Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Amadeus First Half of 2025 Results Conference Call. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Luis Maroto, President and CEO of Amadeus. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. Welcome to our 2025 First Half Results Presentation. Thank you for attending today. I'm joined by our CFO, Carol Borg, who will be presenting Amadeus Results for the first time. Carol has had the opportunity to meet a lot of you as part of her onboarding and is ready to address your questions. We have made some changes to our quarterly presentation and may make some more in the future. We aim to simplify how we communicate and to ensure that the strengths of our business are clear to the broader group of investors. To start, I will focus on our most important business developments in the period, and Carol will elaborate on key financial aspects. Let's turn to slide four for our headlines in the first half. The first six months of business in 2025 evolved in a challenging macro and geopolitical environment.
Despite this context, Amadeus delivered steady and profitable growth throughout the period. Our top line grew 8% at constant currency, and our profit grew faster than our revenues, while we continued to drive our strategic plans forward. As the leading IT provider to the travel industry, we continued to invest decisively to support future revenue generation. For the first six months of the year, we invested about $700 million in R&D, over 20% of group revenue. Amadeus is completing one of the largest and most complex cloud transformations, with 90% of our applications now activated in the public cloud. Our cloud transformation unlocks greater flexibility, scalability, speed, and innovation potential. In the first six months of the year, we continued to expand our relevance in travel. We won or renewed or extended business deals across our businesses.
We advanced in negotiations with others, and we progressed on our industry-transforming strategic customer implementations of leading industry players such as British Airways, Air France-KLM, Marriott International, and Accor. We have long-standing strategic partnerships with world-leading technology players to boost our strengths. We were pleased to announce our newest strategic partnership with Google, which, together with Microsoft, supports our multi-cloud strategy. Additionally, Amadeus will explore AI-driven innovations by leveraging Google Cloud's AI technologies. We are also collaborating to enhance flight search accuracy and airline offer management by integrating Amadeus Nevio and MetaConnect with Google's offer management system and Google Flights, which will improve user experience and market presence for airlines. Let's turn to slide five for a brief strategy update. Amadeus is leading the airline industry's retail transformation. We are advancing with the implementation of our first Amadeus Nevio customers.
Nevio is our next-generation airline IT platform, offering advanced retailing capabilities beyond offer and orders, consisting of fully flexible, modular, cloud-native solutions and the latest advances in AI. Nevio has a distinct value proposition, which allows us to offer our customers the possibility of doing much more than before and to attract new customers thanks to Nevio's deep modularity. We continue to advance negotiations with potential Nevio customers. Finnair, an early Nevio customer, has become the world's first airline to create an IT forwarder aligned with IATA's One Order in its directives. In the Middle East, Saudi Arabia is leading the industry by adopting our smart bridging capabilities, a first step towards offer and orders implementation. Air France-KLM, the latest airline to select Nevio, has already started the program to implement the solution.
Additionally, British Airways has completed the transition from its in-house revenue management system to our Amadeus network revenue management. This marks a major milestone in British Airways' transformation program and retailing strategy supported by Amadeus. We also aim to become the IT provider of reference to the hospitality industry. We believe Amadeus' hospitality platform offers the most comprehensive portfolio of core capabilities to the hotel industry and is the most broadly connected ecosystem of partners. We are uniquely placed to address industry needs and expand in this large and growing market. We are progressing well with the implementation of Marriott International and Accor to the Amadeus hospitality platform, following Intercontinental Hotel Group and MGM Resorts International. We are creating a global community of world-leading hotels on a mission to transform relationships with guests that will run their core technology on our platform.
Amadeus also operates the Amadeus Travel Platform, a leading platform that enables travel providers around the world to retail through third parties everywhere on the globe. In the first six months of the year, Amadeus further strengthened its leadership in airline content distribution by adding new travel seller customers and increasing our share of wallet at existing customers, as well as expanding the content bookable on our platform. In the first half of the year, Amadeus has signed 29 new contracts or renewals of distribution agreements with airlines. On the NDC evolution, we continue to implement and expand the NDC content made available through the Amadeus Travel Platform. At present, we have 74 NDC agreements signed with airlines. Our goal is to become the undisputed aggregator of NDC content.
We believe Amadeus has the most advanced and comprehensive NDC technology in the industry as we aim to do NDC at scale. We are bringing the global travel industry together on a modern technology platform to connect the entire travel ecosystem. In addition to our ongoing cloud transformation, we are continuously harnessing the power of AI, data, and modern technologies. AI and machine learning are key to improving user experience, predicting travel trends, personalizing customer journeys, and optimizing operations. We have integrated GenAI on our platform, offering our customers a solid path to deploying agentic AI solutions. Technologically, we aim to power the largest, most vibrant ecosystem of open, connected, and flexible solutions in travel. Please turn to slide six to review our commercial developments and operations in Airline IT Solutions.
Our most recent commercial developments in airline IT include upselling wings with GOL, one of Brazil's leading airlines, and also with Flight Carrier Bulgarian Airlines. We renewed our Altea agreement with Luxair, which brought adoption of incremental solutions, and also our new Skies agreement with Ryanair, marking 25 years of collaboration. During this quarter, a century-new Skies has supported Ryanair's impressive growth trajectory and expansion, enhancing the airline's operational efficiency, customer experience, and revenue generation capabilities. With our new Google partnership, we are implementing a collaboration on QPX, the Google offer management system, through Amadeus Nevio, which will create the opportunity for more airlines to leverage Amadeus Nevio. In airport IT, London Gatwick, the UK's second busiest airport, is expanding its use of Amadeus biometric technology. With this rollout, all outbound passengers at London Gatwick's terminal will be processed through the Amadeus Seamless Journey platform, enhancing passenger experience.
Also, Amadeus has expanded its collaboration with the Australian Department of Home Affairs, supporting enhanced automated border processing capabilities at the departures of the country's 10 international airports. The Italian long-standing Altea departure control system user has further expanded the use of the leading solution to include Florence and Pisa airports. Expanding the use of our biometrics technology into an adjacent space, a casino operation in France has deployed Amadeus Seamless Gate and Seamless Journey platform, delivering a premium contactless VIP entry experience. Our biometric solution has reduced check-in times by 30% and significantly improved customer satisfaction. Moving on to our volume performance in the first half, Amadeus passengers boarded grew by 4.6%, driven by the global air traffic evolution in the period, supported also by the Vietnam Airlines implementation in April 2024. Excluding timing effects, in the first half, we estimate Amadeus PB growth at 5.2%.
In the first half, global air traffic growth was impacted by geopolitical situations in different regions such as the Middle East and South Asia, via moderation in travel demand to and within the U.S., and other events such as aircraft incidents both in the first quarter and second quarter. In the first months of this year, all of our regions, excluding North America, reported solid growth. Asia-Pac was our fastest-growing region, reporting 10% PB growth. In the first few weeks of July, we have seen volumes trending slightly below the 2nd quarter. However, there have been several extraordinary events that may have impacted early July traffic in various regions, such as the controllers strike in France and the Israel and Iran conflict in the Middle East. Please turn to slide seven to review our operating performance in Hospitality and Other Solutions.
This segment's revenue increased by 8% in the first half at constant currency, where the majority of our business deployed strong growth throughout the period, supported by transactions and new customer implementations. We had new commercial wins in the 2nd quarter across our business domains. To highlight a few, Accor will expand its use of Amadeus industry-leading sales and catering solution, Delphi, in its premium brands. Delphi empowers sales and catering teams to more efficiently sell, organize, and manage events. B2 Hotels and hotel chain in Thailand will adopt a comprehensive suite of Amadeus solutions, delivering seamless, personalized shopping and booking experience to guests from initial search through to post-stay engagement. In the U.S., New York-based Soho 54 Hotels have selected iHotelier Suite, and Sunset Tower, a landmark hotel in California, contracted Amadeus Digital Media for hotels. AU Destination Marketing Organization signed for Amadeus Digital Media for destinations.
In United Arab Emirates, Marriott Travel Agency will access hotel content through Amadeus Valley Hotels, our laser-oriented distribution solution beyond the GDS. In partnership with Microsoft and leveraging OpenAI's model on Azure, we have introduced advanced AI tools, including Advisor Chat, integrated into the Mantri 60 for instant marketing sites, and a new email RFP feature in Meeting Broker to automate and accelerate group bookings responses. These innovations empower hoteliers to make faster data-driven decisions and streamline group sales, marking a significant step towards more efficient AI-powered hospitality operations. Finally, in payments, we have launched a next-generation fully automated payments reconciliation system for airlines, leveraging smart algorithms and synchronized data to match sales and payments across channels. Amadeus CASCO developed the solution with British Airways, which is now scaling the deployment of the module across its operations. Amadeus is also making the solution available to the wider airline industry.
Please turn to slide eight for our air distribution highlights. In the 2nd quarter, we signed 17 new contracts or renewals of distribution agreements with airlines, taking the total to 29 for the first half. We also have 74 NDC agreements signed to date with airlines. As Cathay Pacific NDC content became available through the Amadeus Travel Platform to travel sellers in selected markets, we now have NDC content from 35 airlines accessible through the Amadeus Travel Platform. We have commercial wins over the period with major travel agencies. In Europe, [Idriza DiGio] has extended its long-term partnership with Amadeus for air content distribution. TravelPerk, a business travel management platform, also extended its scope which now includes access to Amadeus NDC content. In Asia-Pac, we signed Via Philippines, the Philippines' leading travel seller, to migrate all of its international bookings to the Amadeus Travel Platform.
We have successfully expanded key strategic partnerships with long-standing customers such as with [Berth Hansen] and CBC Corporation. We have also expanded our non-air content offering for travel sellers on the Amadeus Travel Platform, adding content from Brightline, a passenger railroad in the state of Florida in the U.S., and from IRIO, Spain's first private high-speed rail company. Amadeus and Google have also announced an agreement that will feed Amadeus MetaConnect into Google Flights, more easily improving flight search accuracy. For airlines, this means greater control over their commercial strategy by distributing dynamic offers more efficiently, with increasing pricing accuracy enhancing the overall user experience on Google Flights. We continue to see a strong momentum regarding our corporation business with new customers such as Deutsche Telekom, signing for our cell booking tool-related solutions.
As we continue to strengthen our partnerships with key Amadeus Cytric reseller partners such as BCD Travel and GlobeSpan Travel Management, GlobeSpan issued the first live-for-Canada NDC booking via Cytric in the Canadian market, expanding access to premium content for corporate travelers. We are glad to share that Amadeus has won the Gold Award for Amadeus Cytric Easy in the Customer Experience category at the 2025 National Marketing Awards in Spain. To review our volume performance, in the first half, Amadeus bookings grew by 2%, supported by Amadeus' continued commercial success across regions. We are starting to see some of our travel agency customers bringing volumes from aggregators, most recently in Europe. We estimate first-half bookings growth, excluding timing effects, at 2.7%.
As I described before, during the first half, global air traffic growth was impacted by geopolitical situations in several regions, a moderation in travel demand to and within the U.S., and several events, including airline incidents. In the first six months of this year, our fastest-growing region was Asia-Pac, where our bookings increased by 10%. Into the first few weeks of July, we have seen a strong performance in bookings ahead of the 2nd quarter, with bookings growth picking up in many regions, most strongly in the Middle East, Western Europe, and LatAm. With this, I will now pass on to Carol for further details on our financial performance.
Thank you, Luis. I'm delighted to be presenting the half-one 2025 results on behalf of Amadeus. During the last 12 weeks, I've been doing a lot of listening, meeting people, and really getting a deeper understanding of this amazing business.
As you know, I joined Amadeus as I was attracted to a tech-driven people business, working alongside a high-caliber team with the objective of creating further value, particularly building on our potential, capacity, and appetite for further growth. What has positively surprised me is how unique the travel industry really is and the role that Amadeus plays in being the technology partner for airlines, travel sellers, airports, and hoteliers. I'm convinced that those who will succeed are those who deliver reliably, at scale, and in sync with the travel ecosystem, all of which are features of Amadeus' strategy. Now, let me present a new look to our H1 results. Please turn to slide 10. As you know, in the first half of the year, the exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and the euro has been notably volatile, with the U.S. dollar depreciating significantly in the last months.
40% - 50% of our group revenue is generated in U.S. dollars, and we also have exposure to foreign currencies in our cost base, with 35%- 45% of our operating expenses generated in U.S. dollar. Foreign exchange effects have been negative for us on both revenue and EBIT in the first six months, and more notably in the 2nd quarter. As referenced in Q1, we will now show our performance of revenue, EBITDA, adjusted EBIT, and free cash flow versus the previous year at constant currency, as we believe this information is more useful in evaluating Amadeus' underlying financial performance. More details on our constant currency calculations, as well as complete information on IFRS figures and their evolution, are available in the appendix of this presentation and the Amadeus first half 2025 management review.
In the first six months of the year, we delivered strong growth across all of our key metrics, namely revenue of EUR 3,260 million, 8% growth at constant currency, 7% reported growth. EBIT of EUR 938 million, 8% reported growth, and adjusted EBIT of EUR 973 million, 8% growth at constant currency, 7% reported growth. Profit of EUR 727 million, 12% growth, and diluted EPS also at 12% growth. Adjusted profit of EUR 739 million, 9% growth, and diluted adjusted EPS also at 9% growth. Free cash flow of EUR 469 million, 12% below the previous year, as expected, and leverage stood at 0.7 times net debt to last 12 months EBITDA at the end of the period. As you know, we have an ongoing share buyback program for a maximum investment amount of EUR 1.3 billion, which was launched in March. Our 2025 outlook at constant currency remains unchanged.
As Luis mentioned, we have experienced a challenging macro and geopolitical environment. However, despite this, we continue to deliver steady and profitable growth and expect to deliver revenue growth at the lower end of our guided range of 7.4%- 11.4%, with EBITDA and EBIT growing faster than revenue. Please turn to slide 11 to review our revenue evolution. Our group revenue at constant currency grew by 7.6% as a result of revenue expansion across all of our segments. Airline IT Solutions' revenue growth of 7.9% was driven by the PB volumes evolution Luis has described previously and a 3.1% higher revenue per PB, which largely resulted from positive pricing impacts from new agreements and negotiations, upselling of incremental solutions and inflation, fast growth of our airline expert services revenues, and strong performance of our airport IT business, which includes Vision-Box, which we acquired in April 2024.
These effects were partially offset by a negative platform mix, as Navitaire New Skies outperformed Altéa. Revenue per PB growth accelerated in Q2 relative to Q1 when excluding Vision-Box consolidation impact and FX effects driven by the positive pricing effects I've mentioned previously. Hospitality and Other Solutions' revenue growth of 7.5% was driven by hotel IT and distribution, particularly the Amadeus CRS and hotel distribution transaction-driven business and business intelligence supported by customer implementations. Digital media revenue growth has been experiencing some weaknesses since the beginning of the year, mainly due to a reduction in media spend by our customers, particularly in North America. Our hospitality revenue growth was also driven by payments, where both our merchant services and payout services businesses expanded notably.
Air Distribution revenue growth of 7.5% was driven by the booking evolution, again, as Luis described previously, coupled with an unusually high revenue per booking growth of 5.4%, primarily resulting from positive pricing impacts, including contract renewals, new agreements, and inflation. Please turn to slide 12 for a review of our adjusted EBIT evolution. At constant currency, our adjusted EBIT grew 7.6%, resulting from the 7.6% revenue evolution discussed on the previous slide. Cost of revenue grew as a result of revenue expansion across the business. Reported fixed cost growth of 9.3%, mostly resulting from an increase in resources, particularly in our R&D activity, coupled with a higher unitary cost. Higher cloud costs due to volume expansion and the migration of our solutions to the public cloud, and the Vision-Box consolidation impact in Q1.
Ordinary D&A expense increased by 3.1%, mainly driven from higher amortization of internally developed software, partly offset by a lower depreciation expense at our data center as a result of the migration of our systems to the public cloud. At constant currency, EBITDA margin was 38.9%, slightly below prior year, and adjusted EBIT margin was 29.8% in line with prior year. Now let's turn to slide 13 for a review of our contribution by segment at constant currency. Airline IT Solutions' contribution increased by 5.5%, resulting from the revenue evolution described previously, offset by cost growth of 13.9%, fundamentally driven by increased R&D investment focused on the enhancement of our portfolio for airlines and airports, customer implementations, and our fast-growing airline expert services business. Variable cost growth driven by Airport IT's business expansion and the consolidation of Vision-Box.
Airline IT Solutions' contribution margin was 69.8%, 0.8 percentage points below the previous year, excluding the Vision-Box consolidation impact due to business mix. Hospitality and Other Solutions' contribution was 5.5% above the previous year as a result of the revenue growth described previously, offset by cost growth of 8.5%, which resulted from higher variable costs driven by the volumes expansion in both hospitality and payments, and an increase in fixed costs caused by an increase in resources and higher unitary personnel costs to serve this growing segment. Hospitality's contribution margin was 33.6%, 0.6 percentage points below the previous year. Air Distribution's contribution grew by 12.4% as a result of the revenue growth described previously, offset by a 3% cost increase, which mainly resulted from bookings evolution. The contribution margin of this segment expanded by 2.2 percentage points to 50.7%.
Now on to slide 14 for a review of our adjusted profit evolution. Adjusted profit grew by 8.5% as a result of our adjusted EBIT growth, lower net financial expenses, and higher taxes than the previous year. Diluted adjusted EPS grew by 8.5% in the period. Net financial expenses declined, driven by lower average gross debt and cost of debt, and taxes increased as a result of higher taxable income and a slightly higher tax rate at 21.6%. Now on to R&D and capital expenditure on slide 15. In half-one 2025, R&D investment grew by 14.9%. Half of our investment was dedicated to the evolution of our portfolio, including Amadeus Nevio and Navitaire Stratos for airlines, our hospitality platform, NDC technology for airlines, travel sellers, and corporations, and solutions for airports and payment services.
A quarter to a third was dedicated to customer implementations across our businesses, such as Marriott International and Accor for ACRS, new Nevio customers and airline portfolio upselling, and customers implementing NDC technology, as well as efforts related to bespoke consulting services provided to our customers. The remainder was dedicated to our migration to the cloud and our partnership with Microsoft, including developments on our own internal technology systems. In half-one 2025, our capital expenditure increased by EUR 71.2 million, or 22.1%, mainly driven by higher capitalizations from software development. Capital expenditure represented 12.1% of revenue in half-one. Now on to free cash flow generation and net debt evolution on slide 16. In half-one 2025, we generated EUR 468.6 million of free cash flow.
As expected, free cash flow was below the previous year by 11.6% as a result of increases in our capital expenditure, change in working capital outflow and taxes, and partially offset by the EBITDA expansion and lower interest payments. Net debt amounted to EUR 1,715 million at the end of June, EUR 396.3 million lower than the end of December due to our free cash flow generation, the conversion of bonds into shares, and partially offset by the acquisition of treasury shares under the share buyback programs, including our ongoing EUR 1.3 billion program, which is currently 45% complete. Also included in that is the interim dividend payment and a small acquisition in the travel intelligence space. Our solid cash flow generation and balance sheet management has resulted in a leverage of 0.7 times net debt to EBITDA as at the end of June.
Finally, please turn to slide 17 for our current view for 2025. Despite a challenging macroeconomic and geopolitical environment, we delivered steady and profitable growth, demonstrating the resilience and diversity of our business. We enter the second half with confidence to deliver our group results within our 2025 outlook guidance at constant currency, albeit with revenues growing at the lower end of the range based on the current industry outlook and EBITDA and EBIT growing faster than revenues. We continue to remain extremely relevant for our customers as a leading IT provider to the travel industry, deploying effective resource management. We continue to invest decisively to support future revenue generation and deliver our expected EBITDA and free cash flow. Thank you. With that, the presentation is finished, and we'll open the call to take any questions.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. We will now begin the question and answer session.
If you have a question, please press the star followed by the one on your telephone keypad. Should you wish to cancel your request, please press the star followed by the two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. Once again, that is star one should you wish to ask a question. Our first question is from Michael Briest from UBS . Your line is now open.
Great, thank you. Good afternoon and welcome, Carol. I just have a question on the 2026 outlook. Obviously, you gave that a year or so ago. I'm just curious, with the currency movements, would you suggest we look at that on some sort of currency-adjusted basis, or do you think the 9%- 12.5% is achievable?
In terms of the Altéa and Navitaire business, Airport IT, Airline IT, just curious, do you still sell Altéa, or is it all new customers would come on to Nevio and similarly for Navitaire and its successor? An update on the pipeline of migrations, I believe ANA domestic has yet to move. Is there any timeline for that or any other airlines that we should be factoring into our models for migrations? Thank you.
Hi, Michael. Thanks for the warm welcome. I'll take the question on the outlook, and Luis will talk about Altéa and the pipeline of migrations. As we announced in our investor day, yes, we have given outlook, a 2026 outlook guidance, and we remain holding those guidance at constant currency as we communicated in Q1.
We're welcome to come back to you in the new year with our full year results on the revised guidance or an update on that. At this stage, our guidance, as previously communicated, still holds at constant currency.
Altea, Navitaire, I mean, look, the future clearly is offer and order. That's what the industry is moving and will move. Therefore, many of the engagements we are having today are about the future. There may be some cases, however, where still airlines may be keen to really come to Altea. I would say this is more temporary because the whole industry in years from now will move to Nevio or whoever alternative is in the market. Offer and order is a trend.
As we have announced, for instance, we have renewed Ryanair, which is in Navitaire, so not yet in Stratos, but there are conversations ongoing, especially for renewals and also for new customers moving more into the new world. That means, in my view, that we should announce more deals on Nevio and Stratos than the ones that we will announce for the current Altea or Navitaire. With regards to new customers on Altea, yes, I mean, again, ANA will come into the platform in 2026, in mid of '26. This is a customer, of course, that we signed many years ago and is still going through Altea. Hopefully, at one point, we will start migrating to Nevio. The deal with ANA is about Altea today.
Thank you. There haven't been many deals recently for either platform.
Do you think that this transition to one order is causing a bit of an air pocket in customers as they evaluate or wait for the technology to mature?
I think this will accelerate. Of course, they want to see things running. They want to see who is coming to the table. What I can tell you is that the pipeline is strong. We are engaged in many conversations. Hopefully, we should be able to announce some of them in the coming months. The pipeline is good. The airlines know that this is going to bring a lot of benefits to the industry and to themselves. Of course, we have signed four customers now.
I think, again, as we start delivering the solution and as customers start making their minds, and of course, they also need to make their own investments and their own internal processes, but I think this will clearly accelerate in the coming years.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question is from Adam Wood from Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.
Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. First of all, there's obviously a good price increase on the GDS side of the business. I wonder if you could just talk us through a little bit the component parts of that, what you're seeing maybe competitively and whether they move to NDC, just the moving parts that are enabling you to get such strong pricing. Secondly, obviously, I think we're all aware of the disruption that's gone through the 2nd quarter.
Could you maybe help reassure or speak to us around how much you think of the slowdown you've seen across the businesses is basically 100% macro, or are there any structural changes that you see? Maybe just finally on the July commentary, I mean, in the past, the bookings have always been the leading indicator, and PBs follow. Is there any reason this wouldn't be the case this time around? Thank you.
Thanks, Adam. Let me take the revenue per booking question first. As you all know, the elements that impact this metric are booking mix, customer mix, and customer renewals and renegotiations. Predominantly in Q2, we had some really positive impacts from ongoing customer renewals and renegotiations, which, as you can appreciate, can be lumpy in nature. They don't tend to follow a sequence.
The very high, or the unusually high, as I said, revenue per booking in the first half was really driven by the lumpiness of customer renewals and renegotiations that happened in the first half. I think it's probably fair to say that we don't expect the same growth in H2 that we saw in H1, so that will moderate. We don't see any abnormal effects coming in the second half of the year.
With regards to impacts, we feel really it's macro. Still, demand is there. Yes, I mean, the delivery of aircraft has improved despite the fact still with some constraints due to the engine situation. The main impact we have seen is macro. Again, in the 2nd quarter, there were many, many impacts. In this industry, there are always impacts, but probably a bit more based on what was going on in the world.
What we have seen, yes, is in July, bookings are better in most of the regions. PBs are more in line with June. June was not a good month, but of course, you had the situation in the Middle East that worsened at one point, seems to be better now. Look, PBs for the time being are not recovering, but as you said, in principle, the bookings should be an anticipation of a recovery of passengers at one point, but the bookings are performing well in July. Again, I am cautious because the uncertainty these days is higher than other years, but after seeing a 2nd quarter where we saw some weakness, I mean, the July figures seem to be positive, and we are cautiously optimistic that we have reached the bottom and we are a bit more optimistic about the future.
Again, with all the caveats that you can understand.
Very helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question is from Alex Irving from Bernstein. Your line is now open.
Good afternoon. Two for me, please. First of all, on Air Distribution, are you seeing any changes in the intensity with which airlines are trying to alter their distribution mix? I mean, it feels like we haven't had as many big surcharge and content removal announcements from airlines this year as in the previous two years. You've seen some like American and Southwest coming back towards more indirect distribution. Do you think this is a sustained trend? Does it make you more positive on the medium-term outlook for GDS distribution bookings? Second question on Hospitality. Growth slowed down this quarter. Is there anything non-underlying that has driven that slower revenue growth in the segment?
When should we think about an acceleration with the migration that you've got coming? Is that Q3? Is that Q4? Is that more 2026? Thanks.
With regards to booking and disintermediation, you're right. If you see today how PBs are evolving on bookings, you cannot compare month by month because you have different effects like Eastern or, as we mentioned, about the anticipation of the bookings. Overall, yes, we see the airlines much more constructive with regards to NDC and with regards to the collaboration with the GDSs. We also see in general the realization that moving that outside of the GDS has cost and complexity. This is completely the reality in the industry we are seeing today. This is why we feel our investment in NDC is going to really play well in the medium term, and we have always said that.
With regards to Hospitality, we have seen weakness in some parts of Hospitality, but mainly in media. Media is based on specific campaigns and is very dependent on the U.S. market. Overall, the U.S. market was weak in the 2nd quarter. Again, July seems to be better overall, and hopefully, this will translate also into the Hospitality figures. Media, which is mainly the campaigns that the hotels are doing to promote their properties, have been weaker than anticipated, saying that we expect an acceleration both if this becomes more confident about the U.S. evolution of travel and, second, with some of the migrations that we mentioned, especially Marriott, that will start having an impact. The payment situation that we have previously mentioned at one point, payment is growing well. We have been looking for an acceleration. This should happen during 3rd quarter and 4th quarter.
4th quarter for sure, 3rd quarter, it depends how the customers that we have signed will come into reality and will be implemented. We expect an acceleration in both parts of the segment.
All right. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question is from Charles Brennan from Jefferies. Your line is now open.
Great. Thanks for taking my questions. I've got two, actually, just on guidance. Firstly, this year, I think you started expecting EBITDA to grow slower than revenue. It looks like that's now the reverse with you expecting EBITDA to be faster than revenue growth. Is that a function of business mix that's changing that dynamic, or are you actively working on investment plans in the second half to try and manage faster EBITDA growth? Secondly, can I lift the horizons back to 2026?
I know you suggested that the existing guidance is broadly unchanged on a constant currency basis, but that obviously assumes an acceleration in 2026, particularly on the Air IT and Hospitality side. I guess if we go into 2026, we might get industry volumes that are a little bit better. Can you give us some tangible building blocks of your own company actions to try and drive that accelerated growth? I guess what I'm trying to understand is how much of that acceleration is visible today versus something that's a little bit more speculative. Thank you.
Okay. I'll go to the EBITDA growth first, and then we can take the 2026 outlook. You're right, Charles. I think we mentioned actually in the Q1 that when we started—let's just take a step back. When we came out with the Q1 results, the IATA outlook was not yet available.
They announced in June, but we guided to the market through the discussions that we had that we had room within our revenue guidance range for a deterioration in the outlook. That has come to fruition, as we've seen in June with the IATA. We also said that we had some things in our toolkit to moderate fixed cost growth to try to deliver the EBITDA margin independent of our revenue implications due to volume as well as FX. You're exactly right. It's a combination of both the things that you said, which is business mix as well as management intervention to drive EBITDA growth, which we are saying will outperform our revenue growth in FY25.
Let me talk about 2026 conceptually. Again, in Airline IT, of course, we have ANA that we mentioned before.
We expect to have some acceleration or some of the Nevio contracts that we have signed with some incremental revenues. Again, look, we are also taking the assumptions of the traffic and expectations for next year. This is with regards to Air IT. Again, our airport business is doing well. Part of that is already like the contract of ANA and part of the Nevio deliveries. Part of that will depend on our capability to really keep signing incremental customers, mainly in other parts of the business. Services has also been doing well, but we'll need to see how things evolve next year. With regards to the hospitality segment, it's what I mentioned before about the last part of this year. We expect an acceleration in Hospitality as we have the migration, mainly Marriott, the main piece.
Accor will also start, but the full impact will be 2027 plus the acceleration of payments. With that, we should be able to really achieve our targets. Of course, some of that is in our projections and secure because the contracts are signed. Some of that will require that we keep signing customers as we have done in 2025.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question is from Victor Cheng from Bank of America. Your line is now open.
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions, hi, Luis, and welcome, Carol. A couple on distribution, if I may. I guess, first of all, looking at your new distribution agreements. I noticed some of the OTAs and TMCs that already have a high mix of NDC bookings themselves through Direct Connect or other NDC aggregators. Notably, looking at TravelPerk. Now, obviously, you have now an expanded agreement with them.
Is it right to think that this agreement of Amadeus for them is to consolidate different either Direct Connect or other NDC pipelines and converge it to Amadeus, or are they using Amadeus to fill NDC content that they currently do not have? Related to that. Look at the contribution margin as well in distribution that have expanded. Is that related to NDC as well? What's the current NDC mix? How should we think about that contribution margin progression as NDC volume or mix shift?
With regards to TravelPerk, yes, this is an expansion with what we have today. They have been working with us, and we are expanding the capabilities. Of course, as you mentioned, they produce a significant volume of NDC bookings. We expect to get these bookings with us.
As I mentioned before, there is always the possibility for any travel agency to do whatever, Direct Connect, or use alternatives to us. This is a sign that we keep signing customers and provide our technology to process their NDC volumes.
I can take the contribution margin.
Okay. Go ahead.
Hi, Victor. Thanks for the welcome. As you rightly said, the distribution segment margin did expand by 2.4 percentage points driven by pricing effects. As I mentioned, there was an unusual lumpiness in Q2. We expect to still stay within a small margin expansion for that segment, but it will be at a lower rate than the first half as we don't have the same revenue per booking mix in the second half going forward. I don't think it's necessarily as a result of any mix change. It's really around pricing effects and customer negotiations.
Thank you.
Maybe any updates on NDC volumes as a percent of Amadeus bookings?
Still, we are growing a lot. For the airlines that have migrated, we are in the mid-teens. Some airlines are much higher than that. As we are bringing new airlines into the platform, they have started to really operate. We see good traction, keeps increasing as a percent of the total of Amadeus. Keep implementing them. This is an ongoing and continuous process that will take some years, but good traction. Good agreements with both airlines and travel agencies. More and more we will see some mix of volumes with EDIFACT and NDC that overall hopefully will generate a good growth for that business in the years to come.
We are more or less at the same, but saying that with more airlines today and a higher percent of our total volume, but still not big enough to have a significant impact. Every month we see an increase of NDC bookings over the total and keep growing very strongly.
Very clear. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question is from Toby Ogg from J.P. Morgan. Your line is now open.
Hi. Thanks for the question. Welcome from me as well, Carol. A few questions. Back on the Hospitality segment. Constant currency growth slowed from 9% in Q1 to 6%. I know you've called out a moderation in digital spend there as a driver, but any other areas that were incrementally weaker that could explain almost a three-point slowdown? Just thinking about the hospitality guidance, how confident are you in achieving the low end here?
It does imply quite a big acceleration from the Q2 exit rate. Should we start to see some Marriott contribution in Q3? Last one on the passengers boarded, obviously the comment in the presentation that the first few weeks of July is slightly worse than Q2 on the PB side. What do you think is driving that? Given that traffic growth potentially could continue to normalize, what would drive any re-acceleration in the PBs in the second half? Thank you.
Let me start with the last one. PBs, I mentioned during my presentation or answering one question that yes, it was below Q2, but in July was similar to June. That means that what we have seen during this year is starting very strongly in January. As you have seen, IATA just published today the June figures. There has been a progressive deterioration of the traffic.
It has not been the same in the different months. Of course, you can argue about the amount of incidents and things that have happened during June, but the reality is that there was also a disacceleration of the traffic. In July, it was more or less in line with June. Our view, if we think about the bookings and how we see the evolution of the regions, is that hopefully we have seen the bottom of this disacceleration. Things may improve from there. Things are not deteriorating. They are deteriorating when you take the average of quarter two, but in quarter two, April was better than May, and May was better than June. If we take July as a point of June, hopefully there will be an evolution. In some parts, like the U.S., we have seen some improvement, and hopefully this will translate in better figures in August and September.
I can take hospitality as well.
Go ahead.
Toby, thanks again for the warm welcome. On hospitality, you're right. We did show a deceleration Q1 to Q2 in our Hospitality and Other Solutions revenue. If I draw your mind back, I think we said in Q1 that we would expect the acceleration to happen in the second half of the year. That acceleration in the pace of growth is coming from, as Luis mentioned previously, some mitigating measures that we put in place to address the revenue growth delays in payments. The payments business is growing notably in the first half, but we did put in some measures. We have put in some measures that we will see come through in the second half. Luis also mentioned the revenue ramp-up from the Marriott implementation, which we'll see coming. That's more skewed into the second half of the year.
The big reason for the deterioration from Q1 to Q2 is media, and we believe, and largely media, as Luis mentioned, linked to U.S. and U.S. sentiment and customer spend. We think that will start to moderate in the second half. Of course, the distribution of our hotel content, as we also mentioned, will accelerate in the second half. We feel confident on the hospitality numbers to deliver a growth and accelerated growth in the second half versus the first half.
Just to add one comment, there was also a lower growth in our hotel distribution business, but nothing to do with any underlying performance. We have this turn in the middle, which is impacting airline bookings and also hotel bookings.
If we exclude some of the holidays effects, it has been pretty much in line, but it was having a small impact, saying that the media was the main point. As Carol said, look, we expect this to really evolve positively in the rest of the year.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question is from Guilherme Sampaio from Caixa Bank. Your line is now open.
Hello. Thank you for taking my questions, and welcome, Carol. The first one on fixed costs. You mentioned that you're doing some adjustments this year. I was just wondering whether part of these savings this year could mean incremental costs in 2026. If you could provide a bit more color on this, which would be great. The second, you mentioned also a more constructive environment by airlines on GDS negotiations, and that volumes are moving out of aggregators in Europe into the GDS.
How about the situation in the U.S.? Could you provide us some additional color on this? Thank you.
Hi. Look, my comment was general. What we see in concrete terms is some volume coming from some travel agencies doing NDC in Europe already. Hopefully, as we have always said, we expect to really bring some of the volume that is not part of our system into the platform. It has been more now in Europe, but hopefully will be in the rest of the world.
Yeah. On the fixed costs again, thank you for the warm welcome. I feel very loved today. You're right that we had represented fixed cost growth, however, quarter- on- quarter in the half, we've seen a reduction.
Moving into half two, our growth will moderate due to the lapping of Vision-Box consolidation impact and the lapping of the resource ramp-up that we had in the prior year. Effectively, timing effects. To extend that to your question about what do we see for FY2026, I expect that we'll still see a slowdown in our underlying cost growth in FY2026 as we continue to finish our migration to the cloud.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question is from Sven Merkt from Barclays. Caroline, is that open?
Great. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. Welcome to Carol from me as well. Maybe one follow-up question on the pipeline for Nevio. Can you perhaps comment on what the main obstacles are to converting these deals that you still have in the pipeline? Is it commercial terms? Is it ease of migration?
Can you perhaps also comment on what type of airlines you have in the pipeline? Is it really broad-based across geographies and sizes of airlines? Thank you.
Across the board, it's everywhere. Airlines will move there. If you see, yes, we have signed more European carriers, but we also have Saudia. The conversations are with all kinds of airlines. What is preventing? Look, negotiations are always about conditions, pricing, migration. These are long-term decisions. It's a matter of priorities for the carriers. Yes, also engagement with us and negotiations to convince them that we are the right solution. I will say, look, there is nothing really preventing them. I think it's a matter of priorities, timing, and finishing negotiations of IT contracts that are never easy. I will say, look, the conversations are moving in the right direction.
Hopefully, we should be able to sign some of that pipeline or convert into contracts.
Perfect. Thank you.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I will now hand the call back over to Luis Maroto for the closing remarks.
Thank you very much for attending the call in this end of July. I wish you all a good summer season, and we'll talk for the 3rd quarter results. Thank you.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. The conference call has now ended. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect your lines.