Vueling December Passenger Traffic Falls 22.5 Percent

January 8, 2009

Passenger traffic at budget Spanish airline Vueling fell 22.5 percent in December, the group said on Thursday.

Vueling said fleet and cost cuts would mean an improvement in fourth-quarter results from the year-ago period.

The airline's passenger load factor rose 7.4 percentage points on a year ago to 71 percent, helped by Vueling cutting flights to cope with an economic downturn hitting Spain's tourism industry.

Vueling said it operated eight fewer planes in December compared with the same month last year, cutting its fleet by a third. This would equate to cost savings of between EUR40 million and EUR50 million over the year, the company said.

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