OpenSkies misses first year targets

But no threat of closure - Moss

OpenSkies, the British Airways all-premium class carrier will continue despite missing first year financial targets, its boss pledged.

Dale Moss, the airline's managing director, said the carrier would persevere despite a sharp drop in businesstravellers from its home markets.

Mr Moss said airlines' total Paris-New York business traffic had fallen 45% year on year in April, with Amsterdam-NewYork - OpenSkies' other route - showing a similar sharp decrease.

OpenSkies began flying a year ago just as the recession began and Moss admitted that the impact of the economic downturn had affected forecasts.

"We are not on the business plan that we set out, but we are not far off - we are probably nine months off where we wanted to be at this particular time," he said.

Speaking at the Business Travel Market, a new travelshow, in London, Mr Moss said OpenSkies, which operates a fleet of four Boeing 757s equipped with premium economy and business class cabins, was well able to cope with the downturn as its cost base was 20% below the legacy carriers.

He said this meant he could offer fares at roughly half the price of competitors that had a much higher fixed costbase, adding: "Never waste a crisis."

Mr Moss predicted that the industry was now at the trough of the recession.

"The good news is that we think it has stopped getting worse," he said.

But he warned that premium fares might never recover from the recession.

"Did people over-travel or did they travel at the wrong price? You bet they did. You know why airlines have had these fares, because they could. It is no longer that way," he said.

However, he predicted that the trend towards travellers swapping business class for economy would slowly reverse.

"Can you do it as a one-off, of course you can. Can you do it over an extended period of time, no - you will wish you had died as a baby," Mr Moss said.

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