The airline has transported 3,5 million passengers in its first year
Clickair, the low-cost airline partly owned by Iberia, has decided to focus on business travelers and plans to become the first airline to operate at El Prat airport in November, once the new winter season flights, including those to Sofia and Athens, have begun.
Clickair's president, Carlos Losada, and CEO, Alex Cruz, presented the balance sheet for the company's first year of operation and explained that the airline is considering flying to new destinations next year, such as Cairo, Istanbul, and Tel Aviv.
The airline, which has carried 3,5 million passengers in its first year, wants to "capture" more business passengers to increase the company's profitability, according to Cruz, who said that currently 30% of Clickair's passengers are business travelers.
The idea is to maintain that percentage and increase it on routes that are more business-oriented, such as Bilbao, for example.
Clickair, which still has no plans to operate from Madrid, will begin new routes and frequencies to Sofia, Athens, Alicante, Bilbao, Oviedo, Palma de Mallorca, Las Palmas and Tenerife, hoping to become the leading airline at El Prat airport next November, "surpassing Iberia".
During the company's first year of operation, Clickair has gone from three aircraft to twenty-two, expects to close the year with 24 aircraft and reach 30 in 2008, has operated 50 routes from Spain, of which 26 were not operated by Iberia and eight of them are completely new.
Cruz has once again warned of the consequences for airlines of the current price war in the market and said that "there needs to be a rationalization of prices in the coming weeks and months" because fares need to be "more realistic," since, after fuel prices, this is what most affects revenue.
The CEO of Clickair has said that the supply of the five low-cost carriers has grown by 49% between January and August of this year, while the number of passengers has grown by 43%. This oversupply has caused the companies to lower their fares.
According to Cruz, during this period, low-cost airlines have added 11 million seats since January, of which 3,5 million were provided by Clickair.
When asked about the problems Vueling is facing, the president of Clickair said that "it's never good news for the sector when companies are having problems" and indicated that his company has no plans to buy any airlines.
Clickair is one of the companies with the highest aircraft utilization, 12,3 hours per day, and the lowest cost structure in Europe.
Another aspect the airline is working on is facilitating passenger self-connections so they can easily link two flights, since "between 4 and 5% of passengers make this type of connection," Cruz explained.
Although Clickair executives declined to provide data on the company's results or revenue, Losada indicated that they will meet their business plan this year and continue with their very tight cost policy, which gives them a "comfortable" position in the sector.
Regarding the allocation of spaces in the South Terminal, which will be made public tomorrow, Losada said that due to the quality of service and the best costs they want to be in the South Terminal and reminded everyone that Clickair is headquartered in Barcelona and it is the main airport from which it operates.
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