Adria looks to grow outside of Slovenia
Adria Airways will seek opportunities outside of Slovenia as it looks to recover from a tumultuous month. Speaking in Ljubljana yesterday, the airline's Managing Director, Sven Kukemelk, said, "Adria is no longer a carrier that operates from Ljubljana to European destinations. We are way bigger. We have outside operations, a base in Pristina, services for Lufthansa, Austrian, Luxair, and Swiss. Today, Adria is on a good path to becoming a strong regional player who is embracing, and happy to accept, the challenges of the future... In an essence, this is what a regional carrier has to be. We don't have too many other choices. The Slovenian market is not going to grow and the growth will be somewhere else".
Mr Kukemelk's words echoed those of CEO Holger Kowarsch, who last week said, "Slovenia is not the biggest country so opportunities for Adria Airways to grow out of Ljubljana are a little bit limited. This country is too small to grow, and Adria needs to grow. To give you an example, last year we handled 1.2 million passengers, and only 400.000 of those were in and out of Ljubljana, the rest were transfers". In 2014, Adria, which was at the time fully state-owned, developed a six-year growth strategy which involved the opening of four to six new bases in Europe. Its CEO at the time, Mark Anžur, said, "The Slovenian market is small and is not growing. We now receive 70% of our revenue outside of our main market". Adria closed down its bases in Lodz in Poland in 2017 and in Paderborn in Germany last year. It previously considered stationing aircraft in Klagenfurt in Austria, as well as Verona, Bratislava and Bern.
Mr Kowarsch has suggested that larger European carriers will follow the example of their peers in the United States which utilise services of regional airlines on a significant number of routes. Therefore, Adria is likely to expand the scope of its ACMI business in the future, since the carrier is usually paid a fixed price for operating certain routes for other airlines, with all the risk lying with the major carrier. Furthermore, in some cases, major carriers will offer incentive payments to regional airlines for operating on-time flights without cancellations.
In an attempt to establish itself as an important European regional carrier, Adria said yesterday it had signed a contract with Denmark's Northern Aerotech to provide maintenance services to the airline's entire fleet, in Ljubljana and Lugano. The contract will include line maintenance and Aircraft On Ground (AOG) recovery. “We are very pleased to enter this kind of cooperation with Northern Aerotech, which provides us complete customised service in all situations with full attention. We pursue impeccable Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) service, since safety is our first priority. We strongly believe that we’ve found a reliable MRO partner that will support our needs and demands”, Mr Kukemelk said. The new contract will come into force on September 1. Adria's existing line maintenance provider Adria Tehnika, said its services were too expensive for the national carrier.
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