Conflict between Romania’s consumer protection agency and Blue Air gets radical

The conflict between the head of the Romanian Consumer Protection Agency (ANPC), Horia Constantinescu and the air company Blue Air turned radical after the former alleged that the lowcoster envisages closing down operations, and this is why it avoids by any means reimbursing the money to passengers of cancelled flights.

Inter alia, Blue Air claimed that ANPC suggested an “amicable” solution that, in the company’s words, looks more like a bribe - and announced plans to file criminal complaints against those who completed the investigations and decided the fine, Economica.netreported.

ANPC’s head Constantinescu claims that Blue Air avoids receiving the documents related to the EUR 2 mln fine sent by ANPC in an attempt to buy time “while it can cancel a couple more flights and cash the money from the customers,” according to Economica.net. He claims that Blue Air employees have complained about not receiving their compensation as well.

The unusual attack came after ANPC fined Blue Air EUR 2 mln last week for repeated cancellation of flights over the past year and alleged failure to reimburse the money to the customers.

Blue Air claims that most of the passengers who were part of the group with cancelled flights (namely 107,674) had already been compensated “with a form of payment accepted by those passengers,” [most likely vouchers or similar]. By the end of 2022, another 30,000 were scheduled to be compensated.

“Until the expiration of the pre-insolvency procedure in July 2023, all the passengers mentioned by ANPC will be fully compensated,” Blue Air explained.

Going further, Blue Air says that it received more or less direct proposals, coming from the president of ANPC, Horia Constantinescu, who informed that “the costs of the fine can be avoided, but we must find solutions for a minimum of 10-20% of the amount to cover the stress felt by the ANPC officers who are terrorized by complaints against Blue Air.”

ANPC top manager Paul Silviu Anghel has allegedly told Blue Air officials during official discussions “what kind of expensive watches he likes.”