CityJet (WX, Dublin International) will close its London office and transfer its support functions to Dublin as part of the carrier's restructuring programme, INTRO Aviation managing director and chairman of Cityjet, Peter Oncken, has told CAPA Centre for Aviation.

Following its acquisition of the loss-making carrier from Air France (AF, Paris CDG) earlier this year, Intro has sought to reposition Cityjet amid an increasingly competitive regional European market.

With a planned rebranding and relaunch due by September this year, Intro intends to spin off its Belgian subsidiary, VLM (1992) (Antwerp), into a more ACMI/Charter oriented carrier while rebuilding Cityjet's route network.

As previously reported by ch-aviation, among Intro's more pressing concerns are replacements for Cityjet's fleet of Fokker 50s and ARJ-85s which, while ideally suited to London City operations, are proving more and more uneconomical to run.

Offerings from Embraer (EMB, São José dos Campos Professor Urbano Ernesto Stumpf), Bombardier Aerospace (BBA, Montréal Trudeau), and Sukhoi Civil Aircraft (Zhukovsky) have been considered.