France’s Vinci anticipates that its net income in 2019 will exceed the pre-pandemic levels, thanks to a rebound in its airports division. This should help bring these earnings closer to breaking even.

Even though 2021 earnings were nearly twice as high in 2020 than they were in 2020’s, infrastructure group’s last-year net income was 20% less than 2019 at 2.60 billion euros ($2.98billion).

Gatwick Airport, London, is owned by the majority. It expects that passenger numbers will recover to approximately 60% of 2019 levels in 2022. This would make the unit’s net profit close to breaking even, except for the COVID-19 healthcare crisis.

Chief Executive Xavier Huillard announced that passenger numbers in summer have improved since the beginning of the winter in the northern hemisphere. He also stated that drastic cost-cutting measures had had an initial effect on the company’s financial performance.

Global travel remains far below pre-pandemic levels, despite widespread vaccinations. Countries imposed additional entry restrictions during the winter in the northern hemisphere to stop the spread of Omicron variant.

Vinci airport traffic increased 12% from 2020 levels last year, but it remained below a third their pre-pandemic level.

According to FactSet data, the group had a record-breaking cash flow of 5.28 Billion Euros, which was well above analysts’ estimate of 3.34 billion.

Revenues also reached 49.40billion euros in 2019, while core earnings rose to 4.72billion. This beat analysts’ expectations for 4.47billion but was still below pre-pandemic levels.

Cobra IS is a business that focuses on renewable energy and was acquired last year from ACS in Spain. The company expects to earn revenues around 5.5 billion Euros by 2022.

The company’s construction business must remain active and increase its operating margin. Meanwhile, its motorways business should surpass 2019 in terms of traffic.

($1 = 0.8728 euros)