Increased passenger traffic boosts MCIA Q1 revenue

CEBU, Philippines - The private operator of Mactan-Cebu International Airport boosted its revenue by 23 percent in the first quarter of 2016 due to an increase in passenger traffic.

In a disclosure to the stock exchange, Megawide Construction said its airport subsidiary GMR-Megawide Cebu Airport Corp. (GMCAC) saw an increase in domestic and international flights.

"Domestic and international flights increased by 9 percent and 13 percent, respectively, from March 2015," publicly listed Megawide said.

Latest data from state-owned MCIA Authority showed that passenger traffic at the Mactan airport rose 12.4 percent in the first three months of 2016.

MCIA registered 2.063 million incoming and outgoing passengers (both domestic and international), up from 1.839 million in the same period last year.

Also, MCIA  registered an 11.3 percent growth in aircraft traffic from January to March to 16,414 domestic and international flights (both incoming and outgoing). That is up from 14,746 flights recorded last year. 

GMCAC's own revenue figure was not specified in the earnings report, although Megawide disclosed that revenue from operations of MCIA contributed P431 million to its net profit in first quarter which reached P573 million.

"Results from GMCAC's operations show that we are on the right track in achieving the goal we have for Megawide to be a diversified engineering and infrastructure company," Chief Financial Officer Oliver was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, construction of MCIA's Terminal 2 is currently ongoing and is expected to be operational by end of June 2018.

Megawide, together with Bangalore-based partner GMR Infrastructure Ltd. took over operations of MCIA in November 2014 through a public-private partnership scheme.

Shares of Megawide were last traded at P6.73 apiece. (FREEMAN)