Back in the black: London City Airport records first profitable year since 2019

London City Airport (LCY) has recorded its first profitable year of operations since before the COVID-19 pandemic. Financial accounts filed by the airport’s owners show that the gateway made a pre-tax profit of £6.6m ($8.64m) in 2023, returning the airport into the black for the first time since 2019.

The airport, located in former docklands in East London around ten miles from the city center and just seven miles from the Canary Wharf financial district, has struggled to return to profitability since the pandemic although traffic numbers at the facility continue to rise. In 2019, the airport recorded a profit of £47.8m ($62.6m). However, in the years since, the positive results disappeared, largely in part due to the pandemic and its resulting drop in business-related air travel.

In 2020, the airport lost £48m ($62.9m), in 2021 this reduced slightly to a loss of £45.5m ($59.6m). However, by 2022, the figure had been reduced further to a loss of just £1.1m ($1.44m). The filing of a profit of £6.6m is far from the airport’s heydays, the return into the red shows that the airport continues to travel in the right direction.

In 2023, passenger numbers using the airport rose to 3.4 million passengers, an increase of around 17% over the previous year. However, while overall revenues were up more than 20% from £85.2m in 2022 to £102.6m in 2023. this figure remains pegged well below the turnover recorded in 2019. Additionally, 5.1 million passengers used the airport in 2019, evidencing that there is still some way to go before the airport makes a full recovery.

London City Airport is owned by a consortium made up of Alberta Investment Management Corporation, OMERS Infrastructure, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, and Wren House Infrastructure Management. The airport currently offers flights to 33 European destinations operated by nine carriers  – British Airways City Flyer, SWISS, KLM, ITA Airways, Luxair, LOT Polish Airlines, Loganair, Aurigny, and Lufthansa.

Travers Lewis / ShutterstockIn August 2024, the airport received approval to increase the current passenger cap from 6.5m to 9m passengers annually. This increase will be accounted for by the addition of three extra flights in the first half hour of operations on a daily basis. However, just as the airport owners received that piece of good news, it also heard that the UK Government had blocked its application to increase the operating hours on Saturdays at the airport from 12:30 to 18:30 on environmental and potential noise nuisance grounds.

“While we welcome the approval to increase our passenger numbers, we are disappointed with the government’s decision to reject our proposal to fly from 12:30 to 18:30 on Saturday afternoons,” said Alison Fitzgerald, chief executive of London City Airport at the time of the announcement.

“As the government has recognized in its decision, rejecting our request to extend our Saturday afternoon operating hours will slow down airlines bringing cleaner, quieter next-generation aircraft to the airport. Local residents would have had the added benefit of these aircraft operating at the airport throughout the week, not just in the extended operating hours,” Fitzgerald added.

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