Ending June 2023, the first half of the year has seen major growth across all financial sectors of Fraport, the global airport company. This has been fuelled by a noticeable increase in passenger numbers at the Group’s airports.
Group revenue rose by 33.8% year-on-year to €1,804.3 million in the first six months of 2023. The operating result or EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) reached €481.4 million, up 17.9%. The Group result (or net profit) rose to €85.0 million in the reporting period. In the first half of 2022, this key figure was still negative at minus €53.1 million, due to a one-off effect.
Dr Stefan Schulte, CEO of Fraport AG, said: “In the second quarter of 2023, the positive performance continued from the start of the year. We are seeing sustained recovery in passenger demand across our portfolio of global airports. At our home base in Frankfurt, passenger numbers recovered to 80% of pre-crisis levels in the first half of 2023. We expect passenger traffic to further grow at Frankfurt Airport during the full year – including a rise in the share of business travellers.
Our leisure-dominated Group airports worldwide have benefited most from the ongoing strong demand for holiday travel. This is particularly true for the Greek airports, which continued to clearly surpass the levels from pre-crisis 2019 during the first six months. With the operating result (EBITDA) improving to €481.4 million, the Group’s operating profit (EBIT) increased to €245.9 million in the first half of 2023, up 35.2% year-on-year. Correspondingly, operating cash flow grew to €293.8 million (6M/2022: €185.3 million). Free cash flow also improved noticeably to minus €377.5 million in the reporting period (6M/2022: minus €733.8 million).
The achieved Group result (net profit) of €85.0 million translated into undiluted earnings per share of plus €0.87 (6M/2022: minus €0.53). (£1.00 = €1.15 at time of publication).