Slovenia has outlined a tender to issue another round of financial incentives to new and existing airlines flying to Slovenia. The aviation industry in the country is in dire straits due to the bankruptcy of Adria Airways, a former Slovenian airline.

More incentives for airlines in Slovenia

In a document viewed by Simple Flying, the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology of the Republic of Slovenia has published a draft round of development incentives for 2022.

This is another public call by the Slovenian government, which is under increasing pressure to take action on the dire state of the aviation industry in the country.

The explicit purpose of the tender is to maintain the existing basic network of connections between Slovenia and European hubs and to add more destinations in Europe and the world.

However, even this new public call is unlikely to bring significant benefits to the aviation sector for the reasons set out below.

Due to the collapse of Adria Airways, Slovenian air connectivity is in dire need. Photo: Getty Images

Only two million euros available

The ministry has earmarked just two million euros ($ 2.25 million) for the full range of incentives. The money will be distributed to airlines that apply in the way described in the call, when its final version is officially published in full. Thus, the sum of two million euros is likely to be divided among at least six airlines.

The money will be handed over to airlines in a lump sum, as it was when the last tender was published at the end of 2020.

As Simple Flying reported at the time, the last call was an unusual way of government funding in the sense that it was actually a subsidy backwards.

At that time, the Slovenian Ministry of Economic Development and Technology formed a commission to decide how much money the government will allocate to airlines that will operate flights to Ljubljana Airport in 2020.

This first call was equipped with a scorecard used to rank the applicant airlines. The scorecard contained a maximum of 70 points, and airlines had to score a minimum of 35 to receive a grant of any amount. The amounts were then decided later.

The Government of Slovenia rejected the offer of Air Dolomiti from the Lufthansa Group to establish a base in Ljubljana. Photo: Getty Images

The last call was not successful

Last time, the tender procedure was criticized for both unconventional rules and final results.

For example, one of the 20-point criteria was that the applicant had to do business both in the EU and outside the EU, but both in Europe.

Similarly, the applicant had to fly to Slovenia at least five times a week, but one of the airlines that eventually received the funds (SWISS Lufthansa Group) did not actually do so.

In addition, easyJet did not receive any funds after being allegedly disqualified for undisclosed reasons.

Perhaps because of this, easyJet has now greatly reduced its presence in Slovenia. She has not flown to Ljubljana from Stansted since she closed her base there, but she has not made up for this lost capacity and has canceled all flights to Berlin and London Luton.

In any case, with only two million euros available, it is unlikely that this program would bring significant improvements for Slovenia.

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