Regional Air Services (RAS) of Tuzla near Constanta in Romania has invested in a Diamond DA42 which will be deployed for commercial missions and training. “When making our decision we calculated how many flight hours we intend to offer to our customers,” says training division co-ordinator Sorin Rosca. “We already operated a Diamond fleet and we had another DA42 in service. Considering our double role in the local and regional market with commercial activities and training, the second DA42 was an intelligent decision.”

He says that he is very happy with the aircraft. A full container of spare parts was purchased alongside it, and the latest DA42 was acquired just in time, as the existing unit was dispatched overseas for a three-week maintenance operation.

As well as flight training operations RAS carries out air taxi and other commercial flights across Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Moldova. “Our EASA ATO is an important private training organisation in Romania and our trainees also come from Turkey, Russia and some north African countries,“ explains Rosca.

“The configuration of the aircraft is similar to the other DA42 so it was rapidly integrated into current activities. But, most importantly, this second DA42 gives us the reassurance that we can always say 'yes' to our customers and we don't have to postpone flight operations due to lack of capacity.”

RAS' commercial activities over the last few years include transporting radioactive isotopes for medical purposes from the Romanian capital Bucharest to Sofia in Bulgaria. Prior to the acquisition this involved Rosca and the team managing ferry flights and using minibuses to transport students between Tuzla and Bucharest. “We are able now to provide both kinds of air operations simultaneously and to satisfy both types of customers,” he adds.

Rosca is proud that there were no incidents or accidents over the last 12 months and notes that there were 26,000 passengers using Tuzla airport in 2015, compared with 21,000 in 2014.

He concludes: “We await the revitalisation of aviation in our region, and will diversify the services we provide to cover more segments. We have put in our plan to create another operation base near Bucharest, at Strejnic, in order to globally reduce the costs of training for the young people that live in the capital city.

“We intend to develop a maintenance training organisation at Tuzla airport and to maintain our offshore rotary ops at the highest possible safety level.”