ACSA records profits for first time since 2020

ACSA

Cape Town — Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) has announced it has returned to profits for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic.

ACSA endured a few difficult years when South Africa was still under lockdown and only started making good money again once all travel restrictions were lifted for good and the tourism sector opened up again.

According to EWN, the company recorded an after-tax profit of  R472 million after it published the results of the 2023/24 financial year. ACSA operates nine airports in the country, including South Africa’s three international airports (Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban).

The airport made a significant financial comeback this year, making a profit and increasing revenues from R6 billion to R7 billion. The 2023/24 financial year also saw an increase in employee expenditure as it was able to fill vacancies following retrenchments in 2020.

The 2023/24 financial year has also seen the company increase its employee expenditure due to filling vacancies created during the retrenchment period in 2020.

There was a concern that irregular expenditure increased from R289 million to R325 million.

According to The Citizen, air passenger numbers have returned to pre-covid levels, but the volume of passengers isn’t where it was in 2019, however, it is three times that of the 2020 figures.

The earnings before interest, tax depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) increased by a mammoth 51% to R2.9 billion, which saw an increase of 16% in revenue and a 6% increase in costs.

The EBITDA figure was helped by an 8% increase in aircraft movements and a 16% increase in departing passengers. Airport tariffs increased by 4.4%.

There were also further increases in trading conditions (12%), operation expenses (6%), employee expenditure

The EBITDA figure was also helped by a restatement of prior-year financial statements after it was discovered that certain assets were being depreciated faster than appropriate. There was also an overstatement of some capital assets in 2022 and 2023, while some capex invoices had been duplicated.

ACSA’s financial statements were restated to reflect additional tax assessments by SARS, which included increases in penalties, tax owed and finance expenses.

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Compiled by Matthew Petersen

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