Airports see drop in passenger traffic

Passenger numbers at international airports in the Czech Republic dropped in 2009 owing to the economic crisis, and some airports ended the year in a loss, according to Prague Daily Monitor.

Passenger numbers at the Prague-Ruzyne airport dropped by 8 percent last year. The Mosnov airport reported a 13 percent decline in passenger numbers, the airport in Karlovy Vary a fall of one-tenth and the Pardubice airport a slump of almost a half. Both Mosnov and Pardubice airports expect a loss for 2009.

The Prague airport cleared 11.6 million passengers last year, a drop of around 8 percent compared with the record year 2008, according to preliminary results.

Passenger numbers declined year-on-year in all months until end-October. Results in November and December were better by several percent than in 2008.

"I believe passenger numbers will increase also in the months to come," the airport's director Miroslav Dvorak said.

The company Letiste Ostrava, which operates the Mosnov airport in Ostrava, northern Moravia, expects to post a loss of up to Kc10m for last year. The economic result could thus be better than in 2008 when the firm sank into a Kc15.8m loss.

"The negative economic result was influenced the most by the global crisis. This is confirmed by last year's sales from aviation activities. The fall in them alone amounted to Kc13.8m," the airport's spokeswoman Michaela Kubesova said.

The airport cleared more than 307,000 passenger last year compared with 354,000 in 2008.

The airport Karlovy Vary - Olsova Vrata, which cleared 73,500 passengers in 2009, expects a profit of around Kc3.5m for 2009, about the same as a year earlier, the airport's head Vaclav Cerny said.

The airport reckons with a profit in its business plan for this year, too, although the figure should be lower, said Cerny.

East Bohemian Airport, the operator of the airport in Pardubice, eastern Bohemia, sustained a loss of almost Kc11m in 2009 after years of profits.

"We will end in a loss but we will manage to cover it from the profits posted in the past years. We will not collapse and we do not need any subsidies from the municipal or regional authority," East Bohemian Airport head Jan Andrlik said.

The company's sales fell by around a half last year, just like its passenger numbers.
 

Source: Transportweekly