The national airline filed for bankruptcy and cancelled all flights on Monday.
Adria had previously withdrawn virtually all its flights last week.
Bankruptcy proceedings were initiated by the management of the company because of the company’s insolvency, the carrier said in a statement.
A study by ForwardKeys, the travel analytics firm, revealed that the bankruptcy resulted in the loss of direct flight connections with two dozen countries, including Czech Republic, Spain and Switzerland, all important origin markets for the country.
Adria has accounted for 60 per cent of all international seat capacity to Slovenia.
Other key source markets such as Austria, Germany and France will also be impacted, as Adria Airways accounted for 99 per cent, 87 per cent and 51 per cent of seat capacity on flights from these countries.
The full list of countries, which had direct connections to Slovenia in the past 12 months and have now lost them, comprises: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Latvia, Macedonia, Norway, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Ukraine.
However, the impact is less dramatic than the list suggests, because some of the routes, such as those from Estonia, Georgia and Greece are seasonal, and others, from Cyprus, Hungary, Italy, Jordan, Latvia, Romania and Ukraine are irregular.
Olivier Ponti, vice president, insights, ForwardKeys, said: Given the attractiveness of Slovenia as a destination, I expect other airlines to fill the gaps left by Adria Airways but how long it will take to get back to the previous level is anyone´s guess.
Slovenia, and its vibrant capital Ljubljana, remain accessible and well worth a visit; however, if you were counting on Adria Airways to get you there quickly, you must now allow more time.
So following the collapse of Adria Airways this week, Slovenia’s only airport in Ljubljana has lost almost half of all its air traffic.
Most flights by Adria Airways were feeder flights to Star Alliance hubs, so it is no great surprise that Lufthansa Group announced today it will launch an entire network out of Ljubljana Joze Pucnik Airport within a month.
Simple Flying first reported in June that an Adria Airways bankruptcy was increasingly likely. Adverse circumstances surrounding the Slovenian flag carrier kept growing over the summer and operations officially ceased in full earlier this week.
For years, Adria has been positioned as a feeder to Lufthansa Group hubs, serving Brussels, Frankfurt, Zurich, Vienna and Munich several times daily.
Adria Airways had such a strong relationship with Lufthansa Group that it also had feeder flights to Frankfurt and Munich from the capitals of Albania and Kosovo.
Thus, with the collapse of Adria, Lufthansa Group has been left with a loss of 216 weekly outbound and inbound flights to channel its connecting passengers.
These include 64 weekly flights to Frankfurt, which even for a giant like Lufthansa is not insignificant. 42 of these flights were from Ljubljana, 6 from Tirana and 16 from Pristina.
To fill the acute gap left by Adria in Ljubljana, several Lufthansa Group airlines are stepping in. An entire network is being formed in Ljubljana by Lufthansa’s airlines, despite the Group not having a single route to Slovenia at all at the moment.
Brussels Airlines is launching a six-times-a-week service in November. This will coincide with Wizz Air pulling out of Slovenia and no longer flying the Ljubljana to Brussels route after seven years.
Today, an announcement followed from Lufthansa Group too, that Lufthansa and Swiss will launch their own services.
Lufthansa CityLine will be flying double daily between Frankfurt and Ljubljana with its CRJ900 aircraft. Flights will depart Frankfurt every day at 09.15 am and 4.40 pm, arriving in Ljubljana at 10.30 am and 5.55 pm.
They will then depart Ljubljana at 11.05 am and 6.30 pm, returning to Frankfurt at 12.25 pm and 7.50 pm. Flights are already bookable, from Sunday 27 October, the first day of the winter schedule.
These are clearly timed to coincide with Lufthansa’s morning arrival wave into Frankfurt and evening departure wave out of it. The route is very clearly intended to be a feeder.
From Munich, the German airline will be flying daily starting Friday 1 November. Flights will depart Munich at 10.45 am to arrive at Ljubljana at 11.45 am. They will then depart Ljubljana again at 1.10 pm to return to Munich at 2.10 pm.
Swiss itself will be the first to begin flying, launching five weekly flights in just two weeks’ time. At the start of the winter schedule, on 27 October, the frequency will increase to daily.
Once the frequency increases to daily, the flights will be operated by Swiss’s A220 aircraft. Until then, presumably, because no spare aircraft are available, flights will run as five weekly with a Helvetic Airways E190.
What will be interesting to see is whether Lufthansa Group airlines expand their schedule to Ljubljana to match the capacity that Adria had on these routes.
Adria had three daily flights to Zurich all summer long, while Swiss has only scheduled a single daily rotation.
Austrian Airlines has been absent from this announcement. Adria’s two daily flights to Vienna remain nonexistent and all the feeder traffic to Austrian and Eurowings left unserved.
With Slovenia’s only airport now fully dominated by Lufthansa Group airlines, it will be interesting to see how they adapt their network over time.
It will also be interesting to see which competitors to Lufthansa Group step in to take some of the market share left vacant by Adria.
Meanwhile, bankruptcy proceedings have officially been initiated against Slovenia's Adria Airways following its cessation of operations.
Documentation issued by the district court in the city of Kranj gives creditors three months, until 3 January 2020, to declare claims against the operator.
It names Janez Pustaticnik as the manager.
Adria's latest operating licence, issued in 2011, has been revoked by the Slovenian civil aviation agency and the carrier banned from operating commercial air transport.
Star Alliance has also confirmed, as a matter of formality, that Adria Airways has left the airline group as a result of the bankruptcy.
Adria ceased to be a member of Star on 2 October, the alliance says. It says the situation is a regrettable development, given that Adria has been a member for 15 years.
But Star points out that its links with Slovenia are being maintained by new services from Lufthansa, Swiss and Brussels Airlines
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