GERMANY. Fraport Group’s Retail & Real Estate division posted €267 million in first-half revenues, a rise of +2% year-on-year, Within this, retail alone reached €89 million, marginally down on the same period last year.
Retail revenues per passenger hit €3.24, just below last year’s first-half performance after what the company cited as a weak Q1 for retail, a stronger Q2 trend driven by a positive effect from the new Terminal 3, and despite reduced traffic volumes and a lower number of high value customers.
Passenger traffic at the company’s home airport, Frankfurt, slipped by -0.8% in the first half with almost 700,000 passengers affected by Lufthansa strikes. The geopolitical situation in the Middle East, which led to oil price increases and reduced demand for travel to the region, also prompted airlines to cut capacity.
By contrast, most airports in Fraport’s international portfolio delivered passenger growth. Particularly strong increases came at Porto Alegre (up +19.2% year-on-year), Ljubljana (+14.7%), and the Black Sea airports (Varna and Burgas) in Bulgaria (+8.8%) and Greece (+5.4%).
Fraport posted first-half revenue of €2,069.1 million, a rise of +4% year-on-year.
EBITDA climbed by +3.8% to €582.3 million though net profit fell by a sharp -47.7% to €51.6 million. The company blamed the profit performance on accounting effects, particularly in relation to the investment in new terminals at Frankfurt and Lima airports.
Fraport CEO Dr. Stefan Schulte said: “While passenger volumes in Frankfurt are stagnating due to strikes and the current geopolitical situation in the Middle East, traffic is growing at most of Fraport Group’s airports outside Germany.
“Our broad diversification strategy is an important anchor of our stability – especially during these very volatile times. Financially, we remain on track. We are therefore maintaining our forecast for the full year, in terms of our financial guidance.”
Outlook
Due to strikes, geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, and associated reduced airline capacities, Fraport management expects passenger volumes in Frankfurt to remain at around 2025 levels, at about 63.2 million. The slightly weaker traffic performance will have a restraining effect on earnings performance. Fraport’s Executive Board said it continues to expect a largely positive performance for the international airport portfolio.
Group EBITDA is expected to be higher year-on-year, in a range of up to around €1.5 billion (from €1.44 billion in 2025). The group result (net profit) is still expected to decline year-on-year. This is primarily due to increased interest expenses, as well as higher depreciation and amortisation resulting from completed expansion projects. ✈
