{"id":149313,"date":"2023-05-25T06:25:08","date_gmt":"2023-05-25T04:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.voyages-d-affaires.com\/?p=149313"},"modified":"2023-05-25T16:06:08","modified_gmt":"2023-05-25T14:06:08","slug":"slovenia-national-carrier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.voyages-d-affaires.com\/en\/slovenie-transporteur-national","title":{"rendered":"Slovenia: desperate for a national airline"},"content":{"rendered":"

Passenger traffic has more than doubled between 2021 and 2022. This would give Fraport Slovenia, the airport authority managing the international airport of Ljubljana<\/strong><\/a>. The Slovenian capital's airport welcomed more than 977,000 passengers in 2022, compared with 431,000 a year earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Except that this result is rather mediocre compared with other airports in the former Yugoslavia<\/strong>. . in fact, the number of passengers in 2022 represented only 56.6% of 2019 traffic<\/strong>1.73 million passengers. By comparison, the number of passengers at Skopje, Zagreb and Belgrade in 2022 represented 91% of 2019 traffic at each airport. In Sarajevo, airport traffic is even 20% higher than in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So there is a problem in Ljubljana: the absence of a national air carrier since the bankruptcy of Adria Airways in 2019<\/strong>. The airport offers flights from 18 airlines to around 20 destinations this summer. Ljubljana, for example, has excellent links with Paris, with 11 weekly Air France flights from CDG and two Transavia flights from Orly (during the summer season). Brussels Airlines also offers six weekly flights between Brussels and the Slovenian capital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Slovenian market too small to attract companies?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

But the number of flights to major hubs is still very limited. Ljubljana is heavily dependent on the Lufthansa group. With 39 weekly flights to Brussels, Frankfurt, Munich and Zurich, Lufthansa has a virtual monopoly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only alternatives are Air France at Paris CDG<\/strong>LOT flies to Warsaw and Turkish Airlines flies to Istanbul. British Airways does fly to London Heathrow, but only during the summer season. Finnair also flies to Helsinki, but only in summer. And while Amsterdam Schiphol is well served by Transavia, the low-cost carrier offers no connecting services. We are also surprised by the absence of flights to Spain, Italy, Berlin or Vienna...<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Slovenian government, elected last year, decided to analyse whether it was therefore to create a new carrier<\/strong>. A decision that the previous ultra-conservative government refused to take. A group of experts commissioned by the government recently submitted its conclusions to the Ministry of Infrastructure. They will be officially presented in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to local news website 24ur, the study revealed that the Slovenian market is too small for other carriers to replace the former national carrier Adria Airways<\/strong>. But there is potential for a \"Made in Slovenia\" company. Take Luxembourg, for example. With its 650,000 inhabitants (three times less than Slovenia), it nonetheless has its own airline, Luxair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n