Blue Air, the low-cost airline that reached half of TAROM's revenues on the Romanian market in three years, is still relying on Spain and Italy, whose routes place it among the top spots on the market since its establishment.
"Flights to Italy have generated around 36% of revenues so far, while those in Spain around 20%," said Gheorghe Racaru, the manager of Blue Air, whose business reached 95.7 million euros last year. Blue Air, a company held by businessman Nelu Iordache, has therefore become the largest private airline held by Romanians, leaving behind Carpatair, whose main shareholder is Nicolae Petrov. Carpatair ended last year with turnover worth around 82 million euros.
The company whose hub is in Timisoara relies on destinations in Greece and Ukraine and operates with aircraft that have fewer seats. As far as destinations are concerned, Blue Air's strategy resembles that of state-run TAROM, which operates most of its flights to the same countries. TAROM carried 1.9 million passengers last year, while Blue Air carried 900,000 people.
Blue Air, a company that businessman Nelu Iordache created at the end of 2004, has been operating flights to these two countries since the beginning, as this is where the largest communities of Romanians are, but also offered flights to destinations in the Netherlands and Turkey in its first year in business, which it has since dropped. Blue Air's turnover has been doubling every year, with the leap from 24 milion euros in 2004 to more than 90 million euros in 2007 helped by new flights to the European peninsula. Now accounting for 50 to 60% of the market according to its representatives, Blue Air intends to maintain its leading position, although other players such as Wizz Air and MyAir are vying for precisely the same spot. Wizz Air concluded last year with business worth around 30 million euros and an estimated traffic of 415,000 passengers, close to MyAir's 420,000.
Whereas the number of destinations in France and Germany that Blue Air operates has not gone up that much since 2004, the number of airports in Italy amounts to seven and the number of weekly flights to destinations in this country has reached about 40% of the total. "We are still looking to boost the flight frequency to Spain and Italy, where we are tempted by 1 or 2 more destinations. The minimal occupancy rate that makes a flight to Italy profitable is 72-75%, while in Spain's case, to which flights take about three hours, we need a minimum occupancy rate of about 80%," Racaru explained, adding that no other country had such a high potential at present.
"We are looking at countries like Switzerland or Scandinavia for future destinations, as well as to the SE European region, to countries such as Ukraine, Croatia, Slovenia and Macedonia," Blue Air's manager adds.
Blue Air operates on three other airports outside Bucharest in Romania, Bacau, Arad and Sibiu, and is also seeking entrance on the Northwestern airports (Satu Mare, Baia Mare, Oradea).
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