Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

Played out against a backdrop of major infrastructure developments, with the £1.5bn Shell Haven London Gateway logistics project getting the government go-ahead and the start of public consultation on the rail schemes required to serve a second runway at London Stansted, the region’s accessibility is widening.

Central and eastern Europe’s largest low fares airline, Hungary’s Wizzair, and Italian low-cost carrier Air Italy, have become the latest airlines to join Stansted’s growing route network with the launch of two new destinations.

Air Italy has linked into Verona while Wizzair also launched its first service to Stansted with direct flights to the old Polish capital of Katowice. Flights to Brussels also returned as Ryanair re-launched services to Charleroi. Stansted now flies to over 170 destinations across 35 countries.

Business class airline, Silverjet, says it is to acquire two British maintained Boeing 767-200 extended range aircraft from Thomsonfly for delivery in 2008, taking the number of Boeing 767-200 aircraft either in Silverjet’s possession, under binding contract or letter of intent to five.

Though no announcement has been made on routes, Silverjet said the new aircraft would be capable of reaching Delhi, Johannesburg, Mauritius, Shanghai and the West Coast of the US carrying 100 passengers.

Silverjet has delayed its second daily service from Luton to New York until late July while its first aircraft undergoes its C-check, a standard 18 monthly maintenance service.

easyJet’s statistics for May 2007 showed a 13.8 per cent rise in passengers over the previous year, up to 3.35m passengers in the month, while load factor dropped 0.3 per cent to 83.6 per cent overall. The 12 months ending May 2007 was also up on the previous year, 11.1 per cent to 35.2m with load factors once more dropping, this time from 84.2 per cent to 84.0 per cent.

easyJet warned that it anticipated total revenue per seat to decline in the region of five to 10 per cent for the second half of the year versus the previous year.

However, with increased momentum in cost reductions with unit costs, excluding fuel, down in excess of five per cent year on year, guidance for the year to September 2007 remains unchanged, and the company said it expected to increase pre-tax profits by 40-50 pre cent compared to the previous year.

Despite a profit warning that looks set to bring the first quarterly loss in Ryanair’s reign on the London Stock Exchange, the airline still managed to report record pre-tax profits for the year ended March 31 of €401m, up a massive 33 per cent as it flew a record 42.5m passengers, up 22 per cent on the previous year.

Europe’s largest low fare airline also said it would invest around £1bn for the purchase of 27 Boeing 737-800s, bringing Ryanair’s total firm orders for B737-800s to 308 and total fleet size (including planned disposals) to 262 by 2012. Fourteen are to be delivered between September and November 2009 and another 13 between January and March 2010.

Stansted’s public transport network was also boosted with the arrival of easyBus, a new service between the airport and central London, founded by the man behind easyJet, Stelios Haji-Ioannou.