The Group recorded a total operating income of EUR 18.1 million, which is EUR 2.1 million less than in the comparable period of last year.
In the first half of 2021, 283,495 passengers travelled through Tallinn Airport, which is 50% less compared to the same period of 2020 and 81% less than in the same period of 2019. Despite the continuing negative impact of the coronavirus, the Group earned EUR 0.1 million in net profit for the first half-year and has kept strong balance sheet, which is a significant result among the European airports.
Regardless of the increased number of passengers and flight operations and a slight recovery of tourism, the Group’s focus continues to be on efficient management of costs. The Group recorded a total operating income of EUR 18.1 million, which is EUR 2.1 million less than in the comparable period of last year. “The good results of the pre-corona period, i.e., for the first two months of 2020, can be seen in this comparison. The reason for the reduced sales revenue was lower revenue from aviation, caused by slower than expected recovery of air traffic,” said Riivo Tuvike, Chairman of the Management Board of AS Tallinna Lennujaam.
According to Tuvike, prudent management of the company continues to be important and requires also fast response. “The summer months and a somewhat improved virus situation have led to an increase in the number of flight operations as well as the number of passengers, which in turn has improved the overall financial situation of the company,” said Tuvike and added that in spite of a better-than-expected summer, the end of the year is expected to be difficult, as the company forecasts that this year’s number of passengers will be 33% of the volume of 2019, i.e., only 1.06 million passengers.
At the same time, Tuvike emphasizes that despite the difficult times, it is important to continue investing in strategically important projects. “In the first half-year, we made investments in total amount of EUR 15.9 million. For us, it is important to continue with the works of the airside area as well as the baggage area of Tallinn Airport, where we are upgrading the baggage sorting system; in addition, works continue also at Pärnu Airport. In addition to investments in concrete, also green transition continues to be important for us and we are moving daily towards achieving the goal of carbon neutrality by 2030. This means that investments in creating the ability to produce green energy, acquiring environmentally friendly machinery and increasing the overall awareness will be more important than before. In 2021, we plan to invest 35.9 million euros in infrastructure and green transition, which is 106% more than in 2020 and 252% more than in 2019.
In addition, Tuvike stressed that construction and development work is still underway at Tallinn Airport with the aim of establishing new aircraft service hangars and the cargo area. “Our goal is to create an MRO and a cargo hub in Europe with modern infrastructure and facilities! Already today, the Tallinn Airport is one of the MRO hubs in Europe and our good location between Europe and Asia gives us potential to increase the volume of cargo that we want to realise with the new MRO and Cargo City.”
Despite the small number of passengers and flight operations, keeping the high standard of service continues to be important for the airport. “The expectations of passengers have changed as a result of the crisis – the need for personal approach, going into details and finding speedy solutions has increased. I am pleased that the results of the passenger survey ASQ (Airport Service Quality) conducted by ACI (Airport Council International) on a quarterly basis confirmed that the passengers continue to be very satisfied with our service.”
In six months, 283,495 passengers travelled through Tallinn Airport and 9725 flight operations were carried out.
Tatiana is the news coordinator for TravelDailyNews Media Network (traveldailynews.gr, traveldailynews.com and traveldailynews.asia). Her role includes monitoring the hundreds of news sources of TravelDailyNews Media Network and skimming the most important according to our strategy.
She holds a Bachelor's degree in Communication & Mass Media from Panteion University of Political & Social Studies of Athens and she has been editor and editor-in-chief in various economic magazines and newspapers.
