Silverjet has not turned itself into a profit-making operation - as it aimed to do - by the end of March, figures for the month reveal, but the business-only carrier did boast a record passenger load factor of 65%, filling 10,885 of 16,800 available seats.
Passenger numbers were 23% higher than February, and it is the first time the airline has sold more than 10,000 seats in a single month.
Silverjet CEO Lawrence Hunt said the economic climate was ”very challenging for all airlines,” adding: ”Although Silverjet didn”t generate an operating profit and was not cash generative in March, excluding the discontinued Flyjet operations it did record both the largest ever gross profit and the smallest operating loss since we started flying multiple aircraft, despite a further material increase in our fuel costs.
”This is solid progress towards our objective of becoming profitable as quickly as possible in a difficult market.”
Competition in the transatlantic market ” Luton-based Silverjet operates to New York as well as Dubai ” was ratcheted up a few notches at the weekend as Continental and Delta began their own routes from London to the US city under the Open Skies regime.
Asked about the viability of business-only carriers, Delta executive vice president Glen Hauenstein told media on Monday (31 March): ”That is a very difficult proposition and while it may have some very narrow applications where it can be successful, it”s not one that we can make the numbers work on.”
A Silverjet spokeswoman was bullish on the subject though, telling ABTN: ”It”ll be interesting to see what happens to [transatlantic] ticket prices ” you may see the economy seats coming down a bit, but in the business class cabins there isn”t a huge amount of flexibility.
”You can”t say you”ll be unaffected, but we”re relatively robust because we”ve got a good cost for a business product - our typical fare is just over ”1,000 ($1,980) compared to about ”3,000 on the majors.”
And she said Heathrow”s Terminal 5 chaos this week has worked out well for Silverjet.
”Luton is less congested than Heathrow, so from a customer perspective that”s attractive ” certainly on the back of what”s happening at T5. We”ve seen more traffic in the last week because of that ” we ran ad campaign on back of it, and the sales team have seen an uptake in the number of bookings and enquiries.”
Silverjet shares have gradually fallen since the beginning of March though, trading at around 13.75p this morning, up 0.25p (1.85%).