Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome. Welcome to our conference call presenting our results for the first three months of 2022. The first quarter of this year proved to be a challenging start of the year. The existing uncertainties of the current economic environment against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic were further intensified by the escalation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict almost 2 months ago. We strongly denounce Russia's aggression and hope that the military aggression will end soon. Our sympathies are with the people of Ukraine, but also with all people who are directly or indirectly impacted by this crisis. On top of this, we had to deal with massive shipping delays as a result of disrupted supply chains, which led to container congestion in the port of Hamburg as well as at the other ports in the European North Range.
Despite these difficulties, however, HHLA got off to a good start in the 2022 financial year. Before I begin with a brief overview of the key figures for January to March, I would first like to give to you a short update on the situation at our terminal in Odessa. Although operations at the terminal are still largely suspended, hinterland transportation of essential goods, such as food and medicine, is still in place. We are in close contact on a daily basis with our employees and the crisis team regarding developments in Odessa. So far, our terminal is undamaged, and the temporary closure of CTO has had only a limited financial impact on the group. At group level, there was moderate growth in both container throughput and container transport volume in line with our full year guidance.
I would like to highlight the growth at our Hamburg terminals, which was 5.5% higher than in the previous year. This is remarkable as other European ports, such as Rotterdam and Antwerp, reported falling throughput volumes over the same period. As a result of these volume increases and a consistently high level of storage fees due to long dwell times, the port logistics subgroup recorded strong revenue growth of 10% to EUR 377.5 million. The operating result rose by as much as 14% to EUR 49.2 million in the first three months. For a closer look at the financial performance, let me now hand you over to my colleague, Roland.
Yes. Thank you, Angela, and good afternoon, everyone, also from me. I would like to start with the development of the container segment. The growth in container handling continues. All in all, HHLA's container terminals increased container throughput by 3.7% to 1.74 million TEUs in the first quarter over the year. In Hamburg, the drop in Russia-related volumes in March 2022 as a result of sanctions imposed by the EU were more than offset by the positive volume trend of 5.5%. This was mainly driven by an increase in Chinese volumes and the successful acquisition of further feeder services. The international container terminals recorded an overall decline in handling volumes in Q1.
Although our operations in Estonia achieved strong volume growth of around 30% and PLT Italy recorded additional handling volume, the two terminals were unable to compensate for the sharp decline in cargo volumes at the Odessa terminal after the temporary closure of handling operations in late February following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Segment revenue increased significantly by 9.2% to EUR 216.4 million compared to the previous year. The moderate growth in volumes was exceeded by a significant increase in average revenues. This was due in particular to the strong increase in storage fees at our container terminals in Hamburg and Tallinn, as well as the additional revenue from RoRo and general cargo handling at PLT Italy.
EBIT costs increased significantly by 8% compared to the first quarter last year due to higher personnel deployment because of volume increase and high yard utilization, as well as a strong increase in the cost of materials. In addition to higher prices for electricity and fuel, this was primarily driven by additional expenses resulting from increased handling volumes as well as higher service and consulting costs. EBIT costs at our terminal in Trieste also rose significantly compared to the first quarter last year due to the terminal's full startup of operations. Nevertheless, EBIT increased by 15.5% to EUR 37.8 million, with a double-digit EBIT margin of 17.4%. Let's have a look now at the development of our intermodal segment. Despite a highly competitive environment, our intermodal companies recorded a moderate overall increase of 3.1% in transport volumes.
While road transportation fared strongly, rail transportation grew significantly by 7.3% compared to the previous year. Against this backdrop, revenue increased by 11.3% to EUR 138.7 million. This was mainly due to the higher rail share of HHLA's total intermodal transport volume by 83.6%, as well as a change in the structure of cargo flows. However, the EBIT development was harmed by three main factors. A, amplifying disruptions to the international transport chain. B, operational interruptions due to storm damage in February and see increase in energy prices being partly hedged only. Consequently, the operating result rose by 0.2 percentage points to EUR 21.6 million in the reporting period. Let's now turn briefly to our smallest segment, the logistics segment.
In the first quarter of 2022, the consolidated companies reported revenue of EUR 19.2 million, and thus exceeded the prior year figure by 7.5%. Consulting activities and automation technology in particular contributed to this positive development. However, there was an EBIT loss of EUR 0.7 million, mainly due to start-up losses of our new activities. At-equity earnings of +EUR 0.6 million fell short of the corresponding prior year figure. Coming back to the Port Logistics subgroup as a whole, let's have a look at our cash flow development. Cash flow from operating activities increased by almost EUR 20 million to EUR 83.1 million as of March 31st, 2022. The main driver was the higher EBIT compared to the previous year, as well as the increase in trade payables and other liabilities and lower income tax payments.
Rising trade receivables and other assets had an opposing effect. Investing activities resulted in a net cash outflow of EUR 26.4 million. Positive short-term deposits were more than offset by higher payments for investments in property, plant, and equipment compared to the same period last year. Accordingly, free cash flow almost doubled to EUR 56.7 million compared to prior year's figure. The net cash outflow from financing activities totaled EUR 16.7 million. The decrease of EUR 5.1 million compared to last year's figure was mainly due to the lower payments for the redemption of financial loans. Overall, our available liquidity as of March 31st, 2022, increased to EUR 244.4 million. For our review of our outlook for 2022 financial year, let me now hand back to Angela.
Thank you, Roland. Ladies and gentlemen, based on our promising start to 2022, we have kept our full year guidance unchanged. To be precise, we still expect a moderate increase in both container throughput and container transport compared to the previous year. All in all, a moderate year-on-year increase in revenue is expected for the Port Logistics subgroup. Furthermore, EBIT of between EUR 160 million and EUR 195 million is regarded as possible for the Port Logistics subgroup in the current financial year. However, we are still in a pandemic situation and have to cope with poor adherence to shipping schedules, requiring a high degree of operational flexibility from us. Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine has further complicated the predictability of the economy, economic development.
As a result, uncertainty remains high, and it is still not possible to provide a truly reliable forecast for the year. With this information on our forecast, I would like to conclude my remarks on the interim results. Roland and I will now be happy to answer your questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin our question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star followed by two. One moment for the first question, please. The first question is from Nicolai Thomsen from Cadra. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon. Two questions, if I may. First one on the development of average throughput pricing in the container segment. True, there was an increase year-on-year. Sequentially speaking, I think it was on the same level. Does that imply that sort of the congestion level in the first quarter didn't change much, even though it feels like conditions in the North Range might have worsened during the first quarter? Is there anything to be expected for sort of second quarter and the rest of the year? Then the second question is, given your guidance for moderate increase in throughput especially, can you confirm that sort of in that particular guidance, you have not included any CTO volumes going forward? Thank you.
Thank you very much for your questions. I start with the answer of your last question. Yes, I can confirm we have no volumes of CTO included in our forecast. To your first question, I'm not quite sure if I got your point. The congestion level in the first quarter obviously is something that we see continuing in the second quarter. We are still waiting for the wave coming from Shanghai this morning. In the waiting queue in China are 500 vessels. In China, usually you have a certain queue around 100-150 vessels, so five times as high. Obviously these waves will arrive 6-8 weeks later as well here.
We see a continuation of congestion, always keeping in mind that the first call port usually is Rotterdam, and after that then it's coming to us.
Okay. The question was more on the sequential, not Q1 on Q2, but rather, have you seen a worsening sort of dwell times, for example, of containers Q4 versus Q1?
Yes. We are operating our yard capacities not only above optimum. We try to operate it above max capacity just to present solutions to, for our clients, which still deliver poor schedule and continue to deliver poor schedule reliability. This is to a certain extent reflected in the average income per TEU.
What you have to factor in if you look at the average revenue per TEU that due to the temporary closing in Odessa there is a certain dilution in the average income per box in our interim results that you had to adjust for just to get the precise figure and better understand that dwell time as the main metric has further gone up in the first three months. Don't forget that volume climbed by 5% here in Hamburg as I mentioned before.
Okay, thanks. That clarifies it.
Ladies and gentlemen, as announced, if you wish to ask a question, please press star followed by one. The next question is from Robert Joynson from Exane BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, everybody. Just a quick question from me, which follows on from the last one to a large extent. Could you maybe just talk about the number of containers that you have in the terminals in Hamburg at present, and maybe kind of give some color on how that number compares with maybe two years ago, pre-pandemic, and also how you think about the current number of containers in the terminals relative to what you feel is the maximum capacity. Thank you.
I will comment and at least start to comment on this, Robert. This is Roland. You know the capacity question is a tricky one, as you are aware, and you're an expert in this regard. I take for granted that the dwell time very much impacts the throughput capacity at the quay wall. In the current environment, and this lasts for more than two years already, dwell time has gone up substantially as a consequence of the pandemic, and this is continuing at least short term.
This is why it doesn't make sense to discuss the capacity limitation on the quay wall side, but to draw your attention to the fact that dwell time has climbed so much that it is limiting throughput capacity. Whereas in a normalized world, I leave it for you what a normalized world means, if you assume four days as a fair parameter, determinant of five days, I don't care about. In this range, it typically is assumed. In the current environment, it has climbed up substantially. This is the reason why it is limiting.
I draw your attention to this factor, and we are working hard on the dwell time to normalize the situation on the terminal side. The other question was regarding average income per box, or may you repeat your point, Robert?
No, I think you've answered most of the question, actually, Roland. I guess maybe just one kind of related question is what do you think is actually causing the dwell time to rise? Is it limitations in terms of inland transportation capacity, like kind of, you know, kind of insufficient trucking capacity or other issues?
Yeah, I think it's not the inland capacity. It's a mixture of estimated time of arrival and the management of export and import cargo flow. If you basically don't manage that the flow is arriving, you know, in time and not days before in time, then you have a queuing up of different containers dedicated to estimated time of arrival in two days, and actually, they will arrive in 20 days. It's a mixture of how you coordinate the flow into the port and the terminal in terms of the vessels from the vessel owners, as well as obviously matching the schedules. It's not a shortage on the side of truck drivers.
Interesting. Thank you, Angela. Just on this point, do you sense that trucking capacity is deteriorating at the moment? I mean, we're obviously seeing kind of rates even on an ex-fuel basis, kind of rising quite significantly at the moment. Do you sense that there's any deterioration in the situation caused by kind of, you know, greater shortages of truck drivers or any feel for that at all?
Given our favorable modal split for the transport mode rail bound transportation, I think this aspect is of minor relevance for us. As I explained before, Robert, the transport volume by truck has declined in the first three months, so there is no limitation with regards to capacity short-term in the Port of Hamburg with regard to trucks available. On the other hand, we have full control over highly efficient block train operations. So in other ports it might be an issue with regard to shortage of truck drivers, but this is nothing of relevancy in the Port of Hamburg.
Beyond 50% is the capacity of goods today coming through and leaving through trains. We see an increasing impact on this modal split.
Perfect. Thank you very much for the color, guys. It's appreciated.
We have a follow-up question from Nicolai Thomsen. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking the follow-up. It's on wage inflation. I understand that terminal worker wage negotiation kicked off earlier this month, and there have been some press reports on, let's say, initial demands. There was a 12%-14% increase quoted. Can you from your side, perhaps share what your expectations for the negotiations are, when to expect a deal, and what could happen in between, and how you prepare for it?
Obviously, if you have in Germany a big discussion on inflation rates, close to 8%, in the first quarter, this has created a certain expectation level that as well on the tariff wage employees are expecting to be compensated for the increasing prices. On the other hand, we are in extensive discussions to manage expectations as we believe that even not having a crystal ball in our hands, that maybe the first quarter inflation rates are not the concluded one for the full year.
The discussions have started, and I think that as well, the responsibility on the union side is there to understand that basically we call it a real wage increase, should not be the target, but to find a way to compensate for potential losses coming through price spirals. The discussion has started. We have a clear view on managing this cautiously. By the same token, we are further continuing in our automation strategy as, to be very frank, this is part of the answer.
Okay. Let me try one follow-up. Given your plans to automate, especially at CTB, do you see some room for a deal, you know, for a decent wage increase for the workers against sort of, you know, goodwill on the automation plans?
We have invested time in discussions with our employees, the so-called future labor or the future scenarios, where we have invited them to understand that everybody who wants has a home in HHLA. It's about qualification, it's about accepting that the content of your working space is changing. Obviously, as we are shown and proven at the CTA already, no terminal, even a fully optimized one, is without any employees. You need to qualify them. That's our way in convincing that our employees will have those ones who are willing and able to adapt to new qualifications that they will have a future.
I would refrain from mixing the wage negotiations from the future discussions because usually a wage increase is a 12-month framework, and we should not link the two elements with each other.
Okay. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star followed by one. There are no further questions at this time. I hand back to Angela Titzrath for closing comments.
Thank you. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for your interest, and as well for your ongoing support, for HHLA. We, as a company, have maintained the stability of its operations and reliably fulfilled its supply mandate for companies and consumers. Regardless of the challenges that we are incurring, we will consistently exploit the opportunities presented by the digital transformation and the climate neutral transformation as we further strengthen HHLA's future viability. Please stay healthy and take care. Goodbye.