CityJet, the Irish European regional airline, today unveiled its new brand and earmarked plans for future expansion, investment and job creation.
The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Paschal Donohoe TD, officially unveiled the airline’s new brand at an event today in CityJet’s Dublin Airport hangar.
Since becoming independent of Air France ownership in 2014, CityJet has developed significantly in the market and now employs almost 500 staff, with over 300 based at its headquarters in Swords, Co. Dublin, and additional crew bases in London and Paris. The new branding represents a further step forward as an independent airline and comes at an exciting time of change for CityJet.
CityJet Executive Chairman Pat Byrne announced today that the airline will open a new call centre in Dublin with effect from March next year, initially creating 15 jobs, while in the past three months it has hired almost 60 additional staff, including 24 new pilots and 30 cabin crew and four executive officers.
Mr Byrne said: “This is a new look for a new era as we continue to grow our passenger numbers and invest in our staff and fleet. Today is a special day as we bring CityJet forward with a new dynamic branding, which I would refer to as inside-out branding as it based hugely on what our staff across the airline determined it should be.”
“We are also at an advanced stage in investment in our fleet and hope to be in a position to make an announcement in the coming weeks. We expect to create further employment opportunities in the air and on the ground across our network. The opening of our new call centre in Swords will provide our customers with an enhanced service offering. We are also concurrently investing in developing our technology and customer loyalty services to ensure CityJet continues to provide excellent facilities to all customers.
The Executive Chairman said: “We will carry over two million passengers this year on our own scheduled services network, on our wet lease programme for Air France and on our charter services. We are seeing continual growth across our network as awareness of CityJet increases. CityJet is a pan-European airline, with over 70% of our passengers travelling between London and mainland Europe. Our flagship Dublin to London City route has seen a 40% growth in the last six months whilst advance bookings for our new Cork to London City service, which commences on October 1st, are strong. We look forward to introducing CityJet – and the ease of travel through London City Airport – to business and leisure passengers in Munster in a few weeks time.”
Transport Minister Paschal Donohoe, who performed the official unveiling of the new brand, said: “I am delighted to learn of the investment by CityJet in jobs in Ireland and air routes that play such a valuable and important role in helping business thrive and our tourism industry reach record levels. The launch of the Cork route in a few weeks will be a major boost to Cork and the south west. I wish the airline, its management and dedicated staff well as it embarks on a new period which offers significant potential.”
CityJet will in the coming months roll out its new brand and livery on all its aircraft and it will shortly also unveil its new aircrew and ground staff uniforms. The carrier is also launching new on board catering as part of an overall upgrading of its product.