EUR ticket with the legacy carriers.
DeleteAnd don't forget, most state-owned airlines in Europe got enormous amounts of loans to survive, that will need to be paid off at one point, while LCCs typically have large cash reserves and don't need to adapt their business model as much, as they can depend on low ticket cost to boost demand.
Wizz said they have cash for year and a half. Covid crisis in the travel industy will last at least 3 to 4 years, so Wizz will be in trouble. Governments will give more subsidies to their airlines and extend loan terms if needed. Long term losers are LCCs.
DeleteI keep on saying the same thing from the beginning: This crisis will hit LCCs most, unlike everyone's expectation. Because LCCs' business model relies on heavy demand. The problem aviation industry faces now is the collapsing demand, which no-one was able to reverse until now. This is not a price sensitivity problem, the demand collapsed completely. And the remaining travelers do travel because they have to, which means the ticket price doesn't play any role in these remaining travelers' decisions.
DeleteIf this crisis continues in 2021 summer, we may see for the first time in 21st century that LCC traffic lags behind the legacy one.
National/flag/major carriers in Europe and USA have so far made more people redundant in than the LCCs. For a reason.
DeleteFLAG CARRIERS pay its employees respectable or even decent wages. Salaries represent a higher % of the cost to the company.
DeleteFlag carrier is also expected to be SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE because of this its operations and services are held to higher standard (flying quality, safety reserves, passenger care) and it is expected to also serve interest of the country that it represents.
LCC pay low wages to administration and flight hours to pilots. So, it represents lower % of the cost to the company.
LCC is known to fly with min fuel reserves; if there is a holding on a destination airport, they would be the first to declare emergency due to low fuel and force first in que landing.
Care for passengers in non-existent and RESPONSIBILITY ONLY TO INVESTORS.
Indication how serious the situation is in LCC is:
-Fire and rehire policy of Wizz
-Ryanair approach if you do not take the collective agreement where starting salary is below minimal wage salary of the country, they will close the base
In short if flag carrier would do half of the shady business that LCC it would be closed long ago.
You are clearly not in touch with reality.
DeleteHow many people have lost their lives on an easyJet or Ryanair flight in the past 20 years? And how many on Air France or Turkish Airlines? Or how many aircraft were written off by each of those airlines due to accidents.
Salaries-wise, LCCs in Europe tend to pay much more money than "legacy" carriers in exyu.
Fuel... How many LCC flights have declared fuel emergency in Europe in 2019, because they didn't have enough fuel?
That is what happens when you stretch too much.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteShame
ReplyDeleteW6 just announced that it will probably park a lot of planes during winter and that it expects 60% capacity to last year. Fairytale is over.
ReplyDeleteThey received four brand new planes, A320neo and three A321neo, and they immediately parked them in Budapest
Deletec'mon guys, still no enought of the we need adria 2.0 comments. let's go air slovenia brigade. tell us how slovenia needs a national airline, because the short term outlook is brigh rosy as a rainbow ! :P :D
ReplyDeleteIt would certainly have better connectivity if it had a national airlines than the situation it has now.
DeleteKrasnja and Skobir are commenting again. With no flights at all in LJU they both have plenty of time to support "market will take of itself" mentality on this forum.
Deletethe adria 2.0 "slovenia brigade" are (believe me) only provocateurs ..and not form SLO
DeleteI would say that "market will take of itself" brigade are not from Slovenia. In case that they are Slovenians, we could name them as "traitors of Slovenian nation".
DeleteCall people traitors, because they have different political views (which this ultimately is; nanny state v. free market). Classy.
DeleteI call Krasnja and Skobir traitors, they have not a single argument to be against national carrier. Fraport would have more flight, more passengers, more revenue so everything what CEO of Fraport should worry about. And if they are against all that then they represents other interests. I don't know which interests these are but for sure they are against welfare of Slovenia).
DeleteFraport doesn't want to be again dependent on one airline, that will go bankrupt and owe them millions.
DeleteWell, I certainly am from Slovenia and definitely support the idea of a national carrier.If we have enough money for railways and buses (which suck big time) why not an airline? If you're against an airline, let's get rid of the other two as well. I never use them, so why should there be any need for them.
Delete@anon 11:49
Deletewhen they were dependent on one airlines they had huge profit, now they are dependent on many airlines and they have to use that profit to survive each month.
So which period was more successful for them?
"Krasnja and Skobir" the last of the old guard, that only know the business model of I, me, only me.
Delete@Anonymous09:43:
DeleteC'mon, Skobir. We all know it's you behind this "against national carrier" propaganda. Look, you're not getting any money from Slovenian taxpayers, got it? If you want, we can setup a new carrier, but you'll have to lower the prices. It's not like you have arilines queueing at your airport, now do you? Suck it up, that's business for ya. Supply and demand.
I hope they look into opening some other destinations. There is still room for them to grow in this region, even with corona.
ReplyDeleteHAHA!
DeleteThis is worrying. and bitter because they are using the aircrafts to "expand" aka position themselves on other airports even if they know there is no/low demand now
DeleteI'm really surprised they are suspending Tuzla-Vienna. Would have thought this would be one of their best performing routes.
ReplyDeleteBratislava didn't work out from Tuzla before that either.
DeleteBecause it probably only caters for the diaspora which only flies during the summer and maybe 2 weeks around Christmas/New Year.
DeleteThis very diaspora is currently effectively banned from travelling due to restrictions and quarantine measures and people frightened to travel to "risk countries" as in quarantine people will not get paid by employers and an infection would mean they could easily lose their jobs.
DeleteOf course, planes are empty and therefore routes are being cancelled for now.
Even with these suspensions, Tuzla will have more traffic than Sarajevo this winter.
ReplyDeleteThe situation in Sarajevo is dire. There are an average of 3 flights per day. Today just two scheduled flights.
DeleteDon't feel bad about it. The situation in LJU is (almost) the same.
DeleteW6 has suspended many non ex-Yu destinations too.
ReplyDeleteTuzla needs another airline. Their entire success and future depends on one single airline.
ReplyDeleteAgree. Just goes to show how risky it is to rely on a single airline for all your traffic.
Deletethey are using the aircrafts to "expand" aka position themselves on other airports even if they know there is no/low demand now which is so bad
ReplyDeleteSlovenians are still flying from nearby countries: mainly from Italy and some from Croatia.
ReplyDeleteNow they are doing it mostly for Spain and to a small extent to Nederland and even smaller to Belgium.
To Spain they are vacationers from Slovenia: flying to Italy: they are avoiding isolation on return easily.
Strange that Slovenia bureaucrats are not doing nothing against this meanwhile at the Croatian border is different.
Numbers of Slovenians flying to Spain are not negligible. Many among them are working in the health sector and they have a schedule for vacation end of this or next month.
How many daily departures are expected in LJU this winter? I now see a rough number of 6-8 daily flights and there is a flight to Las Vegas this weekend!
ReplyDeleteInteresting to see Trade Air operating Greek charters, too:
https://www.fraport-slovenija.si/en/passengers-and-visitors/flight-info/arrivals-and-departures/Index
Had to check the Las vegas flight.
DeleteOn the 6th. of September 2 flights.
Two firsts for LJU :)
and what is that Aegean flight to PRN (only departure) :D
DeleteThese one off charters are all we have left to look forward to
DeleteWhat, Las Vegas??? Wow, Skobir, you have really outdone yourself this time. When can we expect Emirates and Qatar? I know you have been in talks with them for the last decade. Surely, something will come out of it.
DeleteAnon 13:00 It's the Greek national football team. After match against Slovenia they play in Kosovo
DeleteWhy to exepect Emirates? They are too big for LJU and ZAG is near.
Delete@Anonymous13:56:
DeleteSarcasm.
@13.56 thx. now i know why the Yerevan flight to SKP. Interestingly OU is flying the Armenian football team from SKP to TBS for the next match and Trade AIr has some flight SKP- Vagar which is on the FAROER ISLANDS according google :D
DeleteThat is North Macedonia U-21 against Faroe
DeleteWith many airlines leaving the region, who ask to be subsidized, I wonder if airports/governments will want to subsidize the carriers once all this is clear. Money will be tight.
ReplyDeleteIt won't be easy for either side.
DeleteCan't wait that biggest regional airline starts to base aircraft at LJU and golf airlines start to fly LJU.
DeleteWhich are the golf airlines that we here so often? Owned by Tiger Woods?
DeleteThe management of Wizz Air made a bet on the virus which turned out to be a failure. The price are being paid by the employees (20% already fired, the remaining ones had to move base and are working for a reduced salary with a bad roster and there is a strong rumor about another round of redundancy) while the members of the management are still getting their fat bonuses and selling shares for 100+k GBP on a daily basis.
ReplyDeleteCorrect. And Varadi just sold some shares and earned a whopping 3.000.000 GPB by being an a*hole.
Deletelondonstockexchange.com/news-article/WIZZ/operational-update/14670892
And of course OU choose to get some sleep! Now it's a great opportunity to station at least one plane there for the winter.
ReplyDeleteLJU will surely be a goldmine in the Covid winter. How isnt OU using this opportunity to lose more money? It's what they do best after all
DeleteFuture of aviation in Europe is in railways (and buses).....
ReplyDeleteSlovenia is throwing money into those two while ignoring aviation and maritime transport. I hope the rest of Europe is smarter than that.
DeleteI was sarcastic
Delete