The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
A NEWLY filed financial statement from the Shannon Airport Authority illustrates the damage done in a disastrous 2020.
Turnover had been €46 million in 2019, but it fell to €17.3 million in 2020. While there had been a profit of €2.7 million in 2019, last year saw a loss of €9 million before exceptional items and of €36.6 million when they were included.
The exceptional items included expenditure of just over €3 million on a voluntary severance scheme and a loss of almost €24.5 million related to an impairment of fixed assets.
While the financial performance was way back on 2019, the directors felt things could have been worse. “The Board is satisfied with the financial performance of the company in 2020 given the catastrophic impact of Covid-19.”
It noted that passenger numbers had fallen dramatically. “Passenger numbers of 350k were down 80.2 when compared to 2019. It was an unprecedented year for the aviation sector given the global impact of Covid-19 and the associated almost total collapse in airport traffic at Shannon and at airports around the globe.”
“The EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and ammoritisation and before exceptional items) of the company for the year was a negative €3.6 million, which is €10.5 million down on 2019. The company generated a loss after tax (before exceptional items) of €9.0 million, down €11.7m on 2019 profit of €2.7 million. Exceptional costs of €27.6 million were incurred in the year due to restructuring expense of €3.1 million and impairment losses of €24.5 million.
“During 2020 the company invested over €4.4 million in a number of essential capital expend projects to upgrade the airport facilities. The directors welcome the financial commitment of €6.1 million from the Minister for Transport to enable the completion of the Hold Baggage Screening Project which was suspended for part of the year due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the inclusion of the airport in the regional state airports support scheme for 2021. The company’s cash balance at December 31, 2020 was €1.2 m overdrawn.”
Owen Ryan
Owen Ryan has been a journalist with the Clare Champion since 2007, having previously worked for a number of other regional titles in Limerick, Galway and Cork.
