Blue Air set to expand to holiday destinations

Blue Air low cost carrier, controlled by Nelu Iordache, this year expects a 5% increase in the number of passengers and implicitly in sales on the Italian market, in the wake of the partnership it has recently sealed with an Italian airline. "We wanted to join forces with a company with similar turnover. Almost 30% of Blue Air operations are related to Italy, and flights to Italian destinations have 80-85% occupancy rates," said Adrian Ionascu, general manager of Blue Air, which reached 140m-euro turnover last year and flew 1.7 million passengers. In the wake of the partnership signed with Italy's Distal Grup, Blue Air will sell tickets to Havana and Bangkok via Rome, but also to Palermo, Turin and Lamezia with a stopover in Rome. Blue Air officials estimate they will sell 20,000 plane tickets on these routes, generating revenues worth 2 or 3m euros. "We've set expansion abroad as a strategy for 2010. (...) In the first stage, we'll target only holiday destinations and for the following years we're considering introducing flights for the business segment," Ionascu said.