CityJet on route to profitability

LATEST ACCOUNTS for Irish airline CityJet indicate that it is on the right flight path to profitability.

The airline recorded a loss of €8.8 million in the nine months to the end of 2011 on turnover of €238 million.

This compared with a €54.9 million loss on turnover of €316 million in the 12 months to the end of March 2011.

CityJet last year changed its year end to align it with that of its parent – Air France-KLM Group. Ironically, Air France has since decided to put the Irish subsidiary up for sale.

Will it make a profit this year? “That could be difficult,” was CityJet chief executive Christine Ourmières’s honest assessment to me this week.

Trading this year is “good” but other factors will weigh on the bottom line.

The airline expects 100 staff to have left the company by the end of this year via a voluntary redundancy scheme.

“We’ve made a good step forward this year,”she said.

Ourmières declined to comment on the sale process being run by Air France.

But she was more forthcoming about new routes – it is adding London City to Nuremberg on January 27th.

“Germany is underserved from London City airport so we think this will be a good route for us,” she said.