Perth Airport has begun chipping away at the $5 billion worth of planned infrastructure upgrades, as international passenger numbers continue to rebound from border closures.
Perth Airport has begun chipping away at the $5 billion worth of infrastructure upgrades on its books, as international passenger numbers continue to rebound from border closures.
The airport reported profit after tax of $125.4 million for financial year 2024, an uplift from $110.4 in FY23, while its revenue growth was underpinned by its aviation, retail and property divisions.
It posted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of $420.8 million, up from $403.8 million in FY23.
Its property portfolio was valued at $1.28 billion at the end of June, down from $1.47 billion as land was transferred for the planned construction of the new 3,000-metre runway.
Perth Airport is currently tendering for the new parallel runway - tipped to be open in 2028 - and expects to award the work under several contracts and break ground early next calendar year.
The only contract awarded under the $5 billion infrastructure package so far - announced in May - has been to Georgiou Group, which is working on one of two multi-storey car parks.
The majority of the funds won't be spent for the next two to three years, with only a small spend budgeted for this financial year before work starts to ramp up towards the overall 2031 completion date.
As the airport moves to deliver the major pipeline of work - including a new hotel and upgrades to the terminals - construction-related disruptions will inevitably ensue.
Perth Airport chief executive Jason Waters said the airport planned to start communicating the scope of disruptions early, like allowing extra time for drop-off and pick-up or using the airport train station.
“We're going to be very clear about it. We're going to be asking people to bear with us over the period of time between now and 2031 because with anything as significant as this, there comes interruption,” he said.
Further, Mr Waters said he did not anticipate any impact on passenger numbers through the airport, pointing to the growing numbers of people passing through the gates.
Mr Waters also pointed to fly-in, fly-out flights as informing part of the rebound thematic post-pandemic, as the routes kept operating while other flights were grounded in FY21.
In terms of price fluctuations for certain commodities and the mine closures and scale backs that often resulted, Mr Waters maintained confidence in the resources sector.
“From our perspective, from an overall FIFO point of view, we're actually pretty well diversified across that group,” he said.
“There’s news about lithium, news about other things, but from our point of view, what we're seeing is healthy growth.”
Overall passenger numbers have now surpassed pre-pandemic levels to 16.1 million travellers in FY24, up from 14.1 million in FY23.
This was led by the continued recovery of international passengers passing through the gates, at 4.3 million in FY24, up from 3.3 million in the prior period.
Regional passenger numbers hit 6 million while interstate numbers increased slightly from the prior year to 5.7 million, according to Perth Airport figures.
Mr Waters said he saw India as the next market the airport wanted to secure but acknowledged the difficulties in developing that route, including the availability of aircraft and competitiveness with the eastern states.
“From my perspective, I think we'd love to see direct flights to [South] Korea over time and we'd like to see more flights connecting more cities into and out of Asia,” he said.
“Beyond that, there's scope working maybe with Qantas in the medium term, and the other airlines, that either fly direct to or transit through Europe.”
Retail revenue grew to $64.5 million for the year, up from $50.7 million, as more food and beverage outlets came online throughout the airport.
Revenue from ground transport services increased to $135 million, as car parks experienced high occupancy rates.