CAA business operations improved during
2003. Turnover for the enterprise reached € 219.0 million,
which was € 0.5 million more than budgeted and €
16.6 million more than in 2002. The growth in turnover from
the previous year resulted from the new security charges imposed
since the beginning of 2003 and membership of Eurocontrol,
whose requirement of equal treatment for all flights entailed
the abolition of reductions on flight path charges for domestic
flights and their raising to the same level as those for international
flights. Commercial revenues also increased by € 2.5
million from the previous year.
Because of the poor traffic trend at the beginning of the
year, the CAA began negotiations with the staff on cooperation
to achieve savings and to meet the profit target set by the
government (Council of State). During the second quarter of
the year it appeared unlikely that we should reach that target.
The aim of the cooperation process was to achieve a saving
in the budget of 2 % on staff costs and 3 % in other operative
costs. Actual CAA operating costs amounted to € 161.5
million. Although air traffic and requisite CAA services did
begin to rise at the end of the year, a saving of € 2.3
million was achieved in budgeted operating costs.
However, compared to 2002 operating costs rose by € 10.5
million. Besides a general rise in costs, the increase arose
from the extra costs relating to security inspections, higher
machine and equipment rentals and a 1.8 million euro credit
loss. The CAA received a rebate from the Finnish treasury
of € 1.0 million for pension contributions paid during
2002, which, because of a delay in the repayment could not
be entered for 2002. The rebate improves the result for 2003.
From the beginning of 2003, the CAA harmonized its system
of planned depreciations to correspond to international practice
for the industry. This meant switching from expenditure residue
write-offs to using only straight-line depreciations. As a
result of this, planned depreciations declined by € 3.2
million, to 40.8 million in 2003.
Financial items were € -1.9 million, against the sum
of € -3.8 million the year before. The change in financial
items was affected by the fall in interest rates below expected
levels on financial markets and rising share prices on stock
markets, which reduced interest payments on loans and enabled
the cancellation of write-downs already made.
Actual profit came to € 16.6 million, which was €
9.4 million better than the assigned target of € 7.2
million. The better than expected result can be largely explained
as follows:
• lower
than budjeted depreciations
|
3,1 |
| • financial items |
2,6 |
| • cost savings |
2,3 |
| • pension contribution
rebate (for 2002) |
1,0 |
