DISCLAIMER: tickets for these flight were offered to Aviacionline by Blue Air. However, our editorial independence is a non-negotiable value and all views expressed here are mine and mine alone, regardless of who paid for the ticket.

Flying in Europe for cheap these days has become basically a one-man show unless you live in a massive city. In the city I live, for example, Ryanair is up there in my list since they have a monster base in Pisa, offering dirty cheap fares to pretty much everywhere.

For a number of reasons, though, Florence Airport — which is closer to my city than Pisa’s — has essentially no ultra low-cost presence. This silence is only broken by one airline, one that comes from Romania: Blue Air.

Now you might not have heard of them, but they are a consolidated presence in the Romanian market. As per Cirium’s Diio Mi currently the fourth power per ASKs from/to the Eastern Europe country, it is the sole Romanian low-cost carrier.

As such, along with Ryanair and Wizz Air the airline is the main option for the immense market that connects Romania to other countries in Europe, which consists largely of VFR (Visiting Family and Relatives) passengers.

Specifically in FLR, Blue Air is alone in the Florence-Bucharest market since it has the 737-700 in its fleet. A smaller variant than the A320/A321s and the 737-800s that fellow Wizz and Ryanair operate, it is able to operate profitably with the Tuscan airport’s short runway.

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My only departure from Florence was in May 2021, at the start of the Summer season. Back then, only domestic travel was allowed as there was no such thing as the green pass and my flight — a Silver Air Let 410 hop to Elba — was a Vueling flight to Barcelona hours later.

In those days the airport was a ghost town; so much so that the safety screening area was closed and, since our flight had only 10 passengers anyway, we were taken to the airside via the employees’ area, outside of the terminal.

It was quite depressing that day, so it was so cool to see the airport alive again.

I wrote about it some time ago: Florence Airport is Vueling’s house… so much so that they advertise it in the luggage carts through the terminal.

Florence and Pisa’s terminals are managed by the same company, Toscana Aeroporti, which are in turn owned by Argentina’s Corporación América, the same company that has a majority stake in Aeropuertos Argentina 2000.

I found Florence to be less crowded than Pisa and a tad more modern as well. But the size of the terminal helps: while Pisa concentrates everything in one floor, Florence does this in two.

And there was some line in the Blue Air counters already before check-in started.

From the off I saw that the large majority of passengers came from Romania, so the VFR component in this route is really important.

The team in Florence had our boarding passes printed, since we were going as crew. A quick document check and off we went.

The boarding pass was really beautiful — it was not like this even in Bucharest, Blue Air’s home; a shame we couldn’t keep it.

Again, it’s fantastic to see Florence Airport back alive. Now this may not seem like a lot of flights, but it’s such an evolution from what I’d seen ten months prior. Alas, the terminal really seemed crowded as the structure is quite small and all these flights left within the next two hours.

From the airside there was a view towards the apron, always a welcome one. Clearly Vueling is the major airline in Florence, with three flights leaving within an hour.

Although a member of the European Union, Romania is still not a part of the Schengen border agreement, which means we had to pass through a border screening. Florence Airport is really turned towards intra-Schengen travel, which led to a long wait to get through this last security check. Overall, though, the terminal was still way better than Pisa’s.

Our flight arrived a minute after schedule — at 19h46. Boarding was started on time and, as usual in Florence, took place with buses.

I like remote boarding, unless there’s a tight connection in the middle, for it allows for the kind of sight you see below.

Air France operates an incredible five daily flights to Florence (and none to Pisa, which goes to show the effect having no ULCC competition has), all of which with the smaller Airbus A318 and A319 variants.

The apron in Florence is quite small so in no time we were at our aircraft door. The crew was waiting for the plane to be cleared.

This flight would be operated by Blue Air’s single 737-700, registered YR-BMR. A veteran 737, this one was originally delivered to Transavia on April 2003 as PH-XRW, according to Planespotters.net.

MSN 33465 operated for the Dutch low-cost carrier for around ten years, after which it was withdrawn and moved to Denmark. On November 2013, it was registered OY-JTS and started flying for Danish charter operator Jet Time.

COVID hit and Jet Time went bust, and on May 2020 the company returned the jet to the lessor. On August the airframe was reregistered YR-BMR and started flying for the Romanian low-cost carrier, the second 737-700 in the history of the company, which also operated MSN 30651 (YR-BMA) from May 2015 to March 2019, as per Planespotters.net.

From the outside, the livery made it look that Mike Romeo was rushed into service, with only stickers over a plain white livery.

From the inside, though, the cabin was in surprisingly pristine conditions, with leather Recaro seats and what not. Comparing to other airlines of the same segment, it’s indeed a great product. By the way, the glorious Lufthansa has worse seats than this in their narrowbodies.

Additionally, the seats reclined, which you don’t see very often these days.

Doors were closed a little bit late, although the flight was not particularly full: about 100 passengers occupied the 148 seats. We started pushback at 20h50, 15 minutes after scheduled departure.

Legroom was on standard for a low-cost carrier too.

Pushback and taxi were short as we had no traffic ahead. For bigger aircraft such as the 737, taking off from Florence Airport can only be done in one way, given the very short runway and a natural obstacle in the other direction.

And the take-off was almost like a rocketship launch, such was the throttle input. Definitely one of the funniest take-offs I’ve ever watched from the window seat. Immediately after leaving the airfield, we proceeded with a right turn.

Captain Gabriel Andreescu handled that 737-700 masterfully, aided by First Officer Viorel Cosma. Besides the passengers, BMR was carrying 6.8 tons of fuel.

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As soon as the seat belt sign was turned off, passengers started reclining their seats. Now as you can see it’s not much, but it’s on standard for Economy class nowadays — and that’s because most LCCs don’t offer reclining seats anyway.

As you can imagine the cabin was not Sky Interior, but it was really well maintained after almost two years of services for Blue Air.

In the previous week I had flown both Ryanair and Wizz, so I was really interested to see how Blue Air’s catering service compared to theirs.

Their menu was the only reading option there was in the seat pockets, and it was a very colourful, big one, with options described both in English and in Romanian.

At the menu cover they showed hot meals, though they didn’t serve it on the flight. The catalogue said passengers can pre-order meals, so perhaps that’s the only alternative. The flight attendants told me that they don’t use the ovens the aircraft has.

It surprised me how lenghty the service was. It’s not because the crew was slow — they were lovely by the way — but rather because a lot of passengers were buying the on-board service on offer. That’s something I observed in the following flights I did with Blue Air too.

I left the crew take care of the paying passengers before I had my meal, as the Captain informed me I could visit the cockpit. We were on duty that night — my friend Thiago was registering the ops in the single operational jumpseat — and I could only have a peek at the flightdeck at that phase of the flight.

While my full flights on the jumpseat would come after this one (and the articles about them should be live in the coming days), I don’t think this sight will ever get boring. It’s such a privilege to have this opportunity.

Back to the cabin, I went to a bunch of empty seats in order not to disturb my seatmate.

Apparently these seats are the same that the late Jet Time used, so I don’t know why some signs are in German here.

To drink, I asked for the red wine. According to the crew, the supplier wineyard is owned by people who also have a stake in the airline, although I’m not sure if he was refering to the one I ultimately drank — from Stanca wineyard — or the one that they promoted in the catalogue — LacertA.

Either way, I asked the red wine of LacertA and they didn’t have it. Instead, they offered the rosé from Stanca… which was surprisingly good. Both brands are from Romania by the way.

Romanian products, by the way, were picked by Blue Air also for the meals, although they were only cold; that’s something I appreciate from airlines.

I requested the Salamistique sandwhich from the menu. According to Blue Air, the sandwiches from their menu were imagined by chef Jakob Hausmann.

I don’t know why — and also in the menu they are presented like this — but the sandwich was one-sided, so you eat it like a giant bruschetta or you fold it. Having flown dozens of airlines, that was a new one for me.

And I prefered eating it folded. It was fairly good for what the price was.

After that we were already reaching the late stages of the flight so I took some minutes to stretch my legs and get back to my original seat.

Before, a quick visit to the lavatory; it was maintained clean, despite the lack of cleaning in the Florence stop, as most airlines do these days.

An uneventful descent soon followed and at 23h41, one minute after schedule, YR-BMR did a smooth landing in Bucharest’s Otopeni International.

The taxi, I must add, was quite a sight, with some old abandoned Bac One-Elevens, and TAROM’s stored fleet in front of its hangar. In the following days we had the chance to better photograph these birds, luckily.

Mike Romeo stopped in the remote apron, with a Wizz Air A320 by our side, finishing a great experience with Blue Air. The aircraft would then be serviced for the following day.

The crew very kindly allowed us to do some pictures of the empty cabin (don’t mind the mess) before we deboarded.

And they also posed for a photo. Besides the pilots, who I already mentioned, kudos also to the flight attendants; Purser Mirabela Badescu, Madalina Apostoiu and Anghel Ovidiu. They seemed to take great care of everyone, not just us, who were invited by the airline, and that’s paramount.

We waved goodbye at YR-BMR, who I would fly again some days later back to Florence.

And again remote deboarding. Great when you have time (I did), not so much when you’re tired (I was).

Customs were cleared in no time, as we were together with the crew, and in few minutes we were officially in Romania.

To finish the night, in our walk to the nearby hotel, which is a block away from the terminal, we had a very nice surprise. The airport had some planespotting pictures in an empty store. Just fantastic and a sign of things to come. Stay tuned to our Bucharest Airport photogallery.

Final Remarks

Blue Air has quite the challenge in its home market: from one side, the ULCCs, who have low fares and enormous brand awareness. From the other, a flag carrier, TAROM, which remains relevant: it offered twice as many ASKs from Romania in February as Blue Air, as per Cirium.

This way, having low fares and a solid low-cost product, at least on level with Ryanair and Wizz, is quite important for the survival of the airline. And do they manage to do so? I think yes.

The fares they offer are quite competitive, their seats were comfortable, cabin was clean and well maintained, crew was super nice and the buy-on-board catalog was reasonable, with good prices and good meals.

So my veredict? Personally I always go for the lowest fare. So in a situation where Blue Air is the cheapest, I’d definitely book with them. I really loved visiting Romania and their fare sales are usually great, so chances are I’ll definitely fly with them again very soon.