Blue Air (Romania) - Warning

CKhalvashi

Please be careful if booking with Blue Air. I don't need specific advice on this (we can discuss though) but did want to warn of their shady practices.

I had paid £6.45 for their 'flex' service, which according to the booking terms lets me change the ticket up to 4 hours before for free. This contractual term looks very simple on the face of it; changes up to 4 hours before, only the fare difference is applied.
https://help.flyblueair.com/hc/en-us/articles/4405867738641-Voluntary-flight-change

However, the flight I've tried to change to is cheaper than the original booking for a new customer (there was a £2.70 'fare difference' for some reason). A bit worse though was a £34.39 fee for a change of date, due to the change being less than 7 days before the flight, giving a total of £37.09 to pay. This was on a one way booking and isn't mentioned on the voluntary flight change page, the table of fees and charges or the flight change conditions.

I've been able to secure a return ticket (2 ways) with a reputable airline (Wizz) for £24. The outbound leaves within 30 minutes of the flight I've tried to change to (I won't post dates due to privacy reasons but will blank out screenshots on request).

They are being very difficult to reach and I've informally spoken to my bank regarding this breach of contract, which will be pursued if they don't sort this out. I'll change that ticket to November if they want to honour it or go down the Chargeback route if not.

If anyone needs the local rate phone number as required under the Consumer Rights Act, it is 01293 874926. Don't call the 090 phone number the website tries to direct you to.

bagand96

Grounded by the Romanian Government for a week....

https://travelweekly.co.uk/news/air/romanian-carrier-blue-air-grounded-by-government

CKhalvashi

Yes, I doubt they will ever re-start operations.

CKhalvashi

Just to update to this, I've submitted a €400 claim this morning with them (I have EUR bank details and they're an EU airline), providing details of IBAN (for an account legally held in Belgium but provided through Wise PLC), so I'll see how I get on.

Others may be able to confirm, but they don't appear to be legally insolvent and from further press releases appear to have had their accounts unblocked, so there's no reason why a flight tomorrow can't go ahead legally, resulting in this being an operational cancellation and completely voluntary on the airline.

I suspect they'll try to wriggle out of this on 'extraordinary circumstances', but if they don't pay taxes due to the Ministry of Environment and also don't pay a €2m fine to the Consumer Protection Bureau (funnily enough for cancelling flights), what do they realistically expect is going to happen?