Flydubai readies for Ljubljana launch

Flydubai is set to commence operations between its hub and Ljubljana in just under a month, with the airline already seeing strong advanced bookings on the route. The long-awaited service will operate three times per week, each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, complementing its service to nearby Zagreb which will run on the alternative days of the week. “We are excited to connect Ljubljana to the United Arab Emirates with direct airlinks for the first time which will offer passengers a more comfortable and convenient travel option. We continue to grow our operations in Europe and are seeing steady growth in passenger traffic as more countries ease travel restrictions. We will continue to grow our network in the months ahead”, the airline said.

Dubai is Ljubljana Airport’s busiest unserved market, both in the Middle East and the Gulf region. Based on OAG data, in 2019, 3.762 passengers flew indirectly between the two cities. This does not count Slovenian travellers who reached the UAE’s largest city via alternative nearby airports, particularly Zagreb, and those that began or ended their journey in Ljubljana by transferring through Dubai. Emirates will codeshare on Flydubai’s service, enabling passengers to easily connect onto its vast network out of the Gulf hub, which will generate a significant portion of traffic on the route. In 2019, Istanbul was overwhelmingly used as the transfer airport to reach the Emirate with 74% of travellers opting to fly via the Turkish city. Accordingly, Turkish Airlines was the busiest feeder airline. It was followed by Adria Airways with a 9% share and Aeroflot which transferred 8% of all passengers.

During the pre-pandemic 2019, some 19.483 travellers flew between Ljubljana and the Middle East as origin and destination passengers. Turkish Airlines was the dominant carrier on the Ljubljana - Middle East market, responsible for carrying a whopping 71% of all passengers between the two. It was followed by Air Serbia, which in 2019 had a limited presence in the Middle East region with flights to Tel Aviv and Beirut, while offering codeshare services to a number of points through Etihad Airways, which, at the time, also maintained operations to Belgrade. Despite their overall dominance in Ljubljana in terms of handling connecting passengers, Lufthansa group carriers fell short of transporting any significant number of travellers between Slovenia and the Middle East.

Busiest Middle East markets to/from Ljubljana in 2019