Flughafen Wien Aktiengesellschaft ($FLU)

You already saw our main results, and we had a moderate revenue and earnings increase in Q1 '26. Revenue up 6.1%, EBITDA up 8.2%, and group net profit up 5.3%. We saw overall a positive traffic development in the group with 5.3% plus, especially resulting in strong growth in Malta and Košice. In Vienna, it was 1.6%, including Air India transit passengers in the refueling stops. We saw a positive non-aviation performance, higher de-icing revenues and no winter incentive compared to 2025, which positively contributed to our results. We successfully implemented and are still in the process of implementation of our cost saving and efficiency measures. And I hope we can realize all the plans throughout the year. Clearly, the Middle East conflict is increasing uncertainty for the coming months. And hopefully, these negative effects will stop very soon. What might be of more importance midterm, at least are the effects of higher fuel costs, which might result in some airline capacity adjustments and also higher ticket prices by many of the carriers to offset these additional costs. Despite all that uncertainty, we can confirm our passenger and financial outlook for 2026 so far. And I hope that the rest of the year will not prove us wrong. If we move on, you see that our financial results are positive, also reduced by half due to the fact that interest rates came down on the one hand. And on the other hand, we are spending cash. So the overall amount is also slightly melting down. The termination of the winter incentive last year had a positive effect for this first quarter and overall development was also supported by higher de-icing revenues as we had a very harsh winter in January and February. If we move on, you see a slight margin improvement and overall good cost discipline. Personnel costs still are slightly going up, which is the result of the salary increase last year. And we now will see step-by-step the effects of a decline in the number of employees throughout the year. Our new collective agreement with the trade unions was signed and is valid starting of 1st of May, and it includes a salary rise of 2.4%, which is 1% below inflation. We saw higher maintenance expenses and additional expenditures for environmental measures for our neighbors. Overall, EBITDA margin and EBIT margin was slightly increased and moved in a positive direction. Looking at the cash flow, you see not dramatic changes. CapEx is up to EUR 85.8 million. And the biggest project is the South Expansion but we already also started Office Park 4 and investments in Malta with 11%. The decline in the cash flow from operating activities is attributable to higher income tax payments, a reduction in liabilities and payments of incentives for the financial year 2025. Net liquidity remains at EUR 407 million compared to EUR 413 million year-on-year. And it will be substantially reduced now due to the dividend payment which will follow the approval of our dividend proposal by the Annual General Meeting on the 3rd of June. Despite the reductions in traffic, we will see in Vienna this year, we continue investing in quality and capacity, especially in our terminal projects. And the total CapEx for 2026 will amount to roughly EUR 330 million and will most likely continue in the following years. It will very much depend on the framework, whether we see growth and we see positive expectations. So we started the planning of the different projects and the realization will then be subject to the actual figures and expectation when we come there. So the main projects are the Terminal 3 Southern expansion, the remodeling of parts of Terminal 3 due to this new building and following then the extension of Pier North. Office Park 4 next, which is already under construction. And important projects will be the development of a new zone for settlements and an increase of the land used by our airport, but also Apron electrification, grid expansion, the icing areas, expansion of aircraft, parking positions in Pier North and the renewal of passenger boarding bridges. In the case of Malta, the terminal is expanded due to the very, very substantial growth. The runway is modernized and also the airport Apron is expanded. And the SkyPark 2 office building is on the way and also the car park expansion. So you see a lot of projects will be on our schedule for the coming years. Our biggest project is Thermal 3 Southern expansion, and it is proceeding on schedule. And we hopefully will have it operational in 1 year from now. Also, the airport city is growing fastly. We have new companies in the space sector who come and settle down on the airport. We are on the brink of developing additional cargo areas and the new hotel after some delays will now open in June. So putting all together, we can confirm the financial guidance for 2026, which is known to you, and there is no change necessary right now. So that's from my side. I hand over to Julian.

Julian, are you muted? Julian, you are muted.

Do you hear me now?

Yes, it works now.

It was the wrong microphone, sorry. Yes. Good afternoon from my end. I'd like to continue with traffic results and the segments. I mean, starting with Q1, which does not reflect, unfortunately, the future development of 2026. Q1 was actually better than expected, and we saw some growth in Vienna here as well. Vienna had a growth rate of 1.6% despite the removal of Wizz and despite the bad Middle East traffic starting in March. Malta did extremely well, 15.4% growth, Košice, 40% growth. So overall, we saw 5.3% growth in the group. And April then changed the picture, minus 8% in Vienna due to low-cost reduction, Middle East and Easter being in March and not in April in 2026. Still Malta does very well, plus 13.5%, in Košice plus 66%, mainly driven due to the new connection between Bratislava and Košice, which is doing very, very well. So overall, we stand with slight growth until the end of April, minus 1.5% in Vienna and 2.9% growth in the group. Maybe a closer look at the Vienna figures. I think what is interesting is cargo, which I would say is holding on, although there is now -- we see growth in the road feeder service and reduction in actual air freight, mainly due to the reduction in wide-body planes from the Middle East. We've got a very significant reduction in capacity from Dubai, from Qatar, from Abu Dhabi. So this obviously reduces air cargo. And overall, we saw in the first 4 months of this year, a reduction in 1.5% in passenger numbers, 4% in aircraft movements, and we saw a slight growth in cargo overall. What's positive is the seat load factor, plus 2.5 percentage points over last year. And this is a bit of a counterweight to the reductions from the Middle East and the reduction from the low-cost carriers. All the other flights are really, really full. What I would like to point out as well is that we saw growth from refueling stops of Air India in the first 4 months but from May onwards, we will see a reduction in transit passengers. As you know, transit passengers don't pay a passenger fee. So we have roughly 20% of the average fees there. But now due to the high kerosene price, Air India decided to reduce capacity to North America. So that's why they have less tank stops now in the coming months and they reduced capacity to Vienna as well from 4 to 3 weekly flights. In April, Middle East, we saw a reduction of 83% Eastern Europe minus 17%, Eastern Europe due to Wizz Air moving part of its capacity to -- so from the total removal from Vienna, part of the capacity went to Bratislava. And Middle East in April was minus 83% in terms of passenger numbers. In between, we are at about 70%. So still the capacity is not where it was before the war in Iran and load factors are significantly lower than they used to be. So overall, we stand right now at roughly 30% of the passenger numbers of the time before the war started. Just a brief look at the regional passenger development in Q1. Europe was still growing. I mean, Eastern Europe will look different in the months to come. North America growing. Middle East, you already see the effect of the war. Far East doing very well, plus 19%, Africa doing reasonably well, 8%. And what we see now is, as I said, a slow recovery of the Middle East traffic. So the airlines are announcing that they want to come back and they are putting more planes in, but the load factors are still very low. So that's why we stand right now at minus 70%. Far East is doing pretty well, very good load factors. And we see some weakness towards Turkey, towards Egypt. So I think we see a mix there in high oil prices and lower demand than last year. But overall, I think from a booking perspective, the summer still looks good. I think I mentioned most of the information on this slide already. So 8 airlines to 9 destinations are planned for this summer. As I said, load factors are still relatively low. I think the positive situation we have here, and this is significantly better than in many other airports is the kerosene supply. We have a refinery just 4 kilometers away. We've got a pipeline from this refinery to Vienna Airport. So as long as they have crude oil, we will have kerosene here at Vienna Airport. And there's no reason to believe that we should have any shortages in the months to come. Obviously, still, there's a high level of uncertainty around this conflict, and yes, I have to stress that now after the war in Ukraine, which affected roughly 4% of our overall markets, now we have a war in the Middle East, which affects 6% of our overall passenger numbers. So overall, yes, we have a very significant reduction in potential passengers due to this geopolitical situation. So we definitely hope that over the course of this year, there will be peace in the Middle East. And let's hope that sooner or later, there will be a peace or at least a ceasefire in Ukraine as well. I think I would see both conflicts subduing passenger numbers right now, but I would see both conflicts as potential growth destinations for the future. Maybe just a few words about the current airline developments. You know that Ryanair reduced their stationed aircraft by 4 to 14. Wizz Air closed the Vienna base, which were 5 aircraft. So we see significantly less LCC or ultra-LCC traffic here in Vienna this year. Austrian Airlines is growing. They get a new 787 Dreamliner as of June '26, 2 more expected until the end of this year, which is in principle a positive development. We saw now China Eastern connecting Vienna with Xi’an, Royal Jordanian want to come back and connect Vienna with Amman. We got the connection to Cluj. We will get the connection from SalamAir to Muscat. Air Baltic is growing to Tallinn, and Air Corsica is launching Ajaccio and Bastia. Still -- I mean, it's a good sign that airlines are coming to Vienna. But obviously, to make up for the loss of roughly 9, 10 aircraft, this will take some time. And therefore, obviously, the reduction in low-cost traffic is still hurting. We stick to our passenger guidance of roughly 30 million passengers. So in our definition, roughly 30 million means something between 29 million and 31 million passengers. I'm still optimistic that we will be pretty close to the 30 million, partly due to the higher load factors, which we saw in the first 4 months of this year. So what we saw in the first 4 months that we had a better passenger development than expected in January. Now obviously, we have a significant hit in the Middle East. Overall, still with increased load factors on the long-haul market and in the short-haul market within Europe. Overall, I'm optimistic that despite the situation in the Middle East, we will be around 30 million passengers, and therefore, we stick to our passenger forecast. And as Gunther already explained, we stick to our financial predictions for our guidance for the year 2026. And I don't have to stress that with all the heightened uncertainty in the current geopolitical scenario. Obviously, the situation would significantly change if there's not enough kerosene to cater for all flights if there is -- or if there is significant -- another significant hike in kerosene prices. And obviously, I think looking forward into 2027, which is -- seems still far away and impossible to predict at this point. But obviously, what we all have to be aware of that with every week when airlines are not hedging at current kerosene prices, obviously, the uncertainty for 2027 is increasing. And I think what's extremely important that we will see in the second half of this year, actual peace in the Middle East and a reduction in oil prices and kerosene prices. Otherwise, the impact next year on airline profitability and route profitability might be pretty devastating than in 2027. So our guidance, Vienna, around 30 million passengers, the group roughly 41.5 million passengers, and we can confirm this today. I think the quality situation in Vienna is significantly better. We got an ASQ award for best airport departures, 25 million to 40 million passengers. We got another award for Lounge of the Year. Our Vienna Lounge got an award again. Overall, the level of on-time performance, the level of waiting times, everything is really, really good. Next year, with the opening of the South extension, which we highlighted more than once, we will improve the quality for our passengers further, and we are still set to become a 5-star airport until 2030. A few words regarding our segments. We saw a reduction in the airport segment in Q1, EBIT minus 11%, mainly due to reduction in passenger numbers, reduction in airport charges and there was probably not that much expected positive impact of the removal of the winter incentive. But overall, we saw a decrease in EBITDA and EBIT and a slight increase in the external revenue. The Handling & Security Services did pretty well, mainly due to substantially higher de-icing income and slight traffic growth. So revenue grew by 14.6%, EBITDA nearly doubled and EBIT increased by nearly 200%. Unfortunately, there won't be any de-icing in the months to come. So we have to wait for next November, December again. The coming months will be dominated by the reduction in traffic as well. Retail did pretty well, plus 1% parking revenues, plus 2% rental revenues and plus 7% center management and hospitality. Even now in April and May, I think the spend per passenger is holding on actually, I think many other airports struggle in this respect. In our case, the revenue per passenger is holding on pretty well in the duty-free shop and in F&B sector. So I hope this remains the case in the rest of the year. And overall, a pretty good development with plus 19% EBIT and plus 14% EBITDA. Overall, we're in the final stages to conclude the last contracts for retail in the new South extension. Retail is -- the environment is right now much more difficult than it used to be in prior years. So luxury is really in a difficult environment. But overall, I'm under the circumstances, I would say, I'm satisfied with the contracts we are signing right now. F&B, better than expected, to be honest, and better than predicted. I think we concluded already contracts for all the available outlets, and we're expecting high quality and high return from this area. Malta, still doing very, very well. Growth rates will go down over summer and the focus is really there on increasing the capacity of the terminal. This is of utmost importance. But overall, very good development, plus 11% revenue, 17% EBITDA and 14.7% EBIT. So overall, an excellent development. And yes, we are looking at a very good year for Malta Airport in 2026 as well. That's it from our end. So we are happy to take your questions now.

Yes, please. Floor is open for questions. I see the first hands raised. Elias New is first. Please go ahead.

I've got 3 questions. I'd like to take them one at a time. So perhaps first, starting off with Ryanair and carrier capacity. It looks like Ryanair has further reduced capacity for the summer schedule from 15 aircraft to 14. Do you see any further risk of capacity cuts either from Ryanair or other carriers? And how are your discussions with airlines evolving, particularly surrounding the Austrian aviation tax? Do you see any potential for change here in the short term?

I mean this is really a difficult question. Budget discussions in Austria are currently ongoing. And I think the Minister of Finance gives his speech on the 10th or 11th of June, if I'm not mistaken. So we as an industry, we are pretty much united on this, and we are trying to convince government to at least reduce our ticket tax in the years to come. I cannot say if this will be successful. Obviously, the budget situation is very, very tight. But I mean, this decision is extremely important for the future development overall for the aviation industry in Austria, not only for Vienna Airport, probably some regional airports will be hit even harder. But I mean, obviously, I cannot exclude further capacity reductions in the years to come. If there's no reduction in the tax. Actually, if there is no reduction, it's pretty likely that there might be further reductions. And we will have to see and wait what's happening on this front. But knowing Ryanair and you all follow the developments in Berlin, the discussions Ryanair is having with Fraport in Greece. So obviously, there will be lots of pressure on capacity if the cost situation in terms of tax is not improved in the years to come. I don't foresee any significant cuts or otherwise in -- from other airlines. But obviously, I mean, within Lufthansa Group, Austrian is always fighting for their position within Lufthansa Group. Profitability is not where Lufthansa wants to see Austrian. So I don't think that we would see any immediate change if the tax environment stays where it is. But obviously, this could have an impact on future growth or will have an impact on future growth as well.

Understood. And perhaps coming to my second question, which would be coming back to the traffic guidance for 2026. So I understand there's obviously a lot of uncertainty about how the situation in the Middle East will evolve. But just sort of wondering what assumptions you've currently baked into the traffic guidance for the Middle East. Are you sort of assuming a similar impact as we saw in April maybe for the remainder of the year? Or are you kind of currently assuming that the conflict will cease and that will return to normal levels of traffic within the next few years?

I mean -- yes.

Any color on that would be helpful, yes.

And our prediction for -- so the approximately 30 million passenger forecast does not include a full recovery until the end of this year. So what we have -- so the underlying assumption is that there will be a recovery, but a slow recovery. So we assume that from the 30% we see now, we will see a slow but sure recovery over the year, but not seeing the levels before the war, before next year.

Okay. That's helpful. And finally, on the sort of cost savings side. So looking at your personnel costs, they still increased in Q1 year-on-year, up around 6%. Headcount also slightly increased. So just wondering, do you still expect personnel costs to remain stable for 2026 compared to 2025? And then also on the material side, how do you expect material costs to evolve in '26? I mean they were also slightly up in Q1. So should we expect material costs to be down for the full year compared to 2025 as you were guiding previously?

Material costs from my perspective, will stay more or less stable. And personnel costs might be slightly higher than '25, but should also come down due to the reduction of workforce step by step. I mean you have not the immediate effect, it takes some time to see the financial effects of it. Overall, the assumption for full year is that we will see maybe a slight increase, 2% to 3%, but not the growth we saw in Q1.

Thank you. And I hand over to Vladimira.

Just 2 quick questions. First one would be, you mentioned that the spending per passenger is holding well. So where do we stand currently? And what do you expect for the full year maybe? And maybe also a slight look into the future once the Terminal 3 extension will be finished? Do you expect any boost to this spending per passenger? And then next question will be related to the cost savings program. Do you have any overall figure for how much you want to achieve this year, maybe next year? Or where to find some overall target in this respect? And then last but not least, this winter incentives, you mentioned that impact was bigger. How much was it in absolute terms? And do you plan to continue with any winter incentives program in the future?

I mean we have stopped the winter incentive. So -- and for the time being, we don't plan to bring it on again. Maybe [indiscernible] could deliver the exact number of last year later on. Regarding spend, I mean, overall, we are right now roughly 2% up per passenger. And to be honest, it fluctuates a lot per week. But overall, if we could remain for the full year, and you have to have in mind as well that we have significantly less passengers to the Middle East, and they are drivers of revenues, especially in retail as well. So if we would end the year up by 2% in spend, I think this would be very positive. Obviously, yes, we expect revenue per passenger to grow in -- after the South extension opens. And I mean, overall, predictions are pretty hard now because, I mean, since we started the project, the passengers from Russia, the passengers from Ukraine got lost. Now we have a significant reduction in passengers from the Middle East. So we will update our guidance on that with the H1 figures.

Yes. Regarding our cost-saving program and efficiency program, it was built in into the budget. And if you look at it very grossly, you see that the result of 2025 in 2026 compared to lower overall revenue, you can somehow estimate the amount that should be the result of all the programs and all the measures that we have designated.

Simon, happy to take your questions now.

I have 3. The first one is on passenger growth, again, so similar to Elias' question, but slightly different, I hope. And that's -- I mean, clearly, there's uncertainty regarding the Middle East situation but how should we think currently about passenger growth trajectory at Vienna from here on? Essentially, what I'm wondering is, I mean, was April the trough in growth, excluding further Middle East uncertainty? Or is there any further pressure from the summer schedule fully phasing in? My next question is then on the fuel supply situation because you highlighted that there's no known fuel supply shortage at Vienna because of your proximity to the refineries. Now does this have relevance for the airline partners in allocating capacity to you, i.e., are they increasing capacity potentially because that's an advantage they see with Vienna Airport? And then my last question is on CapEx because you brought it up your pipeline into 2030. And I'm wondering, will it gradually decline from this '26 peak, or is there any logic that you can further share with us here?

What was the last question again, please?

On CapEx, what's the phasing here into 2030?

Okay. No, I leave this up for Gunther. I mean I think in terms of absolute numbers or absolute reduction, minus 8.2% in April, I'm optimistic that we -- the reduction in passenger numbers in terms of percent will be lower in the months to come. So I think this should have been the peak where I have to say. I mean, it's too early to say anything about November, December. So that feels even further away than usually at that point in the year. But in the end, November, December, they don't have this much of relevance. So overall, I think the reduction in passenger numbers should have peaked. We should see a slow but sure recovery from the Middle East. And therefore, we are pretty optimistic at this point in time that we will be close to the EUR 30 million we guided in January, especially due to the high load factors we are seeing right now. And in terms of if it's an advantage to have a relatively safe fuel supply here in Vienna. To be honest, I would not see this as an upside, but I think this is -- let's say, this is a risk reduction regarding a potential downside. So I don't think -- I mean, airlines on short, they don't switch aircraft and capacity that fast. So I don't think that this will mean anything positive for the summer schedule for us. But on the other hand, it reduces the likelihood that airlines have to cancel flights because of fuel shortage. So I think this should be pretty neutral for our projections of this year.

Yes. And regarding investment, I mean, you saw the projects that are considered necessary in the coming years. The planning will be started step by step and some of the projects already are in realization. And given our expectations for the coming years, each project that is further down the road will be decided then when we come there if it is economically viable and if we think that it's the appropriate time to start the project. So we will drive by site. So but I think it is essential to have everything ready and to be able to start once we think it's necessary and it's wise to do it.

Are there any further questions? Obviously not. So I thank everyone for dialing in, following Vienna Airport, showing the interest in our results. I close the call, and wish you a good afternoon.

Bye-bye.

Thank you. Bye-bye.

Thank you.