HiSky

Is HiSky safe?

Yes, on its record so far. HiSky has had no accident since it began flying in 2021, its main company flies under the European Union's safety rules, and its fleet is the Airbus A320 family plus one A330, both types with strong records. Three things hold the score back: HiSky has no IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary audit, its newest jet has been grounded by engine problems since early 2025, and it has had three emergency returns or diversions since 2023. We score it 82, above TAROM (80) and FlyOne (79), the other airlines most people compare it with.

Two certificates, one airline

HiSky began in Chișinău. Moldova's Civil Aviation Authority certified CA HiSky SRL in January 2021, and the airline soon set up HiSky Europe in Romania, which now flies almost all its routes: Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Iași, Oradea, Timișoara and Baia Mare to Western Europe, the UK and Ireland, Egypt and New York, plus Chișinău. HiSky Europe sells under the code H4 and flies Romanian-registered (YR-) Airbus jets with the call sign SKY EUROPE.

The Moldovan company still exists, with the code H7. Its certificate lists one type, the A319, and the only A319 on Moldova's register is ER-SKY; on 28 October 2026 that jet was flying over Austria as HYS245, under HiSky Europe's call sign. Because the two companies fly as one brand and share flight numbers, we count both on this page and name the certificate for each event. All three events below were on Romanian aircraft.

What has gone wrong

None of HiSky's incidents hurt anyone, and in each case the crew did what the procedures ask. They do add up for an airline of this size.

• May 2023: one pilot on an A321neoLR from Dublin to Chișinău fell ill at 33,000 feet near Manchester. The other landed there alone; a replacement crew finished the trip 13 hours late.
• March 2025: shortly after take-off from Bucharest for Oradea, the left engine of A320 YR-BEE stalled. The crew declared a PAN and landed back at Otopeni after about 15 minutes.
• February 2026: A320 YR-SUN, flying to Hurghada with 180 passengers and six crew, got a cabin-pressure warning while climbing through about 25,000 feet. The crew dived to 10,000 feet, circled to burn off fuel and landed back in Bucharest about two and a half hours after take-off. A faulty sensor was found, according to The Aviation Herald.

Romania's investigation body has published no report on any of them, so we score incidents 76 on the facts above rather than treating the short list as clean.

An older fleet with one grounded jet

BoardingPass counts seven Romanian HiSky aircraft with an average age of about 10 years. Most are A320ceos. The pride of the fleet should be two A321neoLRs, but one of them, YR-WIN, has been parked since early 2025 because of the Pratt & Whitney GTF engine problems that have grounded hundreds of A320neo-family jets worldwide. The A330-200 that flies to New York joined in 2024 as the first A330 on Romania's register. The Moldovan A319 dates from about 2004. With no spare widebody, the New York route stopped for all of May 2026 while the A330 was in planned maintenance in Budapest. Fleet scores 72.

Who checks HiSky?

Romania's Civil Aeronautical Authority oversees HiSky Europe under EASA rules, and Romania holds the FAA's Category 1FAA IASAThe US FAA's check of whether a country's aviation regulator meets ICAO standards. Category 1 means it does; Category 2 means it does not.More in the glossary rating; HiSky also needed US approval for its New York flights. HiSky is not on IATA's member list, and neither company was on IATA's IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary registry when we searched it on 28 October 2026, so oversight scores 85, one point under our level for EU airlines without it because one aircraft sits on the Moldovan certificate outside EASA.

The airline's finances are a separate worry. HiSky Europe's public accounts show a net loss of about 18.8 million lei and negative equity at the end of 2024, and a TRUmedia analysis in October 2026 reported that Romania's air navigation service did not expect HiSky to settle its overdue bill. That is a question for your booking, not a safety finding, and HiSky has not filed for insolvency.

Before you book HiSky

• Pay by card. Romania's AnimaWings suspended its flights in autumn 2026; if HiSky had the same trouble, a card claim would be the fastest way to get your money back.
• Book New York with a buffer. One A330 flies the route, so a technical fault or maintenance slot means cancellations, not a swap.
• Read the code. H4 means HiSky Europe; H7 means the Moldovan company. Both show as HiSky on the website.

How we scored it

A clean accident record (88) and EU-level oversight (85) carry the score. Incidents (76) reflect three returns and diversions in three years, the fleet (72) is mostly older A320s with a grounded neo, and the network scores 76 for the war next to Chișinău. Overall 82.