Adria Airways Returns to London

Slovenian national carrier Adria Airways is to relaunch flights to London during the Northern Summer 2012 schedule after dropping the route for the winter season. The airline will offer five flights per week between Ljubljana and London Gatwick from March 28, 2012. These will be mainly flown using Airbus A319 equipment although a single rotation is scheduled to be operated by a Bombardier CRJ900.

In the past year an estimated 141,000 O&D passengers travelled between Slovenia and the UK, a market that has grown 6.7 per cent in the past 12 months. Adria Airways has seen its share of the traffic decline in the past couple of years following the arrival of easyJet in the Slovenia market - the UK carrier currently offers a link to Ljubljana from London Stansted.

The London route was one of a number of flights dropped by Adria Airways last year after it completed a restructuring of its route network to return to profitability. It was reported at the time that the Ljubljana – London Gatwick route was one of its least profitable services with reported losses of over €1 million.