Flybe reports profits; considering stock market listing next year
12.11.07
Privately-owned regional low-cost airline Flybe said today that it is on track to deliver £40m of savings from the former BA Connect regional airline it took over earlier this year. It also announced a £20m improvement in performance, with full-year profits of £15.6m, and plans to undertake a stock market float
Flybe said it had successfully integrated BA Connect into its business after completing its acquisition from British Airways on March 5. It is on track to deliver the cost savings and ancillary revenue after completing a rationalisation of the airline's production sites in Bristol in south west England and the Isle of Man, the closure of its Manchester head office and other restructuring measures.
The Exeter-based airline said full year pretax profits before exceptionals were £15.6m against losses of £4.4m year. Turnover increased by 16.6 percent to £355m and the airline carried 5 million passengers in the year to March 31. It has sold all the Embraer 145 regional jets that it inherited from BA Connect at price levels within the funding provided by BA for that purpose. It has also made significant progress in selling a small number of remaining BAE 146 aircraft in its fleet.
Chairman Jim French said Flybe would start looking at flotation late in 2008 or early in 2009, depending on the state of the global credit market at that time, as well as fuel prices. He said: 'We'd look to the markets towards the latter stage of the [plane] substitution programme. My instinct is the programme will completed by mid 2009.'
As reported yesterday, rival Ryanair, Europe's biggest budget airline, has suffered a share price fall this year despite impressive profit performance. There is every indication that the global credit crunch will get worse before it gets better, with a global recession a real possibility. If there was ever a time to float an airline, 2008 is unlikely to be it.
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