Norwegian airports company Avinor generated sales and rental income from duty free of NK776.6m ($91.1m) in the third quarter of 2016 compared with NK768.9m ($90.2m) in the corresponding quarter of 2015.

 

At the same time and for the full nine months ending September 2016, sales and rental income from duty free reached NK1,928.6m ($226.4m) compared to NK1,911.3m ($224.4m) for the same period in 2015.

 

Only passenger and traffic income generates more as a single channel than duty free at the Avinor Group.

 

17.5m INTERNATIONAL PASSENGERS IN FIRST 9M

In terms of passenger numbers, international traffic at Avinor airports increased by 4.7% in October, while domestic fell slightly by 0.6% compared to October last year. A total of more than 4.6m passengers travelled though Avinor’s airports, equivalent to 1.2% increase against the same period last year.

 

 

Meanwhile, in the Jan-Oct year to date period, Avinor’s airports handled a total of 17.5m international passengers (+1.8%) and 25.1m domestic (+1.3%).

 

During the aforementioned third quarter period, Avinor also reported group-operating income of NK2,960m ($347.2m) compared with NK2,941m ($345m) during the previous corresponding period. last year. Profit after tax reached NK539m ($63.2m) compared with NK521m ($61.1m) for the same period in 2015.

 

Commenting, Avinor CEO Dag Falk-Petersen said: “Avinor delivers safe and effective operations in a period with major expansion projects. Our efforts to modernise the company and make it more efficient are also on schedule.”

 

EXPANSION PROJECTS REMAIN ON SCHEDULE

The big ongoing expansion projects at Oslo Gardermoen Airport and Bergen Airport Flesland are said to be on schedule both in terms of progress and budget.

 

Avinor adds that that the Gardermoen project is approximately 97% complete and Flesland about 92% finished. The ‘new Oslo Airport’ is now scheduled to open on 27 April 2017, while the new Flesland facility is scheduled for 17 August 2017.

 

With the group’s modernisation programme on schedule, Avinor says its preliminary projected savings are above target. The programme’s targeted cost-savings of NK600m ($70.3m) a year from 2018 onwards are also said to remain on track.