Romania's flag carrier Tarom not likely to reach breakeven this year

Romanian state airline Tarom reported its turnover rose by 17% in the first half of the year compared to the same period last year, to RON 624 million (EUR 131 mln). However, the company, which has posted losses since 2007, will probably remain in the red this year too.

Thus, the carrier reported RON 66.3 mln (EUR 14 mln) loses in the first half, up 2.5% compared to the first half of 2018. During 2008-2018, Tarom reported cumulative losses of over RON 1.7 billion (some EUR 390 mln), according to ZF calculations.

The delicate situation of the state company comes under the circumstances of the carrier going through a period of instability at the managerial level, as the CEOs have recently been appointed for short term periods and not under the corporate governance law.

Tarom carried only 2.7 million passengers last year. By comparison, low-cost airline Blue Air, controlled by Romanian entrepreneurs, exceeded the threshold of 5 million passengers, and the market leader, Wizz Air, reached 8.3 million passengers last year. Considering that in 2018 the airports in Romania had a traffic of 21.8 million passengers, the state company has a share of 12%, according to ZF calculations.

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