Ebookers cheer as losses shrink
ONLINE travel agent Ebookers claimed today that the impact on air travel of last year's terrorist attacks on America is fading, with orders back to pre-11 September levels over the past two months.
'Bookings so far in 2002 have regained a strong upward momentum, indicating that the effect of the 11 September tragedy on our business is now over. First-quarter trading is strong so far,' said chief executive Dinesh Dhamija.
The group is expected to break even in the current quarter, even though losses rose in a seasonally-weaker three-month period to 31 December compared with the previous quarter. Sales in the fourth quarter fell to £39.4m from £49.4m for the previous three months.
The group's move to set up administrative operations in India and charges related to the 140 redundancies it made in Britain last September also pushed pre-tax losses in the fourth quarter up to £5.8m from the £2.6m loss posted in the three months to 30 September.
'Fourth-quarter results were in line with management expectations, given the seasonally-weaker nature of the quarter, the effect of 11 September and some duplicate costs incurred through investment in our Indian back office functions,' Dhamija said.
Ebookers expects its new office in Delhi will produce cost savings from April. The group has £20m in cash, just £3m less than at the end of September. Full-year pre-tax losses fell 31% to £25.7m on turnover up 79% to £146.6m. Losses per share shrank to 55p from 97p.
