Sydney Airport sinks to $266.9m loss in 2021, as sale is finalised

Sydney Airport’s last report to the ASX has confirmed 2021 was even worse than 2020 for Australia’s largest gateway.

Sydney International Airport’s arrivals hall is slowing starting to fill up again. Picture: James D. Morgan/Getty Images

Sydney Airport, in its final result as a public company, has reported a full-year $266.9m for 2021.

In its final financial disclosure to the ASX ahead of the $23.6bn sale to the Sydney Aviation Alliance, the airport revealed 2021 was even worse than 2020 which ended in a $145.6m loss.

Passenger numbers for the year totalled 7.9 million, 29.5 per cent lower than the 2020 figure – down 82 per cent on 2019 levels.

As a result, total revenue fell 31.5 per cent from $919m to $630m, dragged down by steeper declines in retail and aeronautical revenue. With many shops closed throughout the terminals, retail revenue was down 32.5 per cent to $165.8m while revenue collected from airlines plunged $56m to $182m, the company said.

Parking and ground transport revenue also dwindled, due to the lack of passenger traffic, sinking 18.7 per cent to $39.9m.

Despite the challenges of 2021 which saw Sydney locked down for 108 days and international and domestic border closures, the airport’s debt position remained unchanged at $7.5bn.

Sydney Airport was suspended from trading on the ASX on February 9 after the NSW Supreme Court approved the sale to a consortium of infrastructure and superannuation funds.

The Sydney Aviation Alliance offered $8.75 a share for the airport after its previous offers of $8.25 and $8.45 a share were rejected by the board as “opportunistic” and “not in the best interests of shareholders”.

A February 3 scheme meeting saw 79 per cent of shareholders vote in favour of the sale – which will see the airport delisted from the ASX next month.

The change of ownership was not expected to make a noticeable difference to airport operations which began to ramp up this week, after borders reopened to international visitors and business travellers.

In a statement about January passenger figures, Sydney Airport chief executive Geoff Culbert said he expected numbers to build slowly as airlines added more capacity. A total of 1.2 million people passed through Sydney’s three terminals in January, well up on the same month in 2021, but still 69.4 per cent under 2019 levels.

The spread of the latest Covid-19 strain, Omicron, was largely to blame as it hit airline crews and resulted in the cancellation of more than 4000 domestic flights in January.

Routes out of Sydney were among the hardest hit by cancellations, with one in four flights to Melbourne axed, 23 per cent of services to Brisbane and one in five flights to Canberra scrapped.

The first international tourists in almost two years arrived earlier this week, with close to 10,000 passengers landed in Sydney, Mel­bourne and Brisbane from Los Angeles, Tokyo, Singapore, Ho Chi Minh City, Dubai and Doha on the first day borders reopened. Sydney scored the lion’s share with about 5000 arrivals on 26 flights on Monday.

Government data reveals there are 1.23 million student, visitor and working holiday visa holders offshore, all of whom, if fully vaccinated, will be able to enter the country.