By Justin Lee (Singapore)
Mitsubishi Corporation is Japan’s largest trading company, and its business interests cover the finance, banking, energy, machinery, chemicals, and food and infrastructure sectors. Its largest shareholders include The Master Trust Bank of Japan, Ltd. (12.59% of shares) and Custody Bank of Japan, Ltd.(5.52% of shares).
Given the size of the Mitsubishi Corporation – its total assets were worth JPY18.6tn as of 30 March 2021 – the airport sector does not make up a significant proportion of its overall business. Nevertheless, Mitsubishi Corporation is involved in the airport sector through the following companies.
Fukuoka International Airport Co., Ltd. Fukuoka International Airport Co., Ltd., a joint venture composed of Fukuoka Airport Holdings Co., Ltd., Nishi-Nippon Railroad Co., Ltd., Mitsubishi Corporation, Changi Airports International Pts. Ltd., Kyushu Electric Power Co., Inc. and Fukuoka Prefecture, is the operator of Fukuoka Airport in Japan.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Statistics on Fukuoka Airport’s passenger throughput for the year 2021 are not available at the moment. Given that the Japanese government has enforced strict restrictions on international travel for much of the pandemic period, it is expected that like many Japanese airports which handled significant proportions of international traffic pre-pandemic, Fukuoka Airport has had difficulty in terms of seeing a recovery in terms of passenger traffic in the past year.
Nevertheless, an analysis of the financial performance of Fukuoka International Airport Co., Ltd., in the six months ended 30 September 2019, 30 September 2020 and 30 September 2021 showed that operating revenue in the six months ended 30 September 2020 had seen a 71.8% decline from that in the previous year due to the outbreak of the pandemic.
In the six months ended 30 September 2021, operating revenues at JPY7.97mn saw a 20.2% increase compared to that in the same period in 2020, most likely driven by an improvement in domestic passenger traffic. However, this was still 33.8% of that generated in the same period of pre-pandemic 2019.
Source: Fukuoka International Airport Co., Ltd. Half-Year Financial Performance Reports
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