Poland's Centralwings says to order up to 24 planes

Polish budget airline Centralwings plans to order up to 24 planes worth more than $1 billion as it eyes a bigger slice of one of Europe's fastest-growing air travel markets, its chief executive said.

Centralwings aims to place the order this year and is considering the Boeing Co. 737 and the A319 and A320 models from Airbus, CEO Piotr Kociolek told reporters on Friday.

"I hope to be able to announce an order by the end of the year," Kociolek said.

Centralwings currently flies Boeing 737 planes leased from state-owned parent airline LOT [LOT.UL].

Kociolek said LOT was also preparing to buy new planes, smaller ones seating 100 to 110 passengers.

Fuelled by expansion of the European Union and low-fare carriers establishing new routes, air travel is growing rapidly in Eastern Europe, and nowhere more so than Poland.

Kociolek said low-fares airlines carried fewer than 600,000 passengers on Polish flights in 2003, a figure expected to reach almost 4 million next year.

Centralwings, which started flights in February, expects to carry 720,000 passengers this year and 1.6 million next year.

Charter flights taken over from LOT make up over half of its flying now but Kociolek said low-fare operations would dominate beginning in 2006, with flights linking Poland and Britain and Ireland a key area of growth.

It makes money on the charter business and expects to reach break-even in its low-fares operations by 2008, he said.

Parent firm LOT announced in July it planned an initial public offering (IPO) of shares which is expected to lead to a bourse debut by the second quarter of 2006.

Kociolek said he expected the size of the IPO would be "no more than 20 percent"

(Source: Reuters)

Cheapest flights - tanie bilety lotnicze.