Birmingham Airport sees turnover climb despite Monarch collapse

Birmingham Airport has said it is looking to a “year of solid growth” as it reported a rise in turnover despite the collapse of Monarch Airlines affecting passenger numbers.

For the year to the end of March 2019, turnover at Birmingham Airport Holdings rose from £155.5m to £160.8m while pre-tax profit fell from £34.5m to £32.1m.

During the year, the airport processed 12,533,727 passengers, a decrease of 2.7% on 2017/18, principally driven by a 5.5% reduction in schedules passengers following the insolvency of Monarch in October 2017, but this was offset by an 11.7% growth in charter passengers.

“The average growth for the UK aviation market for the same period was 3.3% as we returned to growth following the loss of Monarch from October 2018 with a 5% increase in passengers in the second half of the year,” the airport said.

The airport, which welcomes Nick Barton as chief executive in January, said it has made “substantial progress” to replace the airline capacity lost following Monarch’s collapse, with additional aircraft from Jet2, Primera Air, TUI and Thomas Cook.

However, Primera Air, which started operations as one of the first low-cost long-haul operators, also failed later in 2018.

Passenger numbers for the summer season fell 7.6% but recovered in the second six months to grow 5% year on year, with all-time record passenger numbers in October, November and January.

The most popular destination remains Dublin, followed by Dubai and Amsterdam, the airport said.

“Birmingham Airport is already the preferred national and international aviation hub for the Midlands and our ambition is to build on this to become one of Europe’s leading regional airports, acting as a key economic accelerator, delivering great service to passengers, and helping showcase the region at the upcoming Coventry City of Culture in 2021 and Birmingham Commonwealth Games in 2022.”