Show today a very positive set of results for 2024. So we saw substantial growth in passenger numbers, lower energy costs, and positive interest income improving our financial results. In terms of revenue, we saw 16.6% plus, and the additional revenue could also be passed through to EBITDA and net result, so EBITDA margin was even slightly above the figures of Q1 2023 and was at 37.8%. Financial results have been positive. We are aware that we have repaid our EIB loan last year, so the burden of interest is now removed, and we will see also for the full year a positive financial result.
Passenger numbers went up 13.8%, and we have to interpret all these figures against the fact that the first quarter 2023 still was rather weak, so we see also a positive base effect, and we had with the 29th of February one additional day that is also a part of the results. For the full year outlook, we have slightly improved our financial guidance, and from today's perspective, we are optimistic to see turnover of EUR 1 billion or slightly above, and an EBITDA of more than EUR 400 million, and our net profit should increase over EUR 220 million, and these figures are on the background that we expect a good level of traffic also in the summer month.
You have maybe seen the very aggressive situation within Austrian Airlines and the substantial and severe labor conflict there, including 36 hours of strike, but finally a new collective agreement could be found, and the good side of it is that now for three years there is an industrial peace obligation, so no action is allowed within this period, and I think the compromise that was reached is also financially viable for Austrian Airlines and is not destroying their business model as it was initially expected, unfortunately, due to the very very high and unsound proposal from the labor side.
The airport itself has also successfully concluded the bargaining about a collective agreement starting from 1st of May 2024 until end of April 2025, and we fortunately had no labor conflict at all, and it was quarterly agreed to increase wages by 7%, and it is a positive signal, I think, for a very functioning social partnership with us within our company. If you look at the earnings improvement and the financial results in detail, you see that our net profit for the period went up from EUR 25 million to EUR 37 million, and that the net profit after non-controlling interest was EUR 33.5 million compared with EUR 23 million last year. Financial results at EUR 3.8 million positive, and this will also be the case for the full year. Our cash flow from operating activities ended up with EUR 68.2 million.
That is slightly below last year's figures and is the effect of the payout of the incentives for airlines, and some of them have not only been higher, but also traffic was growing but have been also paid earlier, compared to the first quarter in 2023. If you look at our CapEx, you see that what was announced is now realized, so we had EUR 35 million in the first quarter, which is substantially higher than it was last year. Despite all that, we saw an increase in our net equity position to EUR 393 million and also a better equity. From the CapEx side, the main expense was due to the intensive construction phase now of our terminal project. You are aware of our dividend proposal, and the AGM should follow this proposal beginning of June so to distribute dividend of EUR 32 per share for 2023.
If you look at our financial side, we can finance the CapEx out of our cash flow, and it would not be necessary to raise debt in the coming periods. One question we received in advance was about the further development of personnel costs. Yes, we will see on the expense side a substantial plus in personnel expenses. That is related on one hand to the collective agreements. We had two of them last year and also to additional employees, so the number of employees is up at roughly 8.3%, compared to the same period in 2023. This is also an effect of additional traffic and higher passenger rates and will lead finally for the full year to an increase in personnel expenses of somewhere 13%-15% for our company.
What is remarkable is that energy costs went down in the first quarter and we could profit also from our own production, and depreciation was more or less the same. Other operating expenses went up due to higher maintenance expenses. In the period of Corona, we have saved money by reducing maintenance and now have to do additional work also throughout 2024, and this is reflected in the respective figures. If we continue to our key projects, then we have to look at our Third Runway project where the evaluation for the project by our Teams is underway. The realization decision can be expected most likely in 2026, and it will depend on traffic development, passenger volumes, flight movements, and also the expectable profitability, how the decision will be made. What is recently coming up is a decision of the Federal Administrative Court.
We have received the permission by the authority to postpone the construction period for Phase I to the 30th of June of 2033. Now, the Federal Administrative Court, from our perspective, unlawfully reduced these dates to 2030. As, from our point of view, this is clearly contradicting the existing legal framework of the respective law. We will appeal against this decision to the Administrative Court, and we don't see immediate effects of the decision for our procedure because even if what I think is very, very unlikely, the highest administrative court would accept the decision of the Administrative Court, we could opt for another prolongation, so the immediate effect of this decision is very limited.
The biggest project in realization is our Terminal Expansion project, and it is now really under intense construction work, and it's on time and within budget and should be finalized in 2027. Also, Enpulsion started operations at the airport. They are producing ion propulsion engines for satellites, and they started production right now, so they are producing one unit per day, and their plan is to triple production the next month and also their footprint on the airport. And their start now is accompanied by the first European Space Agency Phi-Lab that is established on Vienna Airport. There will be eight of them throughout Europe. The first now was established in Vienna on our airport, and it is financed by the federal country of Lower Austria and the federal government with EUR 12 million support other companies in their startup for space activities.
We have now received the license for an additional PV park with a 10 MW peak for our airfield in Bad Vöslau , and we are finalizing another PV park on the Vienna Airport of 3 MW peak, and it will start production just next week. We are also in the final phase of the construction of a fast electric charging station at our airport and should be operational end of June, and we are going to have the groundbreaking ceremony for our third hotel and finalize within the next 18 months.
So you see there are many projects underway and things are progressing positively, and based on that, as already mentioned, we have slightly improved our financial guidance for 2024 and I repeat, with revenues at or above EUR 1 billion, EBITDA more than EUR 400 million, the group net profit more than EUR 220 million, and CapEx higher than EUR 200 million. So that's from my side, and I hand over to Julian.
Hi, good afternoon. I would like to continue with the traffic results. As Günther already reported, I think we had a strong first quarter in the group, driving our financial results plus 13.8%, Q1 plus 6.5% in April, especially in Malta, extremely strong growth in the first quarter, which will normalize now a bit over summer. Yeah, but overall I think we can be very happy with the results so far. Obviously in April, we felt some effects of the strike of Austrian Airlines and the staff meetings they had prior to that strike. Overall, even in our case, the damage was probably for the whole company, roughly EUR 2 million.
I think Austrian we see now through, through May still a bit of a negative impact on, on passenger numbers. Overall, they are, they are still, growing, and, what one should not forget, that we still have the war in Ukraine, so no passengers from Russia and Ukraine and Belarus, significant reduction, in traffic from Tel Aviv, which on its own was, before the 7th of October, 2% of our overall, passenger numbers. So I think given this, dense geopolitical situation, I think we can be very happy, with, with the traffic figures. The Tel Aviv, which has an impact on Egypt and Amman as well, still overall, only, minus 4.4% versus last year, market share of 7.1% to the Middle East. Far East is growing, although still on a relatively, still quite behind, 2019 figures.
Western Europe, very strong, plus nearly 14%, Eastern Europe plus 5.7%, North America plus 14.5%, so I think overall, still, really good numbers. Compared to 2019, I think that the biggest disappointment is still Germany, followed by Switzerland, both roughly 30% below 2019. So, to look at it from the positive side, lots of room for growth in the future. Now Berlin has significantly more capacity because of Eurowings opening Berlin, but overall still quite reduced capacity and therefore demand from Germany. Let's continue. I think what probably we jumped over was traffic development in April, and I did not mention cargo. Cargo is the positive surprise, I have to say, plus 15%, and no, this is not a mistake. Q1 and April had exactly the same growth rate, plus 15.6%, so that's really positive.
I think what we see as well is that to a certain extent, the ratio between passengers and flight movements is normalizing. If you look at April, +6% passenger growth, +6% flight movements, so I think we see that in terms of seat load factor, we probably reached a certain peak last year. Summer looks good. Up to 60 airlines with roughly 190 destinations in 67 countries. Austrian, 121 destinations. New Boston, Bremen, Tiflis, 70 stationed aircraft. Ryanair, 79 destinations, 19 stationed aircraft. And Wizz Air, 28 destinations, five stationed aircraft. Wizz is obviously the most impacted from the engine troubles, so I would expect them to make up for that next year and in 2026. So I'm sure there will be quite some growth from Wizz Air in the years to come.
I think Ryanair, slow growth, but on a high basis, so I'm pretty happy with the development of our three biggest carriers here in Vienna. And as I said, Eurowings, additional 11 frequencies to Berlin, Sun Express growing, ANA is coming back, Hainan is coming back. So overall, slowly but surely, East Asia is coming back as well. We focus a lot on quality, with an ongoing high punctuality. In January, February, we were the third most punctual European hub, with more than 25 million passengers. I think that's really positive.
We have obviously a lot of competition within the Lufthansa Group, so Brussels, Zurich, Frankfurt, Munich, and this year so far, in every single week, Vienna was the most punctual airport, Austrian Airlines the most punctual airline of Lufthansa Group, so I think this is really proof of the high quality we deliver to our airline customers. But not only for Austrian, as well for Ryanair, in February we were the most punctual hub in the Ryanair network. So probably base would be a better name than hub. So I think that the cooperation with Ryanair in this respect works very well as well. We opened our VIP terminal in February, which came very nice. We got awarded by Priority Pass for the best global lounge of the year. This was an award which really made us proud.
Priority Pass is our biggest customer in our lounge and probably everybody knows them, so they really have a global exposure, so we're very, very happy with this achievement. Coming to our traffic forecast for 2024, we stick to our about 30 million, so you might ask yourself why didn't we change the passenger forecast but improved our guidance, our financial guidance. We still feel that we, within our passenger guidance from January, as I said, in January, about 30 million to us means something between 29 and 31 million passengers. From today's point of view, we are probably a bit closer to the 31 than to the 29 or significantly closer to the 31, so somewhere between 30 and 31 million. But given the difficult geopolitical situation, I think it's too soon to really be overly optimistic.
I think by mid-July, end July, we will have a much, much better picture. And if there's any need to update our guidance regarding the passenger numbers, we will do that in our H1 session. But from today's point of view, we are still covered with the around about 30 million passengers. Regarding seat capacity and bookings for summer, my best guess is that we are roughly 4%-5% increase in seat capacity in the summer months. Bookings seem to be good, so what I've heard from our main customers, I think everybody so far seems to be happy with the bookings for summer, although obviously they still have to come in and the ticket price level is somewhat stagnating on a high level. A few words regarding the segment results.
A major driver of Q1 positive results was the airport segment, from EUR 9.2 million EBIT to EUR 18.6 million EBIT in Q1. Passenger-related fees very significantly increasing by 23%. Overall, I expect a net revenue per passenger for this year roughly around EUR 15.5. This is an increase of roughly 20% over 2022 if I'm not mistaken. Let me check that quickly. I'll check it out and let you know in a couple of minutes. Yeah, it's over 22 in the last two years. So we have an increase of roughly 20% in net revenue in airport charges per passenger over 2022. Regarding our charges, we will go back to our old model, the price cap model in 2026. So in 2025, we will increase our airport charges according to inflation until the end of July.
So we expect something around 4%, airport charges increase by January 2025. And then in 2026, we will go back to the formula. It's difficult to judge today what that would mean because obviously it depends on the growth we see until mid of 2025 plus the inflation until mid 2025, but my best guess would be that we will have to reduce our airport charges then by 3%-4.5%. As I said, lots of question marks around that, but from today's perspective, I think this is. I think this would be a sensible forecast. Handling and security services had a result which was not as good as last year's results. We had a slightly negative EBIT mainly due to the warm winter in ground handling.
The winter operation and de-icing is a very important factor in our results but we will, in both security and ground handling, we will make up for that loss, due to strong traffic in the quarters to come. So we expect to see a clear positive EBIT at the end of the year in this segment as well. Coming to retail and properties, I think mainly parking and center management and hospitality did very well. Center management and hospitality is 48% of the overall revenue in this segment, parking EUR 32 million, rentals 20%. Parking did extremely well, rentals did well as well. So overall, center management, we saw mainly due to the passenger increase, good results as well. So EBIT EUR 16.2 million, over EUR 14.6 million, slight decrease in the margin. Overall, we saw a PPR in center management and hospitality of 2.8% over last year.
So as I said, the main driver here is the passenger numbers. We are opening now in summer the extension of our duty-free shop in Terminal two, so this should drive sales and revenues then in the second half of the year. Overall, I think, as we said quite a couple of times already, the big game changer mainly in shopping will be, but F&B as well, the South Extension, more centralized, much bigger duty-free shop, lots of high-quality space for luxury travel and significant increase in the F&B space. So I think this should then increase our revenues very significantly. Yeah, slowly but surely, Malta becomes an ever more important part of our results. EBIT +75%, EUR 10.8 million. Q1 last year was EUR 6.2 million. Obviously on the back of very significant passenger growth.
I think apart from the excellent results, I think what was really relieving is that the Maltese government found a solution for Air Malta, now KM Malta, so a revamped new airline without this huge baggage they had to carry in the last few years. So we are very happy that there's a new home carrier, Ryanair still growing, despite the fact that they're already the biggest carrier, and Wizz Air growing as well roughly by 70%. So overall, I think an excellent development. Yeah, that's it from my end, and now we are looking forward for our discussion.
Carlos, you have been very fast, firsthand. It's yours, please shoot.
Hi, hello everyone. Yes, thank you for the presentation and for taking my questions. I'm just going to have one, and it's on the third runway. I mean, the implementation deadline has been extended until 2030, and as you have mentioned throughout the presentation, you are currently carrying out the evaluation works. Therefore, would it be possible if you could provide us with a target date for the start of construction? Thank you.
Unfortunately, not now because it's still major work to be done in regard of all the respective parts of the project. And I would assume as a best guess that we know more in 2026 or can even provide you then with decisions how to move forward.
Okay, perfect. Thank you.
Vladimíra please go ahead.
Yes, in fact, my question also relates to the Third Runway project. So, you say that you will appeal to the Supreme Court. Is there any time frame for first placing your appeal, filing it, and then for the answer? So then we will basically know if your appeal was rejected or if you would have been granted the maybe prolongation. Secondly, in case that you will go for the project, what are your criteria in terms of you are still referring to the traffic? So where do you see the threshold in the planning phase? What could be the number of takeoffs and landings or some other characteristics you are looking at? Where is the threshold to say, "Yes, we need a third runway. We go ahead"?
And then regarding financing, you would then consider external financing most likely, or what would be then the mix for financing? And yeah, in case Bratislava Airport would be ready, would it have an effect on decision in this respect? So these are my questions related to the Third Runway. Thank you.
If I may start, Günther, and then I would hand over. I would start with the last question. I think this is a very theoretical question because I'm in touch now with several Slovakian governments on possible cooperations on a very low level, to possible cooperation on a bigger scale. We are involved in Košice Airport, so we have a good relation with government. But my impression is that, I think I don't see any cooperation, any meaningful cooperation with Bratislava Airport on the horizon, definitely not in with this government, but even with other governments, I think it would be a very difficult issue. And regarding capacity, I think in the end we will have to have quite some discussions with our major customers. I think we have to understand their growth plans for the future.
Obviously, the driver for a third runway would be the increase in runway capacity. We expect that with a third runway, we would go up from the 72 hourly maximum movements to somewhere around 95, probably a bit more. But on the other hand, the ground operations are important as well. So, again, we will use the next 12 months to very thoroughly go around all the operational and financial criteria, construction costs, and then we have to take all these elements in consideration and then we will take a decision.
Yeah, and in regard to the legal aspect, so for the appeal, there is a six-week period, and it's not difficult to come up with our appeal within this period. It is the case that not only we will appeal, but also the federal country of Lower Austria because they are the UVP authority, and it's their decision that was now challenged. How long it will take at the highest administrative court, I mean, nobody can really give an accurate estimation about that. My best guess would be that we should expect a decision, most likely within 12 months from now, as it's a legal question and not a factual question. What cannot be ruled out is that it takes maybe substantially longer. This would be the case if the highest administrative court would opt to ask the European court for advice.
I don't think that it is very likely that this happens, but it cannot be totally ruled out. why we are optimistic that the decision of the High Federal Court, Administrative Court, should not prevail is that since more than 20 years, it was decided as it was done by the Federal Government of Lower Austria. And it is for the first time and totally new approach to the legal position that now the Federal Administrative Court declared itself as eligible to decide the case and decided in some aspects of the case. And this would not only affect our project, but all projects that are under that procedure. And so I would be also optimistic that even in the case that the highest administrative court would find some merit in the decision, that finally Parliament might be in the position to pass new legislation to make it totally clear.
Because if the decision of the Federal Administrative Court would prevail, it would mean that many, many projects that are very essential for energy transition, electricity lines, wind parks, and all that would become a further very substantial hurdle. And that is totally against all the plans of the government and of all institutions that we have to accelerate the procedures and that we should reach decisions on the respective projects very quicker than it is the case now. So putting all that together, you will see that we are not very impressed by this decision.
Thank you very much.
Philip, you're next.
Thanks for taking my questions and also thanks for the presentations. I have only two short ones. First one basically is regarding passenger growth. I think Ryanair has, in the past week or two, has announced that they see weaker pricing, I guess. And, did you see any weakening trends as of recent, as regards the demand, yeah, of passengers at Airport Vienna? Or is this unchanged? So was there no real impact, compared to what airlines saw such as Ryanair? This would be the first one.
I mean, we saw, I mean, the first quarter was a sort of above this year's average, obviously. So there was a kind of normalization effect. Load factor in the last few weeks was probably slightly weaker than it was last year. So we see a slight reduction, but on a very high level. So obviously we don't see the exact pricing. But overall for summer, I would not see a huge, I wouldn't see any reduction in demand. Probably, in certain destinations where there is a lot of competition, airlines have to reduce their prices a bit.
Thanks. Thanks a lot. And the second one would be, as regards the cargo, how much would you say is really due to the disruption in the Middle East and how much is much more permanent, a volume that you would see going through Vienna if you could maybe dissect that a bit?
I mean, it's possible to say, and to be honest, I don't think that cargo in any way, that there is something like a long-term guarantee that the traffic is going through your airport or cargo traffic is coming at all. I think it's a mix of effects. I think it's to a certain extent, obviously, the situation in the Middle East. I think it's to a certain extent Chinese low-cost parcel shops. It's the additional capacity on long haul. So I think, and to be honest, we're in the trend as well. So I think overall, European airports see now some growth in cargo. But how sustainable this level in the first four days, that's very difficult to judge.
Okay. Thanks. Thanks a lot that we jumped back in the queue.
Thank you. Stella, please go ahead.
Thank you. Hi everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. So I have two questions today, and the first one is about OpEx. I would like to ask management team, do you in research this higher OpEx growth as we see a 49% growth in 2023 versus 2022? And also for this quarter, we see again 29% growth for other operating expenses versus last year. And I wanted to ask, would you see this rather than a one-off case, or would you say there will be a similar case going forward, especially on marketing costs and maintenance costs and also the third-party costs? Thank you.
Yeah, it's a mixture. I mean, there are some one-offs, and as I said, maintenance projects that have been delayed throughout COVID. But on the other hand, when we see growing traffic, also marketing expenses will somehow breathe in the same direction. There is not a strict one-to-one relation, but it has more or less the same tendency. And therefore, I would not foresee another steep increase, but also not a sharp decline. So it's somehow on the way to normalization.
Thank you. That's very helpful. And on the second question, could you please give us an update on the negotiation with unions on the salary rates annually both for 2024 and also for 2025? Thanks.
Sorry, unfortunately there was some.
Sorry. I was saying for the second question, could you please give us an update on the negotiation with unions on the salary rates and ideally both for 2024 and 2025? Yeah. Thank you.
I mean, we already concluded our wage agreement for 2024-2025. So it is 7% from the 1st of May 2024, and the agreement is for 12 months. So the next negotiations will take place in April 2025. And as always, they will be based on the inflation rate of the 12-month starting from 1st of April to 31st of March. So given the current tendencies, I would assume that inflation for this 12-month period, so 1st of April 2024 to end of March 2025, should stay somewhere around 3%-3.5%. As rates are going down now substantially and there are predictions from financial institutions that we will see maybe 2% or 2.5% at the end of the year and at the beginning of next year.
Yep. Got it. Thank you. That's very helpful.
Thank you.
Henry, it took you a bit longer today, but now it's your turn.
No problem. Thank you for taking my questions. I have just one, for Mr. Jäger. It's regarding the still below 2019 traffic to Germany. Why is it still lagging behind so much if you compare to other destinations? And, I've seen that you also added Bremen from my hometown to the new Austrian destinations, which is, it's nice to know. And, yeah, I was just like to know, is there like also upside to grow from Germany again, or what is hindering the traffic to Germany to become, or to grow again to prior 2019 levels?
I mean, I think the only good news is that we are not alone. I mean, Germany overall has a significantly lower recovery rate in terms of air traffic than most other European countries. This is due to the absence of low-cost carriers in Germany, or they've come back just in a very, very small number. Essentially, I mean, higher taxes. Just now, the ticket tax in Germany has been increased very significantly. And in our case, with it, it's the reduction in capacity. So with very few exemptions, we have essentially a Lufthansa Group monopoly on Germany. And I don't blame them, but the reality is, they have to look after their results. So they optimize the yield. And that means not a lot of capacity or less capacity than we had in 2019 and higher ticket prices, which means a low recovery rate.
Similarly, as the situation in Switzerland. So yes, I think there is some room for growth in the future. What obviously you have to see as well is that, that the habit of people change. So I think there's significantly less business traffic between Austria and, and Germany, because of Teams and, and other means. And on the other hand, there is a certain number probably which is using now the train or, or the road, instead of, flying, probably to a certain extent, because of the high ticket prices. On the other hand, probably, because of, CO2, reasons. But, but I think the mix of all these things together, leads to a, a relatively low recovery rate.
Okay. Thank you. And then, one follow-up, if I may. What impact do you see from the, European Championship in football, for, for the summer? Is it like very minor, or does it have like, some, some?
Minor. Completely minor. The only impact is that if you want to fly to Berlin or Düsseldorf or wherever the Austrian team is playing on that day, you need a fortune to buy a ticket. But in terms of numbers, this doesn't have an impact. And we hosted in Austria in 2008 the European Cup. And this is the impact is minute. You can ignore events like that in all your calculations.
Okay. Perfect. Thank you.
Thank you. Are there any further questions?
No hand raised at the moment.
Okay. So thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you. Thank you for your questions, for the interest. Have a good day. Goodbye. Bye. Bye.
Thank you. Bye-bye.
Thank you.
Goodbye. Ciao.