Blue Air (Romania) (BLA, Bucharest Henri Coanda) has announced it will open a new base at Iasi airport in north-eastern Romania in June 2022.

The carrier said it would base two B737-800s out of Iasi in 2022 with a plan to double this to four in 2023. It has also suggested adding B737-8s to the Iasi base going forward. It operates eleven -800s and five -8s, alongside four B737-500s and a single B737-700, the ch-aviation fleets module indicates.

The ch-aviation schedules module shows Blue Air plans to operate the following new routes out of Iasi:

Tentative expansion plans for 2023 foresee new routes to Milan, Düsseldorf, Stuttgart Manfred Rommel, Frankfurt International, Amsterdam Schiphol, Valencia Manises, Malaga, Lisbon, Copenhagen Kastrup, Prague Václav Havel, Catania, Larnaca, Athens, Kerkyra, Preveza/Lefkas, Chania, Rhodes International, and Tel Aviv Ben Gurion.

These routes will complement existing services from Iasi to Bucharest Henri Coanda, Dublin International, and London Luton.

Iasi will become Blue Air's fifth Romanian base after Otopeni, Bacau, Cluj-Napoca, and Constanta. The carrier also has bases at Turin and Alghero airports.

Other carriers based at Iasi include Wizz Air, HiSky Europe, and TAROM. The airline is currently experiencing a surge in demand as it has assumed some traffic from Chisinau International after Moldovan airspace was temporarily closed due to the Russian invasion of neighbouring Ukraine. Even though Moldova has since reopened Chisinau airport to all commercial traffic, Wizz Air, the key player in the region, has yet to return.