Manchester Airport Group Investments Limited (MAGIL) on Wednesday published its financial statements for the half year ended September 30, 2020, showing its revenue fell 81.1% to £102.4 million.
Manchester Airports Group (MAG) operates Manchester, London Stansted and East Midlands airports and is privately managed on behalf of its shareholders — Australian investment fund IFM Investors (35.5%), Manchester City Council (35.5%) and nine other Greater Manchester councils (29%).
Passenger numbers for the six month period fell 88.5% to 4.2 million.
MAGIL reported a loss of £208.3 million for its “result before taxation” compared to a profit of £186.7 million for the same period of the previous year.
MAGIL said its listed bonds in issue totaled £1.46 billion at September 30.
“Together with the £500 million revolving credit facility and a £90 million liquidity facility (both maturing June 2023), along with retained cash resources, these facilities provide the group with a long-term stable funding platform,” said MAGIL.
The group added: “Shareholders have been supportive through this period providing £300m of new equity, which together with £340 million raised through the sale of MAGIL’s non-core property portfolio contributed to a cash position of £624.6 million at 30 September 2020.
“In addition, banks and listed bondholders strongly endorsed MAGIL’s financial and strategic response by agreeing to waive financial covenant tests at September 2020 and March 2021 and an amendment to September 2021.
“MAGIL has led industry efforts to influence Government policy so that the aviation industry can fly more people in the short term and recover strongly in the medium-to-long term.
“It has helped the Government to introduce international travel corridors and then refine their application to consider islands separately from the mainland.
“MAG has called consistently for a testing regime that would allow arrivals from higher risk destinations to quarantine for a shorter period of time.
“In late November, the Government confirmed that from 15 December it would introduce a ‘Test to Release’ system.
“The new system includes many of the features of a unified proposal to the Government that MAG brought the airport industry together behind earlier in the year.
“Importantly, the Government has also set out its ambition to keep refining the system and introducing faster and cheaper tests when it is safe to do so.
“MAG has launched testing centres at all of our airports to allow customers to book any tests that they need when arriving in the UK and for those looking to travel to other countries with pre-departure testing requirements.
“Alongside our work to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, MAGIL continues to focus on preparations for the end of the UK’s transition period as we leave the European Union.
“We have put in place robust plans and arrangements to prepare the business for 1 January 2021, whatever the result of ongoing negotiations with Brussels.
“We have been trialling operational processes and ensuring they align with new post-Brexit rules and regulations – both in our terminals and around our cargo processing facilities.
“We are confident that operational disruption will be minimal.”