Blue Air, founded in December 2004 and which in 2016 overtook state operator Tarom in terms of fleet, announced on Tuesday. suspension of all flights after his accounts were seized for non-payment of fines. The company, which has been seriously affected by the pandemic (like all other air carriers), negotiated a phased payment of fines.

Blue Air received a 6-year loan from Eximbank secured by 75% of the shares. Thus, instead of fulfilling the guarantee and becoming the owner of Blue Air, the state preferred to freeze its accounts.

It is not difficult to guess who will lose and who will gain from all this chaos. If they lose, Blue Air loses, travelers around the world lose, and if they win, Blue Air’s direct competitors win. And we are not talking about Tarom.

In an interview given during the pandemic, the company’s former CEO Oana Petrescu explains how the fight for supremacy in air transport is being waged with all possible weapons. Wizz, one of the most aggressive players in air travel, has opened four new bases, taking over routes served by rivals Ryanair and Easyjet. Founder-CEO Józef Varady, the 46th richest Hungarian, has repeatedly said his company’s intention is to go after less efficient and indebted rivals. (source)

In fact, Ryan Air and Wizz Air announced on Wednesday morning that they are providing tickets to Blue Air passengers affected by the flight cancellations.

Chronology of events

December 13, 2004. Blue Air installed. He had only one plane and 35 employees.

December 2012. Builder Romstrade, the majority shareholder of Blue Air Transport Aerian, goes bankrupt shortly after businessman Nelu Iordake receives an arrest warrant.

January 2013. Blue Air Transport Aerian is canceling an order worth more than $460 million placed in 2008 for five 737 aircraft due to Romstrade’s financial situation.

April 11, 2013. The new board of directors of Blue Air Transport Aerian decides to put the company up for sale.

May 17, 2013. Blue Air’s operations were sold to a company founded in April called Blue Air – Airline Management Solutions. It is also the company that holds the air operator’s license and operates Blue Air flights.

2016 year Blue Air surpasses, in terms of fleet size, the state carrier Tarom.

October 2016 Businessman Nelu Iordake and 5 heads of CNADNR Craiova, sent to court DNA.

June 2017 Low-cost carrier Blue Air is being prepared for listing on the stock exchangebut the process could take three years, said company CEO Gheorghe Racaru.

February 2018 The first frictions appear. This is reported by Blue Air will suspend flights from Timisoara to Iasi and Cluj-Napoca from February 17. The private air carrier blames the friction “created by Trajan Vuy International Airport in Timisoara”. In a short post on the official Facebook account, Blue Air also writes: “the presence of Romanian companies in the Romanian market seems to be of increasing concern.”

2019 year. Note: More than 1,000 flights have been canceled or delayed at Romanian airports this year. According to an analysis by FlightClaim.ro, the total amount of compensation they are entitled to annually exceeds 35-40 million euros. The most delayed or canceled flights were recorded by Tarom, Wizz Air and Ryanair.

2020. The year of the pandemic. Blue air asks the state for a loan 42-45 million euros temporarily to be able to weather this crisis, industry sources confirmed to HotNews.ro. The company pays more than 100 million lei in taxes and fees to the state annually, but the current situation has put it at risk of complete closure. After three years of investment, the company became profitable last year. But in the current situation, “against the restrictions related to the establishment of a state of emergency, Blue Air was forced to temporarily suspend regular flights. In order to ensure the company’s ability to survive this period well, Blue Air needs temporary financial support – in the form of a rescue loan,” Blue Air representatives say.

July 2020. In order to be able to fulfill all its obligations to its passengers, employees and partners and to ensure uninterrupted operation of regular flights after 4 months of total or partial suspension of flights, Blue Air announces admission to preventive examination. This procedure is part of Blue Air’s restructuring strategy due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a context that determined in the period from March to June 2020 a reduction of revenues of more than 100 million euros compared to the estimated and planned level for the period. . A preventive concordat is a procedure by which debtors in financial difficulty (rather than insolvent!) can reach a formal agreement with their creditors to pay their debts and ensure the continuity and viability of the company.

October 2020 EximBank provides Blue Air with a loan of 300.7 million lei for 6 years. The situation of the company looks disappointing, and the documents of the Ministry of Finance say that issuing a guarantee letter at this time poses a great risk of execution and non-return of the sums paid by the state. Eximbank’s conclusion is that “the value of the company is currently negative.” After an economic and financial analysis, the company is assigned to the category of financial indicators D (the grid includes categories from A to E, A represents the best category) based on the financial statements concluded on December 31, 2019.

September 2020. In an interview, Oana Petrescu tells how she fought for primacy in air transport he goes with all possible weapons. Wizz, one of the most aggressive players in air travel, has opened four new bases, taking over routes served by rivals Ryanair and Easyjet. Founder-CEO Józef Varady, the 46th richest Hungarian, has repeatedly said his company’s intention is to go after less efficient and indebted rivals. In Romania, the direct victim was the operator Blue Air, which this weekend had to close the base in Larnaca (where Wizz took over the flight schedule of two aircraft that serve exactly the traditional routes of Blue Air), and the scenario could be repeated with the base from Bacau.

October 2020 The company’s CEO at the time, Oana Petrescu, sent a letter to the Senate saying that the market left vacant by the possible demise of Blue Air would be occupied by its main competitor, not TAROM, an operator that is itself in trouble. In recent months, this company has already taken over free of charge the management of many routes developed by Blue Air thanks to significant investments in recent years, and in September 2020 it served more than 60% of the air transport market in Romania,” he emphasized. Oana Petrescu, in a letter. The CEO of Blue Air estimated that under this scenario, the respective air operator would receive huge profits from Romanian airports that would not return to Romania.

February 2022 This is reported by Blue Air installation of a new general directorStephen Greenway, with 25 years of experience working for companies such as Virgin Blue, Virgin Atlantic and Qantas.

July 2022. ANPC imposes a fine of 2 million euros Blue Air for canceling some flights between April 30, 2021 and April 30, 2022, although almost all airlines had cancellations (and not only from Romania), and obliges Blue Air to refund customers within a maximum of ten days for all canceled flights . “It is unnatural to learn something like this from the mass media. I just checked, the company has not received any communication regarding this from ANPC. Also, the numbers are incorrect – they refer to all tickets canceled during this period due to the 3rd, 4th and 5th waves of the pandemic (in any case, this is less than 10% of all Blue Air flights during this period). Of the total number of passengers mentioned, the majority have either already traveled or are planning to travel this summer,” Blue Air notes.

July 2022. This was announced by the president of the National Consumer Protection Authority Horia Constantinescu is preparing to exit the market and delays the receipt of the protocol on the imposition of a fine by the ANPK and the obligation to return money to consumers. Meanwhile, Blue Air on Monday accused ANPC of gross incompetence, abuse of office and said it would take legal action over what the company called an “illegal and discriminatory decision”.

September 2022 Blue Air reports that all of the company’s flights are operated from Romania will be stopped until Monday, September 12. The reason: the accounts have been seized by the Ministry of Natural Resources due to non-payment of fines, and the company cannot pay its suppliers. Chaos broke out at Henri Coand airport, with hundreds of people canceling their flights.