Romanian airline Blue Air is to expand its European operations and has chosen Liverpool John Lennon Airport as its newest base.
This will be Blue Air’s eighth European base and the airline will place a 189-seat Boeing 737-800 aircraft at LJLA from the beginning of the summer 2017 season with the introduction of four new services.
It will operate a daily departure to Rome Fiumicino; four times weekly to Milan Bergamo; four times weekly to Hamburg and a three-times-weekly service to Alicante.
These new services will complement Blue Air’s existing flights from Liverpool to three destinations in Romania, adding 160,000 seats from the airport.
The basing of a Blue Air aircraft at Liverpool will also create up to 35 new, direct, local jobs, with the task of recruiting and training commencing immediately.
Blue Air is also considering a special Liverpool focus for the livery of the aircraft to be based at LJLA, as it looks to become Liverpool’s airline.
It started operations from Liverpool in December 2014 with a three-times-weekly departure to Bucharest.
Three months later it added a twice-weekly service to Bacau, followed by a twice-weekly service to Cluj-Napoca in June 2016.
Blue Air has carried almost 120,000 passengers on flights to and from Liverpool in less than two years of operations.
The airline is forecasting a 50% year-on-year increase in passenger traffic across its network by the end of 2016, reaching a new record high of 3.2 million travellers.
LJLA CEO Andrew Cornish said: "Since day one of Blue Air’s operations from Liverpool they have gone from strength to strength and this latest development is the natural next phase of their continued expansion.
"Blue Air is creating something special here. They very much want to be a part of the region’s renaissance by investing in an area where they see tremendous opportunities to successfully grow their business."
One-way prices start at £16.99 to Hamburg, £24.99 to Milan Bergamo and Rome Fiumicino and £29.99 to Alicante.
