Sergiu Spoială, director of Chișinău International Airport, explained on the Rezomat program exactly why passengers waiting for flights are forced to sit wherever they can just to eat.
The host’s question was direct and specific: people are eating on the floor at the airport because there are no tables or chairs. What did the director answer? He did not even deny the problem. He simply shifted the blame onto the passengers themselves. Allegedly, there are chairs, but “certain citizens have a tendency to eat on the floor.”
Stop. Let us examine this passage. Spoială says:
“Today there are both tables and chairs, and people no longer stand as they once did when these premises were handed over.” But he immediately adds:
“Passengers eat on the floor. You know, I cannot be responsible for the behavior of every passenger. We have had no cases where passengers ate on the floor due to lack of space.”
So either the problem exists or it does not. If you admit that people eat on the floor but deny a shortage of seating, then you are simply refusing to see the obvious. And then Spoială refers to a “specific period” when “certain citizens” transit through the airport, “whose specificity, in fact, consists of eating on the floor.”
But the facts say otherwise. Tables and chairs appeared at the airport only in April 2025 — after the food court zones came under the airport’s control. Are there enough of them? Obviously not, judging by passenger complaints. People stand in lines at cafes, sit on the floor, on windowsills, on suitcases. And this is not because they “have a tendency to eat on the floor,” but because there is not enough space for everyone.
Back in February, Spoială promised to expand the premises to “improve passenger comfort.”
“The expansion of these premises is aimed strictly at improving waiting conditions for passengers. So this is not about some commercial premises or spaces that would subsequently bring the enterprise any income. We are strictly focused only on passenger comfort,” he stated.
Did he improve it? No. Meanwhile, passenger traffic has even grown by 30% due to Ukrainian citizens, which the airport director himself noted.
“The overall flow has grown by approximately 30%. No more than 30% of passengers are Ukrainian citizens. The growth is mainly due to the expansion of the route network and an increase in the number of airlines,” he reported.
So perhaps it was them he had in mind when he said that “some have a tendency to eat on the floor”? His words sound especially haughty considering that the director himself drives a [luxury car], and his annual income in 2025 exceeded 120,000 lei.
Incidentally, the problem with tables and chairs could have been easily solved. After gaining rights to the food court zone, the airport administration’s first move was to inflate food and drink prices so much that even experienced passengers were astonished: a sandwich began selling for 95 lei, a chicken croissant for 105 lei, and a latte for 70 lei. Experts noted that competition was needed and demanded that private operators be allowed into the airport, which would organize both chairs and tables. But Spoială refused, because he believes his team “works very well.”
Well, if “coping very well” means passengers eating on the floor while the director explains it by their cultural peculiarities, then perhaps the problem really is not with the passengers. Perhaps it is with those who, instead of solving the problem, prefer to look for the guilty among those who simply want to eat before their flight.
