Romania’s national airline plans Tarom to lay off half its staff this year-report

Foto: TAROM

Tarom, the Romanian national airline, has plans to cut 700 jobs this year, a news agency reported.

The job cuts will start later this year and be completed by the end of the summer, Mediafax said on Thursday.

The state-owned airline had been struggling even before the pandemic, with criticism about poor management of resources, as well as competition from low-cost airlines.

Last year, Tarom received an injection of 190 million euros of state aid to keep the company afloat. Some of that money will go toward redundancy packages.

The restructuring, part of a five-year plan, will be carried out over 25 weeks, in which time 700 jobs out of a total of 1,492 will be cut.

The company had 2,517 employees in 2009, and 1,753 employees in June 2020 when there was one supervisor to nine employees. That’s since been reduced to a manager for every 11 staff.

The company aims to have one manager for 16-20 employees, a similar level to other airlines.

Last year, the company furloughed 1,000 staff, and reduced the working week for others to four days cutting salary costs saving 1.425 million lei in December. They also cut staff training, saving 100,000 euros.

Fewer flights saved the company 13 million euros, while the company notched up losses of 1.654 million euros in lost revenue for foreign flights.


The company has also begun to cut office and other space it rents abroad where it has flights.

Tarom had 29 aircraft last summer, and by the end of 2021 will have 23.

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