The first tranche of the loan amounts to around half the loan.
The Romanian government agreed in April to grant a six-year rescue loan of EUR300 million to Blue Air to compensate for loss of revenue while its regular flights were suspended due to the pandemic. In August the government passed an emergency decree approving the framework for the rescue loan.
The company aid obtaining the state guarantee was a very complicated process that took much longer than initially agreed. It said it was also forced to reconsider its safeguard procedure plans because the government forced it to use the first tranche of the loan to pay off state dues, including taxes of which 80% were not yet due.
“Knowing we have a tough winter ahead and demand for flights gets lower every week, we are very disappointed that we we forced to abandon the payment schedule plan agreed with the tax authority in June 2020, which puts additional pressure on the company in the upcoming months,” said Blue Air CEO Oana Popescu.