The Council of the European Union has proposed for controls at Croatia’s land and sea borders with Schengen countries to be revoked as of January 1, 2023, and at airports from March 26 of next year. The development is expected to coincide with Croatia’s adoption of the euro. Although Slovenia has been a strong supporter of its neighbour’s entry into Schengen, the move could impact on Ljubljana Airport’s ability to retain passengers and is expected to increase competition with Zagreb Airport, which, due to its proximity and offer of flights, has been successful in attracting travellers from Slovenia, particularly since the collapse of Adria Airways in September 2019 and the opening of Ryanair’s base in Zagreb in July of last year. Croatia’s entry into Schengen is expected to further attract travellers to its airports as cross border checks between the two countries are eliminated.
Ryanair expects to see even more traffic from Slovenia in the coming period. “We already see a lot of passengers from Slovenia on our Zagreb flights. Even if you go to Zagreb Airport, either in departures or arrivals, you will see that there are lot of Slovenians. At the airport’s parking one will notice many cars with Slovenian car plates. We know and we are sure that we are covering the Slovenian market well from Zagreb Airport”, the carrier said, adding that there are also a number of Slovenian staff working for the company in Croatia, especially among pilots.
Croatia Airlines is also benefiting from the Slovenian market and expects to see more feed from its northern neighbour. “We have had some gain on the Slovenian market since Adria Airways’ bankruptcy where we offered certain solutions in order to react to the demand that was there. However, we had not added any flights to Slovenia because our hubs are nearby and we were more focused on our sales and marketing activities in Ljubljana at the time, which helped us significantly increase our market share in Slovenia”, the Croatian national carrier said.
Ljubljana Airport has previously estimated it could reach pre-Covid traffic levels in 2026. The airport is currently facing one of the slowest traffic recoveries on the continent. However, it is upbeat about its prospects. Despite Croatia’s looming entry into the Schengen Area, Ljubljana Airport has said it sees its counterpart in Zagreb as a complimentary partner, rather than a competitor, noting that it too offers a range of destinations and alternative budget carriers, among which are easyJet, Wizz Air and Transavia. Although the airport is yet to officially publish its passenger figures for the first half of the year, it is believed to have handled just over 385.000 passengers. Speaking this week at a ceremony marking the first anniversary of the opening of Ljubljana Airport’s new passenger terminal, General Manager Babett Stapel, noted, “We expect dynamic traffic growth to continue through the summer with monthly numbers exceeding 100.000 passengers. This will allow us to meet, and hopefully even exceed, our year-end passenger numbers, when 880.000 travellers are estimated to be served. [Operator] Fraport Slovenija enters the high summer season operationally well prepared. We managed to strengthen our services to meet the needs of increased traffic".
Definitely another "fire" LJU should be dealing with and extinguishing but the past fires haven't been dealt with either so I doubt they will address this.
ReplyDeleteToo late. They should have been dealing with this during this year.
DeleteIt would be interesting to see the percentage of Slovenian passengers flying from ZAG.
ReplyDeleteAround 1 in 10.
DeleteAnd will probably be 1 in 5 when there are no more borders!
DeleteAnon 9:07 - Schengen will have no impact. Its all about money.
DeleteSchengen will have a big impact, as there will be no more uncertainty as to how long you will have to wait at the border.
Delete"Schengen will have no impact." The wisdom of fanboys, or is it Babett Stapel speaking?
DeleteThis is going to have a positive impact especially on future transatlantic flights from ZAG. I truly hope this entices UA to establish non-stop flights from EWR to ZAG. I would no longer have to worry being stuck on the border and missing my flight, especially during the summer months with so many tourists trying to cross and Slovenia looking like a parking lot.
DeleteLet's hope those US flights finally start
DeleteAs a frequent flyer who lives in SI I can attest to the fact that Schengen will indeed have consequences. I often chose not to use ZAG exactly because of unpredictable border waiting times and opted for VCE instead. This major hurdle between the two countries will now finally be gone, good riddance.
DeleteWhich airlines fly from Ljubljana that do not fly from Zagreb?
ReplyDeleteWizz, Easyjet, Transavia, Swiss and Brussels Airlines
DeleteIssue is that those airlines have 2-3 frequencies on their routes from LJU. I'm talking about LCCs. Swiss and Brussels are irrelevant in terms of competing with ZAG. On the other side, you have Ryanair in ZAG with 25 routes.
DeleteSwiss and Brussels have terrible schedule in LJU, so for sure there are people ZAG for those routes.
DeleteWhy would someone from Zagreb drive to Ljubljana to use Wizz or easy to London when they have daily flights with Ryanair, or go to Ljubljana to fly to Orly with Transavia when they have Ryanair to Beauvais.
DeleteTrue. I don't think there is any draw anymore for Croatian passengers to use Ljubljana. Cheap London flights were but not anymore.
DeleteORY is much closer to Paris than BVA. So some would drive to LJU.
DeleteWhat difference does it make? You would still have to drive from Zagreb to Ljubljana
DeleteNone, that's why ORY won't attract anyone from ZAG. In fact I doubt that anyone in ZAG even knows about ORY flights from Ljubljana. At the same time you see a lot of advertisements in Slovenia for flights from Zagreb. Ryanair had an ad campaign. Flydubai also had an ad campaign (when they were only flying to Zagreb).
DeleteMany Slovenes are using Zagreb airport, especially along the border with Croatia.
ReplyDeleteNovo Mesto is few kms closer to ZAG than LJU. Without border restrictions it will be even more passengers from there in ZAG.
DeleteAlso, Maribor has the same distance to LJU and ZAG. Means, after Schengen you can just choose better airline and price.
DeleteInteresting. Also probably make even less sense for some airline to start MBX.
DeleteDon’t forget that Novo mesto is among the top areas in SLO regarding GDP / economic data.
DeleteMarket is regulating!
ReplyDeleteYou mean taking care of itself? :)
DeleteOnce Croatia is in Schengen most Slovenians will just use Zagreb as their local airport.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how many passengers could LJU have if everyone stops driving to other airports and starts using LJU. Probably 2x more as in 2019.
ReplyDeleteIn 2019 I saw data from VCE/TSF airports management which stated that 10% of its passengers came from SLO. That’s over 1 mil passengers. Same was said by Graz Airport CEO.
DeleteHow can they claim that Zag is not their competition?!?
ReplyDeleteWell at one point they said they were unfazed by Ryanair in Zagreb.
DeleteDelusional Fraport, nothing else.
Deletethey're kidding themselves if they think people from Ljubljana won't use ZAG in bigger numbers after Croatia enters Schengen
DeleteHas nothing to do with Fraport. Result is accumulating 20yo strategic decisions and arrogance.
Delete@ 6:26
DeleteNot to mention local narrow-mindedness which still sees flying with airplanes as a luxury and a rare occasion, not a necessity.
Makes sense that in the end Croatia Airlines didn't open a base in LJU. Why would they? Passengers will just come to them. Didn't make sense wasting money basing a plane and crew in Slovenia.
ReplyDeletemost Slovenian government tenders now request flights out of ZAG
ReplyDeleteand the rest are using VIP at LJU
DeleteWhen Adria went bankrupt, Zagreb Airport car park was swarming with Slovenian license plates.
ReplyDeleteThere are still a lot.
DeleteFor me the bigger issue is not so much that hundreds of thousands will flock to ZAG from Slovenia but the fact that it reduces the chances of some other airline introducing routes from Ljubljana which have been launched by Ryanair.
ReplyDeleteThey could have presented it as an opportunity for Wizz to counter Ryanair's strong presence around Slovenia. But they didn't do that.
DeleteDo not expect anything from Fraport to do. Except to feed Deutsche cartel.
DeleteLjubljana's first hit was loosing Adria, second was corona, third is Ryanair base in Zagreb, fourth is Croatia entering Schengen.
ReplyDeleteThe first one was also the biggest one, which resulted in the rest also being massive hits for LJU.
Delete1. Losing Adria
Delete2. Selling LJU to Fraport
3. Corona (which is pretty much gone so no excuses for Fraport)
4. Everything happening in Croatia/ZAG
5. Everything happening in KLU, GRZ, TRS..
Five very big hits.
Indeed
DeleteChance making this airport competitive was in the nineties when major restructuring plans left on the table due to arrogance of management and government. As soon ZAG, VCE also GRZ became stronger in the catchment area, chances for LJU are getting close to TRS.
Delete@ 9:26
DeleteI wouldn’t say Adria was LJU’s biggest hit (pun intended) because those of us who flew regularly already didn’t use it. It was rigid in terms of customer service, its timetable often wasn’t the best and it was utterly expensive. I would say LJU’s biggest blow came when Slovenian travellers discovered VCE/TSF. The sheer offer of flights and airlines from those two airports and their proximity to most of SLO just sealed its fate.
Is there a current shuttle service from Ljubljana to Zagreb airport?
ReplyDeleteGo Opti or regular bus service from Ljubljana to Zagreb, not no regular bus to Pleso Airport
DeleteIn Western Europe, this is quite a common practice. Many people from say Liège in Belgium use Maastricht Airport because it has cheap flights to the sunny Spanish beaches where prices are extremely high or non-existent from LGG. Same with HHN vs LUX.
ReplyDeleteNow is the time for Osijek to try and prove itself by attracting south Hungarians that want to reach the Croatian coast. Pécs is a relatively large city so people may use it without the need of going to Budapest.
We can also consider Maribor Airport as invisible from now on, as the distance to ZAG is also quite close.
Zagrab-Málaga for instance is available this month for only 100€ return which is pretty cool. Same with Pafos in August.
Good article and good topic to think about. Interesting to read what each of the main players have to say.
ReplyDeleteThe situation will be more or less the same as with Venice. I think that the only thing will be deciding who has the best price, ZAG or VCE..
ReplyDeleteVenice atill offers significantly more fights than Zagreb.
DeleteYes dear, but it is an expensive airport. Treviso is much cheaper.
Delete@ 19:30
DeleteNo need to call people “dear”. You’re not superior to anyone else so be respectful.
Also, VCE is hardly expensive. And like 10:48 said, the sheer volume of flights, airlines and destinations from VCE is so big that ZAG will probably never become an alternative to it. To LJU, yes, but to VCE? I don’t see it happening.
All could have been avoided if we had a national airline.
ReplyDeleteHow? People that want to fly with low fares would still use alternatives.
DeleteAdria flew to very few Ryanair's destinations (including regions) from Zagreb before its demise.
DeleteNational airline would reduce the needs to use alternatives. Ryanair is not the only airline Slovenians are using from Zagreb.
Delete@ 9:39
DeleteYes! You’re absolutely right! People would stop using VCE, TSF, ZAG if we had another Adria! Oh no, wait, we had Adria and still drove to other airports because JP was unusable for most flyers. It’s only those who never fly that wish for a national airline the most.
LJU needs to attract as many airlines as it can to avoid bleeding passengers to nearby airports.
ReplyDeleteEasier said than done.
DeleteThey don't care. As long as LH is there. Less competition for them.
DeleteFraport is to blame. They have been far too slow to react to any changes on the market.
ReplyDeleteWhat I find interesting is that they are doing a generally good job at other airports they are running. I don't know why Ljubljana is their black sheep.
DeleteThe market could be problematic too.
DeleteBravo Hrvatska?
ReplyDeleteWhat is the distance between Zagreb and Ljubljana airports? How long will it take by car between the two without border check?
ReplyDeleteAlso is there train connectivity between ZAG and LJU?
DeleteAbout 1:30h by car.
DeleteThere's train between Ljubljana and Zagreb but no train to either airport. Additionally Zagreb bus station is 3 or 4 tram stops from the train station, public transport could be much better
DeleteIs there any prospect of flights between Ljubljana and Zagreb?
ReplyDeleteHow long would such a flight take?
Delete20 minutes on a turboprop.
DeleteThere is no need for such. The total travel journey would take longer than just driving to ZAG.
DeleteEspecially with Schengen just around the corner...
DeleteGood luck LJU!
ReplyDeleteThey will need it.
DeleteAnyone remember this? :D It was JAT transfer service between Ljubljana and Zagreb.
ReplyDeletehttps://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YklL0biSNbQ/U43zFdkeS1I/AAAAAAAAM0w/4rZDjohpWvg/s1600/1959537_645406995507653_1332350255_n.jpg
Yes I do. I even used it once with my cousin back in the 1980s
DeleteSo ZAG could see a nice increase in passenger numbers next year.
ReplyDeleteFrom April
DeleteI think ZAG will have increase regardless of Schengen or not.
DeleteMaybe ZAG should do some advertising campaign in Slovenia. They could attract more passengers and it would help with their recovery.
ReplyDeleteLet's first wait for Croatia to actually enter Schengen. I think it won't be as easy as Eurozone. Bulgaria and Romania are waiting for Schengen longer than Croatia ...
ReplyDeleteIt has already been confirmed by the commission
DeleteThat doesn’t mean anything. Every schengen member has to confirm new member. And schengen area has quite some problems at the moment.
DeleteI believe there are no objections to their Schengen entry and countries will approve it relatively quickly.
DeleteWell actually Slovenian PM is currently saying how there are some problems.
DeleteSchenegen problem must re resolved first.
DeleteInternal checks at the following borders and for the following reasons:
Austria – at land borders with Hungary and with Slovenia due to secondary movements, risk related to terrorists and organized crime, and the situation at the external borders
Denmark – at the land border and on ports with ferry connections to Germany and Sweden due to terrorist threats, organized criminality threats
Germany – at the land border with Austria due to secondary movements, as well as the situation at the external borders
Norway – at ports with ferry connections to Denmark, Germany, and Sweden due to terrorist threats and secondary movements
Sweden – due to terrorist threats and shortcomings at the external borders; to be determined but may concern all internal borders
I think it will happen sooner rather than later. Let's see.
DeleteRegardless if it happens tomorrow or in 10 years LJU's management obviously couldn't care less. Like they didn't care less when Adria went bankrupt and said market will take care of itself, like they didn't care less about Covid and said we shouldn't compare "apples and pears" despite being worst performing capital city airport in Europe. Any normal airport operator would have dismissed the entire management.
DeleteI agree - Schengen for HR is not a done deal yet. NL has been blocking RO and BG for years. Although I personally find the border checkpoints between HR and SI unnecessary, as there have historically been none there, I still think we need to wait if this is for sure.
DeleteEuropean Commission came out with Schengen proposal for Croatia only, not for BG and RO. The dates are already set for ground, sea and air border crossings to be closed. Do you really think Commission would have done that if they didn't have previous consent of all members, including NL ?
DeleteCroatia is not in the same "package" as Bulgaria and Romania as the so-called cooperation and verification mechanism do not cover it. That mechanism has been the main stumbling block for the two Balkan states and justification for the Dutch, German, French, etc., veto all these years. So it is pointless to draw conclusions based on Romanian and Bulgarian examples. Despite some speculation (and, why not say it outright, hope) by some media and politicians in Slovenia that "the Netherlands and possibly some other countries" (as FM Fajon puts it) might do the "honor", there is no country signaling that it might block Croatia. As for the internal checks being resolved before Croatia's accession, unless Slovenia bites the bullet and starts blocking using this issue as a pretext for stopping Croatia, it is implausible that anyone else will.
DeleteShort term, this will be blow to Ljubljana airport. Long term, this will open hard competition between ZG & LJU. Any airline will have more option to negotiate with airports, because there will be option to move operation from one airport to another.
ReplyDeleteAgree. Let's hope LJU becomes more competitive in the future.
DeleteSo far they haven't responded to any increased competition, so I doubt they will now
DeleteThis was a long time coming and something the airport in Ljubljana should have thought about.
ReplyDeleteThey are "unazed"
Delete*unfazed
Delete"At the airport’s parking one will notice many cars with Slovenian car plates" very clever statement
ReplyDeleteWhat is so clever about noticing SLO car plates at ZAG?
DeleteI want to be clever, too. I often see lot of SLO plates at RJK Parking as well ☺
DeleteLJU's only solution in my opinion is becoming a Wizz Air or easyjet base. That way it would stop bleeding many pax to Zagreb and Venice.
ReplyDeleteyes, can we have more of wizz please, maybe if we let them base/sleep at least one plane here they would be nicer and wouldn't cancel their flights all the time ... wizzyjet <3
DeleteWhat happened to the business idea of LJU becoming a charter airline hub? That could have offset some of the flow of passengers to other airports.
ReplyDeleteCharter airline hub is an oxymoron itself...
DeleteExactly. Charters are P2P. Carry no transfers. Hub and spoke system mean "crossroad" , with transfers primarily
DeleteThe only airport in the world to have ever suggested something like this.
DeleteAdding to the list of LJU's problems
ReplyDeleteI live in Ljubljana and fly quite often.Next week I will travel to Brussels with my familly and when I was booking tickets I checked 4 airports: Lju, zag, vce nad tsf. And I chose the cheapest one, but considering al expenses. Rayanair at tsf was by far the cheapest so I chose that. It was half the price of Ryanair at Zag.
ReplyDeleteFor me there are 3 criterias
1. Price
2. Schedule
3. Distance
And Croatia entry to Schengen won't be a big game changer. Yes It will take some trivel time off, and will make travel more predictable, but I never dismised Zag as an option because of border.
And right after CRL I fly to SPU. From ZaG of course. :)
The Croatian entry into Schengen will have negative consequences on LJU even if Fraport is not ready to realize this emerging fact. ZAG still has more connections and better prices.
DeleteFor the pax form eastern part of Slovenia, Zagreb is already the most often chosen solution, despite of border crossing. All people in this part of the country know less frequent border crossings. For Maribor for example is Zagreb currently a bit problematic because of possible queues by crossing the border. But despite of this, Maribor has a highway direct to the ZAG parking, which is not the case for LJU. The normal ride without the queue (and after Schengen) takes approx. 1 hour and 20 to 25 mins, which is impossible for LJU. After leaving the highway toward LJU you still have to drive on local roads with speed limits and police traps in almost every village on the way. If you take the Ljubljana highway ring, the journey is about 45 km longer or 90 km more for both directions. More bothering is the fact that travelling to LJU is a kind of gambling due to the overcrowded highway toward Ljubljana with accidents and closures on daily basis. I already have 3 such experiences to get to LJU with looking for possible detours, long queues or hearing the traffic announcements with fear. Getting to Zagreb is far more convenient and comfortable. I many years of travelling to ZAG I never had a problem like those to LJU. From my point of view, the Schengen will bring a welcome relief for travelling from ZAG. Of course there are still GRZ and VIE, both with more reliable road or train connections than LJU.