Romania’s new Government plans to acquire at least 20 aircraft for the state-owned airline Tarom, according to Social Democratic Party (PSD) leader Liviu Dragnea.

Although Dragnea hasn’t announced PSD’s proposal for Prime Minister yet, he confidently talks about the future Government’s plans and says the governing program PSD presented in the electoral campaign, which helped it get over 45% of the votes in the parliamentary elections, will be fully implemented.

“Starting September 1, we will begin the acquisition process of at least 20 aircraft for Tarom. It is the first package,” said Dragnea, reports local Economica.net.

He didn’t mention how will the aircraft be acquired considering that a single Airbus A320 airplane, the model which is mainly used by Wizz Air, has a list price of USD 98 million, and the cost for 20 planes would reach about USD 2 billion.

One of the main issues of Tarom, which has been recording losses in the last years, is the mixed fleet, with three types of aircraft. Christian Heinzmann, Tarom’s former general manager, said in 2013 that standardizing the fleet would reduce the fuel cost by 35% and help reduce losses.

editor@romania-insider.com