Do the Slovak Airports need the State Economic Framework for Financial Support?

Abstract

Abstract The regional airports represent not only important points of access to remote locations and parts of country but they also have major economic impact on the surrounding regions. Every public airport with commercial operations is obliged to fulfill strict requirements in connection to international safety and security requirements, which are virtually the same for small and large airports and results in high operational costs. Subsequently, small airports face several problems and it is difficult for them to break even, not only due to low throughput volumes but also limited other resources of income which represents the substantial part of middle and large airport revenues. Furthermore, small airports (with an annual throughput under 200 000 passengers) are considered not to be able to cover their operational costs and therefore, must be subsidized. Regional airports have been studied in several studies, but never with using the standard tools of ex ante financial analysis. That is why this paper pursues the actual economic situation and its further development prediction of regional airports within the Slovak Republic, while focusing on the detailed financial-economic analysis and financial situation prediction (to highlight the role of analysis through financial reports in the prediction of paying difficulties) of two regional and four “small” regional airports, through the financial stability evaluation of all abovementioned airport companies for the period of last five years, with the use of two most famous value and bankruptcy models: IN05 index created by Inka and Ivan Neumaier and the Kralicek Quick test. The main focus was given on determining the two groups of indicator´s influence, such as financial stability and efficiency, meaning the financial situation consideration. Within the analysis, we also focused on the extent of companies’ self-reliance calculation and time of their debt elimination, as well. On the basis of our research, the conclusions and several recommendations for the airports’ operators were formulated.