Lufthansa, Turkish Airlines and Air France were the busiest carriers operating out of Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport last year, data from the Statistical Office of Slovenia shows. The three flag carriers accounted for 32.5% of the airport’s traffic, with the German national airline well in front. Although Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines were two of just three carriers to have maintained operations to the Slovenian capital for the entire twelve-month period, with the other being Air Serbia, Air France restored flights to Ljubljana in March but quickly proved a popular choice with consumers. Lufthansa was the busiest, handling 76.758 passengers, followed by Turkish Airlines with 42.435 travellers and Air France with 34.353 passengers.
Air Serbia, which has maintained operations to Ljubljana with its ATR72 turboprop throughout the year welcomed 26.127 travellers on its flights to and from the Slovenian capital. Low cost carrier Transavia, which restored operations from Amsterdam in April, handled 22.456 passengers. The airline’s French unit will commence flights from Paris Orly this April. Brussels Airlines and Wizz Air, which maintained services from the Belgian capital and Charleroi to Ljubljana respectively, but have since suspended their operations, carried a combined total of 34.666 passengers. Notably, there were no flights from Belgium to Slovenia for almost the entire first half of 2021. Passenger numbers peaked in July and August as Slovenia took over the rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union. On the other hand, the United Kingdom, once Ljubljana’s biggest market, saw just 19.299 passengers.
Among the newcomers in 2021, Iberia faired relatively well. The airline only operated during the month of August, handling 2.215 passengers with a 69% average cabin load factor. The Spanish carrier has confirmed its return to the Slovenian market with flights to run this August. Flydubai, which introduced operations to Ljubljana on September 24, welcomed 8.002 travellers, with December being its strongest month so far. The Emirati airline recently increased its frequencies on the route from three to five weekly. Air Montenegro, which commenced services in June, initially from Tivat and then moved its flights to Podgorica, handled 7.532 passengers.
Ljubljana route performance for select airlines in 2021
Good work for Air France. Do they carry mostly transfers or point to point passengers?
ReplyDeleteThere must be both since they will be starting Orly through Transavia.
DeleteInteresting to see LJU will be served by 2 Paris airports. I guess Transavia will take over the P2P traffic.
DeleteIt may also generate completely new passengers.
DeleteNo surprise.
ReplyDeleteLJU management was saying how Iberia will come back earlier with more flights than last year and in the end nothing.
ReplyDeleteWhat about BA this summer? Same as before?
DeleteThat depends on airlines as well. Ba had so much pax as well as iberia that route was profitabpe and it's on their side if theyy don't want to earn some money ^_^
DeleteInteresting numbers.
ReplyDeleteLufthansa rules the Slovenian market now.
ReplyDeleteIt was always the case. They just did it through their feeder Adria in the past.
DeleteWell they do have the most flights so it makes sense.
DeleteMore like Star Alliance rules the Slovenian market.
DeleteLufthansa is the dominant carrier but don't forget that Air France and Transavia carried close to 60.000 passengers. I expect them to keep on attacking LH especially for transfer passengers to North America.
DeleteReally interesting to see the passenger numbers. I think things will improve at LJU this year. Let's see.
ReplyDeleteLet's hope so.
DeleteThe sad reality is that this numbers would be ok... For MBX
ReplyDeleteWhich routes are possibly for mbx for real
DeleteBelgrade, Moscow, London, even Istanbul. With Greece and Egypt charters in the summer
DeleteAir France did really well
ReplyDeleteAir France is almost fully booked all the time.
DeleteDubai seem to be performing well.
ReplyDeleteThat's why it has been increased to 5 weekly.
DeleteWith those numbers on an ATR, JU is turning a nice profit on their Ljubljana flights.
ReplyDeleteHope KLM eventually replaces Transavia on their Ljubljana flights.
ReplyDeleteThey don't need to replace them, they could just add a few flights and operate on days Transavia is not flying to Ljubljana.
DeleteExacrly. There is enough room for both. Like with Paris.
Delete*exactly
DeleteMaybe in 2023.
DeleteIn the past Adria operated successfully 2 daily flights in addition to Transavia flying to Ljubljana. So having KLM and Transavia should work without too much issue.
DeleteYes but a large of those passengers on JP were transfers to their regional network. Now those are gone from the market and any feed will have to happen at AMS. The real question if there are enough transfer passengers for everyone?
DeletePersonally I would rather have Wizz Air launch EIN-LJU.
As a quite new entry, FlyDubai obviously is performing quite well in LJU. The reality is that the airport basically belongs to the LH group and this dominance is pretty high.
ReplyDeleteIt's just unfortunate it took so long to bring Flydubai in the first place.
DeleteNot really unfortunate, they didn't have the plane for LJU. Now that they got MAX back in the air this route can be operated economically.
DeleteWhat happened with UK market?? :O
ReplyDeleteCovid happened.
DeleteAnd easyjet has, for some reason, been sabotaged by Slovenian authorities.
DeleteCompetition with LH, thats why they had to get rid of easyJet.
DeleteUnfortunately. But I still think Wizz has a better chance at LJU.
DeleteHuge differences between first and second busiest.
ReplyDeleteNo one will be able to catch up to LH.
DeleteEspecially when they eventually restore Munich.
DeleteIf they restore it...
DeleteI hope we will see more new airlines and routes.
ReplyDeleteHope to see more LCCs.
DeleteVery poor numbers and it seems nothing will change in 2022...
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteNow we just need a national airline.
ReplyDeleteWith this government and Fraport leading the airport, it's not going to happen unfortunately.
DeleteHad Adria still been around the airport's situation would have been much better. This virus and crisis showed how important it is to have a national airline.
DeleteStill waiting for LH resume Munich...
ReplyDeleteAlso, is there any chance Austrian will launch flights to Ljubljana?
Delete^ No chance
DeleteWhy? Adria flew to Vienna.
DeleteAdria flew to many airports but mainly because this was good for state's economy. Airlines now are looking only for profit in LJU and LH group will not compete with each other. If they can push all the traffic via FRA they will simply do that.
DeleteAir Montenegro could have done better tbh.
ReplyDeleteI think LJU performs really well for JU in general. I am looking at flights and next week they will have six weekly flights. The week after they are increasing to eight weekly which is already respectable.
ReplyDeleteHopefully this summer BEG-LJU goes to 14 weekly. I mean if right now they can operate 6 to 8 weekly then in summer 14 could work really well.
Plus they also have Nis flights.
DeleteWhat equipment does Lufthansa use to Ljubljana?
ReplyDeleteCRJ900.
DeleteNo A319/A320?
DeleteAccording to FR24 they are planning on sending the CRJ. I am sure in summer when demand grows they will either bring back MUC or boost FRA to Airbus.
DeleteWhat other new airline could we realistically see launch flights to Ljubljana?
ReplyDeleteI don't think Fraport is actively trying to attract any new airline. They already said they are more than happy with what they got.
DeleteFraport is not doing more to attract new airlines so as not to hurt Lufthansa.
DeleteEven more, they got rid of routes where LH has the most transfer pax. Bravo Fraport! Bravo fanboys! Bravo Slovenia!
DeleteShameful that with those passenger number Swiss got financial assistance. They did not start flying to Ljubljana until June!
ReplyDeleteI'm interested to see how Finnair will perform this summer without Asian transfers and with Zagreb route launching.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't be surprised if they cancel LJU.
DeleteA few months ago there was an article here about Lufthansa becoming Ljubljana's number 1 transfer airline. Their busiest transfer destination was - Helsinki!
DeleteThey have already reduced it from daily to 4 weekly because of ZAG. To me it really looks like they will switch to ZAG. Well.. Fraport has to get rid of competition for LH cartel.
DeleteWhat a shame. Didn't realize they decreased it but just checked on their site and indeed it is true.
DeleteThe main question is how many Slovenian passenger flew with Ryanair from ZAG.
ReplyDeleteAll passengers from ZAG were Slovenian. Croatians don't travel abroad and don't fly on planes. There is no demand from ZAG to anywhere. All these are wellknown facts we read here on daily basis 😃
DeleteI didn't mean it that way. I'm just genuinely interested as to how many Slovenians use ZAG in general.
DeleteNo, no, sorry, I didn't mean you, of course we, normal people, use all available airports, and visit all neighbouring countries, and have good times, and discuss different matters, including the one from your question. I had absolutely no intention to be sarcastic to your question, but to answers to your question we so often read here, posted by narrowminded people full of hate
DeleteThere are just 6 flights from LJU today...
ReplyDeleteTomorrow is better. There are 9.
DeleteLol 9.. big improvement
DeleteBetter than 6 :D
DeleteIsrair did great considering they just had a couple of flights last year. Are they coming back this year?
ReplyDeleteI wonder if these airlines carried mostly transfers or point to point passengers
ReplyDeleteDepends which ones. Some transfers some P2P.
DeleteHow many weekly flights does TK have at the moment?
ReplyDelete5
Delete7 weekly.
DeleteIt is daily not 5 weekly.
DeleteAeroflot doing relatively well under the circumstances. Which aircraft do they use to Ljubljana?
ReplyDeleteMostly A320
DeleteNice. Used to be SSJ100. Seems loads are getting better and better.
DeleteI just realized that no airline has competition on any single route in Ljubljana. Every destination is served by just one airline.
ReplyDeleteThere is competition on London routes, although different airports.
Deleteterrible numbers in general
ReplyDeleteLH helped destroy Adria and now they are reaping the profits from us.
ReplyDeleteOnce Croatia will be a Schengen member, LJU will be a forgotten airport, unless Slovenia will finally have a national airline again. The only thing refraining Slovenians travelling from ZAG are the long waiting times at the border to Croatia.
ReplyDeleteYeah, sure. Because everybody just wants to travel from ZAG, this is our biggest wish. Haha
DeleteIt's not that we wish that, but it happens that we are forced to travel from ZAG due to lack of connectivity at LJU airport. As comment explained before, if nothing will happen in direction of establishing national carrier then I don't see bright future for LJU airport.
Deleteexactly! That's what I meant!
DeleteSo connections to FRA, Dubai, London, Istanbul, Moscow ... wil just die, because people would rather drive from Ljubljana to ZAG to fly with the same airline?
DeleteWhat kind of connections? With those few flight per week we have in LJU? It seems you don't travel a lot or you are very flexible with your schedule. Most passengers does not have that privilege.
DeleteInteresting to see LJU being served by 2 Paris airports
ReplyDeleteWonder how many passengers Trade Air had
ReplyDelete