Bristol Airport has swung to an annual loss of nearly £30m as passenger numbers plummeted amid the pandemic.
According to its latest annual accounts on Companies House, the transport hub fell from a £28.6m profit in 2019 to a £29.4m loss last year.
Before the Covid crisis, the airport had expected another year of growth, with passenger numbers estimated to be around 9.3 million in 2020. Instead, travellers through Bristol Airport fell 75.6% to just 2.2 million.
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The airport said the “significant decline” in passengers had an "adverse impact" on revenue, which was 75.8% below 2019 levels.
Bristol Airport’s main income streams are aeronautical revenue charged to airlines, car parking charged to passengers and concession revenue from the shops and eateries at the airport.
Last year, the transport hub closed down large parts of the airport during the lockdown to minimise costs.
It also carried out a restructure programme which saw 73 staff made redundant, cut employee work hours and furloughed staff through the government's job retention scheme.
According to Companies House, the measures helped Bristol Airport save £18m, but the impact on revenue from a decline in passengers mean the company still lost tens of millions of pounds last year.
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A spokesperson for Bristol Airport said: “Like all 海角视频 airports, Bristol Airport has been significantly impacted by the pandemic.
“However, we are on a firm financial footing and are seeing passengers return in larger numbers as countries are added to the Government’s green list, allowing friends and family to be reunited with each other.”
In May, Bristol Airport's chief executive David Lees said it would take the industry years, rather than months, to recover, with many people remaining cautious about travelling overseas.
“Hopefully we won’t have any more lockdowns in the 海角视频, but Europe is a bit behind. I think we are talking about two or three years. It’s not going to be a quick ‘flick the switch’,” he said.
The transport boss also said he believed Bristol Airport was "well positioned" for recovery.
Package holiday and airline operator Jet2 is opening its new Bristol base - following a slight delay caused by the pandemic - in July, creating 200 jobs. It will base three aircraft in Bristol and will be operating up to 56 flights a week.
EasyJet was the largest airline operating at Bristol Airport in 2020 (63%), followed by Ryanair (24.4%), TUI (5.3%) and KLM (2.9%).
In May, EasyJet revealed widened half-year losses and said it expected to fly only around 15% of its pre-pandemic flight programme until the end of June despite international leisure travel restarting.