Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Amadeus H1 2026 Results Conference Call. At this time, all lines are in 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 over to Luis Maroto, President and CEO of Amadeus. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, and a very warm welcome to our first half results presentation. Thank you for attending today. I'm joined by Carol Borg, our CFO. Let's begin. Let's turn to slide four for our takeaways from the first half. As you can see, we opened 2026 with solid growth and profitability. From March, the geopolitical situation in the Middle East has significantly impacted global air traffic, with IATA announcing negative growth in April and May, the first time in 15 years, excluding the COVID period. Despite this macroeconomic impact moderating our growth, our relevance continues as reflected in our continued commercial momentum. Overall, we are pleased with our performance in the first half, demonstrating the strength and resilience of our diversified business. In the first half at constant currency, Amadeus delivered 5% revenue growth and 5% adjusted EBIT growth, while adjusted diluted EPS increased 7%.
We continue to deliver solid unitary revenue growth. Our hospitality and other solutions segment continues to deliver against our strategy. Commercial momentum remained strong throughout the second quarter. We expanded our customer base across our segments, increased adoption of our solutions, and continued to cross-sell more solutions across verticals. As always, we remain focused on delivering long-term growth, investing with conviction for the future. As a leader in travel technology, our goal is to be a neutral, embedded orchestrator in an AI-enabled travel ecosystem. We continue to advance our AI roadmap, working closely with our customers to address their needs, developing AI capabilities with our partners, and enhancing AI solutions and offerings across our portfolio. We also continue to execute our strategy by supporting our customers with retailing transformations with AI-powered next-generation solutions.
This quarter, we welcome a new Altéa PSS customer, launched the Amadeus advertising platform in partnership with Accenture, and signed the share purchase agreement for the acquisition of IPS that we announced previously. We believe we will capture value as the essential infrastructure powering the travel ecosystem, including emerging AI players, expanding our role, and increasing our relevance. We are closely monitoring the challenging macro and geopolitical context, making it difficult to predict in the short term. The slower traffic leads to a revision of our outlook, particularly at the lower end of the range, specifically for the air distribution segment and consequential effects on the group results. We are prudently providing a revision to our 2026 outlook by providing a wider-than-typical outlook range. We continue to focus on what we can control and are showing moderated fixed-cost growth as a result.
Our resilience and financial discipline ensure we are well-positioned to navigate these short-term uncertainties. Let's turn to our strategy and how it translates into commercial wins. We are leading the airline industry's retailing transformation with Nevio, our AI-native next-generation air and IT platform. As you know, Lufthansa Group, British Airways, Air France-KLM, Saudia, and Finnair are engaged in Nevio, with 25% of Altéa business now involved in a Nevio program. Looking ahead, we see strong interest across all regions and expect momentum to build beyond Europe. In the second quarter, we were pleased to announce that an airline group carrying over 40 million passengers annually has selected Amadeus Altéa Passenger Service System as a cornerstone of its broader technology transformation, alongside complementary Amadeus solutions. Deployment is expected to be completed by 2027. We also continue to grow the scope of solutions adopted by our customers.
British Airways and Royal Air Maroc will adopt Amadeus Altéa NDC, which provides airlines with enhanced control over retailing, pricing, and servicing across indirect channels under NDC standards. SAS has deployed our AI-enabled air pricing optimization. We also had strong commercial traction in airport IT, such as with Thai Aviation Industries, Adelaide Airport, Lisbon, Porto, and Faro Airports, and Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Austin, Texas, among others. This momentum goes beyond air. We are becoming the IT provider of reference in hospitality. The Amadeus hospitality platform offers the most comprehensive AI-powered portfolio of core capabilities to the hotel industry, and it is the most broadly connected ecosystem that we have. We also continue to execute our strategy by supporting our customers with retailing transformations with AI-powered next-generation solutions. This quarter, we welcome a new Altéa PSS. I'm sorry. I missed something. Sorry for that.
We continue to progress with ACRS customer implementations for Marriott International, Accor, and The Ascott Limited. In the first half of the year, we continued to have commercial momentum. In hospitality, we had customer signatures across our portfolio, including with Radisson Hotel Group for advertising, and in payments, Hainan Airlines and Boliviana de Aviación contracted for Outpayce Xchange Payment Platform. As a demonstration of the interconnection of our solutions, the airline, Avianca, has expanded the use of our advertising solutions. We are growing leadership in airline distribution. We signed new agreements, including with Alaska Airlines, with travel sellers across the globe, and expanded the content distributed through the Amadeus Travel Platform, such as with Gol Linhas Aéreas. We are powering the largest ecosystem of connected open AI-enabled solutions travel. We remain on track with our AI roadmap.
We continue to advance our partnership with Microsoft and Google. We are pleased to announce that we are the first B2B foundational partner to co-develop the Universal Commerce Protocol for Lodging. We continue to expand the number of AI use cases that we have in production. Amadeus is uniquely placed to deliver agentic AI functionality into products and solutions, supporting our customers on their journey, and to serve as a neutral embedded orchestrator in an AI-enabled travel ecosystem. Please turn to slide six for our AI milestones this quarter. As you know, Amadeus plays a distinctive role within the travel industry. We operate as an embedded neutral execution layer at the core of the travel ecosystem, and we are also the system of record that underpins how travel operates day-to-day.
With this positioning, we see a clear opportunity for Amadeus to act as the orchestrator that new players such as digital assistants and AI-driven services rely on to operate effectively within travel. Our technology is deeply integrated into real operational processes, connecting travel suppliers, sellers, and increasingly AI-enabled interfaces. This depth of integration is what allows AI to move beyond experimentation and operate reliably within real-world workflows. Just as importantly, we deliver this as global scale with high levels of reliability, integrity, and trust. This combination of deep integration, scalability, and operational discipline continues to differentiate Amadeus within the industry. This quarter, we continue to advance our AI strategy with a series of announcements spanning our strategic partnerships and customer-facing solutions. We became a founding partner of Google's Universal Commerce Protocol for Lodging, helping shape how AI-enabled commerce will work across the hospitality sector.
This announcement underlines our commitment to building AI in an open, trusted, and collaborative way alongside leading technology partners. Most importantly, we continue to bring AI-powered solutions to market across multiple travel verticals. We expanded our hospitality AI strategy, introduced Amadeus Max capabilities across hospitality, airlines, and travel sellers, and launched the Amadeus Travel Advertising Platform to help travel brands make smarter AI-driven advertising decisions. These announcements demonstrate how we are embedding AI directly into the products and workflows used by our customers every day. The key takeaway is that our AI strategy is translating into tangible actions. Across our partner ecosystem and our product portfolio, we are building momentum and delivering proof points. Quarter after quarter, we are showing how Amadeus is working with customers and partners to bring AI into production at scale and create practical value across the travel ecosystem.
We are embedding AI into core travel processes, scaling it responsibly, and reinforcing our position as this trusted neutral technology backbone and platform for the industry. Now I will pass on to Carol for our financial overview.
Thank you, Luis. We started the year with solid growth and profitability. However, since March, the ongoing Middle East situation moderated our volumes and consequently our growth ambition. We are pleased with our performance in half one, showing strength and resilience supported by a diversified business. Revenue amounted to EUR 3,335 million, representing 5% constant currency growth. Reported growth was 2%. Adjusted EBIT increased to EUR 1,012 million, equal to 5% growth at constant currency, 4% reported growth. Adjusted diluted EPS expanded by 7% at constant currency. Free cash flow amounted to EUR 472 million, equal to 1% growth. Diluted EPS was EUR 1.64, 1% growth. We deployed R&D investment of EUR 682 million, equivalent to 20% of revenue. Leverage was at 1x net debt to EBITDA at the end of June, and we completed our EUR 500 million share repurchase program.
In half one, our group revenue grew 2.3% on a reported basis or by 5.1% at constant currency. Air IT solutions delivered a strong performance, growing by 8.7%. Hospitality and other solutions continued to deliver fast growth, growing by 9.2%, and air distribution delivered 1.1% growth in the first half. These results demonstrate that relevance to our customers continues. Despite negative volume growth, our diversified business provides resilience, evidenced by our solid unitary revenue growth and continued momentum in hospitality and other solutions. At constant currency, our adjusted EBIT grew by 4.9%, and adjusted EBIT margin was 29.8%, in line with prior year. On a reported basis, adjusted EBIT grew 4%, driven by the revenue growth I described previously and a cost evolution consisting of the following.
Cost of revenue increased by 2.2%, fundamentally driven by an increase in transactions in hotel distribution bookings and in payments due to the B2B Wallet expansion, as well as from our airport IT business expansion. Fixed costs declined by 0.1%, mostly resulting from resource decreases following the completion of the migration of our systems to the cloud at the end of 2025 and cost containment measures in response to the Middle East geopolitical situation. This was offset by higher unitary personnel costs and transaction processing costs from prior year ramp-up in our migration to the cloud. Ordinary D&A expense increased by 6.4% as a result of higher amortization of internally developed software to continue to maintain our leadership position. Now let's review the performance of our operating segments, starting with our Air IT solutions business.
Air IT solutions revenue increased strongly by 8.7% at constant currency, driven by a 7.5% higher revenue per PB and Amadeus PBs increasing by 1.1%. Revenue per PB experienced strong growth in the six-month period, primarily due to incremental revenues from our Amadeus Nevio portfolio, renewals, and inflation. Secondly, PB-linked performance from upselling of our solutions such as Altéa NDC, Loyalty, and Disruption Management. Thirdly, airline professional services and airport IT expansion. Finally, transactional non-PB linked performance such as digital commerce, Amadeus Ticket Changer, and direct distribution, partly due to an increase in transactions linked to the air traffic disruption caused by the situation in the Middle East, as commented previously. Our Amadeus PB evolution was moderated by the air traffic disruption experienced due to heightened geopolitical instability in the Middle East region.
It is pleasing to see that over the first three weeks of July, our PB growth is close to 1%, an improvement versus June. In Q2, All Nippon Airways migrated its domestic business to Altéa. This migration will support our PB evolution throughout the rest of the year. In Q2, we continued to partner with airlines and airports around the globe. Luis has already mentioned our commercial success in Altéa with a new customer signature, Altéa NDC, and air pricing optimization. In addition, Sun Group selected Amadeus Loyalty and Rewards solution. In airport IT, we continue to expand our presence across regions. In Asia Pacific, Thai Aviation Industries is exploring the deployment of biometrics and seamless passenger processing technologies across several airports in Thailand. Also, Adelaide Airport in Australia signed for airport cloud use service and other solutions.
In Europe, several airports across Portugal will expand the use of our technology. In the U.S., Austin-Bergstrom International Airport will extend the deployment of passenger processing and airport operation solutions. Air IT solutions contribution increased by 9.1% at constant currency, resulting from the revenue evolution I described previously, offset by cost growth of 7.9%, which was fundamentally driven by airport IT and professional services business expansion. Contribution margin at constant currency was 70.2%, 0.3 percentage points above prior year. Hospitality and other solutions revenue grew by 9.2% at constant currency. Revenue growth was driven across both hospitality and payments due to new customer implementations and increased transaction volumes. Within hospitality, the fastest-growing solutions were customer implementations of our Central Reservations System and hotel distribution. In payments, both our merchant services and our payout services reported strong growth.
To further elaborate on what Luis said, we continued our commercial success worldwide, spanning across our portfolio, such as with Radisson Hotel Group, Nobu Hotels, and Primestar Group for advertising solutions, and with several destination marketing organizations for travel intelligence. Druva Hotels and Mundo Imperial contracted our iHotelier CRS and Delphi solutions, respectively, and we had several customers signing for our distribution services. In payments, Hainan Airlines and Boliviana de Aviación adopted Xchange Payment Platform, our orchestration platform, which helps to manage payment flows across multiple providers, and FX Box and a multi-currency pricing solution. We also expanded our B2B wallet customer base with several travel seller signatures. At constant currency, hospitality and other solutions contribution was 11.2% above the previous year as a result of the revenue growth previously described, offset by cost growth of 8.1%, mainly driven by the volume expansion in both hospitality and payments.
Contribution margin was 34.4%, 0.6 percentage points above last year. Air distribution revenue increased by 1.1% at constant currency, driven by revenue per booking growth of 5.1%, primarily resulting from positive pricing effects from renewals, new agreements and inflation. Amadeus bookings declined by 3.7%. Our booking performance up to February was strong. Since March, our booking evolution has been impacted by the Middle East situation. This caused a reduction in air traffic as well as a deceleration in new bookings and an increase in booking cancellations globally. Over the first three weeks of July, our booking performance has been broadly flat, improving from the June performance. Although the geopolitical situation remains challenging, we expect our Q3 booking evolution to outperform our Q2 evolution. Complementing Luis, in half one, we broadened our airline content offering through the Amadeus Travel Platform with Gol Linhas Aéreas and Fits Air.
We signed several NDC content agreements such as with Alaska Airlines, flydubai and Royal Air Maroc. We also signed several contracts with travel sellers for content distribution, including ITL World, Canoe Travel and Qunar, and another two customers in China and with corporations for Cytric. Air distribution's contribution grew by 1.5% at constant currency as a result of the revenue growth described previously, partially offset by a 0.8% cost increase. The contribution margin of the segment expanded by 0.2 percentage points to 51.1%. Let's move on now to review our R&D investments. Our R&D investment amounted to EUR 682 million in the first six months, equivalent to 20% of our revenue. It decreased by 6.3% versus prior year following the completion of our migration of our systems to the public cloud at the end of last year.
Given the challenging geopolitical environment, we are prioritizing our investment where it matters most for our future growth, whilst preserving spend in critical areas such as cybersecurity, reliability and stability. We are well-versed in ensuring we continue to invest in the right place at the right time. Our ability to continue to progress on our AI program, our strategic projects and customer implementation efforts and services is a further example of our financial discipline. We continue to execute our strategy to maintain our leadership position within our capital allocation framework and financial commitments. We continue to prioritize investment in R&D to deliver our organic growth. We are proud of our commitment to remain relevant for our customers and ensure that emerging technologies such as AI continue to enrich our entire portfolio.
Half of our investment was dedicated to the expansion of our portfolio as well as the evolution of our solutions. We are infusing AI and developing AI capabilities across our portfolio and are undertaking strategic developments including Amadeus Nevio and Navitaire Stratos for airlines, our hospitality platform, NDC Technology for airlines and travel sellers, and solutions for airports and payment services. A third was dedicated to customer implementations across our business such as Marriott International and Accor for CRS, new Nevio customers and airline portfolio upselling, customers implementing NDC Technology as well as efforts related to bespoke professional services provided to our customers. Finally, the remainder is investments in our IT infrastructure including AI developments and our partnerships such as with Microsoft, Google and Adobe among others. As well as platform developments related to stability, security, data protection, exchange and management and cloud optimization.
We generated EUR 472 million of free cash flow, 0.8% ahead of last year as a result of our EBITDA expansion and lower capital expenditure, partially offset by a higher change in working capital outflow and higher interest and tax payments. Capital expenditure decreased by 16.8%, largely reflecting the completion of the migration of our systems to the cloud and cost containment measures and represented 9.8% of revenue. Net debt amounted to EUR 2,578 million at the end of June. EUR 436 million higher than at the end of December 2025. Fundamentally due to the acquisition of treasury shares under the share repurchase programs and the dividend payment, as well as the acquisition of SkyLink partially offset by our free cash flow generation. Our leverage was one times net debt to EBITDA at the end of June within our targeted leverage range.
Finally, please turn to slide 16 for our revised FY 2026 outlook. Our long-term ambition remains unchanged. Our relevance continues, evidenced by continued commercial momentum, new customer implementations and positive pricing dynamics. We are pleased with our performance in H1, showing the strength of our diversified business. However, the Middle East situation has impacted our short-term growth. Fuel prices and supply have been impacted, driving some airlines towards capacity adjustments. In this context, IATA's global air traffic growth assumption for 2026 has been reduced in June to 1.9% growth from its 4.4% growth assumption in December. We continue to monitor the challenging situation. However, the short-term impacts remain difficult to predict with confidence. Achieving our original outlook is still possible if the global air traffic evolution improves notably in half two.
However, the current volatility in the Middle East prompts us to prudently revise our outlook, particularly at the lower end of the range. We also take the opportunity to provide a wider than typical range in line with the downward revision to IATA's traffic growth assumption. Despite a softening in our PB growth assumption for the year, our views on Air IT Solutions revenue growth remain unchanged at high single-digit outlook range. This is supported by customer implementations, upselling, Nevio and disruption revenues, as well as healthy performance of our Airport IT and professional services business. We are also expecting our Hospitality and Other Solutions segment to deliver on our original low double-digit revenue growth outlook range as we continue to progress with our customer implementations and healthy evolution of our hospitality and payments business.
We are now cautiously assuming a softer booking performance than our original 2026 outlook released in February, driving our Air Distribution revenue growth outlook to a low to mid single-digit range. We expect a solid unitary revenue evolution throughout the year, partly mitigating the booking moderation. The revision of our views on Air Distribution drives our group revenue growth expectations to a mid to high single-digit range and our adjusted diluted EPS growth expectations to a high single to low double-digit range. In light of this macroeconomic context, we continue to focus on what we can control. Our continued cost containment efforts partially mitigate the impact of the revised revenue outlook range and support our original expectations for adjusted EBIT margin stability and free cash flow generation of EUR 1.35 billion-EUR 1.45 billion. We also expect to deliver on our original outlook for segment margin evolution.
That is, slightly dilutive Air IT Solutions margin evolution, Hospitality and Other Solutions margin expansion, and stable Air Distribution margin. Whilst the current environment is difficult to predict, historical patterns show that a rebound in air traffic typically follows a resolution of a geopolitical situation. We are seeing, in the first three weeks of July, an improvement on the June volumes. The revision of our 2026 outlook reflects our current views and expectations, which affect the short term. The fundamentals of our business remain strong, and we continue to maintain our previously communicated midterm outlook. In conclusion, our resilience, diversification, and financial discipline ensure we are well-positioned to navigate these short-term uncertainties. We remain focused on what we can control, being a trusted partner for our customers, and executing our strategy to ultimately deliver long-term value for our shareholders.
With this, we have finished the presentation, and we can now open the call for any questions that you might have. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask an audio question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Should you wish to cancel your request, please press star followed by two. If you're using speakerphone, please lift up the handset before pressing any keys. Your first question comes from George Webb from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Afternoon, Luis and Carol. Thanks for the presentation and the detail on the guidance. I've got a few questions, please. Firstly, just in terms of what you saw during Q2 on the air distribution bookings, noting that 7.6% down for the quarter, could you share the month-by-month walk for that for April, May, and June so we get a better feel for how that feeds back into that broadly flat that you've called out for the start of July? Secondly, on the Air IT revenue per PB, of that 6.2% constant currency revenue growth in the second quarter, how much of that was still benefiting from the rebooking and disruption solution revenues? Alternatively, is a mid-single digit underlying growth rate for revenue per PB a fair ballpark for the second half at this stage? Lastly, just a bigger picture question.
From your vantage point, could you provide an update with regards to how you're seeing the industry evolve around bilateral direct connections between suppliers and some of the larger travel management companies? I think as one example, Navan recently launched a direct SAS NDC connection and announced plans to integrate directly with Hilton CRS on the hotel side. As some of those more tech forward TMC scale their connections, curious how you see the potential longer-term impacts on Amadeus. Thank you.
Okay, let me start with the bookings and give some color about that. Going back to the seasonality, okay, we have seen March that was very weak. This stayed in April and May, in June things started to recover. Of course, this continues into July. A couple of comments about that. As you know, if we take traffic, okay, we can translate into bookings. The latest figure we had before the war started was IATA in February, releasing 6.1%. You have seen the evolution per month coming down to a -2.4%, there was an 8 points difference. Very difficult now to assess if all that is due to Middle East, because of course, when we talk about Middle East, we can analyze the direct effect, which is more the bookings that are going through that region or leaving the region.
If you see the figures of passengers, we have seen negative figures in some domestic markets, including the U.S., that was coming from positive. We feel there has been an overall adjustment, not just due to the Middle East impact, which was at the beginning, but also the fact of capacity adjustments, an increase of prices in some part of the world that has had an impact. In our case, in the bookings, what we saw is that there were many cancellations at the beginning and not many new bookings. Okay. People were waiting, so we feel there was a delay in the booking figures compared to some of the figures of the traffic. In June, there has been some small improvement in the traffic, but we have seen a better improvement in bookings.
In July, okay, we don't have official figures from the industry, but our PBs and our booking are today very similar. What we need to understand again is if this is purely catch up because there was a delay, people were waiting to see, and it's just purely catch up of reservations for the rest of the year, or if this is really a new trend. Our feeling is that the worst has happened already with all these cancellations, adjustments of routes, adjustment of capacity of the airlines, and of course, the current geopolitical situation may vary. To be honest, the last weeks, since the beginning of June, we have seen a progressive improvement in the bookings. The same in PBs, but in PBs coming from a not so low base than in the case of the bookings. That's the overall picture.
Let me take just the third question.
You take the third one. Yeah. I can take disruption.
You can go to the second one.
Yeah.
Direct connects. Direct connects happen, as you know, between big players. In general, as you know, this is not a trend. We don't think this is a trend. From time to time between some of the big players decide to really do a direct connect, but the direct connect, as we have explained many, many times, has the complexity and the challenges, as you know, because this is for one-to-one. It requires integration, it requires optimization with other players because not everybody is doing direct connects with, when you talk about hotels or airlines, with everybody that is part of the industry. You need to maintain that. You need to optimize the shopping and the search. That is not what we feel is the general trend in the industry, and you hear less today than some years ago. The airlines are doing less probably than before.
There are some cases where this can happen, and this is part of what we have had in the past and we may have in the future. It's very limited to some specific players, and we don't see that as a general trend.
Okay. George, on your question on disruption revenue, as we said last Q, it's more prevalent in our air IT solutions business. I think we said in Q1 that it contributed about a third of our growth. Yeah. I also signaled in Q1 that we didn't expect that to continue into Q2 because the biggest impact of the disruption was happening in the month of March when the conflict started. Q2 doesn't have the same degree of impact. In fact, it's a more tapered result. Yeah, if you look Q- on- Q, that kind of third has fallen away in terms of our unitary pricing on revenue per PB.
Very clear. Thank you both.
Your next question comes from Alex Irving from Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. First question from me is on the contract win for the new more than 40 million PB airline and Altéa. I am surprised to see an airline go to all the effort and trouble of a platform that is rapidly being superseded by next generation technology. What factors led to the selection of Altéa rather than going straight to Nevio? Second question, can you please update us with what you are seeing in AI distribution? Are you supporting any airline development of MCP APIs? If not, do you plan to? If I could sneak in a third. Your personnel costs are down year-on-year despite higher unitary personnel costs. Do you expect that to continue? And is the headcount reduction the result of AI deployment or something else? Thank you.
Alex, it was a bit difficult. We are going to replay the questions that you had. The first one was the new Altéa win and why Altéa and not Nevio. The second one was about MCP. MCP for airlines. Yeah. Is that right?
Yeah. Correct. If you're supporting any airlines in building them, and if not, are there plans to?
MCP for airlines. The last one was the unitary cost and personnel costs. Yeah?
More the personnel costs are down, unitary costs are up, then headcount is down.
Yeah.
Is this AI or something else?
Yep. Got it. Okay.
Why Altéa and not Nevio directly? We offer both at this point. The airline decided to really come to Altéa. At one point may go to Nevio, but Nevio is, I mean, it's a different way of dealing with your traffic, the way you sell, and they consider they wanted first to really come to Altéa. That's what I can say. I mean, the fact that we consider Nevio as the future platform does not mean we are not allowing the airlines to choose Altéa and then decide about Nevio if this is their intention. We also migrated last year. It's not exactly the same because the contract was signed many years ago, but as you know, we migrated ANA.
There will be discussions with all the carriers, including them, about Nevio, but it does not prevent them to really move to Altéa first, work with us, see how the platform works, and from there, do a smooth migration to Nevio.
I might just complement that while you're thinking about the MCP question, Luis. I think firstly, what I'd say, Alex, is that we can coexist with an Altéa and a Nevio world, and we think that we would coexist. As what Luis was mentioning, the move to offer and order requires a really significant process adjustment from the airlines, right? Some airlines might not be ready to do that. They might not be ready to rewrite their business processes and things like that, and the transition period. We don't see it as strange for a customer based on where they are on their modern retailing transformation to actually take it in two steps. Do you want me to continue on the personnel and we get to the other one?
Yeah.
You're right, we issue salary rate increases to our personnel. That happens at the start of the year. That's already been factored into it. It is true, headcount is reducing year-on-year. I don't think of it more as a structural AI evolution, which is I think what you were alluding to. This is disciplined tactical cost containment measures to prevent ramp-ups that we're seeing to take advantage of our flexible R&D structure, which relies on the use of contractors, all whilst maintaining investment that drive future growth for our business. We expect a continued moderation of fixed costs into the second half, but do bear in mind that we were benefited from FX in the first half a lot with our fixed cost growth. That won't continue next time. Luis.
I mean, look, just an overall comment. Again, there are different protocols. Things are evolving on the AI front. We work with airlines to really support them in the connectivity. It could be whatever, depending on how the AI platforms are facing this matter. Yes, as part of that, of course, some airlines may need to think about how they are going to really face and connect to all these AI platforms that will be in the future, a new channel of connectivity to travelers and of course to the inventory of the airline. It's part of our roadmap, it's part of our discussions with the carriers to really see how we can support in the different connectivities and the different protocols.
Helpful detail. Thank you both.
Your next question comes from Sven Merkt from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi, Luis. Hi, Carol. Thanks for taking my questions. Can you maybe comment first how you internally see the 2% passenger growth forecast from IATA? I fully appreciate you don't have a crystal ball either, but does this forecast sit more on the bullish side or more on the cautious side? Would be great if you could put this a bit into context for us. If the conflict continues, what could be the downside? Then a question on the pipeline for Nevio. Finnair recently reported strong ancillary revenues, and BA also called out its new retailing strategy. Does this change anything in your discussion with new prospects? Having a few more proof points that Nevio starts to drive real benefits for customers. Thank you.
Okay. Should I take and then, Carol, add anything you would like?
Yes.
I mean, with regards to Finnair, of course, when an airline is talking, and it's not just Finnair, about the benefits that Nevio is bringing to them, it helps definitely because some airlines that may be wondering and thinking when to take this decision, the fact that airlines are talking about the benefits is always positive and is always good. Finnair has been quite explicit about that, but also BA in some comments and other airlines are talking about this, so it helps. We have a healthy pipeline of discussions as we speak. As we have explained, this will be a journey. It will take years for the whole industry. Yes, definitely it will be positive to really be able to have proof points of the value of Nevio.
Carol has explained, we see also already in our results as part of the upselling that we are doing with Nevio. With regards to the volumes, I mean, it's very difficult to really. The only thing we have are some data. That's why I was trying to provide some data when I was talking about the figures, okay? There are two data today. One is the estimation of the 2% for the rest of the year, and the second one is the actual numbers, okay? The actual numbers in July is true. IATA released yesterday the figure of June, was still negative. What we have seen in terms of bookings is positive. How things may evolve with the war, I have no idea, to be honest. I mean, today there is some conflict going on. For the time being, the figure seems to be positive, okay?
Therefore, we have not seen the similar impact we saw when the war started, and this brings us some optimism To us for the rest of the year. Can things deteriorate? Yes. It depends how the conflict evolves. I will say, look, the 2% of IATA is there, and also our figures that we have seen an improvement, especially in bookings, but also in PBs in the months of June and July, and the trend is positive. From there, it's very difficult to really make any prediction of what may happen. I will say, look, in normal circumstances and if things will settle, I believe that we will move in the positive way, and therefore, we should see positive figures for the rest of the year. Again, this is just an assumption because, to be honest, I don't know how this may evolve.
To complement Luis, and then to address your third question about downside. I think the three messages I want to leave on this call is that we have had resilient performance in H1 despite the environment, that we do desire to create sustainable value, and in a transparent way, and I think we've been very clear on what our outlook is being based on, and then we focus on what we can control. Yeah, as Luis said, we don't know. We don't have a crystal ball. Having said that, to your question about downsides and all that sort of stuff, we have prepared a whole range of scenarios in order to develop the outlook range that we've provided for you or the revised outlook range.
We feel from what we know today and what we can see today, based on all of the information that we have available, that we can deliver within that range. Of course, if things change strongly negatively to the worse, we will again come back in a transparent way.
Perfect. Thank you.
Your next question comes from Toby Ogg from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, Luis and Carol. Thank you for the questions. Couple from me. Just firstly, just on the hospitality side, you're running just above 9% constant currency for H1. The full year guidance is for low double digits. There is a bit of an acceleration implied in the second half. Could you just talk about the factors that are driving your confidence in that acceleration in the second half? Then just secondly, just on the CapEx side, it looks as though you're tracking at about 9.5% of sales for the first half, with CapEx down pretty significantly year-over-year, each quarter so far. I know the framework for CapEx over the midterm is currently low double-digit percentage of sales. You are tracking a bit below that this year.
Could you help us with why the CapEx ratio would revert back higher, whether we could be looking at this as a new type of run rate? Thank you.
Yeah, I think I'll take both of those. They're financial questions, Luis. In terms of the host timing on acceleration, it really is dependent on our customer implementation. We've currently implemented 1,700 properties in Marriott. We're progressing really well in core, and our payments business is winning new business and new evolutions of that. The hospitality business is less impacted by the Middle East. It's really our media business and our payment volumes that go through that is impacted. It's a much more diversified business. We feel that we have some confidence in our acceleration towards the end of the year to get us back within that range, which, by the way, we're not that far off already. We would stay within that low double-digit range based on the timing of our customer implementations.
In terms of your question on CapEx, I feel quite proud of our CapEx evolution. I think it demonstrates some really good financial discipline that we're applying across the board. Again, as I said previously, using our flexible R&D structure in cost containment measures to focus on investments where they really grow. You are right, we're at the low end of our guided range, at 10%. I think that we will probably end the year at the lower end of that range moving forward. We haven't changed our range. It stays there. I think of what we see ahead of us in terms of CapEx investments, that we will be towards the lower end of that range.
That's great. Thank you.
Your next question comes from Michael Briest from UBS. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good afternoon. You referenced the IATA figures and, for the end of June, I think RPK is down 0.6% year to date. So to get that up to 2% for the year, you need quite a strong second half, 3%, simplistically speaking. Your comments on July don't really accord with that. Does this require some sort of end of conflict, and that's an underlying assumption, or can you just talk about the shape of the second half given that implied acceleration? Then Carol, just on the cloud migration, can you talk through the one-offs that we've seen this year, what they relate to, when they're going to end? Because I think you alluded to the migration is completed. Why are we continuing to see these effects? Then Luis, just on IDEMIA. You announced it just before the Q1s.
You've had a chance to talk to a lot of your airline and airport customers over the last couple of months. Can you give some insights into whether you may be getting more enthusiastic or optimistic on the potential, what ideas these customers are sharing with you? Thank you.
Going back to the 2%, yes, you're right. It requires an improvement in the rest of the year. There are some things that are positive. We have seen after strong reductions or reductions in many parts of the world of capacity. We have seen some improvement in the capacity, with the latest figures as I saw during July. People were assuming recovery because the money is still there. Yes, due to the oil price, there has been some adjustment on the capacity front. I think it will depend a lot, okay, of how things evolve, what is the oil price, how the airlines are going to bring capacity in place. Then, of course, this will result in traffic figures. As we mentioned, it's not the only area.
Of course, whatever happens with the traffic has an impact to us because part of our business is based on the unit, as you know well. Hopefully, with the diversification of the company, we should try to be able to offset pieces of that. This is why we feel comfortable that, okay, in normal circumstances, if we don't reach the 2%, but we reach a bit less, we should be able to be within the range that we have provided to you. Saying that, of course, if the situation deteriorates and things are not improving in the rest of the year, the situation may be a bit different. I cover IDEMIA, too. I am extremely optimistic, more than probably when we decided to do so. We have seen a lot of interest, a lot of possibilities.
Again, we cannot just really engage completely with the teams, okay? We have had some interaction with respecting the fact that this is not our company yet. We have seen extremely quality of solutions, with a high fit culturally, because, as you know, they have a lot of people and the headquarters in France. A lot of alignment between the teams, a lot of possibilities. I feel very optimistic and in the interaction we have had with the different players in the industry, quite positive. The reaction has been positive about the acquisition of this company from all the players. I have not heard any bad noise about that. We are inheriting a very strong team with this company. Very optimistic about the future. Of course, still months to really get the approval.
We are estimating in our base case that will happen in the second quarter of next year. Things can accelerate or delay a little bit depending on the reaction of the different countries where we had to file for regulatory approvals.
In relation to your question on the one-off cloud migration costs, yes, you're right. We've moved to the cloud. We still have a data center that we need to decommission, and it's sitting idle at the moment. Costs that we're incurring are the runoff of software contracts or supply contracts that haven't finished yet and just general decommissioning activities. We felt that it was prudent to put them in one-off because they are not an underlying recurring cost. I felt that it would distort our results if we ran that through. We expect that to run off to the end of the year as our supply contracts complete and our decommissioning activities complete, but it's effectively related to the decommissioning of what's now an idle data center in Erding.
Will you get any money when you presumably sell it at the end or?
Well, there's upside on selling the server equipment and things like that. We've had some very good interest for that given the LLM appetite for infrastructure. Yes, all that will run through towards the end of the year. Again, we will put that as non-underlying as to not distort our underlying performance.
Okay. Thank you.
Your next question comes from Charles Brennan from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Great. Thanks very much, guys. Just looking at the PBs, can you just give some color on the geographic trends and particularly the divergence we see between Europe and the U.S.? I think in the statement, you're calling out some impacts from Hawaiian and Spirit. Can you just size those for us? Then when we look into the second half, how do we think about the sort of net impact of those inorganics with Hawaiian and Spirit on one side and ANA on the other side? Thank you.
Look, I don't think we have provided all these details. You know the passengers that these airlines were flying. In the case of Spirit, they had already a significant reduction, before they went bankrupt. This had an impact, but less than the passengers they used to have. Then, yes, you know about Hawaiian. The net effect is positive because ANA is bigger than the sum of these airlines. Yes, they have an impact. They had an impact in the PBs in this year, and this impact will stay as well as the positive impact of ANA for the rest of the year. Look, the exact numbers, we are not providing you, but you know the numbers of passengers of these airlines. The second question, I'm sorry, or it was the only one?
That's it.
That's it?
Yeah.
Okay.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from Laurent Daure from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you. Good afternoon. I have three quick questions. The first is on the contribution margin in the first half, the three units progressed While for the full year, you only have one of the three that you see as spending, so despite potentially better sales. If you could give us a little bit more color on that and reconcile that with a flat EBIT you expect for the full year. My second question is on the hospitality business. I would be interested to know when Marriott and Accor contribution are likely to peak, I guess, in a few quarters. The very last question is, one year ahead of IDEMIA, I was interested by the Vision-Box performance since you have acquired it. Thank you.
Okay. Let me take the last one. No, we are very pleased with Vision-Box. This area is, for us, an area of growth. Overall, very positive. With IDEMIA, of course, we'll have a very sizable business complimentary on the one hand, and with synergies because Vision-Box is doing things that IDEMIA is not doing. I will say our bet here is to really enter into digital identity and biometrics. We did with Vision-Box, and IDEMIA is another step, but we are very pleased with the performance of Vision-Box.
I can take the other two. Let's go in reverse order. When's the customer implementation is going to peak? Well, we can't give you a lot of information because it's driven by confidentiality with our customer implementations. Just suffice to say that these are multi-year projects. We expect Marriott in 2027, Accor in 2028. I think that's the most I can give you on that. Having said that, they're progressing very well, and we're getting some very good customer feedback. Then in terms of contribution margin evolution, you're right, the Air IT solutions business is expected to be dilutive in the second half of the year, and that's as a result of the mix of revenue coming from our faster-growing airports and professional services businesses, which attract a lower margin.
That's just a financial engineering in terms of the weight of the revenue within that. We don't see any issues in terms of our commercial competitiveness and things like that. It's just more the weight of revenue and how that comes through.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Your next question comes from Bharath Nagaraj from Cantor Fitzgerald. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Just one question from me, please. As agentic AI drives structurally higher look-to-book ratios, Amadeus probably will have to process a lot more of these queries, these shopping queries, per converted booking while primarily earning on transaction. How are you thinking about the revenue model evolution to reflect the value you deliver at the search and shopping layer? Thanks.
Look-to-book ratio.
Yeah. This is always a challenge. We do many things here, okay? First, we use our experience on getting the inventory and the fact that we are with the inventory of the airlines to really optimize this look-to-book ratio. We have implemented new tools that are not always querying with caches, are not always querying into the airline inventory based on experience, based on information. Then yes, we have commercial models where we limit the amount of transactions that can be done per booking or PB. Based on that, of course, we have different models to really address that. The main objective, of course, is to help our customers to reduce this look-to-book ratio to optimize the bill, because especially for what we call unproductive search, okay?
Searches that are going to the route without producing, at the end, a booking or a passenger, that's what we call unproductive. There are a lot of robotics that are dealing with that, new technologies that are going to the route. All that, yes, is a challenge for the industry. It's not new because things have been increasing every year, and now with AI, this can also increase, therefore, working all the time in improving that is a must for us as a company. This is part of the service that we can provide to the different players. The fact that we are able to optimize the shopping and the search in a way that is cost-effective.
You are right that all the time or every year, the look-to-book ratio has been increasing, of course, all these measures we are taking are important from a technical and business point of view.
Thank you. Very helpful.
In the interest of time, we will need to conclude the Q&A here. I'll now hand the call back to Luis Maroto for closing remarks.
Yeah. Thank you very much to everyone. I wish you a very good summer season. If you have additional questions, please call IR. They will be very pleased to answer them. Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.