Update: The undeclared strike started by Tarom pilots on Monday ended on Tuesday after the airline’s management agreed on a set of salary increases. Union leaders confirmed the deal, and Tarom announced that flights would resume.

As a result of the negotiations, an agreement was reached to provide an immediate and substantial salary increase of EUR 1,500 for pilots, with the first installment to be received this year, according to G4media.ro. In addition, the company will immediately increase the external per diem to EUR 240 for the captain and EUR 200 for the co-pilot, demonstrating our commitment to valuing our flight crew.

"Tarom continued its dialogue with the representatives of the personnel, following the situation on Monday, July 8, when numerous flights were canceled due to individual declarations of unfitness for flight by the flight personnel, and announced the conclusion of an agreement for normality and the continuation of flight operations as usual. On the morning of July 9, all scheduled flights, both domestic and international, are taking place according to the flight schedules," the company's statement said.

Tarom also apologized to its passengers who were impacted by the flight cancellations and said that it had offered them compensation alternatives.

Initial story: Romania's state-operated airline Tarom announced it canceled tens of flights that were scheduled to land or take off from Bucharest's Henri Coandă Airport (Otopeni) on July 8. The situation remains uncertain for July 9 after a large number of the company's pilots relied on a form of protest by declaring themselves "unfit for work" - under a provision that allows them to refuse to work for up to 48 hours.

The company lost some EUR 2.5 million, enough to cover the requested wage hikes for an entire year, according to the trade union SPLR, which argued that due to the low wages, the personnel trained by the company ended up working for other companies, G4media.ro reported.

The company's pilots have decided to stop reporting for work due to several issues related to flight safety and the wages they receive, which, according to Tarom pilot (and former management member) Cezar Osiceanu quoted by Digi24, are much lower than other air carriers.

"It's a management problem. Within 5 years, 19 head managers have changed [at Tarom]. And none of them had anything to do with aviation. They were paint sellers, car sellers, sheet metal sellers, and so on," Osiceanu explained.

Transport minister Sorin Grindeanu claimed that the pilots asked for a 40% wage hike and that Tarom's management has been negotiating with the pilots during the whole day of July 8. He argued that although the company received EUR 100 million in state aid, it has not yet downsized its personnel, which at 1,200 is still 50% above that justified by the volume of activity, complicating the wage hikes.

"I'm not saying that it's not normal to have claims, but to cancel the flight two minutes before departure is a more than inappropriate situation. I hope that from tomorrow morning [July 9] the company will return to the usual flight schedule," Grindeanu said.

He assured that all passengers who could not travel because of the pilots' protests should be fairly compensated.

iulian@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Colicaranica/Dreamstime.com)