Even if the majority of companies say the lion’s share of the earnings will be driven by the migration of passengers from traditional to low-fare travel, Blue Air, the biggest low-fare airline company in Romania in 2008, doesn’t see sky high growth stemming from this direction.
“Clients of traditional companies are not shifting their travel choices to low-cost because of the crisis, except for an irrelevant number. Only an insignificant number of passengers have chosen Blue Air only to reduce the cost of travelling, but we equally see some of our clients migrating to traditional operators, therefore it is a normal fluctuation”, said Gheorghe Racaru (photo), managing director of Blue Air.
Not the crisis, he adds, will lift the low-cost aviation industry in Romania, but the natural potential of this segment. “Not the problems of traditional carriers will fuel the increase of the low-cost market. I expect the low-fare segment to grow 12-15% in 2009”, said the head of Blue Air.
The company aims at carrying 1.5 million passengers in 2009 and a roughly 150-million euro turnover.
The only imprint of financial crisis over Blue Air was the reduced frequency of charter flights operated by the company. “In December, we were fully impacted by the financial crisis in charter segment, which shrank 60% in 2008 compared to a year-ago period”, said Racaru.
Blue Air is renting charters mainly to the travel agencies, the segment gearing 10% of the company’s turnover.
Nevertheless, the number of passengers travelling with Blue Air is rising: “In January, we carried nearly 75,000 passengers, more than 8,000 than a year earlier”, Racaru added, with the occasion of leasing the International Airport in Bacau, George Enescu.
Blue Air said it would invest about 45 million euro in Bacau-based airport.
The shareholders of the airline carrier expect
