Adria humiliates low cost carriers in Slovenia

Slovenia’s Adria Airways has posted such strong passenger results so far that it has humiliated all west European low cost carriers which recently started services to the country after the liberalisation of Slovenian skies in 2004. The results are so strong that 80% of low cost carriers have now dumped Slovenia from their destination lists. Although easyJet with its single daily route to London Stansted has an almost 5% share of the scheduled market its attempts to serve Berlin were less successful. Daily services were begun in November 2004 but the route was abandoned at the end of March 2006. Wizz Air has tried and withdrawn two routes to Ljubljana. Both London Luton and Brussels Charleroi services were started in May 2006 but Luton was dropped after one year and the Brussels route ended in mid-January 2008.
Even Ryanair has struggled. Last June it began thrice-weekly flights from London Stansted to Maribor in the north-east of the country. However, despite carrying 33,800 passengers in 10 months at an average load factor of 71%, the route was axed at the end of March. In August Ryanair had carried 4,431 passengers at 90.2% load factor but this fell to 2,971 passengers at 56.1% load factor in January.

Meanwhile Adria dominates all outbound traffic from Slovenia. Its frequency share stands a 77% while its capacity share stands at 76.5%. Easyjet is second, Air France thirs followed by Turkish Airlines and CSA Czech Airlines in term of passenger numbers. Germany is the biggest country market from Adria’s hub Lljubljana is to Germany with Adria serving the Lufthansa hubs of Frankfurt and Munich with four daily flights. The airline’s fleet consists of three A320s, one B737-500, six CRJ200s, two CRJ900s and a single CRJ1000. A Fokker 100 is being wet-leased for the summer season from Carpatair bringing the fleet to 14 aircraft. Adria recently started servicing the city of Oslo in Norway with its CRJ900.

Statistics source: OAG Max and Anna Aero