Passenger traffic stood at 48.5 million people, 15% fewer than in 2012, while tariffs were 10% higher on average.
However, passenger traffic went up by 1.7 million people in the first quarter of this year, reaching a total of 13.7 million.
“Results look good but have not been audited yet. We had both quantitative and qualitative goals. The former had to do with cutting operating loss down to RON392 million or the increase in productivity, while the latter had to do with the decline in the number of complaints and response time to passengers’ requests,” Alexandra Gatej told ZF. These are the first statements to the media from the CFR Calatori chairperson since her appointment to the position in March 2013.
There was no revenue goal, she added, because “65% of the revenue comes from government subsidies.”
The general manager of the company since last March is Valentin Dorobantu (40), who had previously worked for Romania’s national company in charge of highways and national roads CNADNR, the Romanian Railway Authority (AFER) and CFR SA. The board of directors of the railroad operator includes Dana Galben, who worked for CFR Calatori, CNADNR, and CFR SA, Claudiu Octavian Dumitrescu and Alexandru Petrescu.
“We applied a set of measures, we pursued cutting losses as our priority goal. We needed a competitive business model to streamline the company. This is why we made some adjustments, dropping the non-profitable routes, which had, say, seven paying passengers and cost us RON2.5 million per month to operate them.”
Gatej says that after dropping unprofitable routes the energy and diesel costs of the company went down.
“Utilities and personnel expenses are the highest. We did not operate any layoffs, about 1,000 people left naturally last year.”
Another measure was the differentiated tariff hikes by 10% on average, with the company raising tariffs by 3% on routes with loyal customers and commuters and by a higher rate on longer routes, Gatej added. (EUR1=RON4.4411)
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)