Vueling eyes 2007 profit and fleet expansion

[Pieter C. 5]

Vueling Eyes 2007 Profit, Fleet Expansion

 

November 17, 2006

Spanish low-cost airline Vueling should move sharply into profit for the first time in 2007, and it added on Friday that its upcoming listing on the Madrid bourse would help it buy aircraft and set up a new hub outside Spain.

 

Barcelona-based Vueling said it expected to earn net profit of EUR24.2 million euros (USD$31 million) in 2007 on revenues of EUR427 million (USD$547.7 million), going into the black after its own forecast of a EUR7.1 million (USD$9.1 million) loss in 2006 and sales of EUR238 million (USD$305.2 million).

 

Vueling will have increased its fleet of leased Airbus A320s to 16 by the end of the year, flying to 12 cities around Spain as well as three Italian destinations, Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam. It plans to boost that to 37 planes by the end of 2008.

 

Chief Executive Carlos Munoz said on Friday the airline was in the early stages of talks with both Boeing and Airbus about the possibility of buying between 20 and 40 aircraft, though he did not say how likely an order was or when it might be.

 

Spain's stock market regulator on Thursday approved its initial public offering -- the first no-frills airline to list on the Spanish stock exchange.

 

"A very important increase in the network, the opening of a third base, the purchase of aircraft... this is why we're listing," Chief Executive Carlos Munoz told journalists in Madrid.

 

"The most important thing about this listing is that it puts Vueling in the Champions League of airlines in this country and probably at the European level too."

 

To expand its network and meet higher demand from outside Spain, it is also studying opening a third base outside Spain to add to its hubs in Barcelona and Madrid.

(Reuters)

 

They're doing very well in AMS: will this be their third base outside Spain and try to squeeze Air Berlin out of the Dutch market ?