Strategic Airline Alliance an

RNS Number : 6471H

Sutton Harbour Holdings PLC

25 February 2010

 



For Immediate Release                                                                                         25 February 2010

Sutton Harbour Holdings plc (the "Company" or "Group")

Strategic Airline Alliance with Eastern Airways and Trading Update

The Company is pleased to announce the creation of an alliance between Air Southwest and Eastern Airways. This alliance will enable Air Southwest to join the Global Distribution ticketing system (GDS) and broaden the sales channels through which its flights can be booked. This is anticipated to have a significant positive effect on net revenues from early in the forthcoming financial year and is the first stage of an evolving relationship between the two airline companies.

In commenting on the strategic alliance Michael Knight, Chairman of Sutton Harbour Holdings plc, said:

"This alliance will pave the way to a new UK wide regional airline co-operation and the GDS will give Air Southwest much greater visibility amongst potential customers including travel agents and the corporate market."

Chris Holliday, Chief Operating Officer of Eastern Airways, said:

"We are delighted to enter this strategic relationship with Air Southwest which will leverage a strong position in the travel agency distribution network and lead to further opportunities as the partnership develops."

The Company is also pleased to report that its regeneration and marine divisions have continued to trade well through the second half year. Transport division results, which include Air Southwest, have been affected by the prolonged cold and icy weather during both December 2009 and January 2010. Whilst airline sales have improved over recent weeks the weather related losses will undermine results expectations for the transport division. At this stage it is not yet certain whether good performance by the other two divisions will be sufficient to compensate this shortfall to fully meet Group expectations for the year ended 31 March 2010.

The Company expects to issue a pre-close trading update on or around 31 March 2010.

Notes

Air Southwest is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sutton Harbour Holdings plc. It is based in Plymouth and operates a fleet of five aircraft serving twelve destinations across the UK, Ireland, Channel Islands and France.

Eastern Airways is privately owned and is based in Humberside. It operates a fleet of 29 aircraft, spanning sixteen airports across the UK and Norway. Eastern Airways is a past winner of 'Airline of the Year' gold award from the European Regional Airline Association, and two silver awards.

GDS, Global Distributions Systems, are computer reservations systems accessible worldwide to consumers through internet gateways.

25 February 2010

Enquiries: 

Nigel Godefroy, Sutton Harbour Holdings plc                    [phone]

Natasha Gadsdon, Sutton Harbour Holdings plc               [phone]

Richard Day, Arden Partners                                          [phone]

Bobbie Hilliam, Evolution Securities                                [phone] 

Paul Vann, Winningtons Financial                                   [phone]

                                                                            Mob: [phone]

 

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