Small profit for London City Airport

PASSENGER numbers through London City Airport during March were up 69 per cent on March of last year. Airport management expects throughput on a "rolling year basis" to be exceeding one million by September or October. The airport is owned by companies associated with Irish financier Mr Dermot Desmond.

The company made a small profit in 1996, the managing director, Mr Richard Gooding, told The Irish Times. Month by month profits were recorded from the middle of last year.

"We are not making a bucket of money, said Mr Gooding, who took over as managing director in August last. "But we are not losing money which was an important early target for us. We are no, longer a cash drain on our owners.

The airport was bought by companies controlled by Mr Desmond in November 1995 for £14.5 million sterling. The companies also bought land adjoining the airport for a further £9 million sterling.

In the 10 years up to the purchase the airport had made losses of up to £70 million. Mr Desmond bought it for less than three quarters of its book value.

Mr Gooding said London City Airport was owned by Mr Desmond primarily through International Underwriting and Investment. The airport company employs 140. A total of 700 people work on the airport campus.

London City Airport handled 82,210 passengers in March. Mr Gooding said business at the airport has been increasing by "60 to 70 per cent" since the middle of last year. He expects this level of growth to continue to the middle of this year.

The company's financial performance was "reasonably on line for what we were forecasting" for this year. The company is to announce a number of new routes in the coming weeks.

It will expand its domestic business when flights to Manchester and Glasgow are added to its Edinburgh route. Currently over 90 per cent of the airport's business is with the Republic and continental Europe, with over 15 per cent of business coming from its Dublin route.

"Dublin is our largest single route," Mr Gooding said. "Dublin is important to us in more than just ownership."

The company has not yet developed the adjoining lands bought by Mr Desmond or other sites' available to it. "We want to make sure that its not a speculative development," Mr Gooding said. The company had made no decision as to whether it would be involved in whatever development occurred on the land. That decision would come after a market opportunity had been identified.

There had been no significant change in the ratio of retail to aviation income. They did not want to become a "shopping mall airport", Mr Gooding said. About 80 per cent of passengers were business people and the advantage of the airport was the speed with which passengers could pass through.

"The more Heathrow continues to grow the better it is for us."