Ryanair will withdraw from four airports in Romania in spring 2023, air transport portal Boardingpass.ro reported.
According to the portal, the budget airline will suspend all flights from the airports of three Transylvanian cities – Oradea (Nagyvárad), Timisoara (Temesvár), Sibiu (Nagyszeben) – and northeastern Suceava indefinitely. Ryanair is not withdrawing completely from Romania and will continue to operate a total of 41 flights from Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca (Kolozsvár) in Transylvania and the northeastern Iași airports after March, according to Hungary Today.
According to the Ebihoreanul.ro portal, the city of Oradea agreed with the airline in the fall of 2020 to operate four international flights from the airport, which had just been modernized at the time, in return for a subsidy of 800,000 euros. Half of the amount was paid when the contract was signed, the other half when operations resumed. Three months after the subsidy contract expired, Ryanair announced its withdrawal.
Marius Gidea, director of Sibiu Airport, told local portal Turnulsfatului.ro that the airline had asked for a higher subsidy than the one granted by the airport, but this had not been possible. He added that they were trying to negotiate with other operators to close the gap.
Ryanair also had problems with “lack of incentives” in Hungary. The Hungarian government introduced an additional profit tax as recently as the summer, which Ryanair immediately passed on to customers. As a result, consumer protection proceedings were initiated against the airline.
Read more HERE