Blue Air: a new Liverpool base signals growing emphasis as a pan-European LCC model

According to data from OAG, Romanian LCC Blue Air's total seat numbers will grow by 64% year-on-year in the summer 2017 schedule - faster than for any other European airline group in the top 30 by seats. Blue Air, which launched operations in 2004, is now larger than Romania's flag carrier TAROM by annual passenger numbers and fleet size. Its growth has been prompted by the aggressive expansion of Wizz Air, which is number one in Romania, and of fourth ranked Ryanair.

Although Romania is still at the core of its network, Blue Air has embraced the pan European LCC model with a more geographically expansive strategy. Its second largest base, after the Romanian capital Bucharest, is in the Italian city of Turin, and Larnaca in Cyprus is also an important base.

At the start of the summer 2017 schedule, Blue Air added a third non Romanian base at Liverpool, helping the northwest England airport to 7% passenger growth in Apr-2017. In all three of its foreign bases Blue Air operates to destinations outside Romania. It is still small on a Europe wide scale, but in launching a UK base Blue Air is taking the fight to LCCs such as Ryanair and easyJet in one of their strongest markets.