The latest low-cost airline with plans to fly out of the Republic said yesterday that it would guarantee at least 10 per cent of its seats at a minimum one-way price of €19.
German low-cost carrier Germanwings yesterday officially introduced a four-times-a-week service between Dublin and Cologne/Bonn Airport. The first flight takes off on February 28th.
At a press conference, Germanwings vice-president Mr Heinz Joachim Schottes said that the airline would offer seats at a minimum of €19 one-way, including tax.
"We sell 10-15 per cent of all tickets at that price," he said.
Mr Schottes added that the airline would guarantee at least 10 per cent of seats would be sold for €19. He estimated that maximum fares would be around €250.
Germanwings has been operating since 1997 and has a range of destinations between Germany and other European countries. In 2003, sales hit €150 million and the airline made a profit during the peak months of June and July. Mr Schottes yesterday said that the company expected to be profitable this year.
In capacity terms, Germanwings' four flights a week will add around 29,500 extra seats a year to Dublin Airport. According to Mr Schottes, it fills an average of 80 per cent of all seats on its aircraft. By those standards, it should bring an extra 23,600 passengers through the airport a year.
It is a wholly owned subsidiary of another German company, Eurowings Luftverkehr, which carried 3.7 million people in 2002 and had sales of €584 million.
Germany's state airline has a 25 per cent stake in Eurowings Luftverkehrs, with the remaining 75 per cent held by Dr Albrecht Knauf.
He is a member of the family that controls the privately held Knauf building materials business, which generates sales of €3 billion a year and employs 18,000 people worldwide. Knauf employs 200 in this country.
