Blue Air, the biggest Romanian private-held airline company,owned by businessman Nelu Iordache, which stopped operatingdomestic flights on August 10th because of the low aircraftoccupancy, says increasing ticket prices would not have been asolution to maintain domestic routes.
"Had we boosted fares, we would have been removed from the low-costmarket we are operating on. The majority of those flying with uswould not have had access to tickets any more, and our target is tocarry as many passengers at low cost fares as possible," saysFlorentina Ivan, Blue Air's communication manager.
The airline last year approached the domestic flights market veryaggressively with prices close to those operated by railwayoperator CFR, to whom it became a rival to be reckoned with.
Blue Air decided to drop flights on the Arad, Timişoara, andCluj-Napoca routes to Bucharest and back, and to supplement flightsto Italy and France, for which demand is on the rise.
The low-cost operator last year posted 140-150 million euros inturnover and carried 1.7 million passengers, similarly tostate-operated Tarom.
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