Johannesburg – The Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) on Thursday reported its financial results for the year to 31 March 2022, which largely reflect a difficult operating environment following the Covid-19 pandemic and last’ year’s July civil unrest.
Revenue was R3.9 billion for the 12 months, up by 81% from the R2.2 billion reported in the previous financial year.
The company narrowed its losses to R1 billion, from a loss of R2.6 billion in 2020/21.
ACSA Chief Executive Officer Mpumi Mpofu reflected that even though this year’s performance has been much better than the previous year the persistently tough operating environment has somewhat slowed down recovery.
She said that the recovery that occurred during the reporting period was supported by a gradual and intermittent recovery in passenger numbers in comparison to the previous year.
“As severe travel restrictions began to be lifted both at home and abroad, the demand for air travel increased,” said Mpumi.
The ACSA network recovered to 49% of its pre-Covid passenger throughput by 31 March, 2022.”
Domestic travel accounted for 83% of passenger traffic during the reporting period.
We are still experiencing 30% less volumes than in pre-Covid-19 travel, but the domestic market has been instrumental in driving our performance during the period under review.
“In contrast, international traffic, hampered by the impact of the Omicron variant in the third quarter of the financial year, only recovered to 28% of its pre-pandemic level.
Aircraft landings increased by 105% to 176 816 from 86 434 in the previous year and departing passenger numbers improved by 131% to 10.5 million from 4.6 million.
Mpumi said that aeronautical revenue improved significantly by 121.7%, to R1.8 billion (up from R810 million) due to the increase in aircraft landings and departing passenger numbers during the period.
Non-aeronautical revenue increased by 57.1% to R2.1 billion, from R1.3 billion in 2021.
This improvement was due to increased passenger numbers, as well as the lifting of certain trade restrictions during the various levels of lockdown.
Total revenue from non-aeronautical sources takes into account rental revenue reprieves of R591 million (2021: R1.4 billion) granted to tenants to offset the negative impact of the pandemic.
Retail revenue increased by 95.8% to R607 million (2021: R310 million) due to increased traffic volumes.
This should, however, be seen within the context of a reduction of 15.1% in retail revenue per passenger to R57.56 (2021: R67.77), meaning there was less spend per passenger.
The Capital and Operational Expenditure Reduction Programme introduced in the previous year to sustain operations in light of significantly reduced revenue, enabled ACSA to meet the liquidity challenges it faced throughout.
Reduced expenditure and a disciplined cash management process enabled the group to maintain relatively low levels of borrowings.
Capital Expenditure for the year amounted R546 million (2021: R770 million) and remained limited to maintenance and refurbishments informed by statutory requirements.
The group continues to identify efficiencies in its operations, keeping operating expenditure to a bare minimum.
Operating expenditure increased by 3.9 percent to R2 billion (2021: R1.9 billion).
The cost reduction initiatives introduced in the previous financial year continued to minimise operating costs, which have been maintained at 75.2% of pre-pandemic levels.
ACSA will continue to monitor the local and international business environment to determine appropriate responses to challenges that may arise and to ensure the company’s long-term financial sustainability.
The results for the reporting period demonstrate ACSA’s resilience in the face of the unprecedented crisis precipitated by ongoing lockdowns, travel restrictions and the need to dramatically scale back operations.
The results clearly indicate that the business is firmly in a recovery phase.
Going forward, we will continue to diversify our revenue streams and to focus our activities on the Growth Strategy which includes commercial and cargo strategies.
