The Slovenian government is targeting the introduction of flights to Spain by offering subsidies for the launch of services to Madrid, and, if additional funds are left, to Barcelona as well. Based on indirect traffic volumes, there is strong demand for flights between the Iberian Peninsula to the Slovenian capital. Services between Madrid and Ljubljana were last maintained by Iberia for a short period during the summer of 2021. However, despite these, and the government’s primary aim of securing operations to the Spanish capital, there is greater demand for services to Barcelona based on indirect traffic volumes. This is further demonstrated by the number of charter flights between Ljubljana and Barcelona planned for this year, aimed at serving leisure traffic from Slovenia. This summer, in addition to Madrid and Barcelona, charters are also planned to Vittoria, Santiago di Compostela, Sevilla and Girona in Spain.
Madrid and Barcelona were both previously served by the now defunct Adria Airways. The two cities were operated on and off throughout the last troubled decade of the Slovenian carrier’s existence, mostly on a seasonal basis. On the other hand, low cost carrier Vueling maintained seasonal flights between Barcelona and Ljubljana in 2010, but the service was later discontinued. Indirect traffic volumes show that following Barcelona and Madrid, destinations with the highest demand for air travel from Ljubljana in Spain are Valencia, Malaga and Palma. Last year, 2.637 passengers flew between Ljubljana and Spain on charter flights. In 2021, Iberia handled 2.215 travellers between the Slovenian capital and Madrid in its single month of operations on the route. Profiting the most from the lack of flights between Spain and Slovenia are Lufthansa, Air France and Turkish Airlines, jointly handling over 70% of traffic between the two countries.
Spain’s neighbour Portugal has also established itself as a market with solid untapped demand from Slovenia. The Slovenian government plans to subsidise flights to Lisbon, if any funds are left over from the first round of subsidies for ten other destinations. There are over 7.000 passengers flying indirectly between Ljubljana and Portugal’s two largest cities each year. There haven’t been any scheduled flights between the two, with TAP recently discontinuing its seasonal operations between Lisbon and nearby Zagreb. Ljubljana boasts charter services to Portugal, with leisure flights to Madeira, Porto and the Azores planned for this year. In 2022, 1.932 passengers travelled on charter flights between Ljubljana and Portugal.
Goes to show how much demand nonstop flights generate. Iberia handled almost the same number of passengers to Spain in one month as for the entire 2022.
ReplyDeleteI do not understand why they stopped these flights. They were completely full and upgraded to A321.
DeleteThis is not enough for one charter weekly.
Delete^ what are you talking about?
DeleteI'm guessing they are targeting Iberia with the Madrid subsidies. Don't see TAP launching flights though.
ReplyDeleteCould TAP swap ZAG for LJU?
Delete@9.08 most likely. I do not see any LCC flying MAD-LJU.
DeleteI mean if funds will remain (as they probably will) I can't see why TAP wouldn't be interested in subsided flights...they have the E190 which would be perfect for 3 or 4 weekly services. And after all there was a lot of talking about Ryanair and if those funds remain Ryanair could easily fly to Lisbon along with the likes of Barcelona, Copenhagen, Stockholm, and a few other destinations on the list.
DeleteThe question is how aware are airlines such as TAP that these subsidies even exist.
DeleteI'm wondering that too. I'm not so confident Fraport is contacting anyone.
DeleteThat's true, I don't know that but surely they have someone who is responsible to search for things like that and especially if they were mentioned (their main airport Lisbon) they had to notice that.
DeleteHopefully Fraport Slovenia had pointed out the subsidies to airlines.
DeleteIf fraport is the one that needs to spread the information about subsidies around then I wouldn’t even be surprised if no one applys
DeleteIm sure slovenia sent out official info. Its not that hard
DeleteI really hope so
DeleteFraport Slovenia shared the tender on Linkedin, so if it's safe to presume they also did similar “under the radar”
DeleteYou need to understand that those numbers are actually way bigger. Slovenians mostly use Italy as a starting point for Spain and Portugal. Trieste - Valencia and now Barcelona, Venice - Madrid/Barcelona/Bilbao/Ibiza/Palma/Canary Islands/Lisbon and lately also Zagreb - Malaga. Maribor area might also use Graz for Palma and Canary islands. Or even Klagenfurt for Alicante/Palma. SO there are maaaaany cheap options around Slovenia (mostly less then 2h drive to the airport).
ReplyDeleteTrue
DeleteExactly so if Ryanair launches flights to Barcelona and Lisbon as well as Iberia to Madrid a lot of passengers would probably switch to Lju especially those for Ryanair flights (cheaper).
Delete^ I don’t think so. Madrid is a huge hub for transatlantic flights for both Aer Europa and Iberia. They have huge network in Latin America and Madrid boasts a big amount of Latin American airlines. Not to mention Madrid is a business hub, so Iberia flights would be successful either way.
DeleteYes, thats why I said Iberia for Madrid and not Ryanair
DeleteCompletely forgot that Vueling used to fly to LJU.
ReplyDeleteIn peak summer you could realistically have 3x weekly MAD and 4x weekly BAR flights without any issues
ReplyDeleteThis would be the perfect amount of flights for summer season
DeleteHope the subsidies will work and we get these flights.
ReplyDeleteMarket taking care of itself...
ReplyDeleteI'm sure that demand for Malaga is now being taken care of Ryanair through Zagreb.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the latest stats AGP is now the 3rd busiest airport in Spain so far and surpassing even the ever famous PMI!
DeleteJan-Mar:
AGP: 3,7 million
PMI: 3,1 million
https://www.aena.es/es/estadisticas/informes-mensuales.html
Even if ZAG managed to secure good flights, there is definitely room for LJU. AGP is literally a year-round destination with tenths of places around it to visit and worth revisiting even. There is always something going around and vibrant. The nightlife is insanely good, the promenades are kilometres and kilometres long with excellent pavements and infrastructure, clean beaches, pet-friendly, amazing tapas and open-minded society. AGP will unfortunately very quickly become the victim of its success because of the already increasing prices. Antonio Banderas is from Malága and he already bought a couple of expensive restaurants targeted for the rich.
Head to Marbella and see all them posh cars, rich Russians and Spainiards and some really fancy neighbourhoods. At the same time you also witness cheap tourism around Benalmadena, LGBT tourism in Torremolinos and classical rural Andalusian tourism east from Malága. Just a crazy interesting destination. Finally, the low-cost fast train additions to Madrid that arrived last month will increase demand even more. If you book much in advance, you can get the train price for as little as 9€ and arrive in the centre of Madrid in less than 3 hours. Crazy, eh?
JU will be successful on that route for sure and there is no reason why LJU cannot with IB or VY.
Here's the guy from the Spanish tourism board
DeleteLjubljana Airport needs to do more to attract new airlines.
ReplyDeleteThese subsidies are so messed up. The government sold the airport to Fraport. Fraport has unrealistic fees that very few airlines want to pay in order to fly to Ljubljana. Then the government gives money so they can cut 50% of the airport fees, while Fraport looses no money and benefits from the extra passengers. Crazy!
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteIt's not crazy. It's Danke Deutschland
DeleteI wish they would approach the problem with getting new routes more seriously. This saga is annoying at this point. There must be one capable sales person in this world who would work seriously for LJU to get more flights. The planet is big. And it cannot be THAT hard to get new flights. Put those who cannot do it to some other post, ground handling is probably understaffed anyway.
ReplyDeleteIB to MAD with 3 weekly flights and good connectivity to fm LATAM flights
ReplyDeleteVueling twice weekly BCNLJU flights.
That be cool....
IB MAD I would schedule as flws: 2 weekly ETD 0800 MAD, ETD 1100 LJU
Deleteand 2 weekly ETD 1700 MAD, ETD 2000 LJU
This would guarantee following connex ex MAD MORNING
GRU EZE MEX SCL LIM BOG MVD BOS JFK SDQ on IB
MIA on AA
Once UX codeshared on IB, additional dest possible:
GRU GYE MVD VVI EZE LIM
EVENING ex MAD
IB MEX GRU EZE SCL MVD BOG LIM
UX VVI GRU ASU LIM EZE MVD SAP
LA GRU SCL LIM
NOON EX MAD TO LATAM USA
IB SJU JFK BOG MIA
UX PTY BOG MIA SDQ HAV CCS
AFTERNOON FM LATAM USA
IB GYE MEX LAX SAL BOG LIM EZE
LA SCL
In addition you have excellent connex to Spain and the Canary Islands
Just an addition and reminder that IB and UX are now the same company basically. I think this was a very wise decision to further enhance the sustainability of UX. They are a good and reliable airline, however this means they are now the absolute monopolist in the LATAM-Europe market. IB literally flies to almost every capital of its colonies and secondary cities. Also, don't forget the quiet and very agressive expansion of their long-haul LCC - LEVEL. Their A330 are the perfect aircraft being able to easily reach more expensive destinations such as Santiago de Chile deploying an LCC. Level is more based in BCN and not MAD as BCN is lacking quite behind MAD when it comes to long-haul connections. However, BCN has a larger European P2P coverage being a more touristic, beachy destination.
DeleteThat being said, Binter of Canarias are also quietly and agressively growing their base in Las Palmas and not much is being covered about them. With their "humble" 32 aircraft their ATRs are doing wonders connecting the 7 Islands and neighbouring African bigger cities. Their E2s easily cover continental Spain and they chose secondary cities where there is less competition. Very smart airline. Spanish aviation is really quite surprisingly advanced in every aspect.
Does ZAG have much of an effect in taking away LJU pax especially without the border this year? Or is LJU simply poorly run that it needs the government to subsidize even the somewhat basic routes?
ReplyDeleteBit of both
DeleteTalking about competition, I can see many here are referring to ZAG first. But don’t forget other airports that Slovenians fly from. First and foremost VCE and TSF, they offer in general cheaper fares and more/better connections than ZAG (legacy for longhaul and LCCs within Europe) and if LJU could get back some of Slovenians travelling from there it would improve its numbers significantly and there wouldn’t be a problem of sustainability of many routes from LJU.
DeleteIt would be great to see Ryanair operating between Slovenia and Spain.
ReplyDeleteWhy Ryanair specifically?
DeleteI think Vueling would be better - for the same reasons Transavia and flyDubai are.
Deletetransavia is not a better option than klm prices are the same and the value for money is much better with klm
Delete^ I think he meant why transavia is better than Ryanair for Amsterdam and Paris services.
DeleteOhh okay my bad
Deleteyes I did :) these types of lowcosters have many advantages over Ryanair
DeleteThey were around 200 pax x day, with Slovenian ID or passport, departing Venice Marco Polo only (not Treviso) for destinations in Spain or via Spain to S.America etc.. This was in last precovid years. Data were official. It seems a lot to me. I don't know how is now but must be still many.
ReplyDeleteAnd thats only One airport. Treviso is also covering Spain.
Deleteas well as graz and probably a few passengers from zagreb, vienna and klagenfurt
Delete1. "This summer, in addition to Madrid and Barcelona, charters are also planned to Vittoria, Santiago di Compostela, Sevilla and Girona in Spain." For LJU it is a good start, although I am puzzled about Vitoria-Gasteiz, which is the capital of the Basque Country. San Sebastián (Donosti) and Bilbao are more interesting destinations all within the vicinity and rich towns. Santiago is a superb destination and looks very medival. The people do the famous religious "Camino de Santiago Route" that goes all the way to France. Sevilla is simply fantastic in every sense. The architecture is amazing but avoid July-September at all costs because of the excessive heat. Girona is also another medival nice town with easy access to the turquoise waters of Costa Brava and some really beautiful, well-maintained villages and very clean beaches.
ReplyDelete2. "Indirect traffic volumes show that following Barcelona and Madrid, destinations with the highest demand for air travel from Ljubljana in Spain are Valencia, Malaga and Palma. Last year, 2.637 passengers flew between Ljubljana and Spain on charter flights. In 2021, Iberia handled 2.215 travellers between the Slovenian capital and Madrid in its single month of operations on the route."
You can't blame LJU for the numbers and demand and how unfair the current situation is. It gives me the guts to write a harsh email to Fraport Slovenija and tell them to finally wake up and get their act together regarding the very important Iberian market. It is also a great opportunity for Slovenia to attract visitors from those countries. 57 million market ES+PT combined. That is roughly the population of both Romania and Poland combined. Fingers crossed and lets see how LJU will handle this in the near future.
Palma is superb, but really really really touristic and nicknamed the second little Germany outside of Germany. There are some parts of the island where you will see nothing but German script and Germans everywhere xD PMI received 28 million passengers by air only in 2022 and the population of the island is barely less than 1 million. Not mentioning the huge cruises arriving from so many other parts of the world. Even if you want to hop to neighbouring Menorca, it is much smaller but VERY expensive in summer due to the limited bed capacity and higher quality touristic product.
To understand FRAPORT Slovenia, you have to know, that Slovenia (state) is not their stakeholder. But Lufthansa is.
Delete