The Romanian state will become the majority shareholder of Blue Air

The Romanian state, through the Authority for the Administration of State Assets (AAAS), will become the majority shareholder of the Blue Air airline, the president of the authority, Florian Daniel Geantă, told cursdeguvernare.ro.

He said that during Thursday he will notify Blue Air that he has initiated this procedure, after the Ministry of Finance decided to enforce the guarantee on the state aid granted in the summer of 2020.

“Based on the address I received yesterday (Wednesday – n.r.) from the Ministry of Finance, I can tell you that we have initiated the procedure by which we will become the majority shareholder of Blue Air”, said the head of the Authority for the Administration of State Assets.

Asked if he can estimate a deadline by which AAAS will take over the majority stake in the air transport operator, Daniel Geantă mentioned that it is difficult to specify how long this procedure will take, which will have several stages.

On September 6, Blue Air suspended all scheduled flights from and to Romania, arguing that the Ministry of the Environment has seized all the company’s accounts.

The Environmental Fund Administration announced a day later that it had decided to suspend the seizure and set a 12-month schedule for paying off the debt, but the company later announced that it would resume flights only from October 10, citing a lack of money for fuel and other operational expenses, yet the deadline was postponed after that date as well.

In mid-September, Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă announced that the Control Body will carry out checks to establish the true causes that led to the blocking of the airline’s accounts. Asked if there is a suspicion that these Blue Air accounts were blocked without legal right, the prime minister said: “There are such suspicions, which is why the Control Body will identify what the real causes were.”