Slovenia mulls national carrier with €70 million investment
The Slovenian government is once again considering setting up a new national carrier with a private partner and has provisionally set aside seventy million euros for the project as part of measures to mitigate and remedy the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic. "This plan allows for both subsidies and repayable funds, which means that the state can be involved in the founding of a flag carrier or participate in its establishment in various ways, such as loans and equity", the Slovenian Ministry for Economy said. According to the daily “Delo” newspaper, discussions over the ownership structure of the potential new carrier are still ongoing. The Ministry noted that plans surrounding the new airline will not impact its initiative to provide foreign carriers with a six-million-euro subsidy in order to maintain flights to Ljubljana.
The Ministry for Economy said various private stakeholders are interested in cooperating with the state in establishing a national airline, including local companies, as well as Croatia Airlines. "A decision over a partner has not been made yet", the Ministry said. Slovenian cargo operator Solinair previously outlined its willingness to set up a new flag carrier if the state were to partially invest in the company. At the time, it said it would seek an agreement with the Lufthansa Group for the new airline to take over their routes to Ljubljana, including Lufthansa’s flights from Frankfurt and Munich, Swiss’ from Zurich and Brussels Airlines’ service from the Belgian capital. In addition, the airline, dubbed Air Slovenia, would link Ljubljana with Amsterdam, Skopje, Tirana and Pristina.
Late last year, following Adria Airways’ bankruptcy, the Slovenian state-owned Bank Assets Management Company (BAMC) drafted a business plan for the country’s potential new national airline. Under the proposal, the carrier would reportedly operate a fleet of five aircraft and count some 200 employees. Based on the Assets Management Company’s calculations at the time, the airline was estimated to record a twenty-million-euro loss in its first year of operation.
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