Heathrow Ltd, the owner of, Heathrow, the UK’s busiest airport, has recorded an increase in revenue for 2012, part funded by record passenger figures.
The company saw its revenue increase by 8.1 percent in 2012, to £2.46bn. The adjusted pre-tax profit of £46.4m was a turnaround on the previous year’s loss of £166.7m, and was boosted by the arrival of thousands of athletes, officials and supporters for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games last summer. A further statistic that added to the company’s positive year was that the average amount spent by passengers that used the airport shops had risen by 4.4 percent to £5.82.
Colin Matthews, Heathrow’s chief executive, said, ‘2012 was an historic year for Heathrow. We gave a warm welcome and a smooth journey to thousands of Olympic and Paralympic athletes, and greeted a record 70 million passengers over the 12 months. We also achieved record customer satisfaction levels, with three quarters of people saying they had a ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’ experience at Heathrow. Our capital investment programme continued, with over £1 billion spent on improving the airport, mainly on the new Terminal 2, which opens next year. We also completed our refinancing programme, successfully issuing another £3 billion of bonds to put us on a stable, long term financial footing.’
The management at Heathrow Ltd announced last week that it has applied to the CAA to increase its charges to airlines that use the facility over the next few years, to pay for a programme of improvements and upgrades, a move that would almost certainly see an increase in ticket prices for passengers.
