Ruxandra Brutaru, the former CEO of Romanian state-owned airline Tarom, was appointed deputy general director of the company, after resigning from the CEO seat for personal and salary matters, at the beginning of this week. In this position, she will get a bigger salary that the CEO.  "I have never earned so little”, said Brutaru. Her monthly net salary as a CEO was of EUR 1.100, according to Romanian media.

The government has settled a limit to equal the salaries received by the state companies’ directors with the salary of the state secretaries. As deputy general director Brutaru will be paid EUR 3,600 by Tarom and not by the Ministry, according to Olguta Vasilescu, senator of the Social Democratic Party (PSD).

Senator Vasilescu accuses Brutaru to have given up the CEO position in order to occupy a job that was better paid, although ranking below her previous one. Brutaru claims that the salary of deputy general director is “a little bigger than that of CEO”, without saying the exact amount. “If the reason of my resignation was the money, I would have accepted the first offer in the private sector”, added Ruxandra Brutaru.

Brutaru, 31, has been running Tarom since January 2009. That year the Romanian airline company registered losses worth EUR 55 million, according to Mediafax. Gabriela Bordea, ex marketing and sales director of Tarom, was named as the new CEO of the airline state company, according to Olguta Vasilescu. Vasilescu said that Bordea “will continue the bankrupt projects of the company.”

Tarom, the biggest Romanian air transport company, estimates for this year total revenues of EUR 330 million and over 2.4 million transported passengers, while last year’s numbers show only 2.2 million passengers.

Teodora Vaduva, teodora.vaduva@romania-insider.com