Airport operator in red after redundancy payout
Accounts filed to the Companies Registration Office by Connaught Airport Development show the company recorded a pre-tax loss of €24,312.
It recorded the loss in spite of revenues increasing by 20% to €12.5m.
In the accounts, the company confirmed it recorded a loss of €456,219 prior to the receipt of Department of Transport funding of €431,907. This loss included a write-down of an investment of €350,000 relating to lands at Ireland West Airport.
An airport spokesman said yesterday: “2011 was another positive year for the airport with 11% growth in passenger numbers, and the addition of five new services as well as two airline partners, Flybe and Lufthansa.
“The airport is targeting to achieve a break even situation for 2012 as it has been impacted by the loss of the Dublin Public Service Obligation (PSO) service, the exit of bmibaby from the aviation sector, and the continuing challenges presented by the industry.”
He said to counter these issues, the airport is expecting to grow top line revenue by over 10% and passenger numbers by approximately 5% this year.
The numbers employed at the airport last year reduced from 106 to 100 and the spokesman said “the airport created 40 season contract positions during 2012 as a result of new European routes”.
Passenger traffic increased by 11% last year to 654,556 and will be around 685,000 this year, he said.
The increase this year arises from Ryanair adding three new routes to Milan, Paris, and Hahn and a Leeds route with Flybe.
The directors’ report said: “The airport continued to implement cost reduction and efficiency measures to help off-set some of the loss of the PSO income.
“These measures included a reduction in operational hours and as a result, there were staff redundancies.”
The firm’s accumulated profits last year reduced to €719,797.
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