Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Flughafen Zürich AG Half Year Results 2022 conference call and live webcast. I am Sandra, the Chorus Call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone, or click on the hand raise Q&A button on the webcast. Webcast viewers may submit their questions or comment in writing via the Q&A field. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Mr. Stephan Widrig, CEO. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you for the introduction. Welcome from my side to the presentation of our company's half-year results 2022, which is also available on our website. I will host this presentation together with Lukas Brosi, our company's CFO. I will start with a short business update before our CFO will provide you with information on our financial performance, followed by the outlook. At the end, as always, we will have enough time to answer your questions. If you are using the webcast platform, it's also possible to submit questions during the presentation. Stefan Weber, our head investor relations, will collect them and moderate the Q&A session thereafter. Let me start with the traffic development in Zurich. Following the lifting of travel restrictions and other protective measures, we were gradually able to ramp up operations over the course of the first half of 2022.
In general, flight operations worked well and with good quality in Zürich. However, the industry was facing major challenges over the summer vacation period. In particular, capacity constraints, cancellations, and delays occurring in European airspace also impacted Zürich Airport. Together with our partner companies at the airport, we did our best and continued to do our utmost to ensure passengers and guests enjoy a pleasant travel experience at all times. In relative comparison, things were running very smooth in Zürich compared to most other European hubs. Also, Swiss, as major carrier in Zürich, is managing the ramp up successfully and is back to profitability again in the first half of this year, b etween January and June 2022, a total of 9.1 million passengers used Zürich Airport, more than a four-fold increase over the prior year period.
The number of flight movements climbed to around 97,000 takeoffs and landings. The volume of freight handled was approximately 20% higher than in the previous period and back to the old levels. Thanks to the rise in bookings for holiday destinations in particular, our hub carrier, Swiss and Edelweiss Air, further extended their flight schedules during the first half of the year. We summarized the first half of the year 2022 with the following milestones. In aviation, traffic is recovering, and the number of destinations served was almost back to 2019 levels, also still at reduced frequencies. Further, at the beginning of the year, we have increased tariffs back to the previous levels, showing a positive impact on our revenues as well. The commercial turnover on the land side was almost at pre-crisis levels.
Also, thanks to the circle, our air side commercial turnover as well as parking revenues are in line with the traffic recovery. Our aim to increase our real estate footprint has paid out, and our real estate revenues stand at the highest number ever reached. In India, the contract for constructing Noida International Airport was signed, and the project is proceeding to plan. Our airports in Latin America are running well and advanced in terms of recovery compared to Zürich even. Construction projects progress also in Zürich, where the winning project for the construction of the next large scale project, the new Dock A, including tower and new dock, was chosen. The new Dock A will significantly influence our sustainability promise and further improve the quality of the airport experience for passengers.
Progress with other large infrastructure projects at Zurich Airport, such as the redesign and expansion of the baggage sorting system and the provision of larger landside passenger and commercial areas, is also on schedule. We are committed to sustainable aviation and take our governance, environmental, and social responsibility seriously, both in Switzerland and in our projects abroad. In March, our company published its annual results for 2021 in the form of an integrated report prepared in accordance with the Global Reporting Initiative standards for the first time. This year, our focus is on developing our sustainability strategy, which defines specific targets for the group in our various operating locations for the coming years. We are aiming to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2040.
In declaring this ambitious goal to be achieved without offsetting, we are bringing the target date forward 10 years with a reduction roadmap, setting out concrete measures to increase energy efficiency and cut fuel consumption. We are also continuing to invest in the implementation of sustainable fuels at Zurich Airport, which will significantly lower aviation carbon emissions in the future. The Circle was awarded LEED Platinum and Minergie certificates in June 2022. Among other things, these were awarded primarily on the basis of above average energy efficiency and a high proportion of renewable energy provided by energy piles and by photovoltaic, enabling the Circle to operate almost entirely without the use of fossil fuels. Coming to the financial summary, the upturn in traffic volumes is also reflected in our financial figures and revenues, which increased by 74%.
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization, EBITDA, increased by CHF 146 million year-on-year to CHF 238 million. Compared with the first half of 2019, EBITDA stood at 78%. Our consolidated profit was CHF 55 million compared with the first six months of the previous two years. This marks its first return to half-year profit. In the reporting period, our investment projects totaled CHF 106 million, of which CHF 92 million were invested at our Zurich base. Just give me a second. Let's go through our main segments, starting with the aviation business. As stated before, our traffic numbers improved substantially from a low of approximately 15,000 passengers per day in January to more than 80,000 per day in June.
Both our hub carrier Swiss and Edelweiss are constantly expanding their offering from Zurich. The additional offering mainly consisted of European destinations, but also saw some long-haul additions, for example, to North America. In total, airlines flew to 181 destinations during the first half of the year, almost as many as before the pandemic. International airlines, foreign carriers, are equally ramping up their network to pre-crisis levels, among them, United and Cathay. 2 new airlines also started operating intercontinental routes from Zurich, Saudia and Ethiopian. Most airlines increased their weekly frequencies further also towards Asia. What changes in aviation and passenger segments do we expect going forward? The recovery is strongly driven by leisure segment and family related travel.
We are convinced that these passenger segments will remain strong and grow in the future with further population growth, the need for physical experience, and the general desire to travel, are the main triggers. The pandemic has shown that certain business meetings can be held online. Moreover, large corporates set sustainability targets that also impact business travel. However, we do not see any backlash in globalization of businesses in general, but a higher priority in allocating supply chains and production capacities more balanced over various continents and countries. International networking in business, research and society in general is already high today and will continue to increase, in our opinion, maybe on a slower growth rate than in the past. Zürich Airport had a relatively low share of business passengers in the past. The segment amounts to about 20% of our passengers today, as you can see on the chart.
We assume that the biggest structural change will be in the segment of one-day business trips within Europe, but do not expect a major change on intercontinental business trips. Given the fact that air traffic is growing globally, I am convinced that, less business traffic in Europe will be compensated by the growth in other segments over time. Also, our passenger charges as main income driver on the aviation segment are per capita, irrespective of your booking class. Airports are, in general, less impacted by a reduction of business travel than airlines are. On the next slides, we will provide you with an overview about our commercial and real estate business. The renewed popularity of travel and upturn in passenger numbers during the first half of the year had a very positive impact on our commercial business as well.
The increase in turnover from Zurich Airport's commercial partner was encouraging as several new or refurbished restaurant units and stores with attractive brands came on stream during the first half of the year. The refreshed offering consequently boosted the attractiveness of our three commercial centers. Along with hotels and conventions, The Circle has firmly established itself as an attractive location for organizations, commercial businesses, and service companies. 46 companies employing some 5,000 people have now taken up residence in The Circle. The Circle community is growing further with the signing of three new contracts, including the headquarters of Beyond Gravity, a leading supplier of the European aerospace industry. On the next slide, we see that commercial turnover overall bounced back nicely. On airside, turnover is correlating with passenger volumes. On landside, we saw turnover in the Q2 of this year, almost on 2019 level.
Especially the food and beverage segment performed well, both on airside and landside. F&B turnover in June was higher than in June 2019. We do not expect any rent discounts this year and are contractually everywhere on pre-crisis terms. Let's move to our international business. On this slide, we compare the passenger numbers of the airports in Latin America of 2022 with 2019. Since most of our international holdings have a very high share of domestic travel, the recovery has been much faster than in Zurich. The two airports in Chile show a combined number already above 2019 level, and we are optimistic that all our airports in Latin America will have passenger numbers above pre-crisis level during this year. The airports in our portfolio are well-positioned.
In Brazil, for instance, passengers ranked the two airports operated by us in Florianópolis and Vitória as the first and second best airports of the whole country. From an economic point of view, the investments are well-protected by the instrument of financial re-equilibrium. We should also be entitled to receive compensation in Brazil for the year 2021, and we intend to file our compensation application within the next weeks. The financial re-equilibrium in Brazil is typically a compensation in form of higher tariffs or a partial waiving of the concession fee, sometimes both together. Inflation rate in Brazil has picked up quite a bit in the past few months. We will be able to adjust our tariffs for inflation and the impact for our commercial business should also be positive.
On the other hand, our interest payments for the local loans will increase due to an inflation component. In Chile, the new terminal in Iquique should be completed by the end of this year. Moving over to another continent, to India, the contract for building Noida International Airport was signed in June as an EPC contract. A further milestone following on from the signing of the concession agreement, the shareholder and government support agreements, and arranging the financing. With that last contract, all the prerequisites for realizing this project are in place and according to the plan. As in Zurich, we are continuing our efforts to boost sustainability, also in India. Noida will be the first airport of its size to deliver net zero carbon emissions and consequently set a new standard for sustainable airport operations, especially also in developing markets.
The investment for developing and building the airport totals approximately CHF 750 million and is scheduled to be completed at the end of 2024. To conclude my part of the presentation, let's dig a bit deeper into the outlook of the new Dock A project in Zurich. Following architectural competition in June, the jury selected the winning project for constructing the new Dock A, including tower and dock base. The new Dock A, which is scheduled to start construction at the end of this decade, will provide passenger with an enhanced experience. The building will be constructed right next to the current dock, which will be demolished thereafter. Short walking distance, currently appreciated by passenger as our main USP, will be retained with increased passengers. The new dock will also be built entirely in line with our sustainability targets.
For instance, the majority of the building will be constructed from locally sourced sustainable timber. In addition, the entire roof of the new dock and dock base will be covered in photovoltaic arrays, which will meet around two-thirds of the dock's annual electricity needs. The new building will therefore be a major contribution also to achieving our ambitious CO2 reduction targets. Lastly, the retail as well as food and beverage offering on the air side with higher margins will be expanded significantly. With this, I'm handing over to Lukas.
Thank you, Stefan. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome also from my side. I will now give you an overview of the financial performance of the company. The traffic recovery led to a significantly higher revenues, especially on the aviation side. Following the temporary 10% reduction in flight operation charges, with the exception of emission and noise charges in 2021, charges were returned to their original level at the beginning of 2022, having a positive effect on the revenues. Total aviation revenue rose by CHF 140 million to CHF 206 million compared with the first half of 2019. Aviation revenue was at 65%. Non-aviation revenue increased by 27% to CHF 252 million, which is roughly 93% of the figure for the first half of 2019.
EBITDA more than doubled to CHF 238 million, showing a healthy margin of 52%. Despite high interest payment in our international holding and adjustment for the fair value of the Zurich Airport Noise Fund, our consolidated result was positive with CHF 55 million. Hence, the company is back to profitability. After showing already a positive result for the second half of 2021, we have now experienced four consecutive quarters with a positive result. The commercial and parking revenue rose by 31% year-on-year to CHF 112 million. Due to the recovery in the commercial business, no new rent concession had to be agreed with the commercial partners in the past six months period.
The arrangement agreed in the years of the pandemic were recognized as assets in accordance with IFRS 16, and are now being amortized over the remaining term of the respective contracts. Real estate revenue remained solid, rising by 11% to CHF 83 million. This rise is attributable primarily to additional rental income in connection with the Circle, as well as higher energy and utility cost allocations. Revenue from services rose by 49% to CHF 20 million, mainly due to volume effects. The increase in revenue from international airport business to CHF 39 million is due to the more rapid recovery at foreign airport holdings and higher income from construction project, the so-called concession accounting. Factoring out the EBITDA neutral income from concession accounting, revenue in international airport business climbed by 57%.
As the option of short-time working compensation was discontinued in the first half of 2022, personal expenses rose by CHF 14 million compared with the prior year period to CHF 94 million, a plus of 18%. Costs for police and security rose by CHF 50 million year-on-year due to higher passenger volumes. Energy and waste costs show the rise of CHF 7 million to CHF 17 million, reflecting factors such as higher raw material prices for heat generation and higher volumes. I will provide more detail on this position on the next slide. Total operating expenses increased by 28% year-on-year to CHF 220 million. After adjustment for concession accounting, OpEx were 11% lower than in the first half of 2019.
Costs for energy and electricity saw a sharp increase over the last months. That being said, total energy and waste costs only represented around 7% of total OpEx, and around half of it can be passed through to our tenants. Our buildings at Zurich Airport are normally heated with natural gas, biogas or heat pumps. If the situation for the European gas markets worsens, we may be forced by the governments to switch to oil heating to make gas available, for example, for private households. This is technically possible, but comes with a negative impact on our CO2 emissions. The same applies for the electricity market. If the electricity supply situation worsens, we as the area network operator might have to reduce electricity consumption, but could also generate electricity autonomously. We are constantly making optimization efforts to minimize the expected increase in energy costs.
Furthermore, we are in consultation with the relevant federal agencies as well as our energy suppliers, and are constantly assessing the situation with regards to risks and bottlenecks. As of now, we estimate total energy and waste costs to hover around CHF 35 million for the full year 2022. I will now outline some key financial ratios. Net financial debt, excluding the Zurich Airport Noise Fund, increased slightly and net debt to EBITDA came down to 3.2x. As a result of higher earnings before interest, our return on investor capital turned positive again. Thanks to an improved performance together with CapEx below historic norms, our operating cash flow figure increased, which had a positive effect on our free cash flow generation. The next slide shows the largest projects we have been working on in the last half year.
Total CapEx amounted to CHF 106 million, with the expanding of the baggage handling system as the largest project in the first half year. April 2022 saw the start of building work for the renovation of runway 10/28 at Zurich Airport, which is expected to be completed by the end of 2023. In the first half of this year, there was still some CapEx left for The Circle. Lastly, Noida accounted for roughly CHF 11 million until mid-year, and it'll increase substantially in the second half due to the payments to the selected EPC contractor. With this, let's move on to the outlook. The travel restrictions were largely lifted in the first half of 2022, and active travel led to the continuing recovery being slightly stronger than expected.
Planning for the winter months, nevertheless, is more difficult from a current perspective. Passenger numbers at the Zurich site are expected to rise to slightly more than 20 million passengers this year, roughly two-thirds of the 2019 level. Aviation revenue will mirror traffic volumes. Non-aviation revenue is also expected to be on a positive trend. While we continue to focus on cost discipline, we anticipate a year-on-year rise in costs in 2022. Firstly, the short time working that protected us from extensive personnel adjustment during the crisis was discontinued. Secondly, the expected growth in passenger numbers will result in higher security and infrastructure costs, higher energy costs and general inflation will likewise push up costs. Overall, however, operating expenses excluding expenses from construction project can be kept below 2019 level.
As the recovery progresses, we expect consolidated profit for the year as a whole to be in the low triple-digit millions, allowing for a dividend payment next year. Investments will amount to around CHF 400 million in 2022, being approximately equally divided between the Zurich site and the subsidiaries abroad. We have frequently been asked how we see ourselves when traffic will have fully recovered. This slide should shed some light into our assumption. We purchased the Priora real estate portfolio at the end of 2019, which is contributing to our EBITDA nicely. Further, we commissioned the Circle in 2020, which has started to generate solid revenues for us. Lastly, we will see increasing EBITDA contributions from our international holdings, not only in Latin America, but also then in 2025 with the opening of Noida in India.
We will submit the application for airport tariffs in Noida next year. The proposal, together with the most important assumptions, will be publicly available and will allow a better estimate of the economics of the project at this point in time. We assume that in the course of 2023, we will be able to communicate the guidance regarding initial traffic expectations and an earnings figure per passenger for the Noida project. In total, we estimate all the before mentioned effects in combination with some structural cost savings to have a positive EBITDA impact of around CHF 100 million by 2025, when compared to 2019. In summary, when we will reach the passenger level of 2019 again, the company will show a significantly higher profitability, mainly due to a better diversification of our revenues, especially in the real estate segment.
Thank you, Lukas. With this, we finish our monologue and open the Q&A part of this presentation. First, we'd like to invite the questions asked on our webcast platform, and then answering the questions raised by phone. Stefan Weber, go ahead.
We have some first questions from the webcast. The first ones are from Daniel Bürki, from Zürcher Kantonalbank. First, on the guidance. Does the guidance of 20 million passengers in 2022 and full recovery till 2025 not look too cautious in the light of strong numbers in the last month?
That's a good question, which we also frequently discussed. One can say that we had a better start into 2022 overall compared to our planning, including summer vacation. We are about 1.5 million passengers above our initial planning. As I've said in the guidance, we remain cautious on the outlook, as being on the cautious and conservative side has been proven as a good tactic for the last 2.5 years. So far into 2022, the recovery was better than expected, but there's still some uncertainties around the development of COVID geopolitically, that keeps us a little bit more on the conservative side for the winter months.
His second question is on India. Could you please give an update on the Noida project and which investments do we foresee for this year and the years to come?
Well, I think a lot has been said by the update provided by Stefan. Noida is well on track. The groundwork has started, and we expect, as we have invested about CHF 11 million in the first half year, CHF 200 million in total for the international business for the full year, whereof the vast majority goes into India.
The next questions are from Pascal Furger from Bank Vontobel AG. Another question on the guidance. We've turned more positive on the non-aviation revenues. As a result, why not turning also more positive on net profit, as this should have an impact on the profitability as well?
Again, we stick to the guidance in terms of profitability, net result being in a low triple-digit CHF amount for the full year. Might be a little bit higher, low triple-digit CHF amount now, but that's the guidance we currently provide. I agree with you that the momentum for the first half year is positive.
There is a question in relation to the Circle. Pre-letting now stands at around 85%, although this does not seem to be fully reflected in the P&L. Is this due to rent-free time or turnover-linked rental income? By when will we see the full impact of the Circle in the P&L?
I think it's a combination of both, though we have opened the Circle with more than 80%. We're quite happy with the progress. We have signed contracts also in the first half of the year, and the Circle is progressing. We have always assumed the ramp-up time for 2-3 years, as this is simply a lot of space provided to the area around the airport. So overall, also in terms of the quality of the tenants, the Circle is on track. In terms of the revenues, we are still in the ramp-up phase. Rent-free periods are also recognized in the revenues, as we have to apply the lease accounting here, so it should be a minor issue. Commercial revenues is not that meaningful in terms of the overall turnover-based rent.
The main driver behind this, the always assumed ramp-up, as we are not fully at close to 100%. We assume that we are going to the 90% pre-letting during the course of the year, and that's basically what you see in the P&L going forward. Again, we assume after we have, we had opened the Circle at the end of 2020, 2-3 -year ramp-up seems to be still reasonable. Also worth to mention, we are not in a situation that we have to desperately signing contracts. The quality of the tenant is as important as it always was when we were during the construction phase of the Circle.
The next questions are from Cristian Nedelcu from UBS. First one is on the expectations for 2023 in terms of traffic recovery, also in the light of a potential recession in Europe, and on the growth in OpEx in 2023 from wages, electricity, and others.
I maybe start with the traffic recovery, and Lukas can add in on the cost base. I mean, you can look at the expectations of the airlines and all see good booking rates also for next year. All are ramping up their operations, and we are still recovering from the pandemic, so we are speaking of still a sizable deviations to 2019 levels on the overall passenger figures. I believe the recovery will be stronger than recession or other geopolitical risks that are still in the system just because the pandemic was such a big rupture. Of course, a recession could slow down the recovery, but still in absolute figures, the recovery will continue next year, I'm very convinced of.
Generally, we have not given a precise guidance for 2023, but I confirm what Stefan has said. In terms of the cost side, obviously we have now also an inflation in Switzerland, which is, if you compare it to the European area, not that much. We expect inflation to be around 2.5%-3% this year and on a lower rate going forward. This will impact obviously operating expenses. But generally, I would consider our business model as quite good inflation protected. On the tariff side, we have an inclusion of rising costs with the next tariff period.
In the real estate, in the commercial segment, in parking, and also as Stefan has mentioned, in the international business, we have like high inflation protection that should inflation remain high or will be even higher, that we have also like a good protection our business, in our business model.
The next question is on the spend per departing passenger, which was above 2019 levels in May and June, and this despite the absence of some of the high spenders. How do you see H2 in 2023 retail spend per passenger?
In general, we don't expect, like, a structural change compared to pre-pandemic spending behavior of our passenger. Spend per pax only goes on air side, so this is not including the land side situation. The current spend per pax is above average, in my view, for two reasons. First of all, it's like a ramp-up effect. So if people go to holiday, it really starts at the airport, and they're quite willing to spend money at our shops. The second reason, which I believe is going to fade out going forward, is that people spend more time generally at the airport because of a situation that needs more time to prepare your travel. You have maybe longer waits in the check-ins, et cetera.
There is a longer dwell time for the time being, which is not our ambition to keep it on today's level, but going back to be an efficient airport as we've been before the pandemic. Therefore, from that effect of people being longer at the airport, I think that we going to see a trend of spend per pax going back to pre-crisis levels.
The last question from UBS, it's on the non-regulated business. The analyst argues that our retail business is undervalued versus peers. Do we have any actions in mind that we could take going forward to crystallize value for real estate and retail, more narrowly, to narrow the valuation gap versus peers? To show retail and real estate as separate segments.
Not for the time being. We've now started to show the international business as a separate segment. We try to be in line with what we have to show in the segment reporting according to IFRS, but there's no plan to adopt this in the near future.
Next questions are from José Arroyas from Santander. The first one is on the new Pier A, where we plan to spend approximately CHF 700 million. Can we provide an indication on the regulated asset base after the completion of this CapEx project? Will the RAB go up or stay broadly unchanged?
The short answer is RAB tend to go up going forward as we going to invest more into the regulated business for, let's say, the next year or even the next decade with the large projects including Dock A. Dock A, the vast majority of investment goes into regulated asset base.
There is a question on the international business. Just a couple of days ago, there was the other auction in Brazil, so why did we not participate this time?
On the one hand, I think it's we are still in the process of going back to a strong balance sheet and are rather conservative on new investments abroad. We looked at the projects. It's not just about the size, it's also about the concessions that were on offer, in our perception, involved too many different airports for one cluster in two cases, and in the third case, it's not what we do in terms of business aviation. It was, on the one hand, the offers as such were not in line with our strategy and also a rather conservative approach on investments abroad for this time being.
Next questions are from Johannes Braun, Stifel Europe. The first one is on the EBITDA bridge, arguing that the post-pandemic EBITDA will be roughly CHF 100 million higher. He thinks that the components have slightly changed, so the contribution from cost savings does no longer seem to be the previously CHF 20 million that we have guided. What are the moving parts here?
I would not agree fully to that. We said early in the crisis that our ambition on the operating expense is to save CHF 20-30 million per year, so sustainable cost saving, which is around 5% of our cost base and includes additional costs, cost of Priora and the Circle, always worth to mention. What has changed is inflation in between, i nflation might challenge this ambition going forward.
If inflation stays high, as I mentioned before, I think we also have, like, an impact on the earnings in terms of inflation protections. The overall guidance, as I have explained, is that we still assume CHF 100 million more EBITDA out of this four component, which was also part of this operating cost sustainable savings as we have guided during the crisis. It's still valid. The question mainly that we also cannot influence is how inflation will develop, but this will also come with a not a pure cost issue, but also has higher revenues as a consequence.
The next question is again on traffic, the guidance. The 20 million that we are guiding implies approximately 72% of 2019 levels in H2, although July already stood at 80%. Do we expect the recovery to go back in the coming month again?
I think the answer is on seasonality, as this was like part of our business also before the pandemic, 80% during summer vacation, that's correct. Normally then volumes tend to go down during the last months of the year. I could simply confirm, as I said before, it's a combination of a relatively good base out of the summer vacation, the expectation of still the recovery going on, but on a lower rate than if you compare it purely to the summer vacation and given uncertainties that we also not really can influence, gives the combination, which is not 20 million, which is slightly above 20 million passengers for this year.
The seasonality is because in summer it's mainly leisure, while in September, October, it's also substantial business travel, and on the leisure segment, the recovery is faster than on the business segment in general.
The next question is from Roni Wildmann from AMG. It's another question on Pier A. If we disclose an expected return on invested capital for this project.
Yeah. Not yet. I think we are in a very early planning phase. We do obviously our business plans and assumption. As this goes mainly into the regulated asset base, it's closely linked to what you assume as the allowed return going forward.
Opening is scheduled for 2033, which is really still a long way to go. While Lukas says majority is in the regulated asset base, we also have to mention that a substantial part of it is also expanding the commercial offering airside, which on the revenue side, of course, also has a good positive impact on the non-aviation returns. It's really still 11 years to go till we capitalize this project in full scale.
The next questions are from Ruxandra Haradau-Doser from Kepler Cheuvreux. First, it's on the wage inflation. There are currently press articles about potential wage increases at Swiss. How should we think about personnel costs at the airport?
In general, our staff is not organized in union, so this is an individual project we are assessing. Normally works for us that we are compensating for past inflation at the beginning of the following year. For this year, we had a slight adjustment for inflation last year, and there will be an adjustment closely to inflation in Switzerland at the beginning of next year. It's a different story to tell as we are not in a, let's say, situation that we have to negotiate with unions. It's a unilateral way of adopting the wages. Nevertheless, it's a good assumption to model that close to inflation, past inflation of the past year.
Next question is again on the occupancy rate of The Circle. Specifically, how much of the office space is already leased out?
It's 90%. For this size of investment, I think even on the normal life cycle, this is a very good rate. Whatever Lukas has said before to the circle, I think it's certainly a sustainable investment case. Besides the rents, you also have to see, with an occupancy of 90% long-term valuation potential of the project, which we will not valuate as a company, but, of course, usually an office contract has a term of 10, 15 years. When we see the first round of new contracts, I also see a substantial upside potential on the rent as such, especially in the office segment in this project.
We have a very solid base on what we have, so far, and it can only go up. The next question is from Dario Maglione from Exane BNP Paribas. It's again on the Circle. How much did the Circle contribute to EBITDA in H1 2022?
Honestly, that's something to not give you like wrong number or a rounded number that we have to follow up.
We will do so. Next question is from Patrick Hasenböhler from ZKB. It's on the midterm guidance. In the last presentation, we said that for Zurich, we will spend roughly CHF 250 million per year going forward. Is this number still valid?
Yeah, this can be confirmed.
We're done with the questions from the webcast. Are there any more questions from the phone?
For questions over the phone, please press star and one. The first question comes from Achal Sultania from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks. I have two questions for me. Like, on the CapEx for Zurich, you had earlier guided to CHF 250 million, but today the number was reduced to CHF 200 million. Just want to confirm what drives the reduction. Second, on the dividend, I know like you have not given any guidance on the size payout and any potential additional dividend for 2022. Any color on that would be great. Thanks.
If I understood your question correctly, your first question was why we have reduced the CapEx guidance for Zurich.
Yeah.
Um.
Yeah.
The answer is, there's not a particular reason for that. That's a combination of delaying of individual projects, but not like a material individual factor. It's just normal project development, which in that case gives us a lower CapEx number in Zurich for this year, as we have more visibility obviously now than at the beginning of the year. Your second question on dividend, first of all, the dividend policy that was in place before the pandemic, 35%-45% payout is still valid. We have paid out around 40%, before pandemic, and that's the target we are aiming for the ordinary dividend, for the financial year 2022. Is this answering your question?
Yeah. Yes. I mean, on the potential for additional dividend from your reserve, any color on that?
It's on the dividend.
If you're referring to an extra dividend as we have paid until 2019, this is something that we have to assess at the time or in spring next year. There's still potential. The extraordinary dividend was paid out of a capital contribution reserve, where still around CHF 120 million are in, b ut you will understand that we cannot give a more concrete answer to this. We do have to see if the recovery is progressing during the winter months and whatever the momentum is, which was always the case in, let's say, the good old times. We always said that there is not like an automatic payout.
We have assessed year by year, which was true for the last 4 times we paid the extraordinary dividend, and we will closely assess the situation then at the beginning of next year.
Thanks a lot.
The next question comes from Stéphanie D'Ath from RBC. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. I had one follow-up question on your commentary on traffic. If I understand well, the fact that you have more leisure during the summer and more business during the winter means you would expect if there is any slowdown compared to the recovery rates against 2019, just would be therefore visible from October onwards. Is that October, November, December, which makes you still cautious on full year guidance? Then my second question is regarding the Noida Indian investment. The rationale, if I remember, was to invest more abroad, was that domestically you were disappointed by the regulated work you could achieve in Zurich, and that therefore you were hoping to achieve higher returns abroad.
Could you share with us what were your initial return expectations for Noida and what those became given the increased CapEx amounts? Thank you so much.
I mean, on the traffic, there is not much more to say than what we did before, that we expect the overall passenger figure this year to be slightly above 20 million. On Noida, it's a slightly different case than the Latin American operations. In Latin America, it's mainly domestic traffic. In Noida at the beginning, being the second airport of the national capital region, it will certainly also be predominantly domestic traffic. There, I believe the profitability is mainly driven then by the overall economic development of India. Delhi is the area with the highest purchasing power. Large city, 30 million people growing. Noida being placed in the area of the city where the city is growing in the decade ahead.
It has a lot to do with macroeconomics, with aviation in India overall, which traffic we will have at the beginning. The capacity is 12 million passengers. We will be somewhere starting below that figure, and then we have to see how fast traffic is coming and how fast we have to invest in the next phase. Overall, certainly a project like this, we expect higher returns than here in Zürich and also much bigger growth than here in Zürich. Anything to add, Lukas, on-
No, not on Noida. We have double-checked on the open question regarding EBITDA contribution of The Circle. It's close to 10%, which was my initial feeling, but it's now also confirmed 10%.
Sorry, if I may just follow up on what you said for the CHF 20 million. At which point would you have to update the market if suddenly it was significantly ahead of your guidance?
We are assessing the situation ongoing. I think for Q4, we will not have more visibility, as we have seen, for example, last year with the development of the Omicron variant. This basically happened overnight. In the course of the second half of the year, given Q3 internal results, we are assessing. If we see that the momentum is good, then we might update the guidance. Q4, we know in Q4.
We publish monthly our figures.
Yes, thank you so much.
Next question.
Gentlemen, so far there are no more questions.
Any more questions on the webcast, Stefan?
No more questions here.
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