Moldova’s air market isn’t competitive enough
To fly from Chisinau International Airport is quite expensive not only for Moldovans but for foreigners, as well. The small number of national airlines doesn’t provide a competitive market. Moldova’s leading airline, Air Moldova monopolizes the market, operating over 50% of the national air transportation.
An Air Moldova one-way flight from Chisinau to London costs at least 111 Euro, while the same flight taken from Romania’s capital of Bucharest on the same path costs 54 Euro.
Because of its weak competitive stance and the high taxes on the Chisinau International Airport, Moldova doesn’t have any low-price flights on the market. The airport and the Moldovan air market lose lots of passengers due to the expensive fares. Many choose to travel to Bucharest in order to fly cheaper to any European destination.
After negotiations between Moldova and the European Union, Moldova is expected to sign a treaty in March to have a common airspace with the EU. Such an arrangement will help Moldova to attract foreign airlines on its market. The Hungarian low-cost airline Wizz Air has already expressed its interest in operating flights from Moldova if such an agreement should be established.
Representatives of the airline have recently visited Moldova to study the air market of the country. They expressed their interest in Chisinau International Airport and Balti Airport in Moldova's north which currently has no scheduled flights and effectively provides no service. The airline’s representatives have thus far no agreement on any specific plan with the Moldovan authorities, but the talks are still open.
“Wizz Air is continuously and routinely negotiating with many potential partners across Europe, in order to be able to offer quality services and truly affordable fares to as many passengers as possible. As part of this process we did visit Moldova as well, but there were no firm plans formulated. So it would be very premature to speculate on anything today,” the Corporate Communications Manager of Wizz Air, Balazs Varro told Moldova.ORG.
The Moldovan authorities are still unsure about which airport they should rebuild. Three non-operating airports are being considered: Balti, Marculesti and Cahul.
The market is unattractive to the foreign airlines because of the difficulties the Moldovans have while travelling to locations within the European Union. The Moldovan citizens currently require a visa to travel to any European destination, and this is a major limiting factor in explaining the small number of Moldovan passengers.
Enabling airlines to offer lower-cost ticketing will ease Moldovans' obstacles to travel abroad for work, especially for destinations such as Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, Lisbon, Rome, and Istanbul, which are among the most popular destinations.
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