October 3 (SeeNews) - Romanian carrier Blue Air said on Monday it has set a new base in UK's Liverpool from where it will launch four new routes - to Rome, Milan, Hamburg and Alicante - starting next summer.
The new base in Liverpool, the air carrier's eighth in Europe, will create 35 new jobs in the company, Blue Air said in a statement.
Blue Air will be locating a 189-seat Boeing 737-800 aircraft at Liverpool's John Lennon Airport at the beginning of the summer 2017 season, when it will also introduce the new routes.
The Romanian air carrier will introduce a daily departure to Rome Fiumicino, four times a week to Milan Bergamo, four times a week to Hamburg and a three times a week service to Alicante.
These new services will complement Blue Air’s existing flights from Liverpool to three destinations in Romania and are expected to be popular with both departing passengers from across the region and arriving international visitors too, Liverpool's John Lennon Airport representatives said in a separate statement.
Blue Air first started operations from Liverpool in December 2014, with a three times weekly departure to Bucharest. It later added a twice weekly service to Bacau and a twice weekly service to Cluj. Blue Air has now carried almost 120,000 passengers on flights to and from Liverpool in less than two years of operations, airport data showed.
"The UK is a strategic market for Blue Air and we strongly believe that basing a 737-800 at Liverpool will allow us to strengthen our position as one of Europe’s fastest growing airlines. (...) We look forward to investing significantly and helping to sustain the local economy, and subsequently increasing our presence at the airport with even more air links in the coming months," Blue Air's CEO Gheorghe Racaru said.
Blue Air opened a base at the Mihail Kogalniceanu International Airport in Romania's eastern city of Constanta in September, from where it will operate seven new domestic and international routes starting April 27, 2017.
Blue Air said earlier this month it will launch new routes from Bucharest to Bordeaux in France and to the Danish capital Copenhagen; and from Iasi in eastern Romania to the German capital Berlin and to Valencia in Spain starting June 2017.
It said in August it will launch a new route from Bucharest to Israel's second biggest city of Tel Aviv, starting January 12, 2017.
Blue Air set up a base in Cluj in June and plans to launch a new route to Birmingham in the U.K. on December 16.
The company's operational bases are in Bucharest, Bacau, Cluj, Iasi, Larnaca and Turin.
Blue Air plans to transport 3.2 million passengers this year, up 50% from 2015.
Blue Air, the only air carrier in Romania with 100% Romanian capital, started operations in December 2004. In 2013, it was taken over by Airline Management Solutions Company in a 30 million euro ($33.6 million) deal.
The airline operates a fleet of 25 Boeing 737 aircraft and flies to 70 destinations.
($= 0.89 euro)