Aviation History
Romania has an unusually strong claim to early aviation pioneering: engineer Traian Vuia flew a self-propelled, self-designed monoplane near Paris in 1906, and Aurel Vlaicu built and flew a series of original Romanian-designed aircraft from 1910, both predating much of the rest of European aviation development. Commercial air transport began with the French-Romanian joint venture CFRNA in 1920 and the domestic carrier LARES in the 1930s, and the modern flag carrier TAROM took its current name in 1954 under communist state ownership, operating Soviet-designed aircraft and building the largest fleet in the Eastern Bloc after Aeroflot by the late 1970s. After the 1989 revolution, TAROM shifted to Western aircraft, endured years of heavy financial losses, joined the SkyTeam alliance in 2010, and remains majority state-owned, while low-cost entrants such as Blue Air and the arrival of Wizz Air and Ryanair have reshaped Romania's air travel market since the 2000s.
Romanian inventor Traian Vuia flew his self-built, self-propelled monoplane a short distance near Paris, an early milestone in heavier-than-air powered flight.
Engineer Aurel Vlaicu designed and flew his own Vlaicu I aircraft, the first in a series of Romanian-built airplanes he developed before his death in a 1913 crash.
The French-Romanian Company for Air Navigation (CFRNA) was founded, beginning organized commercial air transport in Romania.
The state airline adopted the name TAROM (Transporturile Aeriene Române) on 18 September 1954, becoming Romania's flag carrier under communist administration.
By the late 1970s TAROM had grown to around 59 aircraft, mostly Soviet-designed Ilyushin and Tupolev types, making it the Eastern Bloc's second-largest airline fleet after Aeroflot.
Following the 1989 revolution, TAROM began replacing its Soviet fleet with Western aircraft, acquiring Airbus A310s in 1992 amid years of heavy financial losses.
TAROM became a full SkyTeam member on 25 June 2010, integrating Romania's flag carrier into a major global airline alliance.
TAROM reported its first profitable year since 2007, ending a long stretch of losses under continued majority state ownership.
TAROM · LARES · Blue Air · Wizz Air (Romanian operations) · HiSky
Compiled from public encyclopedic sources (Wikipedia, Romanian aviation history sites); Vuia's and Vlaicu's precedence claims relative to other early aviation pioneers are subject to some historiographical debate.