Founder Pat Byrne and investors purchase CityJet

Airline City

Jet has confirmed that founder Pat Byrne and a group of private investors have bought the company from its German owner, Intro Aviation.

Intro bought the Irish carrier from Air France KLM two years ago and Mr Byrne rejoined the business in February 2015 as executive chairman.

The company yesterday confirmed that he and a group of private investors, with a background in aviation, bought CityJet’s entire issued share capital from its German owner.

Mr Byrne subsequently indicated that the company could consider a stock market flotation in 2½ to three years.

CityJet specialises in short-haul and commuter services that require aircraft with up to 100 seats.

It flies between Ireland, Britain and western Europe. The carrier is one of the biggest operators in London City Airport, and runs services to there from Dublin and Cork.

It recently won a contract to operate an extensive network of services for Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) and is ordering a number of Bombardier craft to use on these routes.

Scandinavia

It recently bought Blue 1 from SAS and this now forms the backbone of its operations in Scandinavia. The Irish company also runs flights that feed passengers into Air France services from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris.

It is likely to target similar deals to that which it has agreed with SAS, known as wet leases, in the future, and to continue to build its own route network alongside that.

CityJet plans to replace its Avro 85 fleet with the new Sukhoi SSJ 100 Superjet and will take delivery of 10 of these craft this year and next. In all it has firm orders to buy 23 new craft and has options for up to 24 more.

Funding

Aviation finance specialist Falko, which is backed by US fund Fortress, funded the aircraft’s purchase.

The airline carried two million passengers in 2015 and is on course to make a small profit this year, according to Mr Byrne. He also said that turnover should increase to €300 million. It was €177 million in 2014, when the airline lost €22.7 million.

Commenting on the deal with Intro Aviation, he said that he was delighted to be part of the of the airline’s ownership again.

“The change in ownership will give us access to the necessary capital to allow CityJet to move forward and continue the transformation,” he said.

“There are lots of profitable emerging opportunities in the European regional aircraft segment and CityJet is now well placed to take advantage of these.”

Peter Oncken, managing partner of Intro Aviation, said that this is the right time to leave the business with new owners to further develop the airline.

Mr Byrne founded CityJet in 1992. He resigned as chief executive in 2000 but remained as chairman until the sale to Intro Aviation two years ago.