Tarom's domestic flights, suspended

Domestic flights operated by Tarom airline, as well as the company’s flights to Budapest, were yesterday cancelled since neither the scheduled crews, nor the crews in reserve showed up at work, arguing medical reasons. This happened amid discussions between the company’s management and its employees with regard to salary raises for flight crews. “This is not a strike, or a legally defined conflict. Demands linked to salary raises come as a natural move by the company’s staff, but these have to be met in accordance with Tarom’s financial capacity,” stated Sorin Stoicescu, general manager of the General Civil Aviation Inspectorate within the Transports, Constructions and Tourism Ministry. The airline operator last year cut down its losses to 16 million dollars from 62 million dollars in 2000. For this year, Tarom’s management projects losses will stand at about 10 million dollars. Stoicescu added that the crewmembers would be suspended pending assessment of their medical situation, while Tarom’s activity could be resumed with different crews. “We will demand explanations from the Aeronautics Medicine Institute, which, at Tarom’s expense, is checking pilots’ health, because, if they got sick at the same time, this means they are not fit for this domain. We will search solutions starting today and we will try other possibilities, excluding sick crews, to secure passenger traffic,” Stoicescu said. ZF