Anastasiu sees 19% slowdown in the coach business

Dragos Anastasiu, owner of Eurolines group, dropped five of the seven weekly routes having Spain as a destination. Eurolines' international passenger transport activities were last year hurt by the competition coming from low-cost carriers and by the international financial crisis, with the company reporting a 19% sales decline against 2007, to 8.1m euros. "(...) With a view to adjusting transport capacities to market demand, Eurolines cut the number of routes to certain markets (...)," Anastasiu said. On the segment of international passenger transportation by coach, Eurolines ranks second on the market, at a considerable distance from Atlassib International, a group controlled by Ilie Carabulea, with turnover of above 80m euros generated from this activity. The registered decline marks the first negative trend since 2005 and had been expected ever since low-cost carriers started expanding and gaining market share especially on long destinations such as Spain. Thus, Eurolines decided to cut the number of routes to Spain from daily tours to a frequency of twice a week and switched to closer destinations, on which low-cost operators are not present, such as Hungary, Bulgaria or the Czech Republic. Dragos Anastasiu shifted his business to travel and ticketing. Thus, TAL Aviation company, through which airlines Aer Lingus, Jet Airways, Star Peru and Gulf Air are represented in Romania, was created inside the group.