Manchester Airports Group intends to improve facilities at Stansted over the next two years as it aims to attract new airlines and passengers to the Essex airport.
MAG, which purchased Stansted in February from BAA, said it was confident that the airport could increase its passengers from the current level of 17.5 million per year. Stansted has seen numbers decline every year since 2007 when it catered for 23.8 million people.
“We aim to invest in the terminal infrastructure in the next two years so we can attract more passengers through the airport and begin to boost passenger numbers again,” said MAG’s chief executive Charlie Cornish in the company’s annual report.
“London will be a competitive market in the short term but we believe MAG is well placed to take advantage of growth opportunities.”
MAG has already struck a deal with Easyjet to increase its operations at Stansted while talks are ongoing with the airport’s biggest airline Ryanair about raising capacity.
Chief financial officer Neil Thompson said that Stansted would go through a “year of integration” which would “position it for growth” next year.
Expanding Stansted is also one of three options being championed by London mayor Boris Johnson as a way of increasing hub airport capacity in the south-east. This issue is currently being examined by the Airports Commission, headed by Sir Howard Davies.
“The spare capacity currently at the airport can provide solutions towards alleviating congestion in London and we have already started to submit evidence to the commission where we have advised that well-targeted policy support from government can contribute to making more effective use of existing capacity,” added Cornish.
MAG, which also owns Manchester, East Midlands and Bournemouth airports, made an operating profit of £73.6 million for the year to the end of March 2013, as revenue (excluding Stansted) rose by 5.3 per cent to £393.1 million.
Overall passenger numbers for MAG rose by 1.9 per cent to 24.5 million (excluding Stansted) with Manchester seeing a 3.6 per cent rise to 19.8 million passengers for the 2012/13 financial year and passing the 20-million mark for the 12 months to May 2013. East Midlands experienced a 6.6 per cent decline in passengers to 4 million due to the closure of Bmibaby last year.
MAG’s ownership consists of the Council of the City of Manchester (35.5 per cent), the nine other Greater Manchester councils (29 per cent) and investment firm Industry Funds Management (35.5 per cent), which was brought on board to help finance the £1.5 billion purchase of Stansted.
stanstedairport.com
magworld.co.uk