Blue Air reports that all flights of the company in Romania will be suspended until 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.

“Due to the unforeseen situation of the seizure of all BlueAir accounts by the Ministry of Nature for non-payment of fines, BlueAir Aviation is forced, being unable to pay any supplier, to suspend all flights scheduled to depart from Romania, respectively from Bucharest, Otopeni, Bacău, Cluj -Napoca and Iași until Monday, September 12, 2022,” the company’s press release says.

According to Blue Air, the blocking of the accounts happened immediately after the statements of the head of the ANPC, who called for a boycott of the company.

It will be recalled that ANPC imposed the largest fine in the history of Blue Air. The national consumer protection authority announced on July 14 that it had fined it two million euros for canceling more than 11,000 flights between April 30, 2021 and April 30, 2022, and ordered the company to refund customers within a maximum of ten days for all canceled flights, it said. press release of the institution. In response, Blue Air accused ANPC of gross incompetence, abuse of office and announced it would take legal action.

Blue Air’s message regarding the decision to suspend flights:

“Due to an unforeseen situation, which consists in the seizure of all BlueAir accounts by the Ministry of Nature for non-payment of fines, BlueAir Aviation is forced, being unable to pay any supplier, to suspend all flights scheduled to depart from Romania, respectively from Bucharest, Otopeni, Bacău, Cluj- Napoca and Iasi until Monday, September 12, 2022.

All scheduled flights from outside Romania to any airport in Romania today, September 6, 2022, will operate according to the published schedule.

Unfortunately, this blocking of all Blue Air bank accounts took place shortly after public statements and direct calls to “stop buying Blue Air tickets” made in the public space by a high-ranking representative of the Romanian state, namely the president of the National Administration for Consumer Protection (ANPC) of the Romanian state led to to:

– significant destruction of passengers’ trust in Blue Air, which led to losses in the amount of more than 5 million euros, due to a decrease in the volume of ticket sales;

– Increased pressure from key suppliers of Blue Air Aviation SA to pay the amounts needed for day-to-day operations in advance (currently impossible given the seizure of all company accounts);

– Blocking all discussions held in London by Blue Air shareholders with 2 major investment companies interested in taking a stake in Blue Air and supporting the company in recouping the losses incurred during the 2.5 years during which it went through its worst ever difficulties. world aviation industry.

The irresponsible statements and actions of the representative of the Romanian state, as well as the hasty decision to block all bank accounts of the company, led to the undesirable situation of reducing the activities of Blue Air for the next period in order to facilitate the completion of the impact analysis from the side of investors and obtaining the necessary powers for negotiations with investors.”