Romania aviation 2: LCC Blue Air overtakes TAROM to be nation's biggest home-grown airline

The first part of CAPA's analysis of the aviation market in Romania examined its rapid growth, driven by LCCs. Romania has become an important battleground for two foreign airlines - Wizz Air (the biggest airline in the country) and Ryanair. Local low cost airline Blue Air is also growing rapidly, while Romania's government-owned national airline, TAROM, is stagnating.

This second report on the Romanian aviation market looks at the country's two main home-grown airlines, in particular the development of their capacity and fleet. Traffic data for the two are scarce but it seems that Blue Air, which commenced operations in 2004, is now larger than TAROM by number of annual passengers carried.

After a change of ownership in 2013 Blue Air seems to have been revitalised and has adopted a more pan-European strategy, with bases in Turin and Larnaca and a base planned for Liverpool in 2017. Its growth has also been prompted by the aggressive expansion of Wizz Air and Ryanair in Romania. Blue Air, now bigger than TAROM, became a full member of IATA in Jan-2016.

Part three of CAPA's analysis will present details of the respective route networks and competitive positions of TAROM and Blue Air.