Wellington Airport increasesd profit with fewer passengers

Wellington International Airport (WIA) posted a 4.4% gain in full-year earnings to $68.2 million, even though passenger numbers fell 1.7%.

It achieved this result by squeezing more revenue out of passenger and aeronautical services.

The airport, 66% owned by Infratil, said income from passenger services rose $2.1 million and aeronautical gained $1.3 million. The airport’s annual report said that over the past 20 years, Wellington’s annual passenger numbers have almost doubled to 5.1 million.

The same rate of growth is expected in the next 20 years, and an estimated $450 million investment will be required to maintain and enhance the present facilities to cater for up to 10 million passengers a year.

“The airport’s focus will remain on cost control, providing good services to airlines and passengers and ensuring development plans progress so that future growth is not constrained by inadequate facilities,” chairman David Newman said. “Over the medium term, it is anticipated that growth in traffic will resume, but as has tended to be the case in the past, in all probability it will come in ‘lumps’.”

Newman said the New Zealand and Australian air markets are becoming increasingly integrated and new Asian airlines and Middle East based carriers are vying for market share with established Asian based carriers.

WIA’s capital works programme is to plan, with work finished on the runway upgrade, and continuing on the international terminal ‘The Rock’, Newman said.

The terminal upgrade should be completed in the third quarter of this year, and “while the master plan indicates a substantial capital works need over the next decade, immediate investment plans are modest,” he said.

Businesswire.co.nz

Comments from our readers

No comments yet

Add your comment:

Your name:
Your email:	Not displayed to the public
Comment:
Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved.

Anti-spam verification:

Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process.

Printable version

Related News

Infratil reports drop in first half profit, on track for year
Infratil to boost capex at Wellington Airport for peak-time capacity
Utilico sells down stake in Infratil
Daily ShareChat: Infratil
Daily ShareChat: Infratil
Infratil highlights its success with Trustpower
Daily ShareChat: Infratil
Infratil gains confidence on earnings outlook
Morrison looking at Port of Brisbane lease
Infratil's Snapper may get surge in sales as gap widens with cash fares

Get quotes for Infratil Limited Ordinary Shares (IFT)

NZX Annoucements for IFT