Adria dumps Ohrid

Farewell to Ohrid

This summer, Slovenia’s Adria Airways will no longer be featuring Ohrid in its timetable. The seasonal summer service has been cut in face of low interest and sliding passenger numbers. Ohrid is the latest in a string of destinations which have been terminated or downgraded as seasonal summer services. Other destinations include Bucharest and Oslo (cancelled) while Madrid and Barcelona are operated only on a seasonal basis. On the other hand, the airline will launch 6 weekly flights to Belgrade on March 1. Adria did mange to finish 2009 as the second largest EX-YU airline in terms of passenger numbers, behind Croatia Airlines but in front of Jat Airways. The airline carried 953.400 passengers, a decline of 13.6% compared to 2008. Meanwhile, Croatia carried 1.700.300 passengers while Jat managed 935.900.

As previously reported, Adria Airways will relocate to Maribor during runway upgrades at Ljubljana Airport which will be carried out from April 7 to 20. Other airlines have also announced their alternatives with easyJet temporarily suspending its London Stansted route during this period. Jat Airways will move its services to Portorož and Turkish Airlines is reportedly also considering serving Maribor. It is unclear at this point what alternatives will be chosen by Air France, CSA Czech Airlines and Montenegro Airlines.

This summer, Jat will join Edelweiss Air as the only confirmed carrier that will be operating to Ohrid. Jat will, for a second year in a row, operate direct services to the lake side town, rather than via Skopje as it has done previously. The 2 weekly flights commence June 1 and can be found in the new route launches section.