MILDURA Airport does not expect to return a profit following the COVID-19 downturn until at least 2024.
And a councillor has warned that will impact Mildura Council’s budget and ratepayers “for some time”.
Mildura Airport Pty Ltd (MAPL) this week tabled its 2021-22 business plan to the council’s ordinary June meeting following the “unprecedented impact” on the aviation industry and particularly regional airports.
MAPL said that while Mildura Airport’s regular passenger flights had recovered to about 85 per cent of pre-COVID-19 levels, the use of smaller aircraft by Qantas had restricted the number of available seats to only 60 per cent of movements before the pandemic.
Aviation income fell from just over $5 million in 2019-20 to $2.865 million in 2020-21 and is forecast to grow in 2021-22 to $3.822 million.
The airport recorded an operational profit in 2019-20 of almost $130,000 before the downturn in 2020-21 resulted in a $1.6 million loss.
Passenger numbers in the approaching financial year have been forecast to return to about 83 per cent of pre-COVID passenger levels, resulting in a forecast loss of about $1.56 million, while a further negative result of $613,642 has been forecast for 2022-23.
It is not until the 2023-24 financial year that the airport expects revenue to be back in the black, with a forecast $306,550 profit.
Cr Glenn Milne told this week’s meeting of councillors that the community should be aware the airport did cost the council money, although “the airport is something that we really need”.
He said MAPL had worked extremely hard to make that airport viable “and had been going fantastic up until the COVID incidence” Cr Milne.
“It is still something that is going to cost us money, it is going to impact on our budget and impact on our ratepayers for some time to come until the world settles down and we get through this COVID crisis,” he said.
MAPL said the 2021-22 financial year would be “another challenging year” and its business plan reflected some of the strategic and economic challenges over the coming 12 months.
Its business plan forecast the road to recovery would be a “long and slow process”.
“As we move into our recovery phase, we have put measures in place to ensure that we maintain costs as low as possible without compromising compliance and safety levels,” the business plan said.
“We expect that the pandemic will continue to have an impact on the airport’s business and operations for the whole of the 2021-22 financial year.”
The installation of an instrument landing system — costing the airport and Mildura Council $1 million each as well as a $2 million contribution from the Federal Government — is due to be completed by October and fully operational by December.
The airport said it would apply for “significant” federal grant funding opportunities during the 2021-22 financial year for both capital and operational projects.
