Slovenia is giving up its planned national airline, they abandoned plans to establish a new national carrier using European Union funds. The Ministry of Economic Development and Technology of Slovenia confirmed the draft Recovery and Resilience Plan, which no longer contains a proposal for co-financing the new airline.
The plan must be approved by the European Commission in order to provide the country with EUR 1.6 billion in grants and EUR 3.6 billion in grants to mitigate the economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic. European officials have previously expressed concern over the intention to allocate EUR 76 million to create a new national airline, while the ministry noted that plans to finance the new airline are not in line with the European Union’s green policy.
Slovenia recorded the biggest drop in commercial flights in Europe last year after Georgia, which was also affected by the coronavirus pandemic, but also by the collapse of the former national airline Adria Airways at the end of 2019.
Minister of Economic Development and Technology Zdravko Počivalšek spoke with Air Serbia’s General Manager for Commercial and Strategy, Jirži Marek. Air Serbia has expressed interest in establishing a base in Ljubljana. Air Serbia was the third busiest airline in the Slovenian capital in 2020, improving its position compared to 2019, when it was eighth in terms of traffic. The Serbian carrier managed to increase its market share in the transfer in Ljubljana from 4% in 2019 to 10% in 2020. Last year, incoming and outgoing passengers from Ljubljana who flew with Air Serbia changed the most to Skopje, while Athens in 2019 was the most popular.
