Ljubljana Airport interested in renewing direct airline to Skopje
Skopje, 11 August 2022 (MIA) – The Skopje airport is an “extremely important” route for Ljubljana that needs to be renewed, according to representatives of the Ljubljana airport authorities for the specialized air traffic website exyuaviation.com.
The site points out that Skopje and Ljubljana are the two airports with the most traffic on the territory of former Yugoslavia that were left without a direct airline after the Slovenian airline Adria Airways went out of business.
Ex-Yu Aviation says that 40,293 passengers flew Skopje-Ljubljana and back between January and September 2019, when Adria Airways went out of business. In 2018, 44,828 passengers flew this route in both directions.
After Adria Airways went out of business, Air Serbia became the main airline to transport passengers between Skopje and Ljubljana.
Ex-Yu Aviation adds that WizzAir has been considering to launch an airline from Skopje to the Maribor airport as an alternative for Ljubljana, but it asked for EUR 1 million in subsidies and incentives to maintain services between both cities.
On the other hand, according to the site, Air Serbia is in negotiations with the Macedonian authorities to introduce seasonal summer airlines between Belgrade and Ohrid as of next year, which will connect both cities and serve as a transfer line for the network of longer flights of the Serbian airline.
Air Serbia, at first, started seasonal flights between Belgrade and Ohrid three times a week in 2016 after a three-year-long break. In 2017, the number was upped to 4 flights a week, but the airline was discontinued in 2018 because of the pressure on Air Serbia to reduce costs and rationalize its airline network.
“The airline relied on transfer passengers with special prices for the Macedonian diaspora in Australia, lots of whom are from Ohrid, in order to maintain its Ohrid line. The discontinuation of the Air Serbia flights for Abu Dhabi in 2017 that served as a transfer from Australia significantly influenced the reduction of the traffic in the Ohrid line,” according to Ex-Yu Aviation.
The site also says that Croatia Airline has negotiated with TAV Macedonia for the potential expansion of its flights to and from this country.
“If there’s interest from the Macedonian tour operators and partners, we’re ready to expand our cooperation to other routes alongside Zagreb – Skopje, such as Ohrid – Split perhaps,” Croatia Airlines told Ex-Yu Aviation.
On the other hand, TAV Macedonia said the airline connection between North Macedonia and Croatia is not satisfactory, and that new airlines would be a huge step forward in improving the current condition.
“We believe that flights from-to Ohrid and Split would be in the best interest of the tourists, so they could visit both countries within a few days in one fell swoop,” TAV Macedonia told Ex-Yu Aviation. dk/nn/
