Shareholders of Romania’s Tarom back $2mn capital raise

Romania's HiSky Europe launches Bucharest base

Wizz Air loses legal challenge against Tarom aid

The General Court of the European Union has “dismissed in its entirety” an action that Wizz Air (W6, Budapest) lodged last year against Romanian flag carrier Tarom (RO, Bucharest Otopeni) receiving EUR36.66 million euros (USD38.76 million) in state aid shortly before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The bailout, which European Commission competition regulators had already cleared on February 24, 2020, “is compatible with the internal market as it aims to prevent the social hardship that a disruption of Tarom’s services might cause for the connectivity of regions in Romania,” the court said in its May 4 ruling.

The aid had consisted of a loan to cover its liquidity needs over the ensuing six months, while Bucharest promised to carry out “stringent monitoring” of how the funds were used.

Wizz Air tried to annul the commission’s decision by suggesting that the aid broke two conditions - on the contribution of the aid measure to an objective of common interest, and the condition that Tarom should not have received rescue and restructuring...

Brussels blesses €1.9mn state aid for Romania’s Tarom

The European Commission has approved a EUR1.9 million euro (USD2 million) Romanian state aid package for Tarom (RO, Bucharest Otopeni) to offset financial losses it sustained during the pandemic-stricken second half of 2020.

The package will be handed to the flag carrier, in which the Romanian government holds a 97.22% stake via the Ministry of Transport, as a capital injection addressing damage incurred between July 1 and December 31, 2020, across 14 routes, the European Union antitrust regulator said in a statement on May 2.

“This measure is aimed at compensating the airline for the damages suffered on 14 routes during the period [...] due to the coronavirus pandemic and the travel restrictions imposed by Romania and other countries to limit the spread of the virus,” it said.

It follows an earlier measure the commission approved in October 2020 aimed at compensating the airline for the period of March 16 to June 30.

As with other cases of pandemic-related assistance EU member states have provided, primarily to legacy carriers, the commission said it...

Romania's Blue Air to open Iasi base in late 2Q22

Blue Air (Romania) (0B, Bucharest Otopeni) has announced it will open a new base at Iasi airport in north-eastern Romania in June 2022.

The carrier said it would base two B737-800s out of Iasi in 2022 with a plan to double this to four in 2023. It has also suggested adding B737-8s to the Iasi base going forward. It operates eleven -800s and five -8s, alongside four B737-500s and a single B737-700, the ch-aviation fleets advanced module indicates.

The ch-aviation schedules module shows Blue Air plans to operate the following new routes out of Iasi:

• Barcelona El Prat (2x weekly starting on June 12),
• Brussels National (2x weekly starting on June 11),
• Cologne/Bonn (2x weekly starting on June 10),
• Heraklion (2x weekly starting on June 25),
• Munich (2x weekly starting on June 10),
• Mykonos (2x weekly starting on June 22),
• Paris CDG (2x weekly starting on June 10),
• Rome Fiumicino (2x weekly...