Europe's busiest airport London Heathrow has reported passenger numbers trebled in 2022 to 62 million amid a net loss of almost £700 million.
Airport management boasted that the post-lockdown traffic surge "was equivalent to fitting virtually all of Frankfurt’s 2022 passengers" inside its five terminals.
"Feedback from the vast majority of passengers was that they received great service, and we were pleased to be named best airport in Europe”, the airport said.
But the airport’s statement reported an annual loss of £684 million, an improvement on the £1.2bn loss in 2021, and based on £2.9bn revenue, which was in turn up on the previous year's revenue of just over £1.2bn.
The airport said it did not pay dividends in 2022 and did not plan to in 2023, after "inflation, lower passenger numbers and insufficient regulated charges impacted underlying profitability".
Despite the bad news for shareholders, the airport said it is "making good progress on decarbonising global aviation" with the creation of a £38 million incentive scheme to encourage airlines to speed up the pricey process of switching out kerosene for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).
Heathrow said it is "one of the world’s largest users of SAF" and claims to have "tripled" its SAF target in 2023.
Chief executive John Holland-Kaye, who recently announced his resignation, said “2022 may have been a year of recovery, but 2023 is shaping up to be a year of renewal for Heathrow.”
"I couldn’t be prouder of how far team Heathrow has come in my nine years as CEO – from transforming customer service, to securing parliamentary approval for expansion to surviving two years of border closures and rebuilding the business,” the soon-to-depart Holland-Kaye added, commenting on a year in which a passenger number cap was imposed due to a staff shortage.