October 29 (SeeNews) - Germany's Lufthansa said a plane of its fleet has landed in Ljubljana for the first time in history, after the company established a regular line linking Slovenia's capital with its Frankfurt hub in the wake of the collapse of flag carier Adria Airways.
"We are really proud to announce that the crane has finally landed here in Ljubljana," Peter Pullem, head of sales at Lufthansa Group, said on Monday upon the arrival of the first Lufthansa plane in the Slovenian capital. A video file with his remarks was uploaded on the website of news outlet Siol.net.
Pullem added that Lufthansa will now estimate the level of demand and decide on the size of aircraft that will operate on the route, as well as on introducing any additional flights.
Earlier this month, Lufthansa said it will operate the Frankfurt-Ljubljana service twice a day, offering 14 weekly connections in its winter schedule.
It added it will start daily flights linking Ljubljana with Munich on November 1.
SWISS, a company within the Lufthansa Group Airlines, introduced on October 16 a new service linking Ljubljana with the Zurich Airport, with the service extending to a daily connection as of October 27.
Austrian Airlines, another Lufthansa Group subsidiary, will also offer its passengers up to three daily connections from Vienna to Klagenfurt, some 30 km away from Austria's border with Slovenia, as an alternative to the termination of the operations of Adria Airways to Ljubljana, the German group has said.
Adria Airways suspended its flights in the last week of September over lack of funds to run its daily operations, and entered into bankruptcy proceedings at the beginning of October.
Following the collapse of Slovenia's flag air carrier, low-cost airline Wizz Air said it will keep the flights linking Ljubljana to Belgium's Brussels throughout the year, reversing an earlier decision for a pause in winter months.