TAROM continues to lose ground, with 11% less passengers

The largest airline operator on the Romanian market, TAROM, carried over 202,000 passengers in the first two months of this year, 11.4% less than in the same time of 2008, although the airline management expected to preserve its traffic and occupancy rate this year. In the first two months of the year, the average occupancy rate of TAROM aeroplanes amounted to 47.1%, according to data from the Association of European Airlines (AEA), continuing the downward trend recorded at the end of last year. Passenger traffic on TAROM flights was almost 20% lower in January against January 2008, while in February traffic was down by just 1.6% against February last year, according to the AEA. The management of the airline operator has set similar targets for this year to those achieved last year, additionally intending to save almost 8.6 million dollars (6.37 million euros) by cost cutting measures.