TAROM Romanian

Tarom use A310's for their London route but on both trips less than half full. Interior of the planes are worn but leg room generous and light loads make for comfortable travel. Inflight service perfectly acceptable. Planes parked at remote stands on both trips requiring a bus to the terminal at OTP but immigration quickly cleared and baggage very quick. Tarom fly one return trip daily and are a very acceptable option.

London-Bucharest Economy Class. Quick check-in. Boarding on-time with only about 40-45% passenger load on a Saturday morning. The plane was a deconserved Airbus 310-300 quite old but in relatively good condition. The hot meal was a choice of lamb and salmon - free wine and beer made the experience even better. Some music and video clips shown on the main TV screens soon after take-off. Flight attendants should learn to smile more to passengers.

London-Bucharest return. Reasonable food and free bar - quite modern aircraft. Prior to the flight was a little concerned about not being able to get on the BA flight - but fears were unjustified. Would use again.

Bucharest to Sofia . This route is flown by a small AT5 plane. It carries 50 passengers and (I was told) can take only 500kilos of luggage. So if you have a full plane this pans out at 10kg each. This was the case on 14 March when a number of us arrived in Sofia to find that our bags had been left behind. At a guess it was the heaviest bags that were left. So if you are taking this flight watch out.

I have flown them a few times and service seems to have improved quite a bit over the last 5 years. Never a full flight on the CDG-BUH-CDG route so finding a decent seat to stretch out is never an issue. I am not sure if anybody else has experienced this but half way through the flight after the meal service the FAs have the tendency to congregate in the back galley and smoke.

OTP-MUC. My seat slid back even without me pressing the button the earphones didnt work and the duty free computer was broken. Thank god the essential parts of the plane worked.

Chisinau-Bucharest. ATR 42-500 with leather seats. The flight was only 50 minutes so obviously didn't expect a full service but was surprised to get a tasty early morning sandwich and a good selection of drinks. Crew were friendly and did their job in a professional manner. Would certainly fly TAROM again who is the best option on the direct Chisinau- Bucharest-Chisinau segment.

VIE-OTP in economy on a rather empty Friday morning flight. It was my first flight with Tarom and I have to say I was positively surprised. I got an exit seat with very generous leg room. The aircraft was B737-300 not the newest I've flown with but clean and well taken care of. The inflight service was magnificent taken the actual flight time was only 1 h 20 min. A tasty hot meal and free drinks were served. The cabin crew was professional and polite especially the purser who smiled throughout the flight.

Bucharest to Heathrow. Only previous flight on this route was using BA and using Gatwick. All in all pretty much the same. Tarom was cheaper by about 20GBP. It is also the later flight. The onboard staff were as friendly as they needed to be and food was pretty good: beef stew with runner beans and carrots. Wasn't feeling too well so stuck to water but there was plenty of beer and wine going around as well as tea and coffee. Downsides are that they haven't developed the e-ticket yet; or at least hadn't when I booked. So I did have to queue to pick up my actual ticket before checking in at Otopeni.

London Heathrow - Bucharest in Economy. Generally a good flight and decent service for a 3 hour trip. The plane was a 737 and a bit tired as others have mentioned on this forum. My seat cushion was worn out and seriously sloping to one side. But on the flip side the place was only about 70% full so we all had some empty space about us. Food was excellent and served in generous quantities. A quick drink service preceded the meal and we had a choice of wine or beer -- both free. A welcome relief indeed from the stinginess of US airlines. On the whole not much to complain about. FA's were not the most chatty and proceeded with their work with a quiet efficiency. It would have been nice if they walked the aisles offering drink refills or at least water. I had to walk to the galley and ask for it myself. All in all a satisfactory flight and good food . Room for improvement on the aircraft and service.