Wizz Air is no longer selling tickets for the two routes it currently operates out of Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport: London Luton and Brussels Charleroi. The last Wizz Air flight out of the country will be W6 2927 on Saturday 26th October. After that day, Wizz Air has no scheduled flights out of Slovenia, despite originally planning to increase frequencies and capacity on the route to London. This is all due to Wizz Air's emerging new strategy of placing more focus on Western European destinations.

Wizz Air is changing strategy

As Simple Flying previously reported, Wizz Air is a rapidly growing airline. It used to be a carrier primarily connecting Eastern European airports with one another, and with Western European destinations that receive migrants from Eastern Europe.

The vast majority of Wizz Air's flights departing London Luton are to Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Poland. Only recently did the carrier begin adding more routes to Western European destinations. The airline launched flights to Porto and Lisbon in Portugal, and Bari and Verona in Italy only last year.

A clear pattern is emerging with Wizz Air's new route launches. The airline is focusing more and more on Western Europe. It is launching increasing numbers of routes between Eastern European destinations and Western European countries like France, Spain and the UK. But it is also increasingly launching routes that link one Western Europe airport to another Western European one.

This summer, Wizz Air launched four new routes from Edinburgh. It is also eyeing flights to Dubai. This is a clear change of strategy, away from niche Eastern European markets and towards higher-yielding Western European routes.

Wizz Air is an old customer in Ljubljana

Wizz Air has been operating flights to Ljubljana in Slovenia for a while. As was reported by Travel Daily News at the time, Wizz Air first flew London to Ljubljana and Brussels to Ljubljana in May 2006. It will operate neither of these this winter.

This development is not only surprising because Wizz Air has been flying to Slovenia for so many years. It is even more surprising because Wizz actually announced an increase in both capacity and frequency on its London Luton - Ljubljana route only two months ago, as was reported by Ex-Yu Aviation News at the time.

Services from London Luton to Ljubljana were meant to be operated by an Airbus A321 four times weekly, up from an A320 three times weekly.

But now they are being discontinued, as though Wizz Air estimated that high volumes of passenger traffic it was evidently recording on the route are not enough to justify flying it. Instead, it is launching more flights within Western Europe with the capacity that was previously allocated for Slovenia.

Slovenia and Croatia: too rich for Wizz Air, too poor for Wizz Air

From Sunday 27th October 2019, the first day of the winter schedule this year, Wizz Air will not have a single flight to the capital of either Slovenia or Croatia.

Both capitals are already seasoned enough in air travel that they do not fall under Wizz Air's Eastern European niche. But they are also not high-yielding enough for Wizz to expand in them as part of its emerging new strategy. It will be interesting to see how, and whether, this changes in the future.