Member Article

Sky-high profits at Heathrow ahead of Cabinet decision on runway expansion

Ahead of the Cabinet committee’s decision regarding plans for a third runway on the site, Heathrow Airport reported pre-tax profit of £120m for the year ending 30 June 2015, an increase of more than 500% on the previous year (£23m) when profits were hit by a £79m charge.

Earlier this month, the North London airport received a formal recommendation from The Airports Commission, led by Sir Howard Davies, for its proposed expansion. On Wednesday, it was announced that the Prime Minister, David Cameron, would lead a Cabinet committee responsible for giving the project a final go-ahead.

The airport, which has campaigned for expansion for over a year, has continued to see footfall rise as 35.5 million passengers used Heathrow during this period, an increase of 1.3%.

Heathrow SP, the airport’s parent company, attributes its significant growth in the European market, with traffic up 2.4% in the region, to British Airway’s ‘success in filling substantially increased short haul seat capacity.’

With over a quarter of UK exports passing through the airport, cargo volume at Heathrow increased 2.1% to 742 thousand metric tonnes in the first six months of 2015, with growth primarily from North America.

Heathrow made heavy investment in the first half of 2015 in order to ‘deliver faster and smoother journeys through the airport.’ As part of a plan to improve both passenger experience and ‘airport resilience’, the airport has invested £280m of the £700m capital expenditure plan for 2015.

John Holland-Kaye, Chief Executive Officer of Heathrow, said: “Heathrow’s performance in the last six months has been excellent, improving service to passengers and controlling costs.

“The Airports Commission’s unanimous and clear recommendation to support Heathrow was warmly welcomed by business leaders and politicians from across the country and closed the debate on where a new runway should be built.

“Our focus now is on working closely with Government to deliver the benefits of expansion for all of the UK as quickly as possible.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ellen Forster .