“New destinations included in the summer schedule, such as Cluj-Napoca, were very well received by clients, and this is why we have also included these in our winter schedule,” said the General Manager of Lufthansa for Romania and Moldova, Stefan Versemann. He went on to say that the company (together with Swiss) transported 500,000 passengers on Romanian routes in this year’s first three quarters, an 11 percent annual increase. Referring to the current financial crisis, the official is estimating a slight drop in the company’s operations in Romania in 2009. “Next year will bring new challenges, and in order to face these, we have to observe the market and come up with the right offer to adapt to the requests of passengers,” Versemann added. As of March 2009, the airline will introduce a daily flight on the Bucharest-Milan route, which will increase the company’s flight capacity by 10 percent. Lufthansa wants to introduce new flights from Bucharest in 2009 and will consider other regions with high potential, such as the northeastern city of Iasi. Lufthansa has a 16 percent share of the Romanian market, according to Versemann. At group level, Lufthansa posted total revenues of some €18.6 billion in this year’s first nine months, a 13.6 percent increase year-on-year.
