Blue Air is a private operator that will have to pay both compensation to the passengers it abandoned and the costs of the TAROM tickets, the Minister of Transport and Infrastructure, Sorin Grindeanu, wrote on his Facebook page.
"We are making every effort to bring to the country the Romanian citizens whose flights were canceled by Blue Air. However, we must also take into account the fact that TAROM has to operate, first of all, its own flights," Grindeanu said on Thursday.
Two special TAROM flights will take off, on Thursday evening, to Heraklion (Greece) and Larnaka (Cyprus) airports, to repatriate almost 200 Romanians, affected by the suspension of Blue Air flights.
Also, last night, TAROM sent a special flight to Tel Aviv (Israel) to bring about 150 Romanian citizens to the country.
Blue Air Aviation announced on Tuesday that it is suspending until Monday, September 12, all flights scheduled to depart from Romanian airports, due to the seizure of all the company's accounts by the Ministry of the Environment, which makes it impossible for the company to pay the current costs, necessary for the operation of daily flights, told Agerpres.
The Executive has approved the allocation of 5 million lei from the reserve fund available to the Government to supplement the budget of the Ministry of Transport in order to bring Romanians stranded at airports abroad as a result of the cancellation of flights by the Blue Air company, the spokesperson for the The Government, Dan Carbunaru, informed on Wednesday.
The Foreign Ministry (MAE) call centre, the diplomatic missions and consular offices of Romania received, in total, 2,663 requests for help from Romanians affected by the suspension of Blue Air flights, the Government informed on Thursday.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has made available to the Romanian citizens abroad, affected by the recent cancellation of Blue Air flights, two telephone numbers where they can notify their situation, in order to request support for repatriation.
Thus, Romanians stuck abroad due to the mentioned situation can request assistance at the number 004 021 4311869, and also at the number 004 0751084537. They also have at their disposal the email address callcenter@mae.ro.