2022’s been treating me well, definitely. In May I got married and when picking where we would go to celebrate (it would be a 50-50 choice), I chose Romania as «my» part of our trip, as I really liked what I’d seen in my March visit there and I wanted to see more from that beautiful country.

Anyway, our itnerary would start and finish in Bucharest in a week’s window, so there was loads of options on what to see. Overall, I ultimately ended choosing to stay for about four days in Bucharest (two in both ends of the trip), cut in half by two days in Cluj-Napoca and another in Timișoara.

While the stint from Cluj to Timișoara would be made in an overnight train (which really was an experience in a jurassic second-hand German train), that was the perfect opportunity to try the services of Romania’s flag carrier, TAROM.

Compania Naţională de Transporturi Aeriene Române has been around since 1954, and if today the Eastern Europe market is dominated by low-cost carriers, TAROM remains strong connecting Bucharest to the major cities in Romania and in Europe.

The airline has an active fleet of six ATR 72, four Airbus A318, one Boeing 737-300, three 737-700 and four 737-800, according to Planespotters.net. It is also a member of the Skyteam alliance and also of Flying Blue, Air France-KLM’s frequent flyer program.

Anyway, while the trip from Timișoara to Bucharest I’d bought with Ryanair (for EUR9.99 per person!), in the first leg from Bucharest to Cluj we had two options: Blue Air and TAROM.

Because for the dates we needed the fares were more or less the same, I chose TAROM. Their website was, if a bit clumsy, pretty functional, and soon the bookings were in my email inbox. Apparently they send three different confirmation emails to their passengers, so I received six confirmations in my inbox.

TAROM has generally three of four flights a day between Bucharest and Cluj, while Blue Air only operates five per week, so there was also more flexibility too.

About a week before our flight, I received another email saying my flight had changed. Not the departure time, but rather the arrival, which would be 15 minutes earlier, as the operating aircraft had changed from the ATR 72 to the Airbus A318.

RO643 OTP-CLJ

Getting to and from the airport is quite straightforward in Bucharest, so long as you are somewhere near the 783 line, which goes straight to the heart of the Historic Center. I found the buses to be great, at least in that line — some 40 minutes and you’re in the terminal.

TAROM has the most visible check-in desks in the airport (you know it because of those small/discreet red «Sky Priority» boards in front of the counters) — although we had done the check-in online, I wanted to get a printed boarding pass for the collection.

I talked to a very nice check-in agent who, in less than a minute, printed them for us.

Safety screening went quite quickly as is usually the case at Bucharest Otopeni Airport, and in less than 10 minutes we were in front of our gate, in the small domestic area of the airport.

By the way the airport was flocked with ads of this new airline, HiSky, which is originally from Moldova but that only recently started operations from Romania — thus officially breaking into the European Union. It will be quite interesting to see how that goes, for this looks like a «grassroots» airline, from what I’ve read about it.

It was quite a calm Sunday in Bucharest, so boarding was started calmly and on-time.

The good part of flying domestic and low-cost from Bucharest is that the remote boarding provides great sights of Bucharest’s air traffic.

In this photo, for instance, you can see YR-BMQ, a 737-800 operated by Blue Air that had just arrived from Larnaca and would later that day proceed to Valencia; YR-ATA, a TAROM ATR 42-500 that stopped flying over two years ago; and YR-BAP, a Blue Air 737-300 that had been stored over a year ago.

Our aircraft for this day was YR-ASB. According to Planespotters.net, this A318 had been delivered brand new to TAROM on December 2006, operating for Romania’s flag carrier ever since.

ASB had just finished a one-off roundtrip to Rotterdam; after the short roundtrip to Cluj, it would later do a trip from and to Amsterdam to end its day of flying.

TAROM has the great tradition to pay a tribute to its country’s aviation heroes; this airframe carried the name of Traian Vuia, one of Romania’s aviation pioneers.

By the way, I don’t know about you, but I love TAROM’s livery; sure, it’s not the greatest livery of all time, but for me there’s something eye-catching about this sober monochromatic profile, the idea being brought forward in the years after the fall of communism in Europe. The airline’s new ATRs have brought a revised livery that’s even prettier.

While I booked the flight aiming to fly their ATR (the other option would have been on a 737), I can say it was lucky to have scored the A318. According to Planespotters, along with Air France, TAROM is the world’s last commercial operator of the type, flying four of the 15 that remain.

My last (and first for that matter) flight on the BabyBus to that point had been in March 2017, with Avianca Brasil from São Paulo to Passo Fundo.

Inside, the cabin looked quite tired with those unappealing seat patterns, although it was impeccably clean.

And legroom was plenty (we were in the second row): either way, TAROM has 120 seats in their A318s — two rows less than Air France’s, so I guess there’s also good legroom in the other seats as well.

The curtain was quite bothersome, but nothing we could do I guess. Either way, boarding proceeded very quickly; the flight was not really full, so I don’t really know why they changed aircraft (perhaps because the return flight would be fuller).

At 12h29, eleven minutes before scheduled departure, the doors were closed.

The good part of having the curtain is that the overhead screen would be as near from us as it could get.

At 12h38, engines were started. Taxi followed two minutes later.

Just before getting in the runway, we passed in front of Bucharest’s great planespotting point, of which I hope to eventually publish a photogallery of shots I made in March.

After waiting for another take-off, ASB made its way to runway 08L, accelerating and easily lifting off the ground for the hop that would take about 35 to 40 minutes.

After take-off, the screens through the cabin were opened, and started to show an air map.

But there was more to do than just that, however; TAROM advertised their «AirFi» product, a solution that many airlines are exploring lately, where passengers can stream content offered in the aircraft.

The system seemed to work quite fine…

…and the amount of options seemed to be cool and various, but since that was a flight of under 40 minutes, that didn’t really mind. Besides, I wouldn’t be so unpolite as to stay in my cellphone during my honeymoon!

There was also this channel control, but no one uses wired headphones these days and obviously TAROM wouldn’t offer them either, so I don’t know if they worked.

I thought that was it, but much to my surprise, the flight attendants passed offering water and those disposable wet towels.

But there wasn’t much time for much more, either; in no time we were descending to Cluj, Romania’s second-largest city.

At 13h22, that is, eighteen minutes before schedule, we landed at the airport’s runway 25, then performing a backtrack to head to the terminal.

Four minutes later we were parked at a remote area of the airport.

Deboarding was quite fast, and the lead FA was kind enough to snap a picture of the newlyweds (by the way, the crew was very professional despite the very brief interactions we had).

We waved goodbye to everyone and made our way to the bus, not before some pics of the empty cabin.

This logo is pure class; it has been around since TAROM’s early days.

Who knows when my next flight on the so-called BabyBus… glad I managed to fly it another time.

ASB would proceed back to Cluj in about an hour.

A quick ride on the bus followed, and very quickly we were out of Cluj’s airport, which looked quite modern, at least from the outside.

The way to the city center was also very easy to find, as there’s a trolleybus shuttle that stopped about two minutes away from our hotel.

The bus ride was electric (Romanian cities seems to have many trolleybus lines) and easy, since they also accepted contactless payment. The city was beautiful — it’s really a hidden gem and I highly recommend a visit if you have the time. Hope to be back in Romania very soon!

And that flight was a nice start to our day in Cluj, that’s for sure.

Final remarks

Well, my expectations coming into that flight were quite low. After all, even though I was quite excited for flying TAROM, one of Skyteam’s smallest members and flag carrier of a country I love, that was a 35-minute flight.

Still, TAROM did manage to impress me, really. Their website, although uninspired, was functional and buying the ticket was easy (not to mention the high number of daily flights to Cluj), the FA’s service looked great and there was even time for some service — even though it was just water, many «legacy» airlines don’t even give that in flights of this length.

With that said, of course there are some places to improve; the cabin, for instance, is really outdated, and those seats are in need of a retrofit sooner than later.

But what ultimately counts is the overall impression, and this I can say it’s definitely good. I hope I can try their product in a longer flight (and in their premium cabin) next time around to see if it’s also like this for larger hops, but for now, I’d definitely recommend giving TAROM a shot.