Romania’s Dan Air cancels 11,000 tickets processed by Netopia

The situation at the airline, which filed for insolvency on October 22 to avoid forced execution and restructure its operations, appears to be getting out of control, even though it has not yet announced any flight cancellations.

Dan Air has announced no flight cancellations, but moving its flights from Bacău to Bucharest represents a major change for its customers. Separately, it remains unclear how many of its passengers, if any, purchased tickets through means other than card payments processed by Netopia.

Finally, the Romanian Air Traffic Services Administration (ROMATSA) asked Dan Air, according to Bacau.net, to pay the first instalment of its overdue debt by noon on November 6, or else it would suspend the provision of services from November 7 at 00:00, effectively disrupting any Dan Air flights.

Dan Air also announced that it moved its operations from Bacău Airport, which filed an insolvency claim against the airline over unpaid debts, to Bucharest’s Henri Coandă International Airport (Otopeni).

Netopia, for its part, has not directly refused to refund the money charged to passengers, amounting to around EUR 0.8 million, but has instead directed them to their banks to seek refunds through the chargeback procedure involving the Visa and Mastercard networks.

The payment processor had previously claimed that it had blocked the money paid by passengers for Dan Air tickets to protect their interests following the airline’s insolvency filing, citing the case of Blue Air’s bankruptcy in this context. Netopia claimed that it acted in accordance with the contract, which it terminated before a court ruling on the matter.