AIA made $4m profit in 2024 — PM

The Argyle International Airport (AIA), which began operating in 2017, ended 2024 with a profit of EC$4.05 million.

Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves told Parliament that while his government had said that it expected to capitalise the airport for the first four years or so, the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of the 2021 eruption of La Soufriere volcano extended that period.

He also noted that regional carrier LIAT folded during the pandemic, even as the government had halved the departure tax to attract more regional travellers.

Gonsalves responded to a question from Opposition Leader Godwin Friday, who asked about the annual cost of operating AIA since it opened, and the amount of that annual operating cost that the airport paid for.

The PM said that in 2017, the operating revenue was EC$11.5 million and the operating expenditure was $16 million.

The subvention from the government that year was EC$7.4 million, Gonsalves said, adding that this was part of the capitalisation.

“… the surplus which was therefore in the deficit was $2.8 million,” Gonsalves said, adding that the operating expenditure involved depreciation, amortisation, general administration expenses, market expenses, and “the big item, salaries, wages, and related staff benefits”.

In 2024, the operating revenue was EC$28 million while the operating expenditure was $18 million.

“I should point out that in relation to the operating revenue, they put less direct cost in earning that particular revenue as distinct from the operating expenses, which brought it down to $23 million and at the end of the year, there was a net profit, an operating profit before a subvention, of $4.05 million,” Gonsalves said.

However, in 2021, the government gave the airport a subvention of EC$11.6 million “because that was a year, we had COVID and the volcanic eruption, the airport was basically closed,” he said.

“So, as you notice that in terms of a summary bit of information, things have been getting much better from 2022 to 2023 and, of course, 2024, these are the numbers which I’ve just given there.”

He said that the more the airport is used and the more traffic that passes through it, the more revenue it gets.

“Of course, expenditure is also increased,” the prime minister said, adding that in 2017, salaries and wages and related staff benefits were EC$7.4 million but had risen to approximately EC$11 million in 2024.

“… But yet we’re seeing that the number, the operating gain before, was $4.7 million in 2024. Those are the broad numbers. So, I think we are looking up,” Gonsalves said.

Gonsalves said the airport is a capital project that has helped to transform the country.

“… a capital project which no government before this had thought could be done, and which we built in the teeth of relentless opposition by the New Democratic Party until it became clear that it was happening, and then they begin to fall in line,” the prime minister said.  

Airport debt now $170 million

He said that without AIA, the country would not have Sandals Resort, which he said has 900 employees.

“…  and we wouldn’t have the airlines, which are coming in,” he said, adding that the debt on the airport is now less than EC$170 million.

The opposition leader asked Gonsalves if the EC$4 million profit meant there was no further need for subvention from the government.

“Once it continues in this way, the need for subvention will go the way,” the prime minister said

“… we have a number of things which we need to do in relation — to elementary things — for the expansion of the airport, which the airport can pay for itself, and we will have to still support for those purposes.”

Pressure on Wednesdays

He said that on Wednesday afternoon, when five or six aircraft, including four international carriers, land at the airport around the same time, “you begin to see some strain at immigration in terms of space.

“We begin to see some at … the baggage carousel and customs,” the prime minister said, referring to the small arrival, baggage reclaim and customs halls at the airport.

“And if I may just say this, we have 12 kiosks for immigration, … eight of them are staffed. At that hour, I’m requesting that more persons be put there, and then for the carousel, for a couple of persons there to be taking off the bags and putting them down.

“Because if four big aircraft come in, by the time you come to immigration, you’re collecting your bags, like in any airport, you take off some items.

“And then for customs… I can’t get it sufficiently across that in this modern world, where we deal with customs on the basis of assessment of risks, this tendency for some customs officers to want to search every person, every item. We have to assess risks. And we have the advanced passenger information system, which helps us.”

Gonsalves said there are “ways in which we can move the passengers more, but we are also looking at some alterations to be able to accommodate this increased passenger flow.”