Romanian carrier Blue Air has announced that is suspending its operations until September 12, 2022, after a decision made by the country’s Minister of Environment to block all bank accounts is preventing the company to cover its expenses.
“Due to an unforeseen situation consisting in the seizure of all the accounts of the Blue Air Aviation SA company by the Ministry of the Environment, Blue Air is unable to pay the current costs, necessary for the operation of daily flights, which is why it is forced to stop all flights scheduled to depart from on Romanian Airports, until Monday, September 12, 2022”, the company reports.
All September 6 flights that are scheduled to operate from outside Romania to any airport in Romania will complete their planned itinerary, Blue Air added.
This suspension occurs in the middle of negotiations between investors and Blue Air management, as the company is desperately trying to get more funding available after years of losses, accentuated by the COVID crisis.
“The irresponsible statements and actions of a representative of the Romanian State, as well as the impetuous decision to block all the bank accounts of the company, brought Blue Air into the undesirable situation of reducing its operations for the next period, in order to facilitate the completion of the impact analysis from the investors and obtaining the necessary authorizations for discussions with the investors”, concluded the company representatives, without specifying the reason why the accounts were blocked.
The company has signed a codeshare agreement with Air Connect that can alleviate the suspension by transferring seats to the partner, but it is still unclear how this interruption of services will impact the business continuity of the airline.
The conflict between Blue Air and the Romanian state began months ago, when the consumer protection authority took the company to task for successive flight cancellations, which left hundreds of passengers stranded.
This is a developing story.
