The newly elected Slovenian government has said a wide-ranging consensus is needed on matters of national importance such as the creation of a new flag carrier. The country’s new Economy Minister, Matjaž Han, noted, “We will have to start discussing whether there is a possibility of setting up an airline or whether we should subsidise certain routes. Dialogue with all stakeholders is necessary”. Earlier this month, the newly formed coalition government dashed hopes of establishing a new national airline to replace the defunct Adria Airways despite two of the three parties that are part of the new cabinet in favour of the notion. In the coalition agreement signed between the three sides, it is noted that a new national airline is not envisaged. However, the trio will analyse appropriate means of support to improve the country’s air connectivity to key destinations “under economically justified conditions”.
Adria Airways’ former CEO, Klemen Boštjančič, who led the airline in 2011 and 2012, has been named as Slovenia’s new Finance Minister. Mr Boštjančić implemented wide-scale cost cutting measures at the airline, which stabilised the carrier’s finances. However, it came at a cost, with the company diminishing its route network, resulting in a major plunge in passenger numbers. Furthermore, Rok Marolt, who has been the head of the Slovenia Civil Aviation Agency up until now, and served as Adria’s Chief Operating Officer in 2012, has been named as the Secretary General at the Ministry for Finance. In addition, Slovenia’s new Minister for Infrastructure, Alenka Bratušek, who served in the same post during Adria’s collapse and is a former Prime Minister, said earlier this year her country is in urgent need of a new national airline.
The Mayor of Ljubljana, Zoran Janković, recently said the central government must do more to secure flights from the Slovenian capital to key European markets. “The biggest problem with tourism is our airport. There is an insufficient number of flights”, Mr Janković noted. Based on OAG data, the busiest unserved routes from Ljubljana are those previously operated by Adria. They include Bucharest, Copenhagen, Skopje, Athens, Stockholm, Barcelona and Prague. Ljubljana Airport’s operator, Fraport Slovenija, noted it would support any solution that would be sustainable and improve connectivity. Together with Belarus, Slovenia is Europe’s slowest recovering aviation market from the coronavirus pandemic.
Interesting how many former Adria executives now have top jobs in government. Not sure if that's good or bad.
ReplyDeleteIt depends what their stance is on making a new national airline.
DeleteI remember in 1999 when JU was banned by UNMIK/KFOR from flying to Pristina. Adria was the first airline to jump in an fill that market. It made a killing for the first 10 or so years.
DeleteThere is still some hope
ReplyDeleteThese people couldn;t organise a fart ! What useless politicking. When in opposition, you have clear and alternative policies, consensus on what you will do when you win government. When sworn in, you should have your priorities clear to deliver on the mandate by those who elected you to government. These people only now want to have "broad discussions" and to "build consensus" ?? If this is how they plan on doing things, then God help us - we have nothing to look forward to from this government.
ReplyDeleteOh comeon, stop troling. Have a coffie and relax.
DeleteNothing will happen unfortunately.
ReplyDeletestop giving us a hope
ReplyDeleteI still think that better option is to attract foreign airline to base 2 (max. 3) aircraft (E195, A220...) in Ljubljana and to serve the market together with what we already have in LJU. So to serve now unserved and improve timing on existing ones.
ReplyDelete+1000
DeleteLot would be ideal.
Delete@anonymous 9:45
DeleteAgree. Air dolomiti, Air baltic or similar would be perfect
Not sure this will please Fraport. They have a special love affair with Lufthansa....
DeleteIf lufthansa has such an control over LJU, why don't they base like 3 aircrafts like a319, crj900 or e190
ReplyDeleteBecause they don't want to loose money. While Adria was around they didn't even want to fly to LJU.
DeleteWhy would they? It's more efficient for them to operate these flights from their existing bases.
DeleteAlso, how many bases does LH have outside of Germany, particularly in markets much, much larger than Slovenia?
" or whether we should subsidise certain routes"
ReplyDeleteI really hope these "certain" routes are not Frankfurt, Brussels and Munich.
Most likely.
DeleteJust organize a referendum and problem solved.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure majority would vote against an airline in that case.
DeleteWell if that's the will of the people so be it.
DeleteIf we had referendum for every project we would be in stone age.
DeleteActually, we had one. It was called parliamentary elections. And people did the same thing as always: they chose communists, sorry left-wing parties. The "lefties" were in power 71% of the time since Slovenia's independency (Janša 22%, other right-wing parties 7%). And somehow center-right/center parties managed to destroy all the good things the "lefties" were trying so hard to achieve in 23 year. Something doesn't add up and I think it's pointing to the left.
DeleteWrong. Only choise you have in Slovenia is New left or Old left (Janez Janša). Only SDS has a president who is formal communist (Janša). So, wast majority of people woted against communists, Old left aka Janša.
Delete@14:54:
DeleteThank you for clarifying. I'm sure Levica will be delighted to hear they've chosen a wrong name and should be called Desnica. And so will Jankovic and Golob. What is wrong with people?
I still don't think it will happen in the end but for Slovenia's sake I hope it does.
ReplyDeleteIf they do it, they better do it quickly. There is a lot of potential in the market.
ReplyDeleteIf Montenegro can do it, then Slovenia sure can too.
ReplyDeleteI'm really hoping we see some improvement in Slovenia's aviation sector with this new government.
ReplyDeleteI don't think these people can deliver it but let's see. Hope dies last.
DeleteNot this again. I'm quite fed up with this topic.
ReplyDeleteDon't read it then.
DeleteIt's an important topic for Slovenia. With a change in government there is also a change in position to this topic. I'm not even from Slovenia but I am interested to see what the outcome will be.
DeleteHow come Montenegro, a smaller and less economically developed country compared to Slovenia manage to set up its airline within only 6 months and even managed to quickly launch key routes?
ReplyDeleteMost EU countries have at least another smaller airline of their own besides their flag carriers.
Many theories here but so little answers....
Do take into consideration Montenegro's geographical position and that it is very difficult to get there by car and that the country lives from tourism.
DeleteYear 2051, Slovenian government is still considering creating a new national carrier as LJU celebrates crossing the 1 million passenger mark for the first time since JP went bankrupt.
ReplyDeleteLot's of optimism going around as LH announced that they will be boosting capacity to LJU from A319 to A320 twice a week and as airlines add their 75th weekly flight to London.
actually very likely to happen, with transavia sill flying to amsterdam instead of klm and easy jet cancelling gatwick route
DeleteI believe its more likely London will go from 6 weekly to 7 weekly. There are less and less flights to London each year.
Delete@11:43
DeleteNice one, except TK or JU will be announcing the addition of an extra weekly flight, bringing the total number to 8. Otherwise, spot on.
It's tragic that no one understands from politicians how much it is costing us from not having a proper aviation strategy.
DeleteWe need to establish flights by LCC to Skopje,Sarajevo,Split,Dubrovnik and Moscow ;)
ReplyDeleteMoscow LOL. Have you been living under the rock for the past couple of months?
DeleteDubrovnik? i mean few charters yes but i can't see regular flights
DeleteIf ex YU republics would be smart, they would sit together and find a solution to establish a new Adria Airways which could include Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, MNE, Kosovo and start a new Carrier serving all their capitals and coast cities in Croatia. Cooperation could be with Air Serbia and goal would be to keep or establish as much as possible aviation jobs in the region. Since wealth is still under EU average, the economy class could be on LCC level, however with a small business class which can compete with every European legacy carrier. If each nation provides 10-20 Mio EUR. There would be almost 100 mio to form a new carrier. A carrier which would also enable again regional flights such as SKP-LJU. Aircraft should be A320NEO and A220-100/300. The HDQ should be in ZAG and the registration of the company and the aircraft in SLO or CRO. The airline could employ from all the nations but since southern part of ex YU has a favorable production cost level, several product purchases could be from the South.
DeleteWell first of all, not all nations could provide the same amount of money. You list 6 countries, only two of which are in the EU, which means that there would be less than 50% EU ownership, so forget about flying any routes within the EU, if there would be equal ownership share between countries.
DeleteSecond, only to cover minimum service from each of the capitals, you would probably need minimum aircraft per base, that's 18 aircraft to start with, not taking into account other regional airports. 100m EUR is not nearly enough to start an airline with 18 aircraft.
Third, the political reality in this region makes this pretty much a fairytale, not a realistic prospect.
40 Mio fm the southern countries, 20 each fm SLO and CRO and 20% fm private Investors SLO/HR. So the EU part is solved
DeleteIf everybody claims it is not possible, exactly than u hve to try it
While a nice idea, you forget that people of ex yu have a history.
DeleteFor ex you to move forward it is better to have few airlines that learn how to cooperate with each other instead of forcing them to work together under the same entity.
Maybe after some time of cooperation, the merger of the companies can take place. But this has to happen organically not forced.
Lessons of the past......
I wish Slovenia all the success in creating new airline. They deserve it.
ReplyDeleteIs it just me or are they playing hot and cold? One week they say there will be no airline, the next they throw a bone of hope how they will think about it.
ReplyDelete"Together with Belarus, Slovenia is Europe’s slowest recovering aviation market from the coronavirus pandemic."
ReplyDeleteThis should be reason enough to set up a new airline, especially when you consider that Belarus is under sanctions.
If Fraport really wanted a new airline we would have had one by now. All they had to do is lobby the government and considering its a German company the government (no matter which one) would listen to them as if they were god. Besides they sold Adria for pennies to German scammers without even doing the basic of due diligence. But since they were German, it was good enough.
ReplyDeleteNot a single week can pass without an airticle about politicians saying literaly anything about new Slovenian carrier, huh? If there was even slightest of political will, LJU would already have few based aircraft. So no, new slovenian carrier aint gonna happen anytime soon. Untill you have a press conference where planemaker officials will confirm ordered planes for new carrier or someone confirming that planes are taken care of and first route will launch, spare us from this shitty content please.
ReplyDelete