"Tarom's fleet is piebald," thinks Mr. Radu Berceanu, minister of Transport, Construction and Tourism

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State-owned airline Tarom caught the attention of the high-ranking officials in the Ministry of Transport, Construction and Tourism. Tarom's ability to withstand competition pressure in 2007 was questioned, and the Ministry's chiefs came up with all kinds of actions meant to strengthen the company. We talked about Tarom's problems and the foreseen solutions with minister Radu Berceanu.

Reporter: Tarom received on the 15th of November the first Airbus A318 out of an order for four jetliners of this type. Why was this model chosen?

Radu Berceanu: A318 is a mid-courier passenger carrier and it will fly under Tarom's colors starting December 18th or 20th. The decision to buy four of them has been made by the boards of Tarom and the Ministry way back in 2003. As far as I am concerned, there were many wrong decisions, and the option for the A318 wasn't right. If there were to buy aircraft in this class, it would have been better to wait for a different model, like A319 or A320.

R.: Still, Tarom's fleet will gain four more airliners...

R.B.: Tarom's fleet is piebald. There are Boeings, there are Airbus jets, and this is not economically right. If it were a company with 200 aircrafts, this mixing of types wouldn't be such a severe drawback. But Tarom has only nine Boeings, six Airbus airplanes and six more ATRs. In time, we should stick to a single aircraft supplier, and the right choice would be Airbus, because we bought from them the newest Tarom jetliners in use today. On the other hand, if we replace the Boeings once their service life comes to end, there's a problem: we can't benefit from special offers. To give an example, if a company has to replace an old aircraft, Boieng makes a discount, but of course if that company buys another Boeing. If we go for Airbus, we can't benefit from these promotions.