“We were notified about the start of this procedure but we will have to go through a process until official takeover; we don’t know exactly when it will be completed,” Blue Air representatives told ZF.
The takeover of 75% was one of the guarantees for the RON300 million state aid Blue Air got from Romania’s government.
The airline did not pay a single installment of the government-guaranteed RON300 million loan it got from state-owned EximBank, so the government has been paying instead since November 2021.
The emergency ordinance detailing the legal framework for granting state aid stipulates the government will take over 75% in the company in case it fails to pay its debt. It took the government a year to make payments on the loan until it decided to go ahead and take over the 75%.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)