Losses double at Peel Airports
THE company that runs Liverpool John Lennon and several other airports saw losses double to £26m last year.
In the year to March pre-tax losses rose sharply at Peel Airports while turnover fell 18% to £41m.
The business, which also owns Robin Hood Airport in South Yorkshire and Durham Tees Valley Airport, finished the year with a gross profit of £18m but administrative expenses grew by 8% to £29.5m and an impairment related to fixed assets cost £7.1m.
In June Peel sold a 65% stake in the company to Canadian company Vancouver Airport Services (YVRAS).
The accounts, filed just before Christmas, show that passenger numbers at Liverpool slipped 1% to five million in the year to March which the directors felt was a good result considering the economic uncertainty and bad weather disruption.
EasyJet, Ryanair, Wizzair and KLM all started new routes taking the airport’s total number of destinations to 650.
Robin Hood, now in its fifth year, saw passenger numbers tumble 15% to 804,000 during the 12 months. Peel said this reflected decisions by airlines rather than lack of consumer demand.
In June Ryanair axed its Dublin service and reduced services to Spain. TUI Travel also cut some flights last winter but has since added new routes.
Aer Lingus has also added a Dublin route and the airport continues to handle flights by Easyjet, Flybe and Wizzair. Air freight was affected by the global downturn with the quantity handled by the airport halving to 454 tonnes.
Durham Tees Valley saw the worst decline in passenger numbers of the three airports with a 54% fall to 280,000. This was down to the closure of the Flyglobespan base at the airport and Ryanair’s withdrawal of services in December 2009.
* A report published last month by aviation industry consultants RDC Aviation showed Liverpool had the largest increase in scheduled passenger numbers of any UK airport between January and September.
Some 3.9 million people flew from Liverpool during the nine months, an increase of 5.6%. Of the top 10 airports by passenger numbers only Liverpool, in tenth place, and Bristol, ninth, saw passenger growth. At Liverpool scheduled numbers jumped by 6%, or 225,526 passengers, but chartered traffic fell sharply by 53% or 17,937 people.
