Lufthansa was Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport’s busiest airline during the first half of the year, as well as the busiest transfer carrier to and from Slovenia. The German national airline handled 57.840 travellers on its Slovenia flights, or 15.1% of all of Ljubljana Airport’s passenger traffic during the January - June period. It was the busiest carrier every month except April, when Turkish Airlines outperformed its German counterpart by 3.000 travellers. Overall, Lufthansa’s passenger numbers have increased 203.7% on the same period last year, which was severely impacted by travel restrictions as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Overall, Frankfurt remains Ljubljana’s busiest destination.
Lufthansa's Ljubljana passenger performance since launch
Lufthansa has been steadily increasing its operations to the Slovenian capital. In May it restored flights between Munich and Ljubljana, while it upgraded equipment on its double daily Frankfurt service from the CRJ900 aircraft to the Airbus A319, adding an additional 94 seats per day each way between the two cities. However, Ljubljana has been unable to avoid Lufthansa’s network cuts over the summer with some services cancelled due to staffing shortages at the company. On the other hand, the Slovenian capital faired much better in comparison to other Lufthansa destinations in Europe with only a few flights cancelled. The German airline also remains Ljubljana’s most popular transfer carrier, accounting for some 30% of all connecting traffic. Travellers are primarily using the airline from Ljubljana to reach Barcelona, Helsinki, Madrid, London, Bucharest, Oslo, Dusseldorf, Hamburg and Dublin.
The Slovenian Ministry for Infrastructure held talks with its counterparts at the German Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport in June, where the two sides discussed ways of improving Ljubljana’s air connectivity, among other matters. The Slovenian representatives expressed interest in strengthening ties with Lufthansa in order for the country to boast better connections and more flights. Following the collapse of Adria, the Slovenian government proposed for it to jointly set up the country’s new national carrier with Lufthansa. Talks on the matter were held on several occasions in October 2019, however, the German airline eventually rejected the idea.
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What a surprise
ReplyDeleteThey are using a319 for MUC flight constantly now, and more and more flights to FRA are operating on a320 and sold out, 2muc and 3fra daily flights are totally possible
ReplyDeleteI also believe we may see 3 daily FRA next summer.
DeleteIt would be interesting to compare LH's numbers with Adria's on flights to Frankfurt and Munich.
ReplyDeleteI'm assuming Adria had much more passengers. They had several daily flights to FRA and MUC.
DeleteIn the first half of 2019, Adria Airways carried 71.174 passengers between Ljubljana and Frankfurt and 48.340 between Ljubljana and Munich.
DeleteThank you! Those numbers speak for themselves really.
DeleteI assume 2018 numbers were even stronger. Adria was already struggling all of 2019.
DeleteCartel keeps on winning!
ReplyDelete+100
DeleteI would like to see Eurowings start flights next from the LH group.
ReplyDeleteThey could start Dusseldorf and Hamburg. There seems to be a market for them from/to LJU.
DeleteWasn't Eurowings planning to fly to Ljubljana? I seem to remember something about them and LJU.
DeleteYes, they planned two weekly Dusseldorf-Ljubljana. Then they cancelled that. Then they put Ljubljana on its social media competition for new routes but it was not selected.
DeleteWe want Eurowings! :)
DeleteHow come Turkish had more passengers than Lufthansa in April? What happened?
ReplyDeleteBecause of Easter. People were going for the holiday to Turkey.
DeleteMakes sense. Forgot about Easter.
DeleteMy question is where did all the Vienna passengers go? I notice it's not in the top LH transfer destinations.
ReplyDelete98% of the Vienna passengers were transfers.
DeleteIt was mainly used in the past for Adria to transfer passengers. I doubt there was too much P2P.
DeleteWhen Adria was going bankrupt, it was revealed that 70% of its Frankfurt passengers were transfers and 80% of its Munich passengers.
DeleteAll of that means that JP was flying these passengers for next to nothing for Lufthansa Group. No wonder they always struggled financially.
DeleteJust like Croatia Airlines now.
DeleteMUC handles the former VIE traffic.
DeleteThis was the plan all along when JP was killed off.
ReplyDeleteDo we know how other airlines did in H1? Who carried how much and how they performed?
With Fraport in charge at LJU, they will be dominating for many many years.
ReplyDeleteI wish Fraport would reduce their dominance and bring other airlines to operate to LJU. Oh wait, LH owns them!
ReplyDeleteExpected
ReplyDeleteWell I hope this is not reason why Fraport is not doing more to attract new airlines. So as not to hurt Lufthansa.
ReplyDeleteOf course they are helping LH.
DeleteWe all know this. No need to copy-paste this same comment all the time.
Deleteno need for other airlines. LH is enough for them.
DeleteDanke Deutschland!
DeleteThere he is (with his usual nonsense...)!
Delete^Fraport fanboy?
DeleteInterestingly, almost all their top transfer routes are former Adria destinations.
ReplyDeleteWell of course. That makes sense
DeleteAny chance we might see LH send A321s to LJU at some point?
ReplyDeleteYes, probably next summer.
DeleteTurkish is sending it on a regular basis, so LH will probably too.
DeleteWe already had it twice this summer and we all know that they had staff shortages so the demand was really there, judging by the prices, we should see 3 daily next season with am flight done on a319, 1pm flight on a320 and 5-6pm flight on crj.
DeleteBut if they keep 2 daily, both could be on a321
Nice. As travel recovers more and more they will also have more passengers. More capacity incoming for sure.
DeleteYes, don't forget that Asia is yet to recover/reopen. Slovenia had a lot of tourists from Asia, especially Japan and Korea and many of them flew with LH/Adria.
DeleteWell let's see what demand looks like this winter with looming recession. EU economy is expected to be hit hard and we know that aviation is always the first to feel it.
DeletePathetic
ReplyDeleteOf course Lufthansa has no intention starting a new airline in Slovenia given that they use LJU to feed their hubs. Lufthansa has covered western Europe for Slovenians completely
ReplyDeleteReal shame Austrian has not started flights.
ReplyDeleteim sure they will start flying once Koralm railway is finished in Austria so there will be no need for 3 daily flights to Klagenfurt and probably they will be forced to reduce or cancel flights (same as for Salzburg)
DeleteLH: mission accomplished.
ReplyDeleteIn what sense?
DeleteThey still have to get rid of some airlines. Then the mission will be completed.
DeleteNo need for such pesimism. Airlines are coming to LJU, at a slow rate, but they are coming. There hasn´t been a single airline that would leave LJU after Adria.
DeleteFinnair left
DeleteNot a single airline? Easyjet on three routes, Iberia, Finnair, Sunexpress... What new destinations have we got this year? Not a single one. And we will see if Air Cairo actually launches HRG. Which I doubt.
DeleteThere are more airlines leaving than coming to LJU.
DeleteWe got Paris with Transavia, last year Dubai came and increased frequencies in the middle of pandemics.
DeleteParis? Already served with AF. Nothing new. Flydubai? Finaly after 10 years of "talks". We could say both increased and decreased. From 3 flights per week to 5 then 7 but then back to 5.
DeleteGlad to see they are doing well in LJU.
ReplyDeleteAre there any new destinations LH group could add to Ljubljana? For example Stuttgart or Hamburg? Maybe Berlin?
ReplyDeleteBerlin for sure, Hamburg also. Berlin on A319 and Hamburg on CRJ900
Delete