Romania’s state owned airline Tarom canceled four of its flights on Tuesday, September 16, due to lack of personnel, while four other of the company’s flights had significant delays. This is a result of a spontaneous protest initiated by some of the company’s pilots and flight attendants, which started on Sunday, and already caused several flights to be canceled and others arrive at their destinations with large delays.

Romania’s transport minister Ioan Rus met with representatives of the unions and of the company’s management, on Tuesday, to mediate the situation and get the company’s flights back on schedule. Rus asked Tarom’s pilots and flight attendants to make sure that no more flights will be canceled so as to protect the company’s passengers. In return, he promised that the Government's Control Team will inspect Tarom to check if the company is properly managed.

The situation at Tarom has been tense for the last few years, as the company posted large losses and lost market share to competitors, especially low cost airlines, such as Wizz Air and Bue Air. The numerous changes in the company’s management structure and administrative board also contributed to this. In October 2012, the state named a new board and a new CEO at Tarom, but Austrian Heinrich Vystoupil resigned from the CEO position less than a month after his nomination. He was replaced by Belgian Christian Edouard Heinzmann.

Shortly after Heinzmann took this position, the board tried to replace him. In the end, it was the board that was fired, in November 2013, while Heinzmann got his mandate reconfirmed by the Transport Ministry.

Tarom expects EUR 26 million losses this year, according to the 2014 budget which was recently approved by the Government.  Tarom ended each of the last six years with losses, which totaled some EUR 270 million for the period.

After the recent protests of the company’s employees, the Transport Ministry asked Tarom’s management to come up with a development plan for the company.

Tarom has an average of 59 flights each day. Of the four flights that were cancelled on Tuesday, three are international flights, to Frankfurt, Geneva and Chisinau, and one is an internal flight to Iasi. On Monday, a total of seven Tarom flights were canceled, while on Sunday two flights were canceled.

Andrei Chirileasa, andrei@romania-insider.com