If there had been indeed a significant security risk, the airline would have immediately stopped the flights and wouldn’t have waited for two weeks so as not to need to pay cancelation damages. This smells of business rather than of safety, said an aviation expert who commented for RFE/RL’s Moldovan Service on Wizz Air’s decision to suspend flights to and from Chisinau as from March 14, IPN reports.
“Based on the recent developments in Moldova and on ongoing consultations with different authorities and local and international agencies, Wizz Air took the final, but responsible decision to suspend its flights to Chisinau as from March 14. There is now an increased, but not imminent risk in the country’s airspace. The airline constantly monitors the events and, if need be, will take additional measures to ensure the safety of its passengers and crews,” the company said on February 27.
Speaking anonymously, aviation experts from Budapest told RFE/RL’s Moldovan Service that the low-cost company’s decision is most probably not based on security in reality, but rather on business or other reasons.
The experts noted that Wizz Air announced the cancelation of flights to and from Chisinau by two weeks beforehand so that it is not obliged to pay damages to passengers and such a move also suggests that it goes to business, not to security reasons.
If the Moldovan airspace had been risky indeed, the International Air Transport Association and the International Civil Aviation Organization would have issued a recommendation and all the airlines would have followed this recommendation without hesitation.
RFE also discussed with other airlines that operate flights to Chisinau. Austrian Airlines said its program of flights to and from Chisinau remained unchanged. The Austrian company noted it is monitoring closely the situation at domestic level as the safety of its passengers and crews remains its priority.
Representatives of a Romanian airline said, in conditions of anonymity, that risks have existed since the Russian invasion of Ukraine was launched on February 24, 2022, while the opponent company probably decided to withdraw from Chisinau for commercial reasons. “We realize and see the risks related to Transnistria. They are not new. It is a unilateral decision and we do not have another explanation than the commercial one,” said the sources to who journalists of RFE spoke.
