The Slovenian-registered carrier AlpAvia plans to commence commercial leisure flights from France this month, which will also cover one city in the former Yugoslavia. The airline will wet-lease a Boeing 737-700 aircraft from Greek carrier Lumiwings (featuring the AlpAvia livery), which previously had the jet based in Tuzla. The Slovenian airline will deploy the B737 on operations from Lille, in northern France, and Deauville, in the northwest of the country, to ten European leisure destinations, one of which will be Podgorica. Services between Lille and the Montenegrin capital are set to begin on May 8 and operate on a weekly basis. Tickets are currently provided as part of tour packages, however, the airline appears to have plans to offer seats for individual bookings as well through the inx.aero website.

Registered in 2018 in Ljubljana, AlpAvia is run by Niko Grobelnik, with several individual shareholders from Slovenia. In addition to its venture into commercial aviation, the carrier also operates private business charter flights with its Embraer E145 aircraft. Furthermore, the airline is an Approved Training Organisation, operating a training centre.

Slovenia has several airlines, although the majority do business outside of the country. The largest is Amelia International which provides Aircraft, Maintenance, Crew and Insurance (ACMI) to other carriers, most prominently to Air France. Amelia International is in the process of adding three Airbus A320 aircraft into its growing fleet. The carrier previously confirmed it considered operating scheduled flights out of Ljubljana following the collapse of Slovenia’s former national airline Adria Airways in 2019, however, decided against the move after analysing the market and concluding the return on such an investment would not be sufficient. On the other hand, Slovenia boasts several cargo airlines which operate out of the country, including Solinair and more recently CAMEX Adria Airlines, the sister company of CAMEX Airlines from Georgia, which obtained its Slovenian Air Operator’s Certificate (AOC) late last year.