Top three Romanian airports strive to remain profitable

Traffic on Bucharest's Baneasa Airport rose by 16% in the first nine months of this year, to 1.36 million passengers, according to George Mihalcea, general manager of the airport.
Though SkyEurope and MyAir low-cost operators halted their operations, the first failures announced on the low-cost segment, the airport's traffic and turnover continued to go up.
Thus, with just five low-cost carriers still operational, Blue Air, Wizz Air, Germanwings, Koral Blue and Nouvelair, Baneasa Airport's nine-month turnover advanced by almost 48% in RON, to 62m RON (14.7m euros).
"At the same time, the airport's gross income is expected to rise almost four times, from 6.8m RON, to 27m RON (6.4m euros) by yearend," stated George Mihalcea. Last year, the airport's traffic reached 1.7 million passengers.
International Airport Aurel Vlaicu (Baneasa) will merge with International Airport Henri Coanda (Otopeni), through the setting up of Bucharest National Airport Company, after the government last month approved the deal.
Whereas the airport from where low-cost operators fly is boasting rising traffic, at Otopeni airport, where 26 companies fly from, including Tarom, Lufthansa, KLM, Malev, Air France and easyJet, traffic is down 13%, to 2.95 million passengers in the first eight months of this year. "We had 200m RON turnover (47.6m euros), around 5% higher in RON than the level of last year. Net income for the January-August period reached 62.4m RON (16.9m euros), down around 4% from a year ago", stated Tudor Jidav, general manager of Otopeni airport, adding he does not have any data for September.
Regular airlines' turnovers have been harmed since the start of the year amid the current difficult conditions. State-owned Tarom, with 257m-euro turnover last year, in the first 8 months of this year carried 1 million passengers, 11.9% less than in the same period of last year.
Traian Vuia airport of Timisoara generated income of almost 3.3m RON in the first nine months, down about 42% from a year ago.