Adria Airways Set to Switch London Airport

Slovenian national carrier Adria Airways is to reportedly move its UK operation from Gatwick to Luton Airport when it resumes links to London this summer. We reported earlier this month that the European carrier was to relaunch its flights to the UK capital from March 28, 2012 having dropped the route from Ljubljana during the winter months, but its schedule initially showed London Gatwick as the destination.

It now appears that Adria has instead agreed a deal with London Luton and will switch airports. The airline will offer four flights per week all flown using Airbus A319 equipment. 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.