Profits soar at Irish arm of Swissport to €9.58m

Pre-tax profits at the Irish arm of aircraft handling firm Swissport last year increased more than five-fold to €9.58m.

Swissport Ireland operates at Dublin, Shannon and Cork airports and new accounts filed by Swissport Ireland Ltd show that revenues increased by 11.5% from €59.54m to €66.41m last year.

Revenues increased after a record passenger year at Dublin airport where passenger numbers rose to 36.43 million.

The pre-tax profits of €9.58m are a 468% on the pre-tax profits of €1.68m for 2024.

The firm recorded post tax profits of €8.49m after incurring a corporation tax charge of €1.09m.

The directors state that the company continued to look at improving its range of service offerings during the year.

One contributory factor to the sharp upsurge in profits are the additional costs incurred in 2024 for “Resilience Team support and travel” that did not re-occur last year.

The directors state that the spend was necessary in 2024 due to delays in security pass processing in Dublin and these costs did not arise in 2025.

The directors state that the normalisation of the pass process eliminated the need for this supplementary resource deployment in 2025.

They state that the revenue decline from lost contracts in 2024 was reversed in 2025, with replacement contracts secured.

The directors state that this is reflected in the year-on-year revenue growth, demonstrating successful contract renewal and new business acquisition.

The increase in earnings before interest tax depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) from €2.6m to €10m in 2025 was also driven by equipment repair costs decreasing in 2025 as the Ground Support Equipment (GSE) fleet renewal programme progressed, the directors also say.

They state that with newer assets in operation, maintenance requirements reduced compared to the elevated levels experienced in 2024 when the aging fleet demanded more frequent and costly repairs.

Along with providing aircraft handling services, the firm also provided cleaning and related freight services to domestic and international airports operating from Cork, Shannon and Dublin airports.

A breakdown of revenues show that the company last year generated €47.19m in ground handling, €18.86m in cargo and €352,000 in “other”.

The company recorded an operating profit of €8.9m and net interest receivable of €675,000 increased profits to a pre-tax profit of €9.58m.

The profit for 2025 takes account of non-cash depreciation costs of €1.09m.

Numbers employed by the company reduced by 245 during the year from 1,085 to 840 but staff costs increased marginally from €39.73m to €40.12m

At the end of 2025, the firm’s shareholder funds totalled €49.07m that included accumulated profits of €48.9m.

Cash funds declined sharply from €4.62m to €165,000.

On the company’s going concern status, the directors state that recent industry analysis predicts continued air passenger growth over the going concern assessment period to 30 June 2027, with IATA forecasting passenger air traffic for 2026 to grow by 4.9% from 2025.

“While the Directors acknowledge the recent positive economic performance in Ireland, they also acknowledge the uncertainty introduced by current geopolitical events which have the potential to both positively and negatively impact the business,” the report adds.

Reporting by Gordon Deegan