The local air travel market last year reached more than 600 million euros, which is double the level registered three years ago, following the about 20 percent increase in sales of traditional airlines and the booming low-cost travel segment, which was almost inexistent in 2005.
The sales of traditional companies on the local market reached 416.7 million euros last year, 12 percent more than in the previous year, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA). The low-cost airline market was about half the traditional airline market last year, considering the only operator on this segment three years ago was local airline Blue Air.
The low-cost operators Blue Air, Wizz Air, MyAir, Sky Europe, Germanwings, easyJet and Ryanair transported about 2.5 million passengers to and from Romania, while regular airlines reached an over 6 million passenger figure on the local market, according to an IATA survey. With its impressive traffic growth, Romania followed the lead of Poland, which, three years after its European Union accession saw its airline traffic double.
The impressive progression of the last few years could be slowed down by the financial crisis, which causes travel budget cuts.
However, both low-cost and regular airlines continued to budget growth on the local market.
"I don't think we'll see decline compared with the past years, though we will not see the spectacular growth we used to, either," said Anca Apahidean, country manager of IATA Romania. Traditional airlines witnessed the first declines in sales on the Romanian market in the last few months of last year, after such drops had been recorded worldwide since September.
"We had recorded 17 percent growth after the first nine months of last year, yet due to the trend of the last quarter, the full-year growth stood at 12 percent," said Anca Apahidean,
