It was a high-flying exercise for the managers of the airport to transparently show the bad figures for 2020, while emphasizing both the skills which made it possible to “stay the course” but also on their ” confidence ”in the future. The management of the airport thus spoke of the hope of seeing a clearer sky in the more or less long term, despite new restrictions, which can appear, disappear and reappear overnight, as in 2020.
A “broken momentum” in 2020
While 2019 was a record year in terms of traffic, leaders on Friday lamented “a broken momentum” in 2020.
Passenger traffic has fallen by 49%: to regain this level of attendance we have to go back to 1988 (less than 1,270,000 passengers passed through Pôle Caraïbes in 2020).
Pôle Caraïbes’ turnover was halved with a loss of 22 million euros.
In addition, 100 million euros of investments were frozen. The continued expansion of the airport will indeed be conditional on a resumption of traffic and better results by 2023.
However, certain “compulsory” maintenance work will start well in 2021, such as the repair of the runway, “in the second half of the year”.
New restrictions
To date, with the new restrictions and the appearance of new variants, the outlook for the airport is uncertain. Regarding the septaine and the imperative reason (soon to be compulsory again to travel to the archipelago), Alain Bièvre, the Chairman of the Management Board of the Guadeloupe Pôle Caraïbes airport company, mentions the months of “June and November” 2020: “we had the same constraints ”.
He thus expects from experience passenger traffic “which will not exceed 30% of the activity that is traditionally done at the start of the year”. However, “the airport as the airlines understand these decisions”, with the hope that this period will follow a new “improvement” such as that known from December 15, 2020.
“Bankers I love you! “
Airport management intends to “stay the course” and eventually regain the good figures of past years. According to projections, Alain Bièvre, hopes to find “in 2025” the traffic of 2019 and then create “even more values”.
“Ladies and Gentlemen bankers, I love you, we have never needed you so much, we take care of you!” He said with humor to some members of the assembly.
As a result of the crisis, the airport contracted new debts to the tune of “33 million euros” in 2020. That year, if state aid “made it possible to hold” and keep the cash at flood, “it will be necessary to repay” the money owed, underlined Alain Bièvre. The leader awaits the announcement of “additional measures” to overcome this difficult course.
“We are mortgaging the future a little,” he declared.
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