Low cost carrier Ryanair has secured slots to operate flights between London Stansted Airport and Ljubljana, after easyJet terminated the route last year, records from the slot coordinator Airport Coordination Limited show. A total of 488 operations have been allocated to the airline between the two airports. It should be noted that Ryanair is still not obligated to use up the slots for this particular route, meaning the service may not materialise. The budget carrier has been awarded departure and arrival times between the two airports from the fourth week of the 2021 summer season which begins tomorrow, meaning the airline can commence flights to Ljubljana from April 19 onwards. In an effort to combat the coronavirus pandemic, the United Kingdom is not expected to allow non-essential travel before May 17 at the earliest.
Ryanair has considered launching flights to Ljubljana on several occasions over the past decade and has held talks with Slovenia’s main airport numerous times. In 2011 Ljubljana Airport proposed for Ryanair to operate services out of Dusseldorf, Madrid, Oslo and London to the Slovenian capital, however, the deal never materialised. Ryanair operates services to every European Union-member state with exception to Slovenia. The budget airline briefly maintained flights between London Stansted and Maribor in 2007 and 2008. Despite solid loads, the route was terminated after Ryanair hiked fees for a joint advertising program, which was turned down by local authorities. In 2013, following yet another round of failed talks with Ljubljana Airport, Ryanair requested for the European Commission to act swiftly and conclude its investigation into whether Adria Airways received state aid and benefits from the Slovenian government to the tune of up to 85.5 million euros from 2007 to 2011, contrary to European Union competition laws. In a letter to the Commission, Ryanair said, “State aid was provided to Adria despite its inefficiencies while Ryanair has to develop its own market and is losing revenue”. The Commission subsequently ruled in favour of Adria.
Prior to the pandemic, London was Ljubljana Airport’s busiest route with flights maintained from a number of airports in the UK capital. Stansted was the busiest, with 120.288 passengers flying between Ljubljana and the airport in 2019. It was followed by the Gatwick route with 61.255 travellers and Luton with 45.410 passengers. This summer, easyJet plans to maintain flights between Gatwick and Ljubljana with operations due to resume on May 28. It also intends on launching its new service between Luton and the Slovenian capital which was initially planned for last year. The inaugural date has been constantly pushed back and is now scheduled for June 1. British Airways plans to restore its seasonal Heathrow - Ljubljana service on June 7.
It would be good to make it happen. For example. Ryanair raised the Banja Luka airport from the dead. There is also talk of a base. Why can't LJU ..
ReplyDeleteThis would be great but London again??
ReplyDeleteWell it is a really popular route. In summer there would be up to 4 daily flights on some days
DeleteWhere is all the demand coming from between Slovenia and the UK?
DeleteUK tourists, slovenian tourists, croats from N croatia, maybe business people too...
DeleteUK tourists, slovenian tourists, croats from N croatia, maybe business people too..
DeleteAlso Slovenes living in the UK. I know several myself.
DeleteHistorically Slovenes and Ljubljana specifically have had great ties with England and London in particular. This dates back to at least WWII.
DeleteToday London has one of the biggest SLO diasporas.
The whole former Eastern bloc people fled to the UK during the last decade for economic reasons. Slovenia is no exception.
DeleteNot necessarily. Albanians mainly went to Swiss, Italy, Germany. Serbs to Swiss, Germany, Austria, Scandinavia.
DeleteSlovene diaspora is generally small due to small population and relatively high standard of living. Close approximately to well developed Italy and Austria meant that Slovenes could travel nearby for short term work for a fixed period to earn some money and then return home.
DeleteLondon was different because of the distance and already established diaspora that helped new immigrants settle in. So when Slovenes went to London they generally stayed long term.
With this logic, 38 million Poles could've done the same with Germany but 1 million chose to move to Britain. But of course, Slovenia has a much smaller population because if not most likely the same could've happened. Poles are one of the largest immigrant communities in UK. It comes with no surprise that almost every Polish city is connected with UK.
DeleteDon't forget London flights were the first one to have LCC offer. Every person in Slovenia knows you can fly really cheap to London. so weekend gateaway in London is also quite common. Many Slovenians working in London fly back home few times a year (my friend flew 7 times last year). and than there are high-schools visiting London for language reason etc. and also British coming to Slovenia for cheap beer (around 150K in 2019). and here is result. i visited London probably 15 times (always flying from Ljubljana)
Delete@18:22 Are you implying that Poles haven't moved to Germany? And sure Poles have moved/migrated to Britain, no doubt there.
DeleteDosen't negate what @16:37 wrote.
@18:55 Goes to show how developed the travel between ENG & SLO are. Culture, Leisure, Sport, Education, Business and more.
DeletePrecisely. London is just this type of year round destination apt for almost anyone and anything. Flights are almost always very frequent and dirty cheap. Demand is always both ways.
DeleteLJU should work on securing LCY and eventually SEN and the resumption of LTN W6 flights because they can deploy their A321 and offer amazing prices.
Doubt wizzair will relaunch LJU-LTN with easyjet about to launch flights. I can see them launching LTN-MBX, they could also attract passengers from zagreb, graz and W hungary
DeleteLJU doesn't have enough business pax to LCY to make the route viable.
DeleteHopefuly they launch flights from BER, easyjet had quite a success on this route
ReplyDeleteIf easyJet had success, surely they will keep the route so that there is no need for Ryanair?
DeleteWow this would be fantastic!
ReplyDeleteSome good news for LJU lately. Hope it happens.
ReplyDeleteLjubljana Airport is finally waking up.
Deletein one interview management their plan is to move all legacy airlines to the new terminal and dedicate old terminal to LCC. Maybe they were serious and this might be the result.
DeleteSomething ZAG should have done the day new terminal was opened
DeleteLJU will never be a hub, that ship has sailed long ago.
ReplyDeleteWhat they can expect is to have around 2 to 2.5 million passengers per year and to be a convenient airport for their catchment area. If they get Ryanair to launch a few flights (Brussels, London, Manchester, Dublin, Athens...) then LJU could only profit.
This could open the door for more FR routes. Fingers crossed.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteThis would be great. All those destinations proposed in 2011 would still make a lot of sense today.
ReplyDeleteSo after they didn't get what they wanted in 2011 FR tried to eliminate Adria. Haha typical.
ReplyDeleteIt is well known they reported Adria to the European Commission. They even bragged about it in the media.
DeleteMaybe a Ryanair base in Ljubljana? It's always nice to dream.
ReplyDeleteMay your dreams come true ;)
DeleteTreviso is too close for an additional base in the area.
DeleteTreviso is not a base
DeleteIt opens tomorrow with the start of summer schedule.
DeleteSomething tells me they might be interested in more than one new route. Let's wait and see...
ReplyDeleteIt would be fantastic to finally get some scheduled flights to Spain
DeleteI agree. I think Spain and Scandinavia are underserved from Ljubljana and there is potential for these two markets.
DeleteAnd Italy. No flights to Italy, good potential, Italians are number one tourists that visit Ljubljana.
DeleteThere is probably enough demand for Rome-Ljubljana.
DeleteBarcelona
DeleteParis
London
Berlin
Memmingen
These could work from LJU on FR in my oppinion.
Canary Islands are super popular among Slovenians ...
DeleteWhy Memmingen?
DeleteATH, BCN, BER, DUB, DUS, OSL, EDI, KRK, MAD, MAN, PRG
DeleteReally, if so popular how come the likes of LOT, Aegean, Eurowings, SAS etc... have not started flying?
DeletePeople are always saying how popular flights between belgrade and china, canada would be, yet there are no flights, how popular flights between zagreb and us would be yet there isnt anyone flying it...
Deletewell guess where charters are during pandemic ... to canary islands. Treviso flights to canary islands are always full of slovenians ...
DeleteLJU-PRG, KRK, FMM with a 737? I doubt the loads would be high enough.
DeleteThis would be bad news for Zagreb
ReplyDeleteMaybe bad news for Turks running ZAG but great news for Croats.
DeleteFraport is working hard this year. 4 airport bases to begin with - 3 Greek and airports and BOJ will receive huge expansions this summer. LJU's turn.
DeleteI really hope this happens for LJU. Numbers would grow
ReplyDeleteI will believe it when I see it.
ReplyDeleteSlovenia is the last EU country that is not served by Ryanair. Hope this changes soon!
ReplyDeleteTells you all you need to know. If Slovenia can't get one of the largest airlines in Europe to fly to LJU...
DeleteLON is quite well served from LJU.
ReplyDeleteIt's well served because it is one of the rare destinations from Ljubljana that can sustain several flights a day by different airlines.
DeleteFirst LOT, now Ryanair. Let's hope things are changing for the better.
ReplyDeleteNext is JU basing a plane in LJU and 4-6 daily flights to BEG.
DeleteHa!
And how can airserbia base an aircraft in EU country?
DeleteBy getting a special permit to do so.
Deletef there was anyone wise enough at MBX, they should have got in touch with FR long ago.
ReplyDeleteMy bet is that they did, but the fact is that catchment area is very small with a lot of competition around, and FR would want a lot of subsidies to risk opening the route.
DeleteWow so Easyjet terminated the busiest route that was operated from Ljubljana? Why??
ReplyDeletebecause they shut down their stansted base.
DeleteBecause they closed their Stansted base last year because of corona. All Stansted flights were terminated.
DeleteAlmost all EU capitals have a connection with at least 3 London airports. This is a very popular destination, a city with 6 airports and all type of traffic demand from gasto to students and from business to leisure. Either way it's still not bad news at all. FR are known to be quite aggressive if they see potential in a market. We all saw what happened to cities like TGD, VNO or SOF. They began with 1 route and then very quickly expanded. FR remains one of the best and safest airlines in Europe and have revolutionised travel in Europe.
ReplyDeleteGreat! LJU is seeing finally seeing sense. No more indigenous airline time wasting and on to actual business recovery. Wizz will undoubtedly open a base if the terms are favourable. If the pandemic wanes by late summer, the airport could possibly see some promising numbers towards the end of the year.
ReplyDelete