Herman De Wulf/BRUSSELS
Belgian long haul airline City Bird is diversifying into main-deck freight operations with a deal to acquire two new Airbus A300-600Fs for delivery in mid-1999. The expansion comes as the low-cost passenger carrier recorded its first net profit since starting operations on 27 March,1997.
Last year, Brussels Airport handled 1.5 million tonnes of outward air freight, a large portion of which is trucked to airports at places like Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Paris, Luxembourg and Milan for onward transport to long-haul destination. City Bird hopes to tap this market for its cargo growth.
The airline revealed a profit of BFr176.5 million for the third quarter of this year compared with losses of BFr314.2 million ($9.3 million) and BFr112.3 million in the first and the second quarters of the year and heavy losses before that.
The low-cost, no-frills, specialist points to a series of factors behind the turnaround, with load factors steadily rising to 82% in the latest quarter. Overall costs continue to fall and aircraft utilisation has improved.
The result was also clearly influenced by City Bird's interline agreement with Belgium's national airline Sabena, which came into effect during the second quarter. Sabena has held a 11.2% share in City Bird since a capital increase earlier this year.
Of the City Bird fleet of three Boeing MD-11s and two 767-300ERs, Belgium's national airline wet-leased two of the MD-11s from the second quarter for services to Sao Paolo, Newark and Montreal, while Swisscargo, the Swissair freight subsidiary, hires all available cargo capacity on all of City Bird's scheduled flights.
The airline provides scheduled low-cost service from Brussels to San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Orlando and Mexico City, and operates charter flights to the US, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Cuba and Jamaica.
Source: Flight International
