Just before announcing its decision to suspend operations for almost a week, Romanian low-cost airline Blue Air said that starting September 12, it will outsource part of its routes (both domestic and international) to independent company Air Connect under a code-sharing arrangement.

Blue Air will continue to be responsible for sales, marketing and customer support.

The strategy will cut the costs by 15%-20% "within the framework of cooperation, by implementing the ATR-72 aircraft type on regional and shuttle services," the company claimed.

"Air Connect provides a cost-effective platform for carrying this traffic and allows us to continue to offer a broad portfolio of routes and more frequencies to both our passengers travelling on domestic routes in Romania and connecting passengers through our main base in Bucharest to Blue Air's key markets in Europe", said Cristian Rada, CEO of Blue Air.

Air Connect operated a leased ATR-72-600 this summer. It expects another one this autumn and another two next year.

andrei@romania-insider.com

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