This weekend's annual Golden Fox Ski World Cup programme saw the best female exponents of slalom and giant slalom take on the Radvanje piste adjacent to Slovenia's second city Maribor, and part of the Pohorje massif. Despite occupying a modest altitude Maribor's yearly skiing jamboree has endured, although spring conditions meant an astonishing 95% of…
Maribor Airport facing its very own China Syndrome
The potential loss of large amounts of farmland and tree cover abutting Maribor's airport flies in the face of an 'environment first' credo that Slovenia has become synonymous with, and of which it is rightly proud. Representing something of a reality check of what value is placed on prime agricultural and arboriculture that serves not…
Slovenia: Pohorje ski resort to invest in a diversified future
A proposal to substantially invest in Slovenia's Pohorje ski resort highlights the need for lower-lying areas reliant upon winter sports income to diversify their business models, in the face of the very real threat posed by global warming. In the east of the country Pohorje is in effect the playground for the Mariborcani, much in…
Maribor: Continued inertia stalls chances of realistic(or any) development of its airport
With little to show for their grand, albeit barely believable plans to turn Maribor's Edvard Rusjan Airport into a regional commercial and freight hub since acquiring the facility in 2016, the now entirely Chinese group of investors have continued to keep their cards close to their chest, although it has been assumed that a lack…
Slovenia: Maribor’s residents seek to protect local countryside from wholly unnecessary airport expansion
Residents living adjacent to Maribor's Edvard Rusjan Airport are rightly concerned by plans to expand the facility. Doing so could not only see the loss of forest and a large parcel of agricultural land, simultaneously undermining Slovenia's hardwired 'green' credentials, but also ultimately be an exercise in futility now that the modern, fit for purpose…
Maribor Airport the real victim of VLM Airlines’ demise
To describe VLM Airlines as Maribor Airport's 'anchor tenant' somewhat stretches a definition more associated with large retail concerns, situated to attract custom to smaller, adjacent businesses. Despite offering a modern, fit for purpose terminal, VLM were though all Maribor's Edvard Rusjan Airport had, aside from sporadic charter flights for visiting soccer teams. Having recently…
Maribor Airport: Flights of fancy to a now flightless facility
"Mighty oaks from little acorns grow" or so the saying goes. The loss this week of the only scheduled flights operating out of Maribor's Edvard Rusjan Airport is another blow to the ever-increasingly far-fetched proposal to link eastern Slovenia with a roster of services from China. Far from following a growth trajectory consistent with reaching…
Failure is Inevitable Without a Comprehensive Marketing Strategy
Build it and they will come, or at least as the saying goes. As an attempt to be a catchall principle the aforementioned is a tad vague, perhaps at times specious, but the message remains: only through market exposure can a commercial enterprise expect to prosper; there is little prospect of success without anyone knowing…
Ryanair’s Welcome Commitment to Ukraine Further Knocks a Return to Slovenia Down its Priority List
A deal to connect Irish Low Cost Carrier Ryanair with Ukraine once more exemplifies the inability and/or unwillingness of the pertinent parties to bring the Dublin-based airline back to Slovenia, after its ill-fated flirtation with eastern city Maribor foundered a decade ago. Labelled with the inauspicious title of being the only European Union state that…
Is a General Lack of Flights Between the UK and Slovenia More Evidence of Post-Brexit Fallout?
Accessing Slovenia via Ljubljana's Brnik Airport from anywhere north of Luton has become that bit more difficult, following the release of flag-carrier Adria Airways' summer schedule that has halved, to one, the amount of weekly flights between Manchester and the Slovenian capital. For at least the last twenty years there has been a Wednesday and…
Maribor Secures Munich & Antwerp flights, but Will Other Destinations Follow in the Near Future?
The jury is still very much out as to whether VLM Airlines can deliver on its grand vision, which includes the prospect of wide-body aircraft regularly linking mainland China with Maribor, Slovenia's second city. An extremely modest start to operations have seen Fokker 50 aircraft used during last summer to link eastern Slovenia with the…
Alpine Adventures, Soccer, Central Asian Autocracies & Secessionist Politics 