COVID-19 has hit the aviation industry in Slovenia hard, because this European country is one of only a few that do not have a national airline. The news about airlines cancelling routes and cutting frequencies on their flights to Slovenia keeps coming in, even when the whole country sees just a handful of flights a day. The winter season is looking concerning.
Just six flights today, only three tomorrow
Today, on Monday 7th September 2020, there were six scheduled flights landing in Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport (LJU). The only other airport in Slovenia, Maribor Edvard Rusjan Airport (MBX), does not have any scheduled flights at the moment.
The six flights are, in the order of their departure time:
- 07:00 Lufthansa to Frankfurt
- 09:15 Turkish Airlines to Istanbul
- 10:00 Air Serbia to Belgrade
- 12:25 Air France to Paris
- 13:15 LOT Polish to Warsaw
- 13:30 Lufthansa to Frankfurt
- 20:20 easyJet to London Gatwick
For a European capital city, this is already a very small number of flights for a whole day. The connectivity out of Ljubljana, and thus out of all of Slovenia, is very low.
However, today is actually a relatively good day compared to some other days of the week. Tomorrow, on Tuesday 8th September, there will be only three scheduled flights out of Ljubljana! Two of them will be Lufthansa’s flights to Frankfurt, and one will be a Wizz Air flight to Brussels Charleroi.
More airlines are set to leave
Out of the six airlines that operated flights to Ljubljana today, most will cut capacity to Slovenia, or have already done so.
Lufthansa used to run a daily service between Munich and Ljubljana ever since the collapse of Adria Airways. The route has been suspended since March, and tickets are not on sale until next year’s summer season. However, it is not likely at all that Lufthansa will restore a daily rotation on this route.
LOT has canceled all flights between Warsaw and Ljubljana from next week, Wednesday 16th September, onward. The next scheduled flight isn’t until the start of the winter season, but this is likely not to go ahead too because the Polish airline has not updated its schedule yet.
British Airways has canceled all of its planned flights between London Heathrow and Ljubljana for the entire year. The last flight it operated on this route was in August 2019. Flights are not on sale until May 2021, though this is likely to be postponed too.
Brussels Airlines has canceled all flights between Brussels and Ljubljana until the start of the winter season in late October. However, the airline is yet to finalise its schedule for that time period, and so the daily service between Slovenia and Belgium is unlikely to return.
The story is the same with Transavia, which is suspending all flights from Amsterdam to Ljubljana this week, with the last flight operating on Sunday 13th September. Ticket sales are on sale for the winter season, though the schedule is yet to be revised.
Meanwhile, Swiss has discontinued all ticket sales to Ljubljana until the start of the 2021 summer season, but this again is likely to be revised when the schedule is updated. With the loss of both Brussels Airlines and Swiss, Ljubljana has lost out on a strong element of connectivity since Lufthansa sells tickets for both of these airlines, and so travelers have more choice when making round trips that require flight connections.
At the same time, easyJet has significantly cut capacity and frequency on its routes to Ljubljana. Flights to Southend have been discontinued indefinitely, and Stansted too. Flights to Gatwick are ongoing, though with just a fraction of last year’s capacity, and the plans to launch flights from Ljubljana to London Luton have been postponed. easyJet is also endings its flights from Ljubljana to Berlin in September, for the remainder of the year.
Windrose and Israir are not coming
Meanwhile, Windrose Airlines of Ukraine has decided not to go ahead with its planned launch of new route between Ljubljana and Kyiv. Instead, Windrose is restoring plans to launch flights to Zagreb in Croatia.
At the same time, Israir of Israel has canceled indefinitely its plans to launch flights from Ljubljana to Tel Aviv.
Adria Airways is notably absent
Slovenia’s connectivity has not been great ever since its former flag carrier, Adria Airways, collapsed last year in September. The former Slovenian flag carrier maintained routes to various European hubs, throughout the day and throughout the week. For a relatively small country, Slovenia had an abundance of air connections.
This was thanks to Adria linking Ljubljana to all the major European hubs several times daily. The flights with the most frequent services were mainly to the Lufthansa Group hubs of Brussels, Frankfurt, Zurich, Vienna and Munich. But Adria also had numerous connections and codeshare agreements to other major hubs like Paris, Amsterdam and Moscow.
As a result of COVID-19, this all changed, and most airlines that arrived in Slovenia to cover for Adria have now left. Unlike other countries, which could rely on their national carriers to maintain some form of connectivity, Slovenia is now left in a difficult position. It has now become noticeably more difficult for tourists to arrive into Slovenia, and for Slovenian citizens to leave their country out of Ljubljana Airport.
The impact was also severe on the local businesses, which lost an important mode of transport which they used for exporting purposes. Furthermore, Slovenian citizens could not be easily rescued at the time when lockdowns were imposed across Europe, and instead had to travel on other airlines to get home.
It is looking to be a grim winter for the aviation industry in Slovenia.
How long do you think Slovenia will be in this position? Let us know what you think of this story in the comments below.
