The Romanian airline Tarom was already under great pressure before the corona pandemic. The tough price war, which was fueled in particular by Wizz Air, Ryanair and Blue Air, had little to counter. Transport Minister Cătălin Drulă now wants to significantly reduce the size of the state carrier and create the turnaround by modernizing the fleet.

Romania grabbed Tarom under the wings with 19,33 million euros due to the pandemic. Another 188 million euros are to flow within the next five years. The government member announced in a TV interview that the state airline should be in the black by 2025 at the latest.

Some older machines are expected to be sold in the course of 2021. At the same time, five Boeing 737-Max-8s are expected to be delivered. The fleet is to be standardized on aircraft from the manufacturers Boeing and ATR. This is how you want to save costs. There is a high probability that there will be no immediate replacement for the Airbus jets, because Drulă also said that the number of Tarom planes should be greatly reduced.

The workforce has been reduced by around 400 since the start of the corona pandemic. The Romanian transport minister assumes that further dismantling measures will be necessary. Tarom is to be “set up lean” in terms of leadership and the number of employees. The same member of the government criticized before the crisis that the carrier has significantly more staff than actually needed. He attributed this to “party book attitudes”.