Romania's Defence Minister Radu Miruta said on Thursday that a flight to Paris on a Spartan airplane costs around EUR 30,000, adding that the Presidential Administration paid six times more under previus President Klaus Iohannis' term for a flight on the same route.
"(...) There are two components of these flight costs. A component of the direct costs, which for the flight from Paris three or four weeks ago, on which I flew together with President Nicusor Dan, the direct costs for the penultimate flight to Paris, because the bill did not come for it, were EUR 6,720 in fuel, airport taxes, pilots' daily allowance. In addition to these costs, there is also a component of indirect costs, which means changed oils, filters, maintenance costs. These costs, if we take out the amortisation of the plane - because Romania has bought this plane anyway - stay at EUR 2,630 euros per hour of flight. Overall, the penultimate flight of President Nicusor Dan on the Spartan aircraft to Paris cost somewhere around EUR 30,000," Miruta told a news conference.
He added that between 2023 and 2024, under the former Presidential Administration, a flight to Paris was six times more expensive.
"Just as an idea, to be able to make a comparison, under the tenure of the former Presidential Administration in 2023 - 2024, a flight to Paris was six times more expensive, compared with the prices at that time. If the prices then were indexed with the current prices, the difference would probably be greater," Miruta said.
On Wednesday, a Spartan plane carrying an official Romanian delegation managed to take off from Paris around 16:30hrs, after two failed attempts during the day due to snow. The official delegation and the journalists who accompanied the Romanian president were supposed to return to Bucharest on Tuesday evening.
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