Romanian carrier AnimaWings suspends several routes amid Airbus A220-300 issues

At Cluj Airport, however, the airline has attributed the cancellation of its Cluj-Frankfurt and Cluj-Vienna routes from October to low passenger load factors.

“Indeed, AnimaWings is cancelling several destinations because they have low load factors. It is a difficult problem worldwide with fuel prices,” David Ciceo, director of Avram Iancu International Airport in Cluj-Napoca, told local media, as reported by Profit.ro.

“For now, the flights that the company operated on the Frankfurt and Vienna routes from Cluj will be cancelled. Only the Cluj-Bucharest and return flight is being maintained,” Ciceo said.

He added that passengers who had already purchased tickets for the cancelled routes had been notified and would be able to receive refunds. Ciceo also said that airline ticket prices could rise by 20-30% because of higher fuel costs.

AnimaWings representatives denied that the airline was facing problems with lease payments for the aircraft, saying that “the grounding decision was made by AnimaWings”, rather than being imposed through an enforcement action.

“We cannot provide more information, as this is confidential in the contracts with the lessors,” the airline said.

AnimaWings did not deny the cancellation of several flights operated with its newly purchased Airbus A220-300 aircraft, G4Media.ro reported. The airline attributed the cancellations to “technical challenges”.