Adria Carries 885,000 Passengers, Ends 2004 With Profit
Slovenia's national airline carried 885,000 passengers in 2004, up 2 percent over the year before. Adria Airways generated EUR 136m in revenues and finished the year with a profit of EUR 171,000, the company's chairman told the press on Wednesday.
According to Brane Lucovnik, the company finished the year with a profit despite fierce competition on the tarmac of Ljubljana's international airport, which saw the arrival of a number of foreign airlines.
Lucovnik told the press the company had been hoping to finish the year with an even bigger profit, but was nevertheless happy with the final result.
The company has bold plans for this year, as it hopes to raise its passenger numbers to 1 million by increasing the number of scheduled and charter flights. Figures from the first quarter suggest that this target can be achieved, Lucovnik said.
Lucovnik did not wish to present forecasts for this year's operations, saying that there were too many variables for a reliable outlook.
According to him, Adria is currently trying to overcome the problems that high fuel prices have caused to the aviation industry. Adria has spent EUR 1.5m more on fuel in the first quarter of this year than last year despite using more fuel-efficient jets, he said.
Nevertheless, the company expects to finish the year in the black, which would be a big achievement given how other regional airlines are doing.
The lion's share of Adria's passengers in 2004 flew on scheduled flights. However, charter flights saw better growth, as the number of passengers carried increased by 13 percent to 120,000. Adria hopes to tap further into this market this year.
New destinations for scheduled flights for this year include Warsaw and St. Petersburg, Adria's marketing director Bojan Sodnik said.
Adria, which is a member of the Star Alliance, the world's biggest airline confederation, recently expanded its fleet to ten aircraft with a long-range edition of the popular Canadair Regional Jet 200.
Adria, which operates around 140 flights each week to 40 destinations, has also been cooperating successfully with Bombardier in CRJ aircraft maintenance. In 2002 it was chosen as the first and only authorised maintenance service centre in Europe. In this time, it has serviced 189 foreign aircraft.
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