The airport kept the rating at the same level, it had to borrow until the end of the year.
The Prague Airport Group ended last year with a loss of 687 million crowns due to the coronavirus pandemic and a major reduction in air traffic. The management of Prague Airport then ended in a loss of 459 million crowns. In 2019, the state-controlled company earned 4.6 billion crowns.
The airport announced its financial results in a press release today, but this is only an EBITDA figure, ie operating profit before depreciation and interest. The airport has not yet published the annual report.
“The biggest impact on the economy was negatively affected by the biggest crisis in air transport, the Covid-19 pandemic, which caused a decrease in the number of passengers by almost 80%,” Prague Airport stated in a press release. The subsidiaries Czech Airlines Handling and Czech Airlines Technics were also in the red. The airport marks the results as managing the situation with honor.
“From the beginning, we saw the crisis as an opportunity. We took advantage of the limited traffic and accelerated some projects of the necessary reconstruction and modernization of the airport infrastructure, we continued the sustainability and digitization of the entire airport. Our priority remained the safety of passengers and employees, which we supplemented with a health dimension, for which we received not only the international ACI Airport Health Accreditation certificate, but also, for the second time in a row, the ASQ Awards, which are given on the basis of passenger satisfaction.“Said Jiří Černík, Member of the Board of Directors of Prague Airport.
After a long time, Prague Airport had to borrow from banks last year. At the same time, it maintained a rating of Moody’s Investors Service on creditworthiness at Aa3 with a stable outlook, which reflects a very low credit risk.
Despite the gradual resumption of flights to dozens of destinations and increasing demand for travel, only 3.7 million passengers were handled at Václav Havel Prague Airport last year, a decrease of almost 80% compared to 2019, when the previous record of almost 18 million passengers handled for single year. At present, there are already more than a hundred destinations flying from Prague, and with the release of travel conditions, interest in travel is growing. It is estimated that aviation could return to 2019 in about four to five years.
Czech Airlines Handling (CSAH) achieved a gross operating loss of 126 million crowns in 2020. “Despite the dramatic decline in air traffic and the number of passengers handled, we managed to strengthen our position at Prague Airport, gain several new customers from airlines and increase the total volume of check-in for cargo flights. We continue to finance our operations from our own financial reserves created in previous years, and we are thus rather an exception among the competition on the handling services market in Europe., “Commented Tomáš Svoboda, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Czech Airlines Handling.
In the case of Czech Airlines Technics (CSAT), the loss was 102 million crowns. In the area of heavy maintenance, it carried out approximately 80 revisions in 2020, despite the pandemic, and managed to succeed in tenders for new customers and to expand the range of services. “We decided to respond to new market challenges and offer customers a new segment of short-term and long-term aircraft parking together with our maintenance services, we established cooperation with leasing companies, but we also extended the authorization with new types of aircraft and completed significant investments in the aircraft division. chassis. We have thus actively entered the next season and continue to develop all our divisions, “ said Pavel Haleš, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Czech Airlines Technics.
4 comments
–
