“We expect to fly Fridays between 14 June and 20 September…We have rented an Airbus 320 with 168 seats and hope to fill the plane so as to be able to offer additional things to passengers next year,” said Boris Farkaš, Intelekta’s Director.
This initiative follows the renovation of the old terminal of the airport and the launch of the new terminal, and comes as an effort to lure international tourists as well as local ones flying from Graz airport. Other new routes operated from this airport are now in discussion.
“At the moment, talks with different airlines are at different stages. We are hoping to reach a concrete agreement with Adria Airways. However, it is difficult to speculate as to how the talks will unfold since it could hinder the negotiation process”, explained the CEO of Maribor Airport, Marko Gros.
The airport offers some free services such as parking at the airport and carrying several types of items on board with the same goal of attracting passengers.
Maribor airport has a rather old history, but not a successful one. It is Slovenia’s second largest airport after Ljubljana, and it was opened to commercial traffic in 1976. However, afer a successful 2007, year in which the airport handled 31.936 passengers and saw 1.480 flights it was mostly unused. beTween 2007 and 2008, the low cost company Ryanair used it for several months, but didn’t get the results it hoped for. The airport was used for a short period of time in 2010 by some airlines during Ljubljana’s runway overhaul.