New CityJet chief looks at 'challenge' to break even

ONE MORE THING:CITYJET'S NEW chief executive Christine Ourmieres has had a busy 10 months in the cockpit.

If she’s not hopping between its operations in Dublin, London and Belgium, she’s popping over to New York to see her family.

Before CityJet, Ourmieres led Air France KLM’s commercial and ground operations in the US.

She now has the controls of CityJet, which she describes as a “fabulous opportunity” and, while not ideal, the dislocation from her husband and three children “won’t be forever”.

Her task is to navigate a route back to profitability for CityJet, an Air France subsidiary. The airline lost about €20 million in the 12 months to the end of March – just under half the deficit of the previous year. Revenues were up 5 per cent so the airline appears to be heading in the right direction.

“We have a commitment to reach breakeven [this year],” Ourmieres tells me over a cuppa in the Westin Hotel this week. “It will be a challenge but it’s very important for the company, for the shareholder and for the team.”

The trick is to improve revenues and decrease costs, she adds. This won’t be easy given the volatility of fuel prices.

CityJet staff in Ireland are operating under a pay freeze and certain back office functions have been reorganised as she strives to trim its cost base.

Since taking the controls, Ourmieres has also grounded some loss-making routes while the pace of integration with Belgian carrier VLM has quickened.

In spite of the downturn, Ourmieres reports brisk business on its Dublin-London City Airport route, which carries about 90,000 passengers a year.

Dublin to Paris handles 150,000, with most of those transferring to an Air France long-haul flight. CityJet also launched a summer service to Pau in April, after Ryanair pulled out.

She says the Dublin Airport Authority has “asked us to look at some south of France destinations where they have identified a slowdown in inbound passengers”. These include Toulon and Avignon.

Ourmieres adopts a “never say never” attitude on flying from Shannon again, but it is not currently on the CityJet radar. In the meantime, CityJet will shortly launch a marketing campaign here to project CityJet as a “modern, sleek” airline and to give itself a higher profile here.

“We are a niche carrier, not a volume carrier,” Ourmieres stresses. “I want to keep that; it’s our future.”