Gatwick Airport half year results

With just the North Terminal open, and main building not likely to be in operation until March 2022, the Gatwick Airport results for the first half of this year were in keeping with expectations, and dismal.

Just 569k passengers passed through the south London airport, whose majority shareholder is Vinci, a French construction company that is also involved with airports around the world, with Gatwick its largest operation.  

The year total for 2019 was 46m arrivals and departures with high expectation of 50m by 2020 and with the current emergency runway in line for a serious upgrade.

The loss for the first half of the year was £244m.  In a statement the airport said that the business has a strong position with £779m of liquidity including £624m of cash which is sufficient to meet operating cashflows, planned investment levels and interest payments for at least the next 12 months. This ensures Gatwick is well placed for the recovery.

Gatwick Chief Executive, Stewart Wingate, used the opportunity to echo the views of the industry in challenging the need and cost of PCR testing.  

“In the UK we are all emerging to enjoy more freedoms due to our world class vaccination programme, however we are in danger of squandering the advantage that vaccination programme has afforded us for international travel. Our Government needs to act now and remove unnecessary and costly PCR testing requirements for passengers, particularly for those double vaccinated.”

www.gatwickairport.com

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