Why Aegean is interested in the Romanian market

The prospects of strengthening the tourist flow from the emerging Romanian market to Greece, as well as the stable long-term cooperation with Cristian Tour, paved the way for the increase of AEGEAN’s participation in Animawings. As announced yesterday by the Greek airline, which had taken the first step in strategic cooperation with the Romanian travel group Memento, of which Animawings is a member, in March 2020, despite the pandemic, increased its stake from 25% to 51%, having made a total investment of 1.3 million euros in paid-up share capital.

This is the second, but not the last, step in strengthening the cooperation between the two companies, which have been cooperating for more than 12 years. As stressed by the founder of Animawings and President of Memento Group, Mr. Cristian Pandel, “AEGEAN’s participation will continue and increase in the near future, offering support and know-how to all teams and departments of Animawings through the extensive experience of its executives and specialists, in the procedures and operating systems of an airline “.

This investment, which is considered limited risk, came as a continuation of the stable investment that AEGEAN has made in recent years in the Romanian market, constantly increasing its flight operations in the Balkans.

Founded in 2019, Romanian Animawings operates charter flights to Europe and Africa. From the new tourist season, it will initially operate with three aircraft, coming from the AEGEAN fleet. The company’s program, which will mainly serve outbound tourism from the Romanian market with chartered but also regular flights, is to be announced by mid-November and is expected to further support the movement to Greece, among other things.

After strengthening its participation to 51%, AEGEAN will take over the co-management of the company. This means that it will take over the business management, while the commercial management and support of Animawings will be carried out mainly by the travel group Memento (CristianTour), which is also the founder of the airline.

Given the long-term cooperation, but also the growing tourist interest from Romania, as a result of the improvement of living standards, the investment is considered low risk. It is noted that the initial investment in Animawings, made in early March 2020, involved a minority stake of 25% against 450,000 euros.

With this move, AEGEAN is expected to strengthen its presence in the Romanian market, in order to facilitate the increase of the incoming tourist flow from Romania, after the pandemic. This cooperation aims to strengthen the company’s position in the Balkans and the wider region, in order to meet the high competition that already existed this summer and is expected to intensify.

As it did by maintaining the investment for the new fleet in the crisis, so with this move AEGEAN continues to implement its development plan and invest in initiatives that strengthen its competitive advantage.

In recent years, the Greek airline has strengthened its presence in the Romanian market. Today, it operates about ten regular flights a week between Athens and Bucharest, while for the first quarter of 2022, it has already planned about a 15% increase in seat allocations compared to the corresponding period in 2019, long before the pandemic.

Indicatively, only through the chartered flights operated on behalf of Christian Tour, during the summer months it transported a significant number of passengers from 3 major cities in Romania to popular destinations such as Heraklion, Rhodes, Corfu, Zakynthos, Mykonos and Santorini .

As the CEO of AEGEAN, Mr. Dimitris Gerogiannis, said on the occasion of the announcement, “we will proceed with careful, gradual steps with emphasis as always on providing quality services to our passengers and our focus is always on supporting the tourism of our country . “For us, strategic partnerships, through established relationships, are part of our DNA and we consider them necessary in the new era.”