Hello everybody, and warm welcome from my side. Welcome to Fraport's Q1 analysts call. Time is running. Q1 is already over. We are heading for the summer, which hopefully will be a good one. Today, our CFO, Matthias Zieschang, will guide you through the presentation. No time to wait. Let's start.
Yeah, good. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and also a warm welcome from my side. Today, we are having a full agenda, so let's go straight into my presentation. On my first slide number three, you will find an update on our latest traffic trends here in Frankfurt. As we already guided with our full year presentation, we are seeing a clear improving trend in terms of passenger momentum. On the slide, you also see the latest results of traffic in April. While we started the year at about 50% of the 2019 level, April has marked the strongest month since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. At a passenger recovery of roughly 66%, we welcomed close to four million passengers at Frankfurt Airport.
Taking a closer look on the passenger performance on a weekly basis, the passenger recovery was even stronger at the end of April when compared to the start of the month. In calendar week 16, we even reached a recovery rate of 71% compared to 2019, mainly driven by Easter holidaymakers. Here, the recovery on markets which were accessible without major COVID-19 restrictions, so the European short-haul traffic, was even stronger at 77%. The same is the case for North American traffic, which recovered remarkably at 80%. Having said that these traffic regions which were more restricted or even heavily restricted, like China, Japan or Korea, underperformed the remaining markets and prevented an even stronger result for Frankfurt Airport in April. In addition to the April traffic numbers, also the trend into May remained very strong.
On slide number four, you will find a traffic update on our international portfolio during the first quarter of the year. While we already discussed Frankfurt, the traffic performances for our international portfolio was marked by an even stronger recovery in general. For our major participations, so Fraport Greece, Lima, Brazil, Bulgaria, but also Antalya, passenger figures recovered by roughly 70% or even more, and therefore outperformed Frankfurt Airport. The reasons for the outperformance remains the same as in the past year. Our international airports are characterized by more leisure traffic and so-called VFR, so visiting friends and relatives, compared to Frankfurt Airport, which used to be characterized by a higher share of corporate travelers before COVID. Moreover, key markets for our international portfolio were more accessible compared to Frankfurt, which is still negatively impacted by intercontinental traffic restrictions.
As a result of those two effects, we expect our international portfolio to continue to outperform Frankfurt Airport going forward. For our minority participations in Russia and China, you see a mixed picture. While in St. Petersburg, the airport is now almost exclusively used for domestic passenger traffic. Xi'an continues to be strongly impacted by mobility restrictions in line with the Chinese zero COVID policy. The traffic performances which we experience, but also the forward-looking information that we are getting, bring us to our mid-term passenger outlook on slide number five. The most important information, we are reiterating our traffic expectations today. During the past few weeks, we faced a lot of discussions about inflation, rising cost of living, and the potential impacts on our industry. From today's perspective, and based on our experience, we remain fully convinced that leisure traffic will fully recover next year.
Fully recover next year. We continue to see that people are willing to travel. Today, maybe even more than before COVID, because they were cut away from the rest of the world for almost two years. We also expect that people, even in a negative GDP scenario, will rather save on other items like cars when compared to taking one or two weeks off on holidays. We also expect that aircraft delivery will drive capacities up and keep ticket prices affordable. As a result, we continue to expect that leisure traffic and VFR traffic will be fully recovered next year. Here, we have to highlight that the precondition are accessible markets, of course. From today's perspective, we hope for China to come back to the market, but we cannot predict the Chinese market opening.
The same is the case for sanctions being imposed on traffic, for example, to and from Russia. Even though the Russian market is of low importance for Frankfurt or Fraport Greece, we cannot rule out that sanctions on Russia may adversely impact our Eastern European airports going forward. Still, we expect very strong traffic results from our leisure-dominated airports going forward. For corporate traveling activities, we continue to be more negative and expect a structural leakage also in the future. For us, it remains unchanged. No one can precisely tell the level of the structural leakage. Certain markets like the U.S. may recover quicker, but on European short haul, we clearly expect a leakage due to the rise of virtual meetings, budget cuts, and growing CO2 considerations.
As a result, we expect Frankfurt Airport to be just recovered by 2025 or 2026, while we expect a full recovery in our international portfolio already next year. Turning the page to an update on our portfolio optimization. On slide six, you see the divestment of our 24.5% stake in Xi'an Airport, which we agreed end of March. To be very honest with you, the strategy which we initially pursued in China to build relations and develop our business to majority holdings has never really materialized. We invested a lot of time and know-how, but we had to come to the conclusion that an exit for us was most reasonable. As a result, we decided to seek an exit and find a buyer. Based on the market conditions, it was evident that this buyer had to be a Chinese company.
Finally, this process which we were working on for a longer time, has been successfully concluded this March. We expect the transaction to close in Q2 this year. At this point, we also expect the financial settlement of the deal. Financially, despite the devaluation of the renminbi against the US dollar or other currencies, the euro renminbi conversion is quite okay. We expect group net debt to go down, ceteris paribus by between EUR 150 million and EUR 160 million. With regard to our P&L, we already booked a EUR 20 million gain during the first quarter. Upon closing, so in the second quarter, we expect another EUR 30 million positive gain on our group financial result and some EUR 10 million-EUR 20 million gain on our group EBITDA. An update on our staff restructuring program in Frankfurt is shown on slide number sevenn.
On the chart, you see a few developments. The most important information is that we continue to be a more than 4,000 employees leaner company. While there is less debate on the need to hire back employees in ground handling, the increase in the segment remained low at about 40 employees at the end of Q1 when compared to year-end 2021. Here, we remain committed to ramp up staff, but tight labor market conditions prevent a quicker ramp-up. On the other side, we continue to reduce headcount in admin and semi-admin functions. As a result, all the ground handling ramp-up was more than offset by reductions in our corporate headquarters. In our airport security management, we also recorded two effects. On the one side, we assumed a new contract to operate security checks at Hamburg Airport. This contract added more than 600 people.
On the other side, the rest of the airport security team was slightly down compared to year-end 2021. Here, we still have roughly 85% of our peak summer staff level on board. To be clear, we, as a management team, remain committed to ramp up staff and ground handling in order to support operations. On the other side, we continue to reduce staff in admin and semi-admin functions. The latter one will support us to achieve our previously communicated restructuring target of about 4,000 employees. Besides staff restructuring, the hottest topic which we discussed during the first quarter was price effects on labor and other cost items such as electricity. On slide number eight, you see an update on our ability to pass on inflation at Frankfurt Airport. As you are aware, Frankfurt Airport is a dual till regulated airport infrastructure.
This allows us to allocate costs incurred to run the airport in the regulated parameter on the users of the airport. As a result, costs incurred in the regulated part of aviation, but also in central infrastructure and ground handling can be passed on. Here, as you are aware, we usually run annual fee schemes at Frankfurt Airport. The annual revision of returns and forward projections bring us into the position to also account for inflation in upcoming years. Here, we already informed you that we will seek an even slightly higher fee increase next year when compared to this year. Also, our airport security business is covered by a legal framework. As a result, the 4.5% wage increase for Frankfurt security staff this year will be compensated by higher revenues in the same amount.
Within our non-regulated businesses, revenues in retail and car parking usually follow inflation. Here, inflation on selected goods can even be higher than the average inflation rate. In real estate, contracts are usually structured with a price indexation formula. Historic contracts, however, adjust over a longer period of time, so every third, fourth, or fifth year. Contract renewals will here see a shorter time period to include for a quicker inflation adjustment. As a first conclusion, aviation, retail, and real estate, as well as central infrastructure, are well covered when it comes to inflation. In ground handling services, we have to do some more work. Current contracts are usually equipped with fixed prices. This approach leaves an open angle to out- or underperform inflation. New contracts should therefore be structured with inflation clauses.
Here, as a business is very labor intensive, we may also consider to link the prices rather to the wage inflation than general CPI. Having said this, while we cannot rule out that inflation will drive our OpEx figures up, we feel reasonably protected to pass on inflation in prices. On slide number eight, you see the same focus for our international airports. How can we pass on prices and how are we protected against inflation? Being conscious of time and also to allow for Q&A, we won't be able to walk through each and every airport in detail. You, however, see that the prices for airport charges increase in Lima and our two Brazilian airports adjust annually for inflation. Simultaneously, revenues on the non-aviation side are usually collected as percentage of revenues, therefore, are expected to also follow inflation, for example, on retail goods.
In Ljubljana and at Fraport Twin Star, there's no annual CPI link. While Ljubljana is more comparable to Frankfurt on the regulatory side, Fraport Twin Star seeks direct negotiations with the concessions, concession grantor. In both investments, inflation will lead to higher OpEx, which is addressed later on. At Fraport USA, our business model is to develop and rent out retail outlets. The underlying OpEx inflation is limited as we just hire about 50 employees. On the revenue side, there should be, however, higher inflation-linked revenues from which we will participate in the future. Shifting gears, let us now move on to our group financials in the past quarter. On slide number 10, you see that our group revenues and group EBITDA clearly improved compared to Q1 2021.
The increase is even stronger when bearing in mind that in the first quarter of 2021, we recorded two major one-off items in the amount of about EUR 70 million in total revenues. Adjusted for these items, so the settlement of the legal dispute in the security business at Frankfurt Airport in the amount of roughly EUR 58 million and the cancellation of minimum lease obligations at Fraport USA in the area of EUR 12 million. Total revenues in the period under review were clearly up by more than EUR 180 million or just under 60%. Also, our group EBITDA clearly improved by more than EUR 100 million on an underlying basis, despite higher OpEx for turnover-related concession charges, energy costs, and the absence of short-time working. Bottom line, we faced three major effects.
Firstly, the settlement of the legal dispute in the security business led to a higher EBITDA of EUR 58 million and higher interest income of roughly EUR 80 million in the past year. Secondly, the agreed sale of Xi'an Airport led to a EUR 20 million higher result from investments accounted for using the equity method this year. Thirdly, we impaired our Saint Petersburg loan, the shareholder loan in the amount of some EUR 48 million. In Saint Petersburg, we continue with all our claims. Based on our conservative accounting approach, we, however, reduced our book exposure. The loan impairment led to a disproportionately high financial result burden and therefore reduced our group profits compared to Q1 last year. Slide number 11 provides you an overview on our cash flow and net debt situation in the first quarter.
While our operating cash flow in Q1 last year was clearly negative at -EUR 240 million, our operating cash flow achieved a break-even value of +EUR 3 million this year. On the CapEx side, you see continued cash outflows for the Lima and Frankfurt Airport expansion programs. You also see that those two numbers are well in line with our guidance for the full year. We have not seen any major impacts from inflation on the projects so far. After concluding the expansion works in Frankfurt, Brazil and Greece, those two investments continue to run on a very low maintenance need. Bearing our full-year presentation in mind, Brazil and Greece now invested a combined value of roughly EUR 11 million during the past three quarters, so EUR 3 million-EUR 4 million per quarter for both investments, a very low amount.
On top of the expansion CapEx, a visible impact on our net debt development was derived from our new Antalya investment during the first quarter. As we guided with our full-year presentation, Antalya will lead to a minimum EUR 300 million higher indebtedness this year. At EUR 375 million, this figure is well in line with our expectations. Moreover, on the level of net debt, we also faced adverse FX effects from the devaluation of the euro against the Brazilian real. This effect increased our indebtedness by roughly EUR 60 million in the reporting period. As a result, our group net debt rose to a level of more than EUR 7 billion and our net debt to EBITDA key leverage figure stood at 9 x. How did the negative free cash flow and capital injection into Antalya impact our group liquidity situation?
On slide 12, you see the breakdown of our available funds, including committed credit lines and secured finance at the end of the first quarter. You see that despite the cumulative cash outflows of EUR 631 million, our finance team managed to keep liquidity high at a level of more than EUR 4.1 billion. Based on our current business and financial projections, this amount should bridge us well into fiscal year 2025 without considering additional finance. We feel well comfortable with our financial and leverage situation at the end of the first quarter. Let me now move on to our segment performances in the period under review, starting with aviation on slide 13. In the table and graph, we also provided you the fourth quarter performance of the past year as a reference.
Due to the reduced application of short time work and the operation of Frankfurt Terminal 1 and Terminal 2, we view Q4 as a good comparable basis to assess the cost development of the segment. Let me start with the revenue performance first. Despite the absence of the EUR 58 million gain from the security settlement in the past year, revenues in the aviation segment improved by roughly EUR 6 million in Q1 this year. The key driver for the revenue increase were higher aviation charges, which also included the 4.3% average fee increase as of January first. In security, the underlying revenue figure, so excluding the EUR 58 million extra gain, increased from EUR 28 million to EUR 37 million this year.
Here, in addition to the passenger recovery, we recorded higher revenues from the takeover of the new Hamburg security contract in the area of EUR 4 million. On the flip side, startup cost for the Hamburg bases led to higher OpEx in the amount of some EUR 5 million. Without considering those inorganic cost items, total segment OpEx stood at roughly EUR 162 million, therefore well below the Q1 2019 level and also below Q4 last year. When compared to Q1 of the previous year, the higher OpEx can mainly be traced back to the drop out of short-time working in the amount of EUR 12 million-EUR 13 million. Bearing the drop out of the short-time working in mind, the aviation segment was able to offset for higher electricity cost and the reopening of the terminal infrastructure, thanks to continued restructuring gains.
As a consequence, segment EBITDA marked a clear improvement on an underlying basis by EUR 45 million. Moving now on to our retail and real estate segment on slide 14. Looking at the individual revenue streams, we continue to record strong results in our real estate and car parking subdivisions. Both divisions still outperform the passenger recovery, with real estate revenues being already higher compared to the pre-COVID level. In contrast, retail revenues are still impacted by the lower number of passengers and lower advertising revenues. While especially services revenues are holding up well on a per passenger basis, we see a normalization of our retail per passenger key performance indicator due to lower per passenger advertising revenues and normalization of shopping revenues per passenger. Despite this mixed performance, our retail per passenger key performance indicator was still higher compared to pre-COVID at EUR 3.52.
In total, segment revenues have meanwhile recovered to 73% of the 2019 level. On the cost side, we recorded especially higher cost for energy, so energy supply services, which grew by EUR 6 million compared to Q4 2021 or EUR 5 million compared to Q1 2019. Despite this additional cost headwind, the segment EBITDA recovered to a level of 60% of 2019, pointing to a continued high margin of roughly 70%. Turning the page to our ground handling segment on slide number 15. At EUR 106 million, ground handling revenues were up by 58% compared to Q1 2021 and reached about 65% of the 2019 value.
The key drivers for the revenue recovery were higher passenger numbers and charges that are not directly linked to passengers, like maximum takeoff weights and movement related charges. On the cost side, ground handling OpEx continued to be down by roughly EUR 30 million compared to Q1 2019. Also, when compared to Q4 of the past year, ground handling performed well and costs were down by some EUR 9 million. Compared to Q1 2021, the higher segment cost of roughly EUR 20 million are almost exclusively attributable to the drop out of the short-time working this year. At -EUR 19 million, the operational leverage of the segment is well on track to achieve an EBITDA break-even result in the entire year 2022. On slide 16, you will find an update on the cost performance of the three Frankfurt-based segments.
Compared to Q1 2019, we were able to reduce segment costs by roughly EUR 63 million on a like for like basis. The cost reduction mainly reflects the staff restructuring that we undertook and that we continue to expect. Compared to the first quarter of the last year, the OpEx difference mainly arises from the drop out of the short-time working. The application of short-time working saved us about EUR 37 million in Q1 2021. Moreover, we faced higher cost for energy supply this year. While the price effect on a quarterly basis amounted to EUR 6 million compared to Q4 2021, the reopening of terminal infrastructure increased our energy bill further. Bearing the impact from inflation in mind, we are well satisfied with the OpEx reduction, which we achieved. Moving on to our final segment, international activities on slide 17.
In line with the traffic recovery, we see a quicker revenue ramp up in the international segment. Excluding for IFRIC 12, segment revenues are already back at 78% of the 2019 level and clearly exceeded Q1 last year. While revenues are recovering quickly, also turnover-related concession charges are recovering. At EUR 28 million, turnover-related concession charges grew by roughly EUR 14 million compared to Q1 last year. Despite these higher cost items, segment EBITDA reached EUR 43 million in the period under review. This EBITDA amount came without any major one-off items. The recovery rate on EBITDA therefore stood at a high level of 77% of the 2019 base year. Taking now a look at our outlook section on slide 18. First concluding the first quarter, we don't see any need to change our expectations.
We are well encouraged by the traffic and financial trends which we are seeing in Frankfurt and in our international activities. We are, however, still at the very beginning of the year and ahead of our key summer season. As a result, we are waiting for some more traffic and financial results to get a more precise view on the rest of the year. From today's perspective, and we also mentioned this during our full-year presentation, we are seeing ourselves rather at the upper end of the traffic and the financial guidance. Summing up, we are clearly seeing improving traffic trends in Frankfurt and international. We have also taken clear steps to streamline our portfolio on an asset basis, but also with regard to our restructuring, especially at Frankfurt Airport. We also do see a clear upward trend in our financial numbers.
The financials are also supported by price effects, which will also help us to offset inflation going forward. We are running a cheaper and more flexible OpEx base. Having that this price effects in combination with our restructuring measures will enable us to emerge stronger from the crisis than before. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attention, and we can now open up for Q&A.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star followed by two. If you're using speaker equipment today, please lift the handset before making your selections. Anyone who has a question may press star followed by one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question is from a line of Ruxandra Haradau-Döser from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, thank you for taking my questions. First going back to April. Airlines in Europe indicated strong bookings for Easter in Q1, and it was for many market participants expected to be one of the traffic peaks this year. Just curious to understand, was the traffic recovery in April in line with your initial expectations? You mentioned the traffic trend into May remains very strong. Did you see a further improvement of the traffic recovery last week relative to April? Second, do you expect to go back to the 80/20 slot allocation rule during the winter flight schedule to 2022/2023? Third, could you please give us some guidance on retail revenues per passenger for the remaining of the year?
In 2018, you mentioned that the entrance of Ryanair at the airport had a dilutive effect on retail revenues per passenger. Ryanair's passenger were flying from an area of terminal two, where there were no retail shops. Since some passengers of Ryanair are likely to shift now to airlines in terminal one, shall we expect this to support retail revenues per passenger during summer? Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you, Ruxandra Haradau-Döser, for your questions, starting with the traffic questions. As I mentioned, now we showed you the traffic numbers from Q1. We have now already the April numbers, and it looks very positive. All the trends continue. We see strong booking numbers and in Frankfurt as well as on the international side. For example, highlight is Greece. Based on preliminary figures in April, we have for all the 14 airports, we are back at roughly 98% of the 2019 level, which is very strong momentum. This shows that our hypothesis that we expect more or less at the latest in 2023 a full recovery of leisure traffic is a solid hypothesis.
The summer will become good and the current trends in April as well as in the first May days confirm this. Second question, 80/20 rule. This is absolutely open. Whether this will be reintroduced at the moment is not an issue. We are happy that the traffic is coming back and we have to manage this ramp up which is an enormous challenge at the moment. It's not a topic at the moment. We have to see in the winter what will happen, whether it makes sense to come back or not. This is also a European topic. Retailer spend per passenger. In the presentation you could see that of course, compared to the previous quarters, the number went down.
This has to do with the media revenues, which are lower than in former quarters. On the other side, we still have more or less very minimal traffic going to and from Southeast Asia. These are the big spenders, the Koreans, the Japanese, the Chinese. Despite this fact, the spend per pax is higher than compared to the reference year or quarter in 2019. We are higher despite so to say, negative structure in the moment on the passenger side. This gives us confidence that we will continue with higher spend per passenger numbers also in the upcoming quarters. When, whenever it will be, the Chinese or Asian markets will open again, and this will happen in the future. Nobody knows exactly when.
We expect a strong additional impact on these numbers. This is also coming to your last question, Ryanair when they left the airport. On one side, Ryanair left. On the other side we have the phenomenon that Eurowings took over a lot of routes from Ryanair. So to say, they are transporting more or less the same people so that. In the moment, what we can see in the numbers, we can't see really a negative nor a positive impact from this shift because again, it's a new carrier, so to say, who is carrying the same passengers as before. So we don't see any positive or negative impact from this, so to say, Ryanair effect. Yeah, I hope I have answered all your questions.
Thank you.
Welcome.
The next question is from the line of Sathish Sivakumar from Citi. Please go ahead.
Thanks again. I got two questions here. Firstly, on to just understand the impact of inflation across your business segments. Actually, how much is passed through in terms of, say, aviation? And how should we think about in terms of retail and real estate? Like, if the contracts are CPI indexed, it means that when will we start to see 100% recovery of inflation in those segments? And secondly, as you go into the peak summer, what are your plans in terms of ramping up to meet the peak summer travels? Where do you see challenges in terms of potential hiring? Thank you.
Your first topic, inflation. As I mentioned, this is for us a hot topic, so to say, because first of all, we see higher inflation rates. We assume that this higher level will also continue in the next couple of years. We don't follow the predictions of the ECB. We will see definitely higher inflation rates, and we have to deal with this. The good information is that we will be able to protect our business model and the profitability against this threat coming from inflation. Again, going through the segments we have in aviation itself, we have based on the annual adjustment of fees, we have not just the chance, we have the mechanism to adapt and to adjust on the fee side.
Whenever the inflation goes up on the material expense as well on the personnel expense side, we have headroom to go for higher fees. I think we showed up from the first of January this year with 4.3% that we were able to pass through in next year. In 2023 the fee increase will be higher than 4.3%. For the following years we have really to see what will happen on the inflation side. We already signaled to the market, depending on the long-term inflation level, we have to pass it through. Whether it's high or low, we have to see. We will transfer this to the market and we have to do it, and we can do it. In retail and real estate.
In retail, as of today, we have this, so to say, perfect inflation protection in a way that we are collecting a share of the revenue realized in the shop. Whenever inflation driven the revenues go up. We, in the same magnitude, in the same percentage, we have also higher income proceeds. On the other side, having in mind that we have a strong focus on luxury goods, where you currently can see even higher inflation rates. It could be that on the retail side, we also can be an inflation winner. On the real estate side, we have already in most of the contracts, CPI indexation. The only, so to say, thing which we have to fix is that in the old contracts, there's not an automatic adjustment year by year. It's in some contracts, an adjustment after three, four or five years.
Now we are, insofar when the contracts will be renewed, we are looking that then we are going over into an annual adjustment, the inflation side, to have sooner the compensation for higher inflation rates. In principle, we have the same inflation protection as on the retail side. In ground handling, we have in some contracts already CPI clauses, in some not. We have permanently, due to the fact that we have nearly 100 customers in ground handling. There's a permanent flow of contracts which is expiring and has to be renewed. Whenever a new contract is on the table, the new contract will have an inflation adjustment factor embedded. That in a relatively short time. Our whole business model here at site of Frankfurt is fully inflation protected.
When we step over to the international business, you can see also on slides, where was it? number
Slide nine .
Slide nine. You can see that in most cases or more or less in all cases, we have also inflation protection. We have a direct mechanism in Greece, in Brazil, as well as at Lima Airport. In Greece, it's insofar also very good. We have 0.9% times the Greek CPI. Having in mind that, if you compare the inflation rate in Greece with the inflation rate in the Eurozone, you can see an even higher inflation impact. We have an extremely lean business model there with just 600 employees. In other words, when the inflation is 4%, 5%, 6%, 7% times 0.9, we have a strong impact on the revenue side, which is much higher than the burden on the cost side, so that we are definitely an inflation winner in Greece.
In Brazil, it's insofar a perfect inflation protection because we have on an annual basis also the inflation rate, which directly increases then, the fees. In Lima, it's more or less the same thing. While at Ljubljana and Twin Star, we have more the, so to say, the German regulation. We have a higher cost burden and based on the dual till regulation, then we have to negotiate higher fees. The net impact is also more or less the same, but it has not this automatic mechanism like in Greece, Brazil and Lima. To summarize all these topics, we have a market power. We have on most in our contracts, we have already these adjustment factors. In these contracts we have today, we don't have it.
We are going forward and looking to bring it in so that our business model then will be more or less 100% inflation protected. Second question. Ramping up in summer. This is, of course, a challenge. You have to see we came from extremely low traffic numbers, and then in some months we have to ramp up significantly. The labor market is not like a switch. It's not plus or minus or on or off. We have to recruit the people. We also have now the challenge that the utilization during the day is extremely unbalanced. We have two peaks during the day where we have nearly 100% of the pre-COVID traffic, and in the other remaining hours it's relatively low.
We also cannot, let me say, engage 100% of the former people for two hours per day peak time. This is a real challenge, but nevertheless, we do our best. We are ramping up with a number of employees in ground handling, and we will also manage the summer traffic.
Sorry, just to follow up there actually on ramping up. What is your typical lead time that we should think about in terms of, say ramping up to pre-pandemic levels versus traffic recovering back to pre-pandemic levels? Is there any, overlap or the period of time where you need to like ramp up to 100%, but the traffic only comes back, say two or three weeks later?
Yeah, first of all, if you look now on the monthly numbers, we have the phenomenon that on the ground handling side, we are increasing with the number of employees. On the admin and semi-admin side, we are still decreasing so that we have two vectors running against each other. The net impact is negative, but on a very slow number. For example, latest numbers for April. In April, we ramped up on a net effect just with 20 full-time equivalents. Of course, in ground handling it's much more.
Let me say, at the end of the day, the problem is as long as we are not back to 2019 passenger numbers, we still have or will have an imbalance because we have not an equal utilization of the slots during the day. Again, if you have between 11 and 12 o'clock, you have 100% traffic back. Let me say at 13-16 hours, you have just 30% or 40% of the former traffic. You don't find a formula where you have on one side a perfect operation, on the other side a proper productivity. It's always a compromise.
Again, we have in the peaks, we still have nearly 100% of the pre-COVID traffic, but we cannot let me say, engage 100% of the former employees because then we had from a financial perspective, we would have a productivity which would be a disaster, and no airline is willing to pay for it. We have to maneuver through as long as we are not back on the old 2019 numbers. Because when we are back on 70 million passengers at Frankfurt Airport, then we have a well-balanced operation during the day. This is what I can tell you, is that we are improving month by month, but it takes another year until we are back on track because the general mismatch we cannot overcome. Nobody can overcome this.
Nevertheless, the number of employees in ground handling will go up and we expect that up from now till peak time in summer, perhaps there will be 400 or 500 people more. This will help us to relax the situation on the operational front.
Thank you very much. That's quite helpful.
Welcome.
The next question is from the line of Cristian Nedelcu from UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you very much for taking my questions. Maybe the first one on Frankfurt cost savings. If the run rate this year is around EUR 300 million cost savings, how should we think about the bridge into 2023? You have some ramp up of costs as traffic further recovers and I guess some further inflation on top of that. Secondly, looking at retail and parking activities in Frankfurt, you talked about rising prices even more than inflation in some cases. Could you elaborate a little bit? What sort of average price increase are you seeing these days? And how do you think about the demand elasticity to higher prices in retail?
Maybe the last one, looking at your gross debt, I think you have roughly around EUR 400 million or EUR 500 million to refinance this year and I think around EUR 800 million to refinance next year. At what level of interest rate do you expect to refinance these tranches? Thank you.
Yeah, thank you for your questions. First topic is the cost base and the cost effect. Coming from last year where we had and where we have the full year numbers, we showed you when we presented the full year numbers 2021 cost savings of EUR 406 million. This was, and in reality it was even a little bit more because we did some extraordinary things in Q1 last year. To the communicated EUR 406 million have been in reality about EUR 430 million. What is changing now in this year? We have, first of all, the biggest impact comes from the discontinuation of the short time work.
We also disclosed that here the effect was about or will be EUR 78 million, so close to EUR 80 million minus. We have a wage increase every year, so between EUR 20 million and EUR 30 million also running against us. We have this inflation impact on the energy side. We came from EUR 430 million minus EUR 78 million, discontinuation of short time work, minus EUR 20-30 million wage increase, minus EUR 20-30 million higher energy prices, so that we will end up around EUR 300 million cost savings always compared to the book 2019 numbers. This is the outlook for this year.
Looking forward in 2023, we will continue on the labor side with roughly 4,000 employees less because we have now what we showed you, - 4,300 employees. I said we are going to rehire in this year about perhaps 500 FTEs in ground handling. This would be 4,300 minus 500. But on the other side, we still do all to bring down the numbers on the admin and semi-admin side, perhaps another 200 guys, which will be less on board of Fraport, so that we will end up this year with about minus 4,000 in total. In other words, this structural advantage will continue also in 2023.
Having in mind that there will be as every year further round of higher wages of EUR 20 million-EUR 30 million, which you have to deduct then from these structural cost savings also in 2023. Of course the unknown factor is the ongoing inflation on the energy side. Will it be flat in 2023? Will it be even a little bit lower? It can also be much higher. This is the unknown number for 2023. We will start in 2023 with EUR 300 million in 2022, and then we have two negative effects. This is higher wages and the unknown impact from energy inflation. Second question was regarding retail. Again, we have a direct...
We are directly benefiting because we have in all contracts with our tenants, we have percentages which we collect from the revenues realized in the shops. When the total revenue goes up, and given the fixed percentage rates, we have an automatic increase on the revenue side. This is supported by the fact that if you look in the collection or in the structure of our products and goods, we have a strong focus on luxury goods.
Here, when you look in the statistics, you see higher inflation rates for luxury goods, as well as a relatively low price elasticity because these customers have the deep pockets and whether the Hermès bag is going up by 10% or 20%, if you want to have one bag, you pay the money for it, so to say. We do not expect negative compensation or reaction based on high price elasticity for luxury goods. You have always to have in mind that when you look on the people using an airport or airlines, most of these people have an income which is above the average of society.
This means also that the available money for things like food and beverage on one side as well as on luxury goods on the other side is given and their price elasticity when they decide to travel is relatively low. To make the long story short, we are optimistic, and we think that even if a recession will come, and I think there's a good probability that from a macroeconomic perspective, 2023 will show a recession. We are not negatively impacted because we have the best class of customers, so to say, with stable and high income and the willingness to spend money.
Very helpful. Thank you. Sorry, on the gross debt and refinancing roughly the cost of that.
Sorry, I forgot your third question on the gross. We have. Let me say our gross debt is relatively high. That's the reason why we are working on this issue. You can see when you look on the chart number 12, you see the average debt conditions of 2.3%. This is a combination, of course, of the indebtedness which we have on the balance sheet of the AG with an average just 1.5% interest burden, and then a relatively high interest burden for the project financing outside Frankfurt because all of these project financings are realized on a non-recourse basis.
In other words, because looking outside, we are, let me say, the indebtedness more or less goes down, so the interest burden is not going higher. Here we had in the past 1.4%-1.5%. Of course, the trend goes up, that's for sure. We, at the moment, we are still below 2.3%. This can change in the next couple of months when the trend will continue. We do not see, let me say, a risk that the new debt conditions always compared to the existing average of 2.3% will create an additional burden for us.
Here we are also confident that the new debt on the AG balance sheet will be higher than what we realized in last year, but below 2.3% or just on this level.
Yeah. Thank you very much. That's very helpful. Sorry, just to squeeze one more, a very short one. Business traffic as a percentage of 19, where does that stand these days or for this year? What are expectations?
The question is good, the answer is very difficult. Because at the end of the day, nobody knows what will happen. We are relatively skeptical regarding the recovery. When you go to the airlines, they are much more optimistic. You hear from the airlines a recovery of up to 90%. As of today, I don't believe this, but I hope that the airlines have the better understanding of the market. We are more skeptical here. At the moment we are less than 50%, and perhaps during summertime, there can be a recovery up to 70% on the business traffic. You also have to have in mind that in the last two years, a lot of business trips haven't been possible.
There is a compensation from this what has not been realized in the last two years. The question is, will there be a continuation in 2023 and 2024? You see the trends which are going against business traffic. This is the virtual meetings, the cost cuttings on travel budgets, the CO2 footprint of companies and also clear targets for the travel managers trying to bring down intercontinental journeys. It's difficult to predict, but I wouldn't be too optimistic. It's better to be a little bit more conservative, and then there will be, at the end of the day, perhaps a positive surprise. We calculate that perhaps there will be a recovery up to 70%, and we hope that we are wrong, but we have to see it.
Thank you very much for the detailed answers. Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Elodie Rall from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Oh, hi. Good afternoon. It's actually Elodie Rall from JP Morgan.
Hey, Elodie.
Sorry. Hi. I have two questions. First of all, you are quite confident in the ability to pass through inflation even with the lag. You've talked about looking for tariff increase at Frankfurt above 4.2% next year. I was wondering if you have any feedback from the airlines, from Lufthansa and any other relevant airlines, on that. Have you already been speaking to them? Because presumably they are also under quite a high burden from the cost as well on their side. Just wondering if you have already spoken to them and if you have some feedback. Second, just on leverage, if you could remind us on your financial leverage expectations in terms of net debt to EBITDA in the next, I mean this year, next year.
If you could also remind us of the covenants you have, if any, at the moment. Thanks.
Yeah. Thank you for your questions. Starting with the fee topic. Of course, we have permanent discussions with the airlines and you know from the past, in the last 10 years, there was always a, so to say, the stumbling block on the road to talk about fees and increase or decrease of fees. I think during the crisis, this has significantly improved the relationship to more or less all airlines, because it also showed that at the end of the day, of course, fees are a part of the cost items of an airline, but this is not the relevant part. You see now huge increase on the fuel cost side. Prices for aircraft went up. Personnel costs, inflation driven or wages are going up.
Let me say the importance, so to say, of fees has decreased. I think decisive now is also for the airlines that on the revenue side, they can pass through the higher costs. When you look to the interviews with the CEOs of all the big airlines, all these guys permanently are telling the press and the market that the ticket prices will go up significantly. There's also willingness of people to pay for it because now to go into holidays, this is after two years COVID prison, a nice thing, and a clear preference of the people. In other words, yes, the fees will go up, but the discussions with the airlines are very constructive.
They saw what we did on the cost side. I think we did a tremendous job on the cost side. This was appreciated from each and every airline. Now we have to ramp up on the volume side, but also on the price side, because otherwise we cannot come back to the old numbers. This is more or less accepted, and we are doing a good job and everybody could follow this and see it when looking on the cost base. That's the reason why the discussions with the airlines are relatively relaxed in the moment and the relationship is, in the moment, extremely good. Leverage is, as I said, its indebtedness is too high. We are working on this topic and net debt to EBITDA is the relevant number.
We gave already in the beginning of the year a guidance for the net debt from the full year. We said we expect end of 2022 a range of minimum EUR 7.3 up to EUR 7.5. We have to see whether we end up at the lower or the higher end. At the moment it looks very good. We have on one side, of course, we have the expenses for the acquisition for Antalya. On the other side now we will see EUR 150-EUR 160 million coming in for the sale of the Xi'an shares. If you look on CapEx is absolutely under control.
On the EBITDA side, we expect even EBITDA on the high side of our guidance, so that we feel very comfortable with our guidance for the full year regarding net debt. It's running in the right direction to fix the balance sheet and the key financial numbers.
How about covenants?
We don't have any covenants. As of now, not here on the balance sheet for Fraport AG. We have some covenants on the international side where we have the project financings, but this is a minority of our net debt. The more than EUR 8 billion of the gross debt is on the balance sheet of the AG, and here we don't have any covenants.
Yeah, there's non-recourse.
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. Thanks very much.
Welcome.
The next question is from the line of Andrew Lobbenberg from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Hi there. I'm sorry. I know we're bored of inflation, but just in that last question to Elodie, you stated that you are confident about CapEx and that it's under control. Can you really be confident that CapEx does not get hurt by inflation when, you know, raw materials are gonna be under pressure over the coming years, let alone, you know, labor for the workforce of building the terminals? CapEx and inflation please. Second question relating to the write down of the loan to St. Pete. How did you guys come to decide on the 48? I think that's 48 out of 150, but perhaps you can guide us on that.
You know, what's the risk of more of it and how did you choose that level of a write down? Then the third question would be just on the exposure to Russian passengers. You said in your remarks on the presentation that the Eastern European external assets might be vulnerable. I'm guessing that's Bulgaria, but are there others? Yeah, I mean, otherwise, I guess how are things shaping up at Antalya? You know, 'cause it seems like Russian planes are going in and out of Antalya at the moment. So how is the demand for Antalya for the summer?
Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Lobbenberg, for your question. Starting with the second topic because it takes more time, loan to Saint Petersburg, the whole Russian exposure. You mentioned the depreciation, the impairment loss of EUR 48 million. How does it come? We have at the end of 2021, we had in the books a nominal value of our shareholder loan of exactly EUR 155 million. Then the question is how to deal with the value of this loan, which is very difficult in the moment because payback to all the interest is always accrued. In the last couple of years, the interest has not been paid for the loan. There's a bullet payment in 2034, so very long in the future.
How to deal with the current value. We, on one side, you know from the traffic numbers that the international traffic more or less went down nearly to zero. On the other side, domestic traffic is extremely strong. That's what you can see on our slide in the presentation. We have the highest traffic numbers compared to 2019 at Saint Petersburg. Nevertheless, we made with a new traffic structure, so relatively strong domestic traffic with lower fees, more or less no international traffic with high fees. We permanently adjust our business case, which is much lower than before the war. Based on this permanently adjusted business case, we are calculating the key financial numbers and then comparing these numbers with the Standard & Poor's and Moody's methodology.
Based on the new adjusted numbers, the outcome is a rating of CCC. CCC is combined with a default rate of about 30%. We're exactly in line with the auditors. We are using this default probability times the nominal outstanding amount as of 31 December last year. Then as a mathematical result, we derive the EUR 48 million. We are permanently doing this exercise. Whenever we have new information, we adjust the business case, and we are looking how the development of the key financial KPIs will be, and then we compare it again with a metric of Standard & Poor's and Moody's in combination with our auditors. Then we have a higher or lower default probability, and this will lead to a higher or lower depreciation of the loan.
This is a methodology on how we dealt with this shareholder loan. The real exposure, so to say, on the operational side regarding passenger numbers, we have, let me say, two strong exposures, one at Antalya, one in Bulgaria. It's difficult to predict whether the Russians will come or will not come. When we look now at the actual preliminary figures, for example, for Bulgaria, in April, we have a recovery rate of 90% compared to 2019. In other words, it seems that the loss of the Russians in Bulgaria will be compensated by other European nations.
In Antalya, let me say, when we made the business plan for 2022, we expected about a little bit more than 30 million passengers in total, and thereof, about 11 million passengers coming from Russia as well as from Ukraine. If you assume zero, we would fall down to roughly 19-20 million. We see now that still some Russians are coming, and we see also an overcompensation by other European countries. To make the long story short, we don't know what will be the final outcome. One thing is clear, we will not end up with the originally planned 30 million at Antalya, but we also will not end up with zero Russians or no compensation by other nations. The reality will be in the middle.
As of today, I would say 24-25 million passengers will be welcomed at Antalya Airport. In other words, yes, we see some negative impact, but we see still some Russians coming to these two destinations, and we see an overcompensation by compensation or partly compensation by other European countries going to Antalya as well as to Bulgaria. First question, inflation impact on CapEx. When you look at the numbers, you see our guidance for this year. We expect in the existing infrastructure at Frankfurt about EUR 250 million, and for Terminal 3, a guidance of about EUR 550 million. On the maintenance CapEx, we have so far we can a little bit maneuver with the volumes to do a little bit more or less.
If the prices on the maintenance side will be higher, there is some compensation potential, that we can delay a little bit in the future. In other words, we have measures to compensate. Regarding Terminal 3, what we construct now or the cash outflow now is based on contracts which we signed 1, 2, 3 years ago. We have binding contracts with clear prices. In other words, the inflation which take place on the material side is a burden for the construction companies, but at the moment, not for us. Because nearly 75%-80% of the whole CapEx regarding T3 is already awarded. The inflation is then a problem of the companies, of the construction companies.
Also when you look, let me say, where we are now, all the concrete, all the steel is already built. All the let me say, the material which is heavily exposed to price increases is already realized. Looking forward, we are looking for, let me say, material for the inner of the terminal for technology. Here, as of today, the inflation rate is not so high like on for material like concrete and steel, iron, et cetera. On the other side, in our CapEx budget, we have still reserves, and the reserves exactly are for such things like higher prices.
As of today, we don't see the risk that the budgets which, you know, the EUR 4 billion for the whole terminal are, let me say, under risk.
Interesting. Thank you.
Welcome.
The next question is from the line of Marcin Wojtal from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you so much for taking my questions. So the first one is on your funding strategy. Can you remind us what is the latest on funding for your capacity expansion projects in Antalya and Lima? Is that fully confirmed? And what is the level of interest that you have? Question number two, it will be on also on your funding. You have a significant cash position, gross cash, EUR 3.6 billion, I believe. So what is your view? Are you planning to keep it at a high level given the uncertainty in the market as a liquidity buffer, or you are actually planning to run it down a little bit to perhaps reduce the negative carry effect that you have?
Lastly, on asset divestments, I mean, you are selling the airport in China. Is it just a one-off and a very specific situation, or you could be looking to sell some of your other smaller assets as well? Thank you.
Starting with the liquidity question, we have a high liquidity, and at the moment, we feel very comfortable, and this is showing the market we can bridge each and every problem. This is a huge buffer and good for us, and in the moment, there's no intention to run it down. Of course, all along, we will reduce it. In the next two years, let me say in the next one and a half year, we will keep liquidity on this level, on which is it is in the moment. In Antalya, as far as I understood your question, CapEx, we have to invest to expand the existing two terminals for the future, for the next concession period.
You can see in the appendix of the presentation the CapEx number for Antalya. It's about what do we have?
Well, it's the capital injection. There will be the CapEx locally funded.
We have already given this. It's about EUR 677 million.
Yeah. Yeah.
EUR 600 million-EUR 700 million CapEx for the expansion of the existing infrastructure, and we still have signed the contract with the construction company with fixed prices. Also the potential inflation risk is managed by this EPC contract in Turkey. Of course, the interest rate for the project financing is mid-single-digit percentage rate, much higher than for the loans here on the AG balance, but this has to do with its Turkey risk, its Russian operational exposure. It's non-recourse, and that's the reason why we are talking about a mid-single-digit percentage interest burden for this project financing.
Lima.
Lima.
Lima, we will conclude the project finance.
Yes. Yeah.
Yeah. It's not signed yet.
Antalya is now fully signed? Can you confirm that?
Fully signed. Everything is signed.
Okay.
Everything is signed.
Thank you. There was a question about.
Lima will happen in the next two months. We will have the signature. We are in the final discussion with the bank, so everything is fine. We don't see any obstacle, and the finance will work and will run.
China. The question about your potential divestment.
Further divestments. We always said we have, let me say all the investments where we have a majority, where we have a full consolidation, these are our strategic assets, and we have the clear intention to keep these assets. But on the other side, when we have a minority stakeholding, then it's we behave a little bit opportunistic. You see the example of China, where we sold it. We realized an internal rate of return of about 11% on an annual basis. We have further assets in our portfolio, like for example, India, the 10% stake for New Delhi. When you are interested in, please phone us.
Okay. Thank you very much for that.
The next question is the line of Johannes Braun from Stifel Europe. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi. Just two last from me, actually. First one would be on the retail performance in Q1. You already mentioned that the retail sales to passenger was higher than in 2019 despite the negative mix effect from lower Chinese passengers. I was wondering why that is. Was there any change in the retail layout? Was it because Terminal 2 was not yet fully utilized? Or maybe people just want to treat themselves? What's your feeling there? Secondly, the fee increase for next year, to what extent will that be diluted by incentives again? Will there be another incentive program for next year? Thank you.
Mr. Braun, first question, it's difficult to answer what are the reasons for the good performance. It had nothing to do with improved or new layouts. More or less nothing changed really. Also the T2 effect you can't measure. We think that it has to do with the COVID pandemic. The people, there's a change in the mindset. We see in F&B a clear willingness to accept higher prices and to spend more money because people. The people who survived the COVID pandemic say they are living more in the current, in the now and saying, "I'm happy, I'm healthy.
I spent some money, and I don't care whether the sandwich costs EUR 4 or EUR 6." There is a willingness to spend more for F&B as well on the luxury side, and this has to do also with inflation things, to transfer to change money into valuable goods in extremely expensive watches or, I don't know, bags or whatever it could be, jewelry. It has to do with COVID. There's a willingness to spend more money for consumer needs, et cetera. It has nothing to do with better or improved layouts or new shops. This could be a second step whenever we do something on the layout side, but we don't think that this has, in the moment, impact on the spend per passenger number. On the fee side, we
You mentioned the incentives. There could be or there can be some incentives, but the incentives are just paid if the passenger numbers exceed a threshold amount. In other words, when it is extremely high, there is a willingness or our offer to share some of this additional money with the airlines. This incentive just works if we have extraordinary traffic, and then it's just for this year. There's no effect for further years, you know, sustainable effect. That's the reason why we can live with this effect. Whether at the end of the day incentives will be paid or not depends really on the final outcome regarding the passenger numbers.
It can be that in next year we are using the same mechanism, but then again, just on the very high end of the passenger expectation, when this will be exceeded or would be exceeded, then it could be that we share something of this additional revenues with the airlines. This is possible, but this is just then for always one year.
I mean, for next year, what would be the threshold then? I mean, I think this year it's 65% of 2019 levels, right?
Let me say it's absolutely open because we have to see what is the current trend. We have to see what is the base case for 2023. When you have a base case, you have always a high case. When you could overcome this high case, then there's a willingness to spend and to share this on top revenue.
Okay.
Up to date
Thank you.
It's too early.
Yeah. Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Dario Maglione from BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead. Dario, you're now live.
Three questions from me. Regarding the OpEx, I'm pleased to see no negative surprise. Hello?
I couldn't hear you.
Hello?
Yeah. I just understand OpEx, but nothing more.
Hello? You hear me?
Yes. We can hear you. We can hear you.
Okay. Great. I see. Okay, great. Regarding OpEx.
Yeah.
Yes, I would say I'm pleased to see no negative surprise on OpEx this quarter. Regarding your guidance, savings of EUR 300 million this year, just to clarify, that's for the three Frankfurt segments and it's relative to 2019. If I want to get a number for this year, I get 2019 minus EUR 300 million, and I get to the final figure for 2022. Shall I add some inflation to that?
No, no.
First question.
EUR 300 million.
The second one is on the ramp up in the summer.
Yeah. The second question, we cannot hear you.
Okay. No, we don't need to add inflation to that.
So-
The OpEx guidance, yeah.
For the first.
Yeah. Second question on the ramp up of operation in summer?
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. The second question on ramp up in the summer, is there a risk that the airlines in Frankfurt needs to cut capacity, as it happened in Schiphol or Heathrow? The third question is on leverage. The net debt to EBITDA 9x and the Fraport board threshold of 5x as a maximum leverage long term. Are you still comfortable with this leverage? Any thoughts on capital increase? Okay. That's it. Thanks.
OpEx. Again, the guidance for this year is EUR 300 million OpEx savings in 2022 for the three segments of Frankfurt compared to the booked 2019 numbers. Second question, what was traffic cuts in summer. It was difficult to understand you because the line was not so good. Traffic cuts in summer. Let me say, I think I mentioned the problem what we have. We have two peaks per day where we already see 100% recovery. In the valleys during the day, we have sometimes relatively low traffic numbers. This is a problem of imbalance.
To solve this, we have to bring in more employees on one side, but the airlines have to bring in more traffic into the valleys to regain more of an equilibrium between the utilization of the slots during the day on one side and the available resources on the other side. I mentioned this is difficult as long as we are not back on more or less the 2019 volume numbers. Month by month when the valleys will be filled up, there will be a relaxation of this problem because parallel to this, we are permanently ramping up with the number of employees in ground handling. When we now look into the summer, we have to see, and this is a discussion which we have more or less to all airlines.
We ask them. You see the problem with the peaks, you see the valleys, and we ask them to shift some traffic from the peaks into the valleys. This, of course, is not so easy for the airlines because they are doing a network optimization. When we say please transfer one hour before or one hour later, this is in so far a conflict to the optimization of their operation, their business. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, it must be a give and take between the airports on one side, and the airlines on the other side. We are working on this topic to realize a more balanced traffic during the day.
We are optimistic that based on the good discussions with the airlines, this could be realized in the summer peak. That's the way that we think we can manage the summer peak and the passengers will not experience this what they had at Amsterdam or Heathrow. The question regarding indebtedness, I think it's relatively simple to calculate the net debt to EBITDA n-number for this year because we have an EBITDA range of up to EUR 880 million on one side, and we gave you already the net debt guidance, EUR 7.3 billion-EUR 7.5 billion for this year. There's a reconfirmation as of today saying that we expect on the EBITDA side, even the upper level of the guidance.
It's simple to make the calculation. You have to have in mind that the indebtedness or the increase in this year was heavily, let me say, impacted by the acquisition of the new concession at Antalya. This was so to say a chance, and we have to use the chance. Timing-wise, of course, this was not good for us, but for next year we do not expect any additional acquisition. With other words, you will see again the discipline on the CapEx side, further ramping up on the EBITDA side. This means net debt to EBITDA next year will go down significantly to our target number of five. We are absolutely convinced that in the next couple of years we will come back to the 5x. This is.
In saying this, I also give you directly the answer regarding is there a threat of an equity increase? Clear answer, no. There will be no equity or capital increase in the future.
Thanks, Matthias.
Welcome.
The next question is the line of Jose Arroyas from Santander. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, gentlemen. Three quick ones from me, please. On Lima, can you please provide an update on the situation and whether the grantor has finally accepted the downsize solutions for the new passenger terminal? Second question on ground handling. You said earlier that before the summer peak, there will be about 500 new employees being added. My question is, if this can be really the end of the rehirings or if more rehirings will be needed if traffic continues to recover in the next couple of years, as we all hope? Last question is on the Hamburg security contract. It has been slightly loss-making at the EBITDA level in Q1. Can it become EBITDA positive this year or in 2023? Thank you.
Starting with the last one, yes, we assume that the contract for Hamburg will be providing us with positive EBITDA, not in the first two months because this was the startup phase. For the full year, we see and expect a nice positive EBITDA contribution. Also some remarks regarding the security business, because you mentioned this Hamburg contract. You can see on the slide in the presentation, slide number seven. You see on these slides, the 640 additional full-time equivalents for Hamburg. We have also to consider that next year means up from the first of January 2023, we have the takeover of the majority of our part of our security business by the Sasse Group.
When you're right on the right-hand side, you see that then from these 4,300 employees in the security business, you will see 2,300 or 2,400 then deconsolidated because the Sasse Group is controlling the business. We retain 49 percent, and we treat this company then at equity. In other words, you see a further significant FTE reduction in 2023. The discussion, what is in, what is out, what is a burden from security business, what is a compensating effect on the revenue side is gone because then you see just the positive net income from the company in our financial result.
When we look then on aviation as well as ground handling, you see the pure cost ingredients for this business here at Frankfurt and nothing more. This creates more transparency. On the other side, we have less employees in the consolidated numbers. Ground handling, second question, the 500, yes, for this year, more is not possible because we cannot recruit more. The availability of the market is not given. We think and we hope that with the 500, then we have a much better quality, and we can manage all the traffic. Then looking forward in 2023, where of course we expected again a significant ramp up on the passenger side, we also expect a significant improvement on the productivity side. Why? Because as I mentioned, in the peaks, we still have 100% recovery.
The lack of passengers we have in the valleys and all, then the additional traffic will and has to come into the valleys. This automatically will lead to a significantly improved productivity in ground handling, so that if there's a need for additional employees, this is a clear under proportionately need. We have at the end of the day to calculate what could be a further ramp up. This will not be a big number. What it will be exactly, we have to see when the summer is through, and we can see what has been the quality, what has been the productivity, and what is the passenger expectation for 2023. In Lima, your first question on the twenty-ninth of April, we signed an agreement with Ministry of Transportation and Communication.
Now we based on this contract, we have to present now in the next 30 days a new conceptual design, which then has to be approved from the DGAC. This new conceptual design will include a plan on how the new passenger terminal will be. Let me say, the open discussion point has been not the terminal itself. It has been the way and which point of time we are going to construct the modules of the terminal. Our plan was to start with a smaller or with just one part of the terminal. When it will be open, we also still are using the existing terminal one, and later on, we are going on a modular basis in the second step to expand the terminal.
Here, the ministry in the first step, they wanted to have immediately the full-fledged new terminal. From a budget perspective, it's the same, but on the time axis, our approach is to allocate the CapEx over a longer time period because we do not need immediately the full expanded new terminal while they want to see it immediately. Now we are in a discussion. They said we have to show them our plan, how to deal with this modular way, and we are very optimistic that this will now be approved. For the unlikely negative outcome, they will not approve this. Of course, we are going to construct immediately the full-blown terminal. This means, the total budget will not increase, but the CapEx will allocate it in a shorter time period.
This is an open discussion, and in the next 30 years, you will see an outcome between us and the Ministry. This is a Lima topic.
Thank you, Matthias. Very clear.
Welcome.
The next question is from Nicolas Mora from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Yes. Just last one from me. Just when we look at aviation, and your guidance to have an EBITDA in 2022 broadly in line with 2021, I was just wondering how you see the kind of full cost base evolving. So you said you had around EUR 165 million of costs in Q1. That includes some one off from the Hamburg contract starting. But you know, if we quartalize a little bit this, should we expect the same kind of level of cost Q2 onwards, in order to hit your guidance in EBITDA or is there a bit of pressure there and the guidance might be a little bit at risk?
Difficult to understand you, but I understood that your question is regarding the cost reductions in Q1 times four, how we come to our guidance. Is this correct?
Yes, exactly. It's a bit of a struggle. Just trying to extrapolate the cost base here, but realistic for the rest of the year.
I think what a little bit, let me say, is when you look just on the cost savings in Q1, it's a little bit less. If you make a Mickey Mouse calculation, the EUR 64 million times four, you will not end up at EUR 300 million. The question is, how do we come to these guidance of EUR 300 million? Here, you have to see two or three things. First of all, we as you mentioned, we have, let me say, in these EUR 64 million, there's additional cost burden from the Hamburg contract, which you have to adjust. Second, when you look on the dynamics in the next quarter, two, three, four, looking on 2019.
There is in Q2, Q3 2019, the cost base goes up, while now we assume the cost level, which we showed in Q1 2022 will be more or less flat. The discrepancy between the quarters will increase. There's also a third special topic, which is difficult to explain. We have the three segments at Frankfurt: aviation, ground handling, and retail and real estate. Then we have a fourth segment, and everybody believes this is just including our international assets, but it means international assets and services. In IAS, we have also included facility management, IT, and project management. For example, especially in IT and in facility management, we also realize significant personnel reductions. Normally, these departments, they are managed and controlled as cost centers.
They have shown high productivity. In Q1, they didn't transfer these productivity gains to aviation ground handling and real estate. There was a higher EBITDA because they made gains, and normally the gains would be transferred to the customers. In Q1, you have some positive EBITDA in IAS coming from facility management as well as IT, and you couldn't find these productivity advantages on the side of the customers. This will change in Q2 and Q3 because then the new prices, so to say, for facility and IT services will be lower, and the customers will benefit from the productivity gains of these service providers. This is a very, let me say, difficult effect, but which worked in Q1, and that's the reason why the cost reduction shown is relatively low compared to what everybody expected.
Okay, if we take all this in, you are still confident you can hit around EUR 160 million EBITDA in aviation this year, despite a bit of a slow start and-
Yes.
Analyzing low cost. Okay.
Yes.
Okay.
Yeah.
Last one, if I may, just on Greece. I mean, you flagged the strong summer expectations. I mean, if we all look at the seat capacity data, it's super impressive. Could we or should we actually from here expect a traffic materially above 2019? Is that. I mean, we've
No. It will be not more. The question, how close do we come to the 2019 numbers? You know, in 2019, we had about 30 million or 31 million passengers-
Yeah.
In Greece. I think we can come close to these 2019 numbers, but we will not overcome. This is not realistic.
Spring capacity is up 10% versus 2019 and 25% over summer.
Yeah. Let me say, if, for example.
Yeah.
For example, summer would be 100%.
Yeah.
We are close to 2019, but not more. This is what we do not see.
Okay, okay.
You have to see when you look on the fees in 2019, the fees have been on a level of 51.13 EUR.
14.5.
EUR 13.50. Yeah. EUR 13.50. Now we have EUR 18. So the fee level is much higher. We have more retail spend per passenger.
Yes.
On the revenue side, we are much better than 2019, so that as of today, the EBITDA contribution of Greece for 2022 will be above EUR 200 million.
Okay, thank you very much.
Welcome.
There are no further questions at this time, and I hand back to Christoph Nanke for closing comments.
Thank you all for your questions. Productive call. Anyway, if there are more questions coming to your mind, please give us a call later on or in the coming days. I wish you all a nice day and evening for now, and we will stay in touch. Thank you all.