TAROM cancels all Bucharest-Arad flights

April 13, 2005 Romania's national airline, TAROM, has announced that, from May 15 this year, all of its flights from Bucharest, the Romanian capital, to Arad, a city in the country's west, will be cancelled, due to lack of financial viability and an increase in competition. The reason for the cancellation is mainly due to the planned inauguration on May 16 of a Bucharest-Arad flight operated by the private airline Carpatair, Romania's second-largest airline.

Carpatair has grown very quicly in the past two years, adding several new destinations, both in Romania and abroad. Also, it has taken away many of TAROM's customers on international routes because it provides direct connections from Transylvanian cities such as Arad and Timişoara to German and Italian cities, saving customers the task of changing flights at Bucharest. Also, although Carpatair started out as a Transylvanian airline, it now also flies to destinations in Romania's east, and is expected to open up new routes via Bucharest, in a further attempt to compete with TAROM and win more market share.

In 2004, TAROM was Romania's largest airline, carrying approximately 940,000 passengers. Carpatair came in at second, carrying approximately 271,000 passengers.