Chief Executive Officer Gatwick Airport Urge the government to simplify Covid testing requirements for passengers, or continue to see the United Kingdom lagging behind the rest of Europe and the United States to recover, as the UK’s second busiest aviation hub reported a loss of 245 million pounds in the first half of the year.
Stewart Wingate blamed the collapse of passenger demand and government restrictions. In the first six months of this year, the number of passengers at Gatwick Airport fell from 7.5 million in the first half of last year to 569,000, compared with 22 million in the first six months of 2019 before the pandemic.
Airport operators called on the government to remove the requirement for dual vaccinations for passengers from “green” countries and passengers from “amber” destinations. For unvaccinated travelers from the Amber area, Gatwick stated that a single lateral flow test is sufficient.
“The UK travel recovery should not be allowed to lag behind the US and Europe“,” Wingate said. “In the UK, thanks to our world-class vaccination program, we are all beginning to enjoy more freedom. However, we may waste the advantages of international travel that the vaccination program provides us. “
Gatwick said France and Germany’s travel bookings averaged more than 50% of their pre-pandemic levels, compared to 16% in the UK.
Gatwick said it has 779 million pounds of working capital, including 624 million pounds in cash, “enough to meet at least the next 12 months of operating cash flow, planned investment levels and interest payments.”
However, the company also stated that it has successfully held discussions with banks and bondholders to “solve the problem of forecast violations in financial contracts.”
Gatwick said that the reduction in capital expenditure plans means that the originally planned investment of £570 million in the three years to 2022 has been postponed or cancelled. Operating costs have been cut by nearly 35%, and staff costs have dropped by 46%. Restructuring, including layoffs of 600 people.
Wingate called the first half of this year “the most challenging six months witnessed by the airport.” However, he said: “I am still convinced that Gatwick Airport will recover. As a company, we are in a favorable position financially and operationally.”
Sign up for Daily Business Today email or follow Guardian Business on Twitter @BusinessDesk
Last month, Heathrow Airport called on the British government Open travel for fully vaccinated passengers As it disclosed, the losses caused by the pandemic have reached nearly 3 billion pounds.
The UK’s largest airport said that it had a loss of 868 million pounds in the first half of this year and that passenger demand has begun to increase. However, Heathrow Airport reported that fewer than 4 million passengers passed through its terminal in the first half of this year, a number that was surpassed in only 18 days of traffic before the pandemic.
