This year, Adria Airways, Slovenia’s national carrier will be introducing new seasonal routes from its second base which is Priština. At present, Adria continues to have direct flights from Priština to Ljubljana, Frankfurt and Munich. But this summer, they will be adding flights to Brussels, Dusseldorf, Copenhagen and Paris Charles De Gaulle.

Priština Airport will likewise have new seasonal services for this summertime which includes Norwegian Air Shuttle that will have flights from Gothenburg and Oslo, Helvetic Airways from Berne in Switzerland and Belle Air Europe to Stuttgart.

Adria Airways, Slovenia’s national carrier will begin to have seasonal summer flights from Ljubljana to Split starting May 21 of this year. Flights will take place once a week which is every Saturday using the Bombardier CRJ900 jet. Furthermore, Adria Airways got full rights to operate charter flights from Split to Kristiansand in Norway. Such service will help in continuing the flights between Ljubljana and Split that is once per week.

When Adria announced that they are experiencing a serious financial problem, it was followed by the resignation of Tadej Tufek, Adria Airways’ former CEO. But, the Slovenian government together with Adria’s Management Board recently announced Adria Airways’ new CEO, Klemen Boštjančič. He is the former CEO of the insolvent construction company Vegrad and the former head of the Mineral Council. Just yesterday, Adria’s new CEO announced that he is confident that they can revive the airlines and do measures to get back Adria right on track. He believes that Adria should explore new markets and increase their flights together with the review of Adria’s destinations. It is said that they are willing to establish a new base in Skopje. As claimed by Boštjančič, “The next 6 months are crucial for Adria’s survival. We need to change the airline’s current business model and secure short term liquidity, otherwise the company will go bankrupt. As soon as you don’t pay your suppliers they are in a position

Adria Airways, the national carrier of Slovenia may go into receivership or perhaps declare a bankruptcy as it still puts a lot of effort to pay their debt from what Maks Tajnikar claim, the chairman of the company’s management board.

The Brnik-based carrier still has an outstanding loan of approximately 86 million euros or $114.5 million wherein the banks aren’t willing to extend or even approve new loans. Adria Airways has declared that they have a total of 7 million euros loss during the first half of 2010 and are currently looking for a strategic investor or the formation of a regional alliance together with other carriers around the Balkan area.

Akbar Al Baker, the CEO of Qatar Airways stated that their company will not be taking over Adria Airways. Recently, the two CEOs from Adria and Qatar Airways met at Doha to talk about their likely partnership. Al Baker not claimed that they want to focus on running their business and expand their fleet and destination network.

On the other hand, Lufthansa has expressed their interest in getting the 49% shares in Adria according to the Slovenian “Finance” portal. But Lufthansa has to deal with the rigid scrutiny from the European Commission’s anti monopoly body if it is truly interested with buying the shares of Adria.

The German national carrier was forced to give up some of its frequencies on specific routes like Vienna, London and Brussels after it bought the Austrian, Brussels Airlines and BMI.

Just like other national carriers, Adria Airways is projected to end this year with substantial financial losses. The Slovenian Government has expressed their desire to sell the company’s share in the early part of 2011.

At present, the Slovenian government is looking for a strategic partner for their national carrier, Adria Airways. After the airline was given 2.5 million Euros lately plus an additional of 7.2 million to its subsidiary, shareholders of the airlines want to get rid of the 49% shares of the airlines. Based on the report of Slovenian “Finance” magazine, Qatar Airways has expressed its intention in buying the shares of Adria Airways. The CEO’s of both airlines namely Tadej Tufek and Akbar Al Baker, met in Doha lately to discuss about the probable partnership between the two companies. The discussion was said to be productive and successful.

Qatar Airways is among the most successful airlines across the world that has 83 aircraft in its fleet and an additional of 144 on order which includes the Airbus A380, A350 and the Boeing Dreamliner. Although Adria Airways claimed they had increase in the number of passengers, the finances was quite battering this year. They claim to have lost 13 million Euros just in 2010. The decision of whether Qatar Airways is to take over the national carrier of Slovenia will probably be concluded during the early months of 2011.

EasyJet, a low cost airline has cancelled its plans to start flights from Milan to Ljubljana which was planned to start this 9^th of December 2010. The flights were supposed to be thrice weekly and were cancelled because of low interest. However, the airline’s plan to inaugurate services from Paris to Ljubljana this December 2 isn’t affected by this cancellation. For many years already, there are a lot of low cost airlines that failed in Slovenia because they weren’t able to attract passengers. Other airlines with previous low cost attempts were Wizz Air’s flights from both Brussels Charleroi and London Luton. Both routes began in May 2006; however Luton was dropped on February while Charleroi lasted until March 2008. Ryanair operated flights coming from London to Maribor from June 2007 until March of 2008. Consequently, Adria Airways now gets 80% of both frequencies and shares within Ljubljana Airport in 2010.

During the first half of year 2011, Adria Airways, the national carrier of Slovenia will be looking for a strategic partner. Maks Tajnikar, a member of Adria’s managerial board recently stated that the Slovenian government decided to withdraw from their structural ownership of the said carrier.

Just lately, the Slovenian government has 2.5 million Euros to the airlines as well as an additional of 7.2 million into its subsidiary Adria Airways Tehnika. Tajnikar claims that the potential future partners of Adria will be established airline companies like Croatia Airlines, Montenegro Airlines and Jat Airways.

For the meantime, Adria Aiways has pushed the launched date for their flights from Priština going to Frankfurt and Munich until December 10. At the same time, the airlines will begin its flight from Priština to Dusseldorf. The flights from Priština were initially planned to begin October 31 and November 1. For details regarding all flights including the new Dusseldorf flights, can be seen in the new route launches section the right side of their page.

Airbus A320 leaves the fleer of Adria Airways which had its last revenue flight last September 11, 2010 from Tirana to Ljubljana, Slovenia. This is a 21-year-old aircraft that was registered as S5-AAA and was delivered from Airbus to Adria last May 16, 1989 with the registration of YU-AOA. It was the 43^rd A320 to be created by Airbus which was also the first to be powered by IAE Engines. Through the years, the said aircraft was leased to different airlines wherein recently, it was leased to Libyan Afriqiyah Airways. It went back to Adria last November 2009 and now is currently being stored at the Ljubljana Airport, waiting to be disposed.

Currently, Adria has about 13 aircraft which are as follows: six CRJ200s, four CRJ900s, two A319s and one CRJ100 and with one order each for the CRJ900 and Airbus A319 which will replace the Airbus 320. The said airline selected the A319s as a replacement because they belong to the same classification with Airbus A320. This signifies that the crew, pilot, together with the technical personnel will not need to go through additional training. Adria also stated that the new aircraft is more affordable and environment friendly and matches with the carbon dioxide emission standard that steps into force in 2011.

Starting April 7 until April 21, a lot of flights for Ljubljana Airport, Slovenia’s capital city will be directed to Maribor Airport according to the Macedonian news agency, Makfax. The reason behind is the renovation of the airport scheduled this April. The renovation will focus on the third main stage of the runway. According to the Ljubljana Airport, the first as well as the second stages of renovation of the west and the east section of the runway were successfully accomplished this summer when the airport operated even with a 2,100 meters long section.

Since most of the flights from Ljubljana Airport to Maribor Airport, the Adria Airways have organized a free bus service from Maribor to Ljubljana since Adria airways will also be affected by the renovation. To see the schedule, you can view it at Adria’s website.

Affected also in the renovation is the Turkish Airlines who will also fly over Maribor. On the other hand, Air France will also fly from Trieste which the renovation is ongoing. CSA Czech Airlines as well as EasyJet have decided to cancel all flights from Slovenia during the renovation. People are still waiting for the decision of JAT Airways regarding its official flight information. However, according to Ljubljana Airport, the initial comment of JAT airways is they will direct their flight to Portorož airport.