Irish carrier CityJet, a wholly-owned subsidiary of European giant Air France-KLM is set to announce an expanded schedule of services between Scotland and London City Airport, according to a report this weekend in The Scotsman newspaper. The interview with the airline’s Chief Executive Christine Ourmieres for its Scotland on Sunday edition on January 8, 2012 suggested the carrier will be establishing a new operations base in Edinburgh and was considering launching links between London City and Aberdeen.

The airline will fight to win market share from British Airways, whose BA CityFlyer subsidiary already offers flights to Scotland from London City with 42 rotations per week to Edinburgh and 22 to Glasgow. In comparison CityJet offers 15 flights per week to Edinburgh and 13 to Dundee. An estimated 333,000 O&D passengers travelled between London City and Edinburgh in the past year, with CityJet holding just a 20 per cent share of this traffic.

“The new base shows our commitment for the future – it is the next step of our development in Scotland. We will try our best against BA and are confident of winning market share. We are working with airport authorities and finalising our plans, which include improving the frequency of flights,” Christine Ourmieres was quoted as saying.