The group that owns Manchester Airport lost more than £300million during its latest financial year as passenger numbers were a third of pre-pandemic levels.
Manchester Airports Group (MAG) has posted losses of £320m for the year to the end of March while its combined losses for the last two years stand at £694m. The group owns Manchester, London Stansted and East Midlands airports and served 20.5 million passengers in the financial year.
The number of passengers passing through Manchester Airport increased by 225% to 9.1 million. Compared with 2018/19, revenues were down 80% in 2020/21 and 48% during the following year.
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The group served 20.5 million passengers in the 12 months to the end of March. That was more than triple the figure for the previous year, which was affected by coronavirus lockdowns.
However, it was just a third of the 2019/20 total as pandemic travel restrictions were in place in the UK for 11 months of the period.
MAG CEO Charlie Cornish said: "With travel restrictions in place for nearly all of the last 12 months, it was another uncertain and unpredictable year for MAG and the wider aviation industry. After tentative steps towards recovery last autumn, the emergence of the Omicron variant once again resulted in major barriers for people looking to travel internationally.
"MAG played an industry-leading role in highlighting the ineffectiveness of international travel testing, which helped pave the way for the removal of travel restrictions in spring this year. Free of those restrictions, we were confident that airlines and passengers would return quickly to our airports."
MAG airports are among those that have been affected by the widespread disruption across the aviation sector, as the spike in demand for travel has coincided with staffing shortages.
Mr Cornish added: "The pace of that recovery has brought its own challenges, and recruitment has taken longer and been more difficult than we anticipated.
"We’ve now recruited more than 1,500 new staff across MAG since January so that we can give passengers the best possible experience this summer. I am pleased with the number of new colleagues who have chosen to join our airports since January, and I am sure they will all play an important role in our recovery over the coming months and years.
"With passenger levels across MAG growing quickly back towards what they were before the pandemic, I am confident in the strength of our business and the contribution our airports will once again make for their regions and the whole UK economy."
MAG insisted it has been "working hard for several months to bring its operations back to full strength".
Since January, more than 1,500 new employees have taken up roles across Manchester, London Stansted and East Midlands airports. That is in addition to hundreds of new staff at airlines, ground handlers and retailers operating at the airports.
Waiting times at security "have improved", with 92% of passengers being processed in less than half an hour at Manchester Airport in June, according to MAG.
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