Interest in our Q1 2025 results. As with me, as always, Mr. Günther Ofner, Mr. Julian Jäger, and I hand the start over to CFO Mr. Ofner.
Yeah, good afternoon. We today published our results for the first quarter of 2025, and we saw a revenue increase of EUR 7.4 million and a net profit increase in the same amount, EUR 7.3 million. EBITDA was slightly weaker at 2.2%. In total, we had a better financial result and a slightly weaker operative result. In total, it ended up in line with the revenue increase. What we have to have in mind is that in 2024, we had a 29th February, so one additional day, and also Easter period was within the first quarter, and this year it is in April. This has a certain effect on our business outcome. We saw substantial passenger growth in the group, especially Malta-Košice. It was as expected in Vienna.
What we have to stress is that, as you see comparing the figures, that already roughly 10 million out of 42 million passengers of the group are passengers in Malta and in Košice, so the relative weight is growing towards Vienna Airport. Financial guidance for 2025, I think we have now a little bit more visibility, and from today's perspective, I would say that our expectations of EUR 1.08 billion revenue and EUR 440 million EBITDA and group net profit of roughly EUR 230 million are very well based. Given that we do not see major disturbances from international problems, I would say we can be very optimistic that we reach at least these figures for 2025, except any kind of extraordinary events.
If we look at the travel agencies and their press activities, all of them are stressing a good booking situation for the summer month, and this will also be reflected in regard of flight traveling. Our CapEx will stay around or slightly above EUR 300 million in 2025, so all our projects are well on the way and within budget and as planned. Especially the south extension is progressing positively and as planned, no negative expectations or surprises from that side. If we move to our earnings in detail, you see increases in revenue, in EBITDA, in EBIT, and especially in the financial results. We saw an increase resulting from additional passenger volume and also the fee adjustment that was done in accordance with the regulation. Also our non-aviation business is developing positively: lounges, restaurants, parking, advertising, but also real estate.
As outlined, financial results are even above expectations. If we move on on the expenses side, there we see the issues that are now coming along and that need more attention maybe for the coming periods. It's especially the increase in personnel expenses because as the subsidiary Gate 2 is not fully consolidated, personnel expenses went up by roughly 12% in total and other operating expenses by 16.2%, whereas depreciation and amortization is slightly down. Cost management will be a challenge for the coming periods, and we will have a little bit more stress on that side than recently because overall we can expect growth for the coming months and years, but it will not be as strong as we saw it, for example, in 2023 and 2024.
We will then have to cope with the situation, especially the fact that in 2026, the regime for our tariffs will be again the formula. The time span where we increased our tariffs by inflation will end in 2026, and we will be back at the formula. If we look at the cash flow and our balance sheet structure, you see a positive development there. Cash flow from operating activities went up from EUR 68 million to EUR 95 million. Free cash flow also improved. CapEx roughly doubled as planned. Net liquidity is at EUR 562 million, but we have to have in mind that after our general assembly, a dividend payout of EUR 138 million will have to be borne, and so the net liquidity will be melting down corresponding to that.
Our equity is increasing slightly from EUR 1,667 million to EUR 1,708 million, and the equity ratio is more or less stable compared with last year. Our airport city development is booming. We saw new companies in the aerospace sector who are coming to our airport, our space, and Gate space, and they are supplementing and are clustering together with Impulsion. And Impulsion is expanding its business by another 100 employees in the coming 12 to 18 months. TUI Austria was relocating the corporate headquarters to the airport city, and on the 2nd of June, there will be the opening ceremony for the Big Logistics Park. On the same day, the Vienna House EC will be ready to the roof, and it will open most likely later this year, so maybe in November they will host their first guests in the new hotel.
The next step in the development will be the expansion of Office Park 4, 17,000 sq m, where it will be added, and construction will begin in the course of 2026. We are also starting planning for a new car park and a new car garage, Car Park 6, and also the development of our zone west is ongoing, where we are looking for logistics and industrial properties, and the project could start once we get the permission. Last but not least, we are very, very optimistic that once we get the permission, the 47 hectares will be absorbed very, very quickly because I think we have interested parties for more or less three times of the amount of land available. Summing up, we can confirm our financial guidance for 2025, and I think it's now very good secured by the results we saw for the first quarter.
Let's hope that the crisis that has been so negatively weighing on the air travel sector will end soon, especially the Ukraine, but also the Middle East. If they would end sooner or later, this could give an additional positive impulse for our growth perspectives. That's from my side, and I hand over to Julian.
Thank you, Günther. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I will continue with the traffic development. As Günther already mentioned, the major driver in the first quarter was Malta, with growth of 15.8% in April, 14% in Q1, and 14.6% between January and April. Vienna saw a significant uplift in April, so the first quarter was just 1.8% growth. April was 7.6%, obviously, due to the fact that Easter this year was in April, and overall until the end of April, it was 3.6%.
We saw a positive development in the first half of May, although whenever you get the May figures, then later on in June, you have to consider that we have 2 to 3 percentage points of the passenger growth is based on the fact that Air India is currently diverting 10-15 aircraft every day to Vienna to tank and to take up fuel and then continue their journey towards Western Europe. Those are transit passengers. They are not paying, so we make some money from the landing charges, but the figures in May will be a bit distorted because of that fact. Košice is doing very well as well in the first four months, nearly 22% growth. Looking a bit into more detail at the Vienna figures, Cargo does well, so plus 9% in the first four months of this year.
Movements are plus 4.6% and passengers plus 3.6%. Overall, I think the major problem we had in the first quarter of this year was the drop in load factor, mainly driven by Austrian Airlines. I think there was a strategic focus on high heat, and this cost some passengers. Overall, the development is good, I would say. Sum up what I hear from the airlines looks good for everybody despite the bit of difficult geopolitical situation, all the discussions about tariffs. Still, the North American market is probably a bit weaker than it was expected earlier this year, but there are no major distortions. Overall, I think the situation is good, and we saw very significant growth towards Far East. In the first four months of this year, plus 33%, Middle East plus 12%, North America plus 6%, Africa plus 8%.
Overall, I think we can be quite happy. These are the Q1 figures. Obviously, the figures I just mentioned are probably even a bit better because of April. Overall, given the geopolitical situation in the world with the ongoing war in Ukraine, Middle East, now the tensions between India and Pakistan, I think we can be quite happy. I think summer should be slightly above last year, so we should reach our targets here. As Günther mentioned, obviously, Ukraine would be a big opportunity for Vienna. Austrian Airlines is the designated airline of the Lufthansa Group to start operations whenever it is possible to Ukraine. They had five destinations in Ukraine before the war. Wizz Air, Ryanair are all very eager to start to fly, so I think this would be quite a boost.
A couple of weeks ago, I visited Kyiv-Boryspil Airport, and it looks really good. They say they could have individual flights within 24 hours, and they could have fully revamped operations within three weeks. Whenever the situation allows, I think this could give our traffic some boost. Yeah, as I said, cargo is good as well, plus 13% in April, plus 9.1% in the first four months. Overall, I think the situation looks quite good, and we are very happy that we have, after many, many years, a new Singapore flight by Scoot by early June. I hope that China, that they will see some developments here in the next 6 to 12 months. Overall, I think the situation is quite good.
There are some markets like Japan, like India, where I think we could see more growth if the capacity issues would be solved and the airlines would get some of the aircraft they have ordered. Overall, I think the picture is quite good. Let's continue with the market shares. I think there's no major change. I think one can see that obviously in Q1, Austrian had a bit of a decrease, but I think this will be ironed out over the course of the year. Ryanair, solid growth. Wizz Air, Eurowings essentially on the same page as last year. If you notice here, Turkish, this is mainly because AnadoluJet, a subsidiary of Turkish, took over some of the routes. Overall, I think we can be quite happy. Lufthansa Group in Q1 had a market share of 46% and the low-cost carriers of 32%.
Coming to the airline highlights, I think, yeah, overall we expect 73 airlines to fly to 190 destinations in 66 countries and no major surprises in this respect. We're happy that Condor came back and they have a base now in Vienna with one aircraft flying a few sun and sea destinations in the Mediterranean and three daily flights to Frankfurt. Overall, I think, yeah, Saudia is important as well. They are coming back. They came back in April. EasyJet, we launched a new Milan Malpensa service. Overall, nothing out of the ordinary, I would say, but I think we can expect a solid summer operation here in Malta, and we are definitely prepared for that. Again, we got a couple of weeks ago the best airport staff Europe award from Skytrax. We are still among the most punctual airports in Europe.
We had a significant improved punctuality in the first four months of this year. Last year, we were the most punctual airport, above 30 million passengers. Number three, if you came too late, those airports above 25 million passengers. Overall, I think we can be quite happy. With the southern extension of Terminal 3, which should be in operation in two years from now, I think, yeah, the overall quality will improve even further. Right now, we still expect slight growth here in Vienna. My best guess today would be something between 32 million to 33 million passengers. Slight growth over 2024. Obviously, the big question mark is 2026. We will have to reduce our airport charges.
This is obviously, as such, not a good thing, but on the other hand, this might increase the appetite for the one or other airline to grow a bit in Vienna. Overall, this year, in the group, 42 million roughly in Vienna, 32, maybe a few hundred thousand more. Overall, quite happy with the development this year. A couple of words regarding the segment results. Airport, I think there we have a bit of a special situation. We had a reduction in the passenger-related fees. This is due to the fact that we introduced, and I think I told you that in our last call as well, we introduced a winter incentive for the three big airlines in Vienna, EUR 3 extra per departing, local passenger.
This applies only in the first three months of the year and in the last two months, in November and December, which means that overall, we expect this year roughly a net increase on airport charges by 3%. Essentially, we expect next year to reduce airport charges by the same amount. That's my best guess. Gross, we increased the fees by 4.6%, but due to the additional incentive, the net effect is 3%. Next year, we intend to reduce the charges probably gross by 4.6% and net again by roughly 3%. Apart from that, there are no special events in airports, so I would expect a much stronger second and third quarter.
You will see here some even growth compared to last year after the second and third quarter, where we will see the full positive effect of the airport charges increase plus the growth we expect in these months. Handling and security had a good quarter, positive EBIT in a difficult quarter, let's say, very considerable rise in handling revenue, higher de-icing fees, higher traffic, so plus 5% in flight movements. We are very happy that we got the Korean Air Cargo contract extended for another four years. This was very important for us. Obviously, the cargo was growing as well. Overall, I think we can be quite happy with this result in Q1 and positive news from retail and properties as well. Here in particular, I mean, what you see on this slide, center management and hospitality plus 8% revenue, rentals plus 6%, and parking plus 7%.
Especially VIP and lounges were important drivers. Lounges plus 18%, VIP plus 5%, advertising plus 9%, F&B plus 7%, shopping plus 4.3%. Overall, all the segments are doing well, but the lounges are doing in particular very well. What is important in this segment as well is that the tenant acquisition has started for the southern extension. The good news is that we see a lot of interest in the F&B sector and the shopping sector. We have all the strong Austrian brands and a lot of international operators and some strong international brands as well. Our task for the next six months is to find the right partners and choose the right brands.
So far, everything is going according to plan, and we want to finalize the contracts until the end of this year so that we have then another 15 to 18 months to finalize the shops and the F&Bs. Yeah, so far, things are looking quite good in this respect. In relation to that, we are changing the processes for the delivery of goods to the terminal and to all the terminals. We started construction right now for a central logistics center. We have a partnership here with Bradford Airport Logistics. They are running, I think, six or seven airports, and they are running logistics centers like that in Heathrow and then six or seven airports in the U.S.
We will centralize the supply of all goods for shops, lounges, F&Bs to the terminal and make sure that we will have all the goods which are on sale and are necessary in the terminal available on time and overall with a higher efficiency and lower cost for all operators. Last, but definitely not least, Malta, very strong performance again. Plus 16% EBITDA, 14% EBITDA, plus 14% external revenue. Strong growth from Ryanair, Wizz Air. Poland is growing a lot. Overall, Malta is really doing well. Airport segment plus 17% revenue, retail plus 8%. Again, I think the excellent cooperation with government, with the Maltese Tourism Authority pays off for the airport and leads to more tourists and on the other hand, to more business travelers as well.
Malta, overall, the economy in Malta is doing very well, and the airport is one of the beneficiaries of this development. We will spend significant money in Malta in the coming years. We have to extend the terminal. We are growing our airport city there as well. Yeah, Malta, year by year by year, they are surprising us with the growth. I would assume that over summer, we will see a bit more modest growth, but yeah, let's see. The situation is very strong here.
Yes, thanks a lot. That's it from our end, and we are happy to take your questions now. Yes, let's open the floor for questions. Please raise the virtual hand. Number one, Henry. Number two, Vladimira. I changed calls, ladies first. Vladimira said you have another call. Please go ahead.
Yes, hello. Thank you very much.
I would be very short in my questions. First question would be related to your personnel costs. If you have maybe any visibility by how much your personnel costs will increase this year and if you maybe have any insight how much would be then the negotiated salary increase. I know it should be effective from May. Next question would be related to revenue per passenger. I think it must have improved in the first quarter. What was the main driver and what do you expect at the end of the year? What will be the full year number in a year-on-year comparison? Last but not least, any progress on the third runway? This would be it from my side.
Yeah, starting with personnel costs, tomorrow will be the first round of negotiations for the new collective agreement. The basis is 12 months inflation of 2.82%.
That's the starting point for the negotiations. It will be effective from 1st of May.
Maybe on the same image overall because I think this is compounded figure. It's not only salary increase, maybe planned staff number increase. Overall for the year 2025, how much you think your personnel cost can go up?
Yeah, this will be influenced by the number we agree in the bargaining process because we have several components that are working right now. The first one is that our last agreement was plus 7%, and that's effective till the end of April. The second influencing factor is that we have roughly 5% more employees than we had 12 months ago. The third factor that is included in the 5% is that also Malta, compared to the very strong passenger growth, slightly, but also feelable, increased their number of employees.
Last but not least, we can add whatever we agree on, what is negotiated starting from the 1st of May.
Regarding your second question, do you refer to the revenue per passenger from airport charges or center management and hospitality?
Center management and hospitality, yeah.
Overall, we expect it to be around EUR 3.50 compared to EUR 3.30 or something last year.
The same for airport charges, the increase should be 3% net per passenger. Regarding your question regarding the third runway, we are right now evaluating the project, and there are no changes. We will take a decision in this respect in the next 6 to 12 months.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you, Vladimira. Henry, please apologize for changing the order. Now it's your turn. Please go ahead.
That's no problem. I have time today. Yeah, let's start with the updates.
Thanks a lot for your presentation. For the first figure, let's dive back into the passenger fees. I've seen that the aircraft-related fees actually went up 16%, and the passenger-related fees went down 2% despite the passenger growth in Vienna of roughly 1.8%. What's the reason behind this change in mix? Both together are the airport charges in total, so they went up as well. What's driving the mix change here?
We are uncertain immediately.
Yeah, sure.
This is what I mentioned just before. We introduced a new incentive just for the winter months. It's applicable only in January to March and in November and December of 2025. It means that our three biggest clients get EUR 3 per departing passenger, departing local passenger more. That's why there was this event. That's why we saw a decrease in revenue from passenger-related charges.
This incentive will not be applicable in summer. In summer, we will see the full effect of the 4.6% gross increase in airport charges. Over the full year, we expect net airport charges an increase of 3%. Whatever you believe, if you take the 3% plus whatever you think the absolute growth in airport passengers would be, that will be the net growth in terms of airport charges revenue.
Thanks very much. Also, my question, what will happen in summer? Perfect. Maybe let's go back to I've seen that the seatload factor went down. You mentioned it also in the call earlier that it was due to a strategic shift at Austrian. Could you give me more help to understand? In my understanding, if a seatload factor actually is higher, it's more profitable, thus higher yielding for airlines.
Why are they going for higher yields and then decreasing the load factor? What's the driving force behind that?
Look, I'm not an airline manager myself, so it's a bit difficult to comment on that. I don't know exactly, but obviously, there are always different strategies in different airlines, different airline groups. In the first quarter, I think the strategic approach for Lufthansa Group was to go for higher yield and restrict capacity a bit. We saw the effect with the reduction in load factor from Austrian Airlines. I think this is something they will not do for summer, and I expect we will see high load factors in summer with all airlines.
Okay, understood. Very helpful. Regarding CapEx, I've seen in the cash flow statement it's roughly EUR 46 million, which was substantially lower than I expected. Is this due to seasonality?
That in winter, construction is usually less pronounced, and then summer goes up again, and then winter goes okay. We will see more CapEx in Q2, Q3, and then maybe a little less in Q4. Okay, perfect. My last question is also regarding other operating expenses. It came in also just a little bit higher than I expected, but not meaningfully. Is this sort of a new level that will probably go through the rest of the year, or has there been some one-off cost-related expenses in there?
I would expect it's more or less what it will be throughout the year.
Okay, thank you. That's been it for my side.
This second will count the deconsolidation of Gate 2. What was previously recorded under personnel expenses, around about EUR 3.5 million, we communicated, is now included in the other operating expenses. Right.
Is that also the reason why average headcount went down.
Okay, thanks.
That's been it from my side. Please go ahead. Yeah.
Yeah, thanks a lot also for the presentation. Two questions from my side. First one is on Malta. I mean, the passenger growth you mentioned, it accelerated to 15.8% in April. I guess even without the late Easter, the increase would have been still double digits. The question is, I mean, you mentioned that the summer season is going to be slightly up versus or up versus last year. Are you at this point able to specify this a bit further? Because numbers, they just seem to be very strong. Why do you expect such a deceleration for the summer months here?
I think maybe I didn't express my thoughts not correctly.
I meant to say that I expect a bit of slower growth than what we've seen in April, but not just slight growth over last year. Look, I can't tell you if it's 9%, 10%, or 12%. I would be surprised if we see over summer again 15%. I think the growth will not be as high as what we've seen now in April. Still, yes, you're right. It's probably double digit, but let's see.
Okay, thanks a lot. Thanks a lot. The second one again on the winter incentives. I was just wondering what your rationale was behind introducing the winter incentives this year and whether there was some pressure from the side of the airlines that requested some concessions here. What was the rationale to introduce it?
My rationale was this: that usually we have very, compared to our summers, winter is very weak. Airlines find it difficult, as you've seen, to fill the planes. That is why we thought this is a good year to try something like that out. This is just a test, and we do not have to continue this next year. Probably we will not continue next year. A decision we have to take over summer when we apply for our charges next year. Overall, the idea was to attract some more passengers and some more capacity in the winter months. With some airlines, it worked, as you see the good results from Ryanair. Others did not make that much out of this additional incentive. Let's see if we continue with this incentive next year.
Overall, we have too much of seasonality, and it would be good if we have some extra growth in winter. That's the idea behind it.
Okay, thanks a lot. That was already it for me.
Okay. Thank you. Any follow-ups or any further questions? It's not the case. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you everyone for participation. Goodbye. Bye.
Thank you. Goodbye.
Thanks a lot, Bryan.