Declines in passengers and aircraft movements will be around 60 percent in 2020.
Icon image.
The Corona year 2020 brought massive break-ins at Salzburg Airport. The economic balance is traditionally only presented in the summer, but the number of passengers fell in the previous year by 61 percent to 669,790 people, the airport announced on Monday. At the same time, the number of flight movements fell by 59.9 percent to 6,670. There is currently no sign of easing, but the airport managers hope that the situation will normalize as soon as possible.
“It is already clear that the year 2021 will be even more difficult and challenging for the airport than 2020”, said Airport Managing Director Bettina Ganghofer in a broadcast. Due to the continued high number of corona infections across Europe, the winter season, which is extremely important for Salzburg Airport, is almost completely canceled. This will have a dramatic impact on this year's numbers.
It is currently not foreseeable how the pandemic will develop and when it will actually ease. “It is clear that the aviation industry is badly hit and many airlines are fighting for survival,” said Ganghofer. “It must be assumed that it will take three to four years for the aviation industry to recover somewhat.” The hopes of the entire aviation industry are now on the rapid administration of the approved vaccines, the containment of the Covid-19 pandemic and sensible and uniform framework conditions for healthy travel.
It hadn't looked so bad after the end of the first lockdown in the spring. The summer season got off to a good start, but after a few weeks many routes had to be suspended again due to rising corona numbers and renewed travel warnings. In the months of April to December, there was ultimately a drop in passenger numbers of over 90 percent compared to the plan.
Another unpleasant news for Salzburg Airport was the suspension of the flight connection from Salzburg to Vienna and the withdrawal of Austrian Airlines from Salzburg. “The rescue of AUA was of great importance for Vienna Airport, but unfortunately had no positive effects for Salzburg Airport. On the contrary: In the responsible ministry, our request to secure the important short-haul flight Salzburg-Vienna was not granted and the connection has been discontinued, “explained Ganghofer.
And the chairman of the airport's supervisory board, LHStv Christian Stöckl (ÖVP), did not spare me criticism. “There is still a great injustice in the fixed cost subsidy in the form that it does not apply to companies that are 100 percent publicly owned, such as Salzburg Airport. In contrast, Vienna Airport or Klagenfurt Airport, which is publicly owned is involved with 99.9 percent, this grant. This leads to a distortion of competition that is unacceptable. “
There were small successes in 2020 in the freight sector and in the general aviation sector, where the declines were limited at around eleven and twelve percent respectively. As a measure against the crisis, Salzburg Airport postponed investments that were not absolutely necessary in the previous year. The workforce at Salzburg Airport has been almost closed since April 2020 – including management and division heads – on short-time work. Natural outflows were not filled. So far, they have got through the crisis without layoffs – a goal that will also be pursued in 2021 thanks to a strict austerity program.
At the same time, the airport management was confident that the airlines will return to Salzburg as soon as possible. The Austrian base of Eurowings will remain in place and Lufthansa intends to resume the connection to Frankfurt as soon as possible and to increase the frequencies. Turkish Airlines and the English and Scandinavian partners have also announced that they will be returning to Salzburg. Airline partners with whom Salzburg Airport was in good negotiations before the outbreak of Covid-19 (such as Flynas, Flydubai, Finnair, El Al or Luxair) apparently want to keep Salzburg in focus.
