Brnik - British Airways, the UK's flag carrier, is resuming flights from Ljubljana Airport to London Heathrow on Tuesday. The flights will have an earlier start compared to last season and will be more frequent. Traffic at Ljubljana Airport is recovering in general after it plummeted due to the Covid pandemic.

British Airways will operate five flights a week to London Heathrow, one of the world's biggest airline hubs, with afternoon departures every Tuesday and Wednesday and evening flights on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, Ljubljana airport operator Fraport Slovenija said in a press release.

"We're delighted that British Airways is resuming flights so early in the summer season and will offer five weekly flights. This is a welcome addition to our flight network," said Babett Stapel, managing director of Fraport Slovenija. She expects strong demand for the flights in both directions.

In addition to British Airways, two low-cost airlines offer flights to London from Ljubljana Airport: Wizz Air flies to Luton three times a week and Easyjet flies to Gatwick six times a week.

Ljubljana Airport is currently served by twelve other airlines, and the summer schedule is expected to include the launch of Israir flights to Tel Aviv and Air Montenegro flights to Tivat. The latter already flies three times a week from Ljubljana to Podgorica.

Air Serbia flies eleven times a week to Belgrade and twice a week to Niš, Turkish Airlines flies ten times a week to Istanbul, flydubai flies four times a week to Dubai and LOT Polish Airlines flies six times a week to Warsaw.

Lufthansa flies most frequently from Ljubljana Airport, twice daily to Frankfurt and daily to Munich. Meanwhile, Swiss International Airlines flies daily to Zurich and Air France flies daily to Paris. Transavia France also flies to Paris twice a week and Transavia to Amsterdam three times a week. Brussels is served five times a week by Brussels Airlines and twice a week by Wizz Air.

Traffic at Ljubljana Airport is getting increasingly upbeat and the positive trend in passenger growth continues. In the first four months of this year, almost 200,000 passengers travelled through Ljubljana airport, which is seven times more than in the same period last year, Fraport Slovenija said.

Passenger traffic in the January-April period accounted for 40% of the total in the same period in the pre-Covid year 2019. According to forecasts, around 880,000 passengers will travel through Ljubljana airport this year, an increase of 104% compared to last year, but still 49% less than in 2019.

The ACI World organisation predicts that air traffic will reach the pre-Covid levels by 2026. This is also the expectation for Ljubljana Airport under favourable circumstances.