Manchester Airports Group (MAG) today reports its full-year results for the period 1 April 2021 – 31 March 2022.
The results show the Group – which owns and operates Manchester, London Stansted and East Midlands Airports – served 20.5m passengers in 2021/22, up 225% year-on-year.
Despite a marked increase compared to 2020/21, the fact travel restrictions were in place for 11 months of the period meant passenger volumes were still only equivalent to 33% of 2019/20 levels.
With passenger numbers for the year remaining significantly lower than before the pandemic, and fixed costs for airport operations remaining high, MAG recorded an overall loss for 2021/22 of £320m.
MAG’s combined losses for the last two years stand at £694m, with revenues down by 80% in 2020/21 and 48% in 2021/22 compared to 2018/19.
Compared to last year, revenue and results from operations in 2021/22 were up 159% and 64% respectively.
MAG is preparing for the aviation industry’s busiest period, as the peak summer season approaches. The Group expects passenger volumes over these months to increase to levels close to those seen in 2019, leading to a fuller recovery over the course of 2022/23.
In the last financial year, 9.1m passengers flew through Manchester Airport, which was a 225% increase on the prior period, but still only 32% of pre-Covid levels. Despite the decreased numbers, due to travel restrictions, the Northern hub has marked several key milestones during the last year.
These include the opening of its Terminal Two extension, which is the centrepiece of its £1bn transformation, plus the return and addition to key long-haul routes and carriers, which connect the North to vital global destinations.
One of these was Aer Lingus, with the airline choosing Manchester Airport as its first transatlantic base in the UK with routes to the USA and Caribbean. Not only did Aer Lingus’ choice increase connectivity on these transatlantic services, but also created more than 100 jobs.
MAG CEO Charlie Cornish said: “With travel restrictions in place for nearly all of the last 12 months, it was another uncertain and unpredictable year for MAG and the wider aviation industry.
“After tentative steps towards recovery last autumn, the emergence of the Omicron variant once again resulted in major barriers for people looking to travel internationally.
“MAG played an industry-leading role in highlighting the ineffectiveness of international travel testing, which helped pave the way for the removal of travel restrictions in spring this year.
“Free of those restrictions, we were confident that airlines and passengers would return quickly to our airports.
“The pace of that recovery has brought its own challenges, and recruitment has taken longer and been more difficult than we anticipated. We’ve now recruited more than 1,500 new staff across MAG since January so that we can give passengers the best possible experience this summer.
“I am pleased with the number of new colleagues who have chosen to join our airports since January, and I am sure they will all play an important role in our recovery over the coming months and years.
“With passenger levels across MAG growing quickly back towards what they were before the pandemic, I am confident in the strength of our business and the contribution our airports will once again make for their regions and the whole UK economy.”
