Winter holiday travel boosts Auckland Airport's numbers

International passengers, excluding transits, through Auckland Airport rose 5.4% in August, a rise on the previous corresponding period, but the numbers arriving or departing were down on the July 2017 figure in percentage terms.

In July, international passengers (excluding transits) were up 8.4% on the previous year.

The airport said in a statement to the NZX winter holiday travel continued to drive growth on Pacific Island routes, up 8.3%. Travel to Hawaii was up 7.1%.

Forsyth Barr broker Suzanne Kinnaird retained an underperform rating on the airport.

Management suggested after the earlier profit announcement international capacity growth would be ``high single digits'' in the 2018 financial year.

International capacity grew 14.5% in the 2017 financial year, implying airline loads had deteriorated given passenger growth was 11%.

``Taking into account recent airline announcements, we suspect capacity growth will be less than this over 2018.''

Analysis of airline capacity announced since January suggested a rise in annualised seats of just 92,000. That did not include the benefits of new services announced in 2016 including: Qatar/Doha, Emirates/Dubai, Hong Kong Airlines/Hong Kong, Tianjin/Tianjin, Hainan/Hong Kong.

Auckland Airport said Hong Kong visitors were up 50.7% in August compared with the pcp.

``We have seen impressive growth from the Hong Kong market with visitor arrivals up 32.1% for the 12 months ending August and up 45.6% in the financial year to date.''

The latest increase was driven by the increase in daily flights between Auckland and Hong Kong following the start of Hong Kong Airlines services.

United States visitors were down 16.6% in August compared with the pcp.

Auckland Airport said the fall was driven by seasonal suspensions of United Airlines' San Francisco and American Airlines' Los Angeles routes. There were 2300 fewer weekly seats to the US in August.

In contrast, from March, capacity on the Auckland-Honolulu route was set to grow when Hawaiian Airlines increased its services from three to five flights a week and Air New Zealand added an additional 94 return services during the winter season.

Ms Kinnaird said Auckland Airport had signalled its stake in North Queensland Airports was non-core and she expected a disposal of the stake to help Auckland Airport's balance sheets needs.

Auckland Airport was in the middle of a major capital expenditure programme given the need to build capacity for passenger growth. The company expected to spend about $3 billion over the next five years, which might require additional capital.

Earlier, Queenstown Airport, in which Auckland Airport has a stake, announced its passenger volumes were 12.1% higher in August compared with the pcp. Domestic traffic was up 13.2% and international passengers increased by 10.1%.

 

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