New aircraft and November loads
4 December, 2007
Operational update and November Passenger and Traffic Statistics
Silverjet plc (“Silverjet”), the British airline offering a private jet experience at a fraction of the price, today announces that it has entered into an agreement to acquire two further Boeing 767 Extended Range aircraft and announces another record set of traffic statistics for November 2007.
New aircraft
Silverjet has secured two further Boeing 767 Extended Range aircraft from Thomsonfly Limited for delivery in March 2008. The aircraft have been owned and operated by Britannia Airways (now Thomsonfly) since new.
Both aircraft have the more powerful variant of General Electric CF6 engines, enabling greater take off performance and therefore range allowing Silverjet to operate on most long haul routes from its excellent base at London Luton Airport.
These aircraft have an operational range of over 9,600 kilometres (6,000 miles) from London Luton Airport, Silverjet’s base. In addition to New York Newark and Dubai, the aircraft will be capable of operating, for example, to Delhi, Johannesburg, Mauritius, Shanghai and Los Angeles carrying 100 passengers.
In keeping with Silverjet’s existing fleet, the new aircraft are fully certified for Extended Twin Engined Operations (“ETOPS”) to 180 minutes, meaning they can fly on the shortest available route over stretches of water being 180 minutes from the nearest diversion airport. This enables Silverjet to reduce flying time, for example between London and New York by up to 45 minutes compared to airlines without ETOPS, and significantly reduce fuel costs.
November 2007 Passenger and Traffic statistics
1st–30th November 2007
Available seats 13,500
Revenue seats¹ 7,459
Load factor 55.3%
On time departures² 81.75%
¹ ‘Revenue seats’ represents the number of seats generating commercial revenue and also passengers on non-refundable tickets that have not flown.
² ‘On time’ is defined as departure within 15 minutes of scheduled departure time.
The airline is pleased to announce another record set of passenger figures.
Silverjet’s London Luton to Dubai service, which makes Silverjet the first commercial airline to use Dubai’s private executive terminal, launched successfully on 18 November and figures for this route are included in the traffic statistics. Yields and load factors on this route are already exceeding expectations.
Lawrence Hunt, Chief Executive of Silverjet, said:
“We are delighted to have completed the purchase of two further high quality long range aircraft on highly attractive terms relative to current aircraft prices, and to have announced another record set of traffic statistics.
“Yields continue to strengthen which is further testament to the market endorsement of our product. We are seeing very high numbers of repeat customers and New York sales in November was the best month to date.
“The launch of our Dubai service has exceeded management’s expectations and feedback from customers and the media has been outstanding, in particular the reaction to our private terminal experience and revolutionary 30 minute check-in.
“Yields continue to strengthen and forward bookings remain strong. Despite the well publicised economic uncertainty, we believe that Silverjet is well positioned to take advantage of business travellers desire to reduce their travel budgets. Silverjet’s fares are from £999 return, representing a typical 50% discount off competitor business class fares.
“We are seeing an increasing number of enquiries from corporate customers and registrations for our frequent traveller programme, the Silverjet Set, introduced last month have exceeded 500 companies.”