Educating Londoners is key to growth

It's an increase that the airline's chief executive Geoffrey O'Byrne White is putting down to educating potential customers about City Airport in the form of an advertising drive.

He said: "The researchers termed it as terra incognita, like the old world maps where you fly off the edge of the world. We have a big job spreading the word to the business community that London City is a high-frequency, convenient
service.

"Most of London is completely unaware of the airport. The passengers you see are usually transferring from Paris, Rotterdam, Zurich or wherever and we're putting together a network to allow people in London to fly out."

The campaign has seen it focus on smaller businesses in the capital that may in the past have used budget airlines for work-related travel.

It is a part of the sector from where the Air France-owned Cityjet believes it can tempt passengers due to factors such as the airport's proximity to central London and a service better tailored to the business traveller.

Mr O'Byrne White said: "We see ourselves as a rival to FlyBe and EasyJet - airlines not ideal for premium travellers. I see their passengers as people flying low-cost for business and leisure, but doing so under duress.

"There's no doubt the era of speculative, low cost operations has had its peak. You can see that with some airports closing because they were dependent on low cost.

"If it works it works, if not the airlines move somewhere else. It's migratory. It moves to where the money is. It's not a solid base to rest your business on."

Despite recent success for Cityjet, the airline still expects to post a financial loss this year.

It is only the staunch support of its Air France parent company, which has allowed for more flights and increased frequency, that has kept the airline strong.

However, Mr O'Byrne White has high hopes that post recession Cityjet - London City's biggest airline with 60 flights a day - has long-term profitability.

He said: "We wouldn't be doing this if we didn't see profit in the future. Most businesses are looking at a three year turnaround.

"If you look at the end of last year and the start of this year as being the worst point in the recession then we are focusing on three years' time."

Further investment from Air France saw last year's purchase of Belgian airline VLM.

Now fully re-branded into one carrier, Mr O'Byrne White sees the benefit of the airline having no real roots, making it identifiable as a European company.

He said: "As the bigger airlines become more global, the previous boundaries that define them are blurred.

"Because all the airlines come from national businesses their branding is difficult when they go global. It's why British Airways did the World's Favourite Airline campaign. But we are very much European.

"We've always been known as an Irish airline but only a small proportion of our passengers are from there. We've always been very mixed."