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Blue Air seeks to relaunch after freeze on bank accounts lifted

Romanian low-cost carrier Blue Air plans to resume flying after being forced to suspend operations yesterday (September 6) when the government froze its bank accounts.

Blue Air announced the freeze on its accounts had been lifted today and said it would confirm tomorrow (September 8) when flights would resume.

However, a resumption is not expected before next Monday.

Blue Air conceded credibility in the carrier was “badly shaken” by the suspension of services ordered by Romania’s environment ministry after the country’s consumer protection authority, the ANPC, told consumers to “stop buying Blue Air tickets”.

In a statement, Blue Air said it had filed a criminal complaint against the president of the consumer protection authority “for public communication of false data”.

The carrier operates from Luton, Birmingham, Liverpool and Glasgow in the UK.

At the time of its suspension, Blue Air said it was in talks with “two large investment firms” in London on taking shareholdings in the carrier.

The airline confirmed it has accumulated €230 million in debt and has been under pressure from suppliers to pay for services in advance.

Blue Air was forced to slim down during the Covid-19 pandemic from a fleet of 32 aircraft and 1,570 employees in early 2020 to 13 aircraft and 560 employees today.

It said its fleet would be reduced further to just five aircraft this winter as the remaining aircraft are returned to their owners.

A resumption of services on Monday would mean the cancellation of more than 400 flights affecting more than 54,000 passengers over a six-day grounding.

Blue Air insisted it would honour EU requirements to refund affected passengers or provide alternative services for cancelled flights, but said repayments were “dependent on the resumption of activity so the company can achieve the necessary revenues both to operate flights and to reimburse the amounts owed”.

The carrier said it would have the support of Romanian flag carrier TAROM “or other operators” to repatriate passengers stranded at overseas airports.

Eleven of Blue Air’s 13 aircraft were grounded at Romanian airports and the remaining two at Turin.

Meanwhile, Wizz Air announced significant expansion in Romania, adding five aircraft to its base in Bucharest as well as increasing capacity on flights to Bacau, Cluj-Napoca, Iasi and Sibiu.  

The budget airline will also start new routes from Bucharest to Athens, Prague and Larnaca and raise frequencies on more than 30 existing routes, including London, Rome, Milan, Barcelona, Paris, Brussels-Charleroi, Dortmund, Eindhoven, Madrid and Tel Aviv.

The first of the five new Airbus A321s to join the fleet in Romania will arrive at the start of October. 

Once all the aircraft have been delivered, Bucharest will have a total of 17 based aircraft, and Wizz Air will have 2.6 million additional seats on sale from Romania. 

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