Cityjet booked exceptional gain of €163m from examinership

Airline no longer operates aircraft under its own brand

Latest accounts show that Cityjet last year recorded revenues of €71.6m, with this following revenues of €88m in 2020. Photograph: Getty images
Latest accounts show that Cityjet last year recorded revenues of €71.6m, with this following revenues of €88m in 2020. Photograph: Getty images

Airline Cityjet booked an exceptional gain of €163 million from its 2020 examinership. New accounts for the business in 2021 and 2020 show Cityjet DAC last year recorded a pretax profit of €408,000. This followed a pretax profit of €133.5 million in 2020 due to the €163 million gain from examinership. The gain included a write-off of loans of €126 million to connected parties, while trade creditors received a dividend of 1.25 per cent resulting in a gain of €18 million for the company. Another €11.4 million was written off from subsidiaries liquidated as part of the examinership.

The company last year recorded an operating loss of €5.09 million, with the pretax profit of €408,000 chiefly arising from an exceptional gain of €5.5 million from successful insurance claims and progress made in negotiations relating to pre-examinership liabilities.

The new accounts show that Cityjet last year recorded revenues of €71.6 million, following revenues of €88 million in 2020. The company’s directors note that revenues last year declined by 19 per cent due to the impact of Covid-19 on European travel.

Pre-Covid, Cityjet recorded revenues of €230.65 million in 2019 and employed 1,211. At the end of last year, a slimmed-down CityJet, post-examinership, employed 451. Today, it operates a fleet of 22 CRJ900 aircraft, the majority under a wet lease contract (where an aircraft and crew are supplied to a customer airline) for SAS Scandinavian Airlines, with aircraft and crews based in Copenhagen and Stockholm. The airline’s administration base is at Dublin Airport.

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Since 2018, Cityjet flights have all been operated on behalf of customer airlines; it does not fly scheduled flights under its own brand.

Last year, the bulk of Cityjet’s revenues were recorded in Sweden, with only €248,000 generated in Ireland. This compared to Irish revenues of €3.28 million in 2020. Restructuring under the heading of staff costs in 2020 totalled €7.63 million. Staff costs last year totalled €25.2 million. The company last year received Government pandemic wage subsidy support payments of €4.15 million, with this following €2.7 million in 2020 Covid-19 wage payments in 2020.

The airline’s other major costs last year were aircraft rental charges of €17.4 million and aircraft maintenance, materials and repair costs of €21.66 million. At the end of December last, the firm had a shareholders’ deficit of €21.56 million. Cash funds totalled €21.9 million.