Romania has one of the smallest and oldest commercial air fleets in the EU according to a Digi24 story based on Eurostat data from 2017. But how does it fare compared to other EU nations?

The biggest commercial air fleet in the European Union belongs to the UK with 1,312 airplanes, 21 times bigger than Romania’s. From the total commercial air fleet of the EU, 6,711 planes, Romania’s 62 account for less than 1%. This number makes Romania the 20^th commercial air fleet in Europe. The top 3 air fleets in Europe, the UK, Germany (1,100 planes) and France (570 planes) account for 36% of the Union’s total. Only Latvia, Bulgaria, Croatia and Cyprus have smaller fleets than Romania.

In terms of age, the Romanian commercial air fleet has 4 planes under 5 years, 10 planes between 5 and 9 years, 9 planes between 10 and 14 years, 15 planes between 15 and 19 years and 24 planes older than 20 years. This means 39% of Romania’s air fleet is more than 20 years old, higher than the European average of 17%. In this category, only Sweden, Lithuania, Croatia, Bulgaria and Cyprus have fleets older than Romania’s, with figures ranging from 40% to 55% of their respective fleets being older than 20 years.

Romania’s largest airlines are TAROM and Blue Air, with 54 aircrafts between the two. TAROM, the state-owned company, started to renew its fleet in 2017 when it acquired two Boeing 737 Next Generation. Two more of the same aircraft were bought in the summer of 2019, reaching a total number of 25 planes.