Wizzair is fighting BlueAir to become leader of the low-cost aviation market in 2009.

Wizzair is fighting BlueAir to take over the first place in the low-cost aviation market in 2009.

There are so many questions related to the airline industry that it is absolutely impossible to give the right answer to all of them. If I think about it a little more… I realise there’s not even one question that could get the right answer. The Airline industry was doing more than fine at the end of 2007 but it was seriously ill at the end of 2008. In one year, more than 15 big airlines – European and American alike – have shut down, five airlines have filed for bankruptcy and are now trying to get better (surprisingly or not… there is an American airline – Frontier, that announced a profit of 2mil dollars for November and a bit more for December).

2009 will not be an easy year for airlines, but if the crude oil price stays at the actual level – around 30 – 40 dollars – the airlines have all the chances to be in the top 10 industries that will report a profit at the end of 2009? What should passengers expect in 2009? There are few things that are predictable: – fares will go down in the first months of 2009 (January – March is a “dead” period for airlines), when people are not travelling due to lack of money (there was Christmas and New Year travel, and some of them are already preparing their summer holidays). So there will be many promotional fares and big fare price cuts. This is the perfect time for a two – three-day travel throughout Europe.
- Low cost airlines will expand more – if in 2008 none of the low cost airlines announced a lot of new routes, in 2009 they’ll stop being shy in this matter. So you can expect some new routes across Europe. As for Romania, this year we’ll probably get some low cost flights operated by Myair Romania (Iasi and Timisoara probably), new destinations from Wizzair and BlueAir, and there is one big change- to come (back) to Bucharest – London with Easyjet.

- TAROM is expected to launch new routes and to announce increasing flight frequencies on some existing routes as they will have three new Boeing 737-800 airplanes. The national carrier is expected to increase the national network and to lower the prices for these flights.

- Romania’s low cost aviation market – There is a very big chance that Wizzair will become the top player on the Romanian market, with three bases – Bucharest, Cluj and Timisoara. BlueAir – who felt this coming – is now trying to reduce the impact of Wizzair expanding on the Romanian market and is launching new flights. Till now we know about Naples, Paphos and Salonic (all from Bucharest), but we are expecting some more new routes to be announced. There is a high possibility that a low cost carrier will start operating a flight from Bucharest to Amsterdam (Rotterdam or Eindhoven) at better prices than the 350 euro KLM is asking for a round trip.

- Low cost fares for Romanians – right this moment Wizzair is the leader in the top of low fares airlines – as prices – but it seems BlueAir will not sit tight and keep their arms crossed. BlueAir have already started to cut taxes and fees. For flights operating after March 1st these have been reduced with 20 – 24 euro, now being 30 – 34 euro/passenger.

- Connecting new countries – if until now most of the new low cost destinations were in Italy, Spain, Germany, France and Great Britain, from 2009 we can expect new countries to be connected to Romania.
the new connections will Probably be with the Scandinavian countries (especially Sweden and Denmark) and the Baltic countries (especially Lithuania and Estonia).

- Increased number of flights – There are two routes that will get some more flights during the first half of 2009. On the list is a Bucharest – Lisbon and Bucharest – Dublin route. It is expected that these two destinations will get a daily flight (no matter the operating company). London, Paris and Berlin will get some additional flights during this year.

- Ryanair in Romania – the company is expected to announce a new route connecting Constanta or Bucharest to a Scandinavian destination (at least during the summer season). There will probably be two more new routes from Romania.