Over 360m euros from airplane tickets in 2007

Air traffic to and from Romania is set to witness a minimum increase of 20% next year, as airline ticket sales will exceed 360 million euros, according to the local branch of the International Air Transport Association (IATA). The IATA forecasts that ticket sales could amount to 300 million euros by the end of this year. Air traffic increased 23% in the first three quarters of this year against the same period last year. “We had sales worth 240 million euros through BSP Romania in the first nine months of 2006,” says Anca Apahidean, country manager IATA for Romania and Moldova. BSP (Billing Settlement Plan) is an IATA system, which facilitates selling, reporting and remitting airplane tickets of accredited agencies. External flights and regular domestic flights, operated by Tarom and Carpatair use the BSP. Over 80% of ticket sales in Romania use the BSP system, which has been adopted by 41 of the airlines that operate domestically.