Adria Airways filed for bankruptcy and ceased operations yesterday. Slovenia, which refused to give Adria a lifeline, is now floating the idea of a new national airline to take its place.
The trouble really began three years ago when a German investment firm acquired Adria with the goal of turning the then state-run carrier profitable. But the new ownership had a tumultuous relationship with the Slovenian government and continued to lose money.
Last Tuesday, Adria “temporarily suspended” almost all of its flights. This was not just a strategic move, but by necessity…several aircraft in its fleet were repossessed by creditors.
Backed up against a wall, Adria operated only its Frankfurt flight before collapsing yesterday ahead of an October 2nd deadline to submit a reorganization plan (or risk losing its license to operate).
A New National Airline For Slovenia?
Slovenian Prime Minster Marjan Sarec defied expectations by steadfastly refusing to bailout Adria…at least under current ownership.
Sarec mused that “they would throw money away” if given another lifeline, also noting that legislation prevents such aid even if he wanted to grant it.
He mocked calls for a bailout, asking if Slovenia was a ”dairy cow, from which it is necessary to squeeze the last cent”.
Now Slovenia is looking into “setting up a new company” or “providing greater connectivity with other carriers”. Sarec added:
Although we expect difficulties, the aim is to maintain Slovenia’s connection with the world, especially for tourism.
CONCLUSION
While a new carrier is on the table (and the recent birth of Air Albania illustrates it is possible), I think the more likely outcome is that Lufthansa will beef up presence to Ljubljana (LJU) and budget carriers will fill in the rest of the void. Already, Slovenia is in talks with Lufthansa over potential route takeovers. Brussels Airlines, part of the Lufthansa group, has also announced new 6x weekly service between Brussels and Ljubljana starting next month.
As Sarec noted:
Crying won’t help us much. Adria was sold because it was in bad shape. It was screwed up long ago.
Yes, indeed.
> Read More: Adria Airways Business Class Supper
Easyjet already offers 3 routes (2 of them to London airports), while Wizz Air offers 2 routes, both seasonal…and one of them is ending at the end of the month.
I guess they might start beefing up their presence there…and maybe Ryan Air might jump in as well.
“Lufthansa will beef up presence”
As of now, no Lufthansa Group airlines fly into LJU. I guess all the routes to places like FRA, ZRH, MUC, etc were on Adria planes with code shares.
What a refreshingly rational approach. Kudos to the Slovenian government for not falling in the nationalist pride trap.
Some lessons the capitalist USA (what a joke) can take.
this is where Star Alliance’s strategy of being a broad umbrella really helps. Avianca Brasil and Adria down? No biggie. That’s 28 down to 26. Still have the continents well represented.
Delta only help themselves and there’s no strengthening of SkyTeam whatsoever despite a new deals by Delta.
But oneworld’s snobbish strategy of so-called selective and exclusive club of premium airlines completely backfired in their face with the exit of LATAM but without a corresponding join from China Southern to ease some of the pain. Royal Air Maroc’s impact isn’t even remotely close to the sheer loss from LATAM. But this event also highlights the chaos experienced by LATAM Brazil’s core customer base. Within merely a span of 6 years they have to shift their travel planning and strategy from Star to oneworld to Delta+miscellaneous meaningless codeshares.
Star is still far the best because i can travel practically between any 2 points on the globe and not have to worry whether they’re besties with UA or not. Star is designed to work for their customers. Delta is designed to only work for themselves.
@henry LAX
Hear hear! I’ve come to realize the breadth and value of Star Alliance as well, and your examples help underscore that point.
Let’s hope there is no resurrection of the current Adria in any form. It began life as Inex-Adria, a charter airline in communist Yugoslavia and somehow never changed its culture. It has never been profitable, always offered poor service, usually been late and has employed people with no sense of customer service and lots of self importance and entitlement.
Lufthansa, Easyjet, Wizz and maybe Ryanair will fill the gaps and that’s all that’s needed. No new airline would be able to compete against the LH group and remember under EU regulations no subsidy of a new start up would be allowed.