Mr Hassan Tampuli, a Deputy Minister of Transport, has commended the Board and Management of Ghana Airports Company Limited (GACL) for steering the company out of the financial challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. Mr Tampuli, who represented the Minister for Transport, Mr Kwaku Ofori Asiamah, said the Ministry had made several interventions, including the review of the Domestic Airport Passenger Service Charge (APSC) to ease the financial burden on the Company. The Deputy Minister gave the commendation during the 8th Annual General Meeting of GACL held in Accra. He noted that the infrastructure developments at the Regional Airports were enough justification for pursuing the review of the charges and this would relieve Kotoka International Airport (KIA) of the burden of subsidising the regional airports. He said measures had been instituted by the Vice-President, Dr Mahamadu Bawumia in collaboration with the Economic Management team, to streamline the Departure and Arrival Facilitation Processes to improve KIA's competitiveness in the sub-region. Mr Paul Adom-Otchere, Board Chairman, presenting the 2021 Annual Report, disclosed that Global Passenger Traffic recovered modestly in 2021 with the ICAO impact analysis of COVID-19 on Civil Aviation revealed that the number of passengers worldwide was 2.3 billion or 49 per cent below pre-pandemic (2019) levels, up from the 60 per cent drop witnessed in 2020. He said ICAO further reported a decrease in the rate of global air traffic recovery in the first quarter of 2021 due to the sharp spike of COVID-19 infection. 'The situation stabilized slightly in the second and third quarter mainly due to rising vaccination rates and the lifting of travel restrictions in various parts of the world during the peak travel season,' he added. The Board Chairman, however, said the upward trend stalled quickly in the fourth quarter with the emergence of the Omicron variant. Mr Adom-Otchere indicated that in Ghana, Air Traffic Movements in 2021 exceeded that of 2020 by 50.4 per cent after the Government eased travel restrictions and reopened the country's borders for flight operations in 2021. 'Air traffic movements for both international and domestic showed strong growth with international growing at 53.9 per cent and domestic growing at 46.1 per cent,' he said. He said the Industrial Relations climate had remained relatively calm and peaceful as a result of deliberate and proactive steps taken by Management to resolve staff-related challenges. Madam Pamela Djamson-Tettey, the Managing Director of GACL, commended staff for their resilience and exemplary workmanship throughout the business recovery process following the overwhelming and unparalleled effect of COVID-19 and the ensuing travel restrictions on airports. She attributed the leap in variance for Air Traffic Movements for both international and domestic to the impressive growth in charters, especially cargo flights, during the pandemic, increased flight frequency by domestic airlines and flight operations on the Accra-Ho-Accra and Accra-Wa-Accra routes within the year. On the Financial Performance of the company, she indicated that a loss of about GHS252m was posted for the year ending December 31, 2021. 'This was an improved performance compared to the loss of GHS435.5m in 2020,' she said. The underlying factor, she said, was a significant increase in financial cost for the Term Loan Facility for the construction of Terminal 3 at KIA..
Source: Ghana News Agency