Blue Air owner Teodor Rada is preparing to launch a new airline, Hello Jets, with a business model based on long-distance flights.

The new airline received authorization last week from the Romanian Civil Aviation Authority (AACR) after it leased from Blue Air a Boeing 737-500, over 31 years old, with a configuration of 126 seats, which joined the Blue Air fleet in 2009.

The contract was signed at the market price, and the aircraft is no longer used by Blue Air, the company's CEO Oana Petrescu explained, according to Economica.net.

"The plane is one of the older generations that, through the fleet renewal program, Blue Air has decided not to use anymore, as it is an aircraft with high maintenance costs and few seats, which does not have the necessary parameters for profitable operations for our business model. Being practically unused, we rented it to Hello Jets, at a price close to the one for the similar aircraft we have rented to an operator in Africa since 2019," Oana Petrescu, CEO of Blue Air, said.

Hello Jets needed the plane to meet the certification requirements as an air transport operator, but also to start testing the new business concept.

andrei@romania-insider.com

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