Tarom can trace its origins to 1920. That was the year the French-Romanian Company For Air Navigation[?], (CFRNA) was formed. The airline used French built POTEZ[?] planes to perform all types of services, from carrying passengers to carrying mail, from Paris to Bucharest, stopping in various European cities along the way.
Tarom Boeing 737-700 (YR-BGF). Larger version |
In 1925, the city of Galati became the first domestic Romanian destination for the airline, and in 1926, the airline changed it's name to become The International Air Navigation Company[?], (CIDNA).
By 1930 it changed it's name to LARES[?], and in 1937, LARES was merged with top competitor SARTA[?].
September 18 of 1954, the airline became known as Tarom (Transporturi Aeriene ROMane, meaning Romanian Air Transport). It took Tarom six years to link to most important capitals in Europe, and 12 years to fly trans-atlantic for the first time. By 1974, Tarom began services to JFK International Airport in New York, and it also reached Australia, flying to Sydney, via Calcutta.
During the 1980s, and with Romania being an Eastern Bloc country, Tarom was forced to buy Russian aircraft exclusively. However, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Tarom has re-introduced western built jets to their fleet.
wikipedia.org dumped 2003-03-17 with terodump