Slow decline of road transport market

The number of people who choose to travel by coach is slowly going down, whilst air travel has seen an approximately 20% increase in the last few years. Figures for passengers choosing to travel by road transport fell by 5% last year, to 228 million passengers, while number of the passengers travelling by air in Romania has witnessed a rise of 26%, according to figures supplied by the National Statistics Institute. The number of passengers travelling to and from Romanian airports amounted to 5.5 million last year. The increase was larger on the low-cost segment than on regular flights segment, which saw a mere 5.9% increase totalling 3.5 million passengers, according to IATA Romania. Last year the main low-cost operators on the market saw significant increases; both in terms of turnover and in terms of the number of passengers. Blue Air, the main low-cost operator in Romania, saw its number of its passengers double. Italian operator My Air also witnessed a 60% increase in its number of passengers. The growth rate appears to be sustained this year as well, with Sky Europe estimating a three-fold increase in its number of passengers. Wizz Air, although having only entered the market last year, is expecting to fly 500,000 passengers this year.