Heathrow’s owner has returned to profit during the first half of 2013 helped by an increase in revenue and the proceeds from the sale of Stansted.
Heathrow Ltd, formerly known as BAA, made a pre-tax profit of £186 million for the six months to the end of June 2013, compared to a loss of £51 million for the same period in 2012. Operating profit was also up from £168 million last year to £388 million, mainly due to lower costs.
The company was boosted by a 9.2 per cent rise in revenue to £1.15 billion at the UK’s hub airport and a £279 million profit from the £1.5 billion sale of Stansted to Manchester Airports Group in February.
Heathrow chief executive Colin Matthews said: “Performance at Heathrow this year is encouraging. The number of passengers using the airport increased, passenger satisfaction hit record levels and we maintained solid delivery of our service standards.”
Passenger numbers at Heathrow rose by 2.4 per cent to 34.4 million for the first six months of 2013. Traffic increased to all global regions – apart from Africa.
The airport said average load factors had increased by 1.2 percentage points to 74.4 per cent, while airlines were now using larger aircraft with the average number of seats up to 201.4 per flight, compared to 196.1 seats last year.
Heathrow added that growth had been driven by a 4.9 per rise in traffic to Europe (14.3 million passengers) while the Middle East saw a 4 per cent rise to 2.8 million passengers.
“The integration of Bmi routes into British Airways is driving increased volume,” said Heathrow in its report. “UK traffic grew modestly by 0.4 per cent to 2.3 million passengers (2012: 2.3 million), boosted by a 3.7 per cent increase in the second quarter, when Virgin launched Little Red, its UK domestic service.”
Heathrow submitted plans for a third runway to the Airports Commission last week and is due to open its new Terminal 2, which will be known as the Queen’s Terminal, in June 2014.
Matthews added: “We want to build on our achievements and continue that progress over the next five years, which is why we've submitted fresh plans to the CAA for a further £3 billion of investment, if returns to investors are fair and competitive."
heathrowairport.com