MAG at full throttle after Stansted deal
MANCHESTER Airports Group saw revenues jump 63% to £671.2m in the year to March, thanks to its acquisition of London Stansted in January 2013.
After stripping out the impact of the Essex airport revenue grew 8.4%.
Group earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) were up 58% to £242m due to the MAG deal. On a like-for-like basis MAG said this figure represented a 9% lift.
MAG said 43.8m people passed through its four airports – Manchester, Stansted, Bournemouth and East Midlands – during the year, up 4.3%. Excluding the 18 million added by Stansted, numbers were up 5.4% to 25.8 million.
Chief financial officer Neil Thompson said: “The group has delivered another strong year of financial performance, exceeding its financial targets and delivering continued growth. We’ve secured an increase of 4.3% in passenger volumes, and through continued focus on commercial drivers and operational efficiencies, have delivered significant growth and increased earnings of £242m for the year.
“The announcement of the first direct link between Manchester and China was significant and we have continued to perform well adding long-haul routes such as Charlotte, Jeddah, and Toronto at Manchester for this Summer. While there has also been an extension of European and short-haul connectivity with important route announcements from the likes of Ryanair, EasyJet, Thomson Airways, Thomas Cook and Monarch at our airports.
He added: “The initial integration of Stansted into MAG has been successfully completed and the wide-ranging development and investment into the airport is well underway. The significant activity at Stansted and across MAG this year will generate continued strong performance and growth in 2014-15 and beyond.
“The investment being made in our airport infrastructure combined with the considerable existing spare capacity means that over the short term, medium and long term we expect Stansted and Manchester will continue to play a key role in delivering UK aviation growth.”
