Ljubljana Airport announced that the Albanian company Air Albania has canceled plans to launch flights between Tirana and the Slovenian capital, which were expected to begin on September 1.
According to Slovenian media, Ljubljana Airport cited the Albanian company's financial problems as the reason for canceling flights.
The flights marked the resumption of operations between the two capitals after five years. In its last full year of service, in 2018, Slovenia's former main carrier, Adria Airways, handled 57,499 passengers on the route with an average cabin load factor of 70.6%.
Air Albania's financial problems became known to the public especially at the beginning of this year, when a company called IBN approached the Court of First Instance in Tirana to issue a seizure order against Air Albania.
According to the Court's decision, the national pride, as the Prime Minister had called it, owed the IBN company 4.5 million euros in unpaid invoices. All of this debt was proven through fiscal invoices and certified by a previous court decision in October of last year.
The company has not had a balance sheet since 2018.
The financial situation of Air Albania, a company where 10 percent of the shares are owned by the Albanian state, is kept secret from the public. The last published balance sheet of Air Albania is that of 2018, while it is not known how the company is financed and what the financial consequences are, for the public shares held by Albcontrol.
Air Albania's finances were put at the center of public debate, following the company's agreement with the Directorate of Government Services for the prime minister's personal charter.
It is not known how much Albanians are paying for the prime minister's plane, which the Directorate of Government Services has borrowed from Air Albania. The opposition demanded the establishment of an investigative commission on this issue among several other hot issues, but the initiative was blocked by the majority.
Editorial
