Regular airline Lufthansa forecasts a two-digit domestic growth rate this year, with Romania likely to become the leading CEE market for the company.

"Romania is one of the top CEE countries, and also boasts the fastest growth rate. In terms of value, it currently follows Poland, but in five years it certainly stands every chance of becoming the leading market in the region," said Karsten Benz, sales&services vice-president for Europe at Lufthansa.

According to some previous statements made by company representatives, this year Lufthansa targets a market share of around 15% domestically, from 12% last year, competing with operators such as TAROM, Air France-KLM, Carpatair, Austrian Airlines or Malev.

Last year, Lufthansa carried 500,000 passengers to and from Romania, with a two-digit increase forecast for this year. The new Cluj-Munich flight, which will start this year, will also contribute to the growth.

"We consider the CEE market is of high importance for our development and Romania is certainly playing an important role in this regard," specified Benz.

As a result, whereas last year Lufthansa started operating flights from Sibiu to Munich, this year Cluj was added to the list of destinations in Romania, with the number of airports the company operates reaching four, including Bucharest and Timisoara.

" (...) We've annually increased our capacity for Romania and we believe EU integration has boosted traffic," said Benz. "In the wake of integration, the Romanian market has become even stronger, but it hasn't showed its full potential so far and we have several ideas for this market," added Benz.

The new flights the company wants to introduce target both Romanian cities, as well as other destinations in Germany.

Lufthansa, together with the SWISS operator the German company internationally took over in 2005, operates