NEWS FLASH
Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport handled 4.923 passengers in January, representing a decrease of 93.5% on last year. The number of aircraft movements stood at 708, down 59.4%. During the month, the airport was served by Lufthansa from Frankfurt, Turkish Airlines from Istanbul and Air Serbia from Belgrade. Available two-way capacity on commercial flights stood at 9.828 during the month.
And even figures for January 2020 were disastrous! Compare Jan21 to Jan19 and you will see that LJU has decrease of 99% in terms of passenger. Bravo Fraport!
ReplyDeleteYeah, they should have at least 100k passengers per month, when nobody is allowed to leave their municipality and their is curfew established. Really poor amangement.
DeleteSome of you people really need to get a grip with reality, you can't have high numbers if you have so many restrictions in place, and people obey them.
Yep, only Slovenia has restrictions
DeleteI completely agree with 11.12 comment.
DeleteYou have to understand that Slovenes still do travel, but due to limited possibilities they have to use flights out of VIE/ZAG/BEG/VCE. Even if there are restrictions there are people who need to travel. Restrictions are only excuse for incompetent managers of Fraport!
Delete@11:12:
DeleteHow on Earth did you come to that conclusion? Slovenia's restrictions are no more restrictive then elsewhere. Blame it on lack of national carrier and an uninteresting market. How many times will I have to say it? If you want air connectivity, pay for it.
If corona showed anything, it's how unimportant Slovenia is for foreign carriers.
+1 last comment
Delete@13:28
DeleteOh, don't comment if you don't know what happening in Slovenia. In Slovenia you are not allowed to leave your municipality. I live in capital Ljubljana and if I go to Brnik airport (which is in another municipality) penalty is 400€!!! You can do that for business reason, but not for tourism purpose.
It looks like this travel ban will be canceled in the next days.
@15:22:
DeleteUnfortunately for you, I live in Slovenia. And just to let you know, you are allowed to leave your municipality if you have a reason.
Besides, do you really think people are following government's rules to the letter ? Why do you think we had so many infections? Not because of the government and its rules, but because people didn't give two di*ks about them.
Like it or not, Slovenia will never be a very popular destination. If you're paying for the railways, pay an airline to do its job.
@15:22
DeleteSituation is pretty much the same in Western Europe compared to Slowenija.
People are not allowed to travel to other regions or provinces and you have to have a proof. If not, you will get fined and in some extreme cases go to jail just like in the UK.
Still, much work needs to be done to recover the 2018 levels.
@18:17
Delete"pay an airline to do its job"
For now we decided not to pay, except some small money for last tender. And I think at least 70% of others Slovenians agree with that.
It's very nice to see Croatian pax numbers. But bill, for all empty seats in last year, is already coming. And I'm sure most of taxpayers are not happy with that.
@19:06
DeleteHmm, I wonder how did you come up with that number (70%)?
Do you always pay such close attention to how the government is spending your hard earned money? Or you just have/had something against Adria?
From what I can tell, there are a lot of areas where savings can be made. Air connectivity is not one of them.
Even if people are against that, some strategic investments has to be done if that will improve state economy. How much money did Croatia get during summer seasons because they had good connections to coast? Do you really think that would possible without OU? Or in case of JU, they just transported 500.000 vaccines by their aircraft.
DeleteSad
ReplyDeleteSo LF is around 50%
ReplyDeleteThat's actually not that bad.
Deleteprobably bit less because also non commercial pax are counted too
DeleteDid they cout the crew members of the planes brouhgt to LJU for storage?
ReplyDeleteProbably
DeleteI don't understand how LJU counts aircraft movements. I guess they calculate all private planes, cargo flights and charters because there were barely a hundred return flights (98) last month by TK, LH and JU.
ReplyDeleteDid you think only commercial flights are counted as aircraft movements?
DeleteAircraft movement is aircraft movement. Citation Excel is an aircraft, so is a B777F.
DeleteLJU counts aircraft movements like every other airport
DeleteIt doesn't surprise me. Look at the top 100 European airports for 2020:
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_busiest_airports_in_Europe#2020
Most of them are now Russian but even leading airports like PRG and BUD had barely.4 million passengers!!!
Krasnodar jumped by 49 positions. Crazy!
Go home Fraport!
ReplyDeletePlease don't blame Fraport. Today, there was a conference with Wizzair and Fraport Burgas, and they just agreed to base a new seasonal aircraft there and launch 7 new routes. The problem is definitely not Fraport but rather the current management that seems to be utterly passive and not taking any initiative.
DeleteI suppose that by Fraport he actually meant Skobir and Krasnja..
Deletethis is all Lh Group fault, they didnt gave money to adria, took the profitable routes, and target the near airports like ZAG, VCE and VIE. Go Slovenia
ReplyDeletecrazy LJU, thats 7 x less then ZAG, 10x less then SKP.
ReplyDeleteIndependent of reasons why, with this frequency of operations they are bleeding money like crazy. They really need the market maker (state) to come in and do something about it.
ReplyDeleteAs nobody will benefit from them closing the doors, not fraport not the firms and not the little guy.
That's why I'm for reestablishment of national airline, with cargo and pax operations.
It is time that the state takes back the strategic infrastructure. !
DeletePAX from LJU, cargo from MBX
LCCs to MBX
DeleteShure why not they treat their PAX as cargo anyway. No rights, no voice.
DeleteSlovenia doesn't need more than 1 proper airport. MBX has no place in modern Slovenia in EU/Schengen.
DeleteIt has its place. As a Slovenian Cargo hub.
DeleteCargo hub? 800m shorter runway than LJU, no Cat II/III, 120km away from Ljubljana, at least 3 hours by truck to Novo Mesto (Krka, Revoz, etc.), no fire equipment for anything larger than B737/A320, etc.
DeleteWhat can MBX do that LJU can't? And then, at what cost to have 2 fully operational airports in such a small country?
A bit of tarmac, equipment and rail link.
DeleteHave you seen the state of Slovenian railways? It takes about 5 hours with faster passenger trains from MB to the seaside.
DeleteSure, just couple of tens of millions and MBX can be a cargo hub. Or you know, cargo aircraft can land at LJU, where we already have all the infrastructure in place.
LJU does have rail link ? or do Slovenians transport cargo only by trucks ?
DeleteIt doesn't. But it's still faster by truck to most of Slovenia from LJU than MBX.
DeleteIn 2019, LJU handled 24.875 tonnes of freight, which is about 68t per day, or roughly about 5 large trucks. There's no need for railway link for that amount of traffic, especially when you consider that most of that are express courier shipments (DHL/UPS/TNT), which are transported via vans around the country, not even trucks.
I don't see the need to invest an obscene amount of money into yet another failed project (remember the extremely utilised brand new terminal in MBX?), as long as LJU can handle cargo that comes to Slovenia by air.
interesting, so what's the role of big warehouses of Kuehne + Nagel and Air Cargo near LJU ? How does Slovenia post handle its shipments ?
DeleteIs it Aeroflot starting to fly to Ljubljana tomorrow?
ReplyDeleteYes
Deletehow does a country of 2.1 million people only have fewer than 5k passengers fly ? the country isn't accepting any foreign tourists ? Slovenians cant fly to other Euro nations ? total disaster
ReplyDeleteYes, in Slovenia all hotels, restaurants and bars are closed, so there are no tourists, not even domestic ones. And Slovenians can't even cross the border of their municipalities, so basically you can't even travel to the municipality where the airport is located. Only essential travel is allowed, internal end external.
DeleteYou can't travel for personal reasons but there are many exceptions in decrees for which you are allowed to travel. And people do travel, just not out of LJU.
Delete@18:37:
DeleteAaaa, so are elswhere?
@azdren:
Because we let our national carrier go down the drain. Actually, a former comedian an a prime minister , Marjan Sarec decided it would be in his best interest to let Adria go bankrupt in order to get some votes. The guy voluntarily stepped down a couple of months later and now he wants to get back. Only in Slovenia.
Curious why Lufthansa didn't base a regional jet in LJU when Adria collapsed. They could have covered all of the connections to FRA, MUC, VIE & ZRH. Probably could have done these four cities daily with one aircraft. Later they could add another to increase daily flights and to add new destinations as demand warrants. In the future a third aircraft and so on.
ReplyDeleteLJU could be treated as any other small to medium sized Germany city, like NUE, or Austrian INN, or SZG. Basically incorporate LJU into the entire Lufthansa network of flights as a feeder for their hubs, but also with some direct flights to select cities. Demand surly exists (pre-Covid). That way they could corner the market for most transfer flights from LJU.
Which is pretty much what they did, except ''basing'' an aircraft? Lufthansa flied to FRA and MUC while Swiss to ZRH
DeleteBut by basing a plane at LJU they could potentially fly to BEG or SKP, or other cities, if there was a demand.
Delete@anon 20:11
DeleteIf LX/SN flies to ZRH/BRU once per day and even that flight is in the middle of the day then we can not talk about good connectivity. Those flights were completely useless and that's why they were canceled first. Even LH took half a year to place aircraft overnight in LJU.
Charlie
From JP figures we sat that there is demand for morning and evening rotations to main hubs (FRA/MUC/ZRH/BRU) and some flights to Balkan (PRN/SKP/TIA/SJJ).
Well that just shows how much Lufthansa group values LJU. If they weren't bothering to at least add more frequenices or change the schedule, i highly doubt they would even considering basing an aircraft there.
DeleteI don't know about SJJ and SKP, but i can guarantee you there is zero O&D demand between TIA and LJU. Maybe a bit more for PRN, but not to justify direct flights.
I would think that Lufthansa would be interested in LJU if for no other reason than to consolidate their market, and to lessen the competition.
DeleteIt seems logical from our ex-yu aviation perspective but from Lufthansa's perspective its probably quite irrelevant. Especially nowadays when LJU is handling 5k pax a month.
Delete@Charlie:
DeleteWhat competition? LJU has 5000 pax.
(Unofficially) European commission did not approve adria2.
ReplyDeleteHow's that possible when decisions are not taken? That's official statement from EU commission which is also published on their official website.
Delete@19:20:
DeleteReally? Do you know why? I just hope it's not so we could give our (taxpayers) money to Lufthansa in order for them to fly to LJU.
Just seen it on rtvslo. Perhaps EU (Germany) wants us to subsidise Lufthansa and Fraport?
DeleteLet's just for fun compare traffic figures among all 24 Fraport group airports in January; LJU had the worst performance with -93,5 decline, followed by second worst SKG with -87%. The best was St. Petersburg with -30,3%. FRA itself had -80,9%.
ReplyDeleteFor perspective, let's see the absolute numbers: LJU had 4.923 pax, which is similar to Corfu (4.818), Santorini (4.659), Kos (5.021), Samos (5.077); all between -58% and -84%. Btw, Chania, the secondary Crete's airport had twice as much pax as LJU. If you don't like comparisons with island airports, Varna had -72% and 4x LJU pax figures.
So, question for all the guys saying Slovenia is in lockdown and we are not allowed to go out of our municipality and that's why LJU is suffering so much: How come a small greek island with 15.000 inhabitants has the same pax numbers. Oh, yes and Greece is also in lockdown, you have to do a PCR test and self-isolate for a week upon arrival. Probably there's not many tourists and also, it's January.
I think sooner or later it should be clear there's something going on in LJU. I bet on a combination of bad management and lack of government strategy. We'll see that in the coming months, when LJU will still be lagging behind everyone else, despite increase in traffic.
Very good points you pointed there, but the examples for the Greek coastal airports are like this because they rely on domestic flights from bigger cities especially Athens. Slovenia does not have domestic traffic similar to Croatia for example.
DeleteAs for Varna, same scenario, there is some domestic traffic combined with selected European winter destinations.
We don't know if there's something going on with LJU but let's not forget about geography. This has been discussed here for many years. Slovenia is a drive society and surrounded by many big airports especially Venice Marco-Polo.
Adria managed to bring a good number of passengers to the country yet again, the figures were never soaring.
It remains a tricky market for the LCCs and we see U2 becoming more dominant on the London route. W6 seem to act quite passively and preferred to stay with Charleroi.
Whatever happens, the new terminal must be filled and utilised and more work should be done not only by the government but by the local municipalities. They have to unite and try working closely with Fraport and determine, which destinations would work best.
On the positive note if they manage to bring additional 5000 PAX to LJU this will mean that LJU will register highest growth in the EXYU region.
Delete@00:37:
DeleteBig airports?? You gotta be kidding me. ZAG and VCE are big? Perhaps VIE but it's nowhere near LJU.
@23:49:
Very nice analysis. Just goes to show that LJU is dead without a national carrier. Some people are just to arrogant to admit they were wrong and will search left, right and center to find other excuses.