Taylor Swift fans and Olympic visitors helped push record-breaking numbers of passengers to travel through Heathrow between June and September, prompting the airport to consider reinstating its dividend for the first time in four years.
The UK’s biggest airport said there had been multiple consecutive weeks with record passenger numbers during the school holidays, with 30.7 million travellers passing through from June to September – bringing the total for the first nine months of the year to 63.1 million.
Heathrow said there had been a summer increase in departures because of Olympic travellers enjoying European city breaks after the Paris Games, as well as music stars playing in London, as Swift, Bruce Springsteen, Kylie and Shania Twain all staged concerts in the capital.
The airport experienced the busiest day for departures in its history on 24 July, followed by its busiest ever arrivals day on 2 September. As a result, Heathrow has increased its 2024 passenger forecast to 83.8 million, up from the 82.4 million it forecast in April.
Heathrow also raised the prospect of restarting its dividend this year. It said in a statement to the stock market that no dividends were currently forecast for 2024 but it was “probable” they would pay one, subject to financial performance.
The news comes as Heathrow made a pre-tax profit of £696m in the first nine months of the year, compared with £618m during the same period a year earlier.
The busy summer “tested our colleagues, infrastructure and airlines to cooperate harder than ever before, with record numbers of passengers travelling through the busiest two runway airport in the world”, said Thomas Woldbye, Heathrow’s chief executive.
Heathrow last paid its ultimate shareholders a £100m dividend in February 2020, just before global aviation was grounded for months by border closures and Covid lockdowns.
The company initially pledged to suspend dividends until 2022, as it asked for leniency from its lenders because of the severe disruption to air travel during the pandemic.
Over the past year, there have been substantial changes to Heathrow’s ownership, after the infrastructure company Ferrovial looked to sell most of its stake in the airport after almost two decades as its primary owner.
Ferrovial said in June it had reached a new agreement with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and the French private equity investor Ardian, which would result in it retaining just over 5% of its 25% stake in the airport. Ferrovial had previously planned to sell its entire Heathrow stake.
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The renegotiated deal is yet to be completed, although Ferrovial has previously said it hoped to finalise it by the end of 2024, subject to regulatory approval.
Ardian and PIF would respectively acquire 22.6% and 15% of Heathrow’s parent company for a total of £3.26bn, in an agreement that would lead to other stakeholders also selling their holdings.
It is unclear when Heathrow may restart its dividend, and whether the deal will have been completed by that time, leaving the airport’s new owners also in line for shareholder payouts.