Update: Adria Airways has filed for bankruptcy.
On Tuesday Adria Airways “temporarily” ceased most of their operations. Adria Airways is a Star Alliance member airline and also the national carrier of Slovenia, though the country refuses to bail them out, given their lack of a strategy to return to profitability.
Adria Airways Continues To Suspend Flights
Adria Airways’ problems just keep getting worse:
- Initially Adria Airways was going to suspend operations on Tuesday and Wednesday
- Then it was announced that operations would continue to be suspended on Thursday and Friday
Now Adria Airways has announced that they will continue to cease a majority of their flights through Monday, September 30, 2019.
The airline notes that on both Saturday and Sunday they’ll operate a single roundtrip flight to Frankfurt, given that this flight provides a lot of feed to Lufthansa (presumably they’re bankrolling the flight).
Adria Airways also claims that on Monday afternoon they’ll operate the following flights to Frankfurt, Munich, Vienna, Brussels, Zurich, and Tirana:
JP124/125 LJU-FRA-LJU
JP1089 LJU-MUC-LJU
JP136/137 LJU-VIE-LJU
JP394/395 LJU-BRU-LJU
JP306/307 LJU-ZRH-LJU
JP726 LJU-TIA
It sure sounds to me like they might be optimistic here, since I’m not sure what makes them think they’ll be able to operate those flights, when they’ve been unable to operate virtually all of their other flights?
What’s Next For Adria Airways?
The Slovenian Civil Aviation Authority has given the airline a deadline of Wednesday, October 2 to submit a restructuring plan, or else they will suspend their Air Operators Certificate (in which case they’d be toast, since they wouldn’t be allowed to fly anymore).
At this point a majority of Adria’s fleet has been repossessed, including all of their A319s and most of their CRJ-900s.
Bottom Line
Short of the Slovenian government or Lufthansa bailing out Adria Airways last minute, it sure seems to me like the airline will formally cease operations next week. The airline notes that they’re “still leading active discussions with potential new owners and major creditors and remains dedicated in reaching positive solution for all.”
These aren’t easy times for European aviation, eh?
I just got my miles redeposit back to my United account after talking to the United rep. I was on hold for about 5-10 minutes before rep got the clear to refund my miles + fees associated for a flight from LJU to ZRH for June 2020.
I am just hoping I can get a direct flight from LJU to ZRH? I will have to wait and see what happens???
They just declared bankruptcy....
How to get a refound if tickets are directly booked by Adria? Did someone get a refound?
Purchased tickets through opodo for next June for our annual 3 week hols to ljubljana from liverpool with cancel for any reason cover when I've tried to cancel 4 days ago the company say it's impossible to cancel as adria is bankrupt . How can this be when tickets were still on some websites for sale.
@Ahmad/TProphet....thank u guys :-]
I had a flight on Thursday 9/26 from Munich to Ljubljana booked through Adria that was canceled. Does anyone know if I'll get a refund from Adria? Or how I go about getting my money back? (They are not currently answering their phones!)
@JB San Diego: Don't sweat it. You need to wait and see how this shakes out. If Adria goes out of business and another airline doesn't step in to operate their flights, United will either rebook you on another airline (based on availability) or refund your miles.
"These aren’t easy times for European aviation, eh?"
For anywhere. In Asia, we had Jet Airways plus it's low cost subsidiary shut down , Indonesia AirAsia X quietly folded, two airlines in Tajikistan shut down (with one of them being one of the 10 oldest airlines in the world when it did), smaller regional airlines in S Korea and Thailand shut down...
So I guess we will know on Monday whether or not they have officially folded, huh?
@JB San Diego just be patient, if Adria doesn’t survive and your flight gets cancelled it’ll take literally 2 seconds for United to refund your money
All those routes (except the one way to Tirana) are to Lufthansa Group hubs. Presumably LH is funding those flights as well.
A shame. I flew a charter rotation to Slovakia with Adria awhile back on two of their CRJ900s. Clean, well maintained, quite new planes, lovely friendly cabin crew, good food (unusually return flight was catered by a local cafe as the airport lacks flight kitchens).
Shame to see yet another nice Euro airline go you-know-what up. The usual over-optimistic expansion, cash flow not keeping up, mis-management at the top?
Look at the bright side. We might have lost an airline, but we found a continent.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/23/world/lost-continent-europe-scn-trnd/index.html
Well that was quick. At least quicker than I thought
Do you remember movie Other People Money? Anyway, last week I managed to get home from Frankfurt.
Sun was shining. Pilot took us over Triglav that was in all its glory. It was beautiful. FA announced it with sadness in his voice. We knew, it is the last time.
On Tuesday KLM swap my ticket for AIR France. I saw all the planes parked, including plane that brought me home last week.
CRJ 900 is perfect for Slovenia/Adria. Planes occupancy was very good. Better than StarAlliance counterparts. They have monopoly on home turf. Ticket prices were high, margin were good. Oh, and BTW, wet leasing was profitable.
How, on Earth, ... This story stinks. Rumours are, somebody had extra sticky fingers.
On Sunday, I purchased 2 one way tickets (8K mile + fees) through United from LJU to ZRH for June 28, 2020. Then Adria announces flight cancellations on Tuesday. So I was out of the 24 hour cancellation period and when I called United to cancel without redeposit fees, they still want to charge those fees and agent gives me the run around (was told they would waive the redeposit fees if my flight gets cancelled??).
What is your take?
thank you...