Fraport AG

Yes. Thank you, Heidi, and warm welcome also from my side to the Q1 question-and-answer session.

With me at the table, we got Dr. Matthias Zieschang, our CFO.

And as always, with our presentations, please keep our cautionary language in mind. Risks and opportunities may arise with forward-looking statements.

[Operator Instructions] Having said this and without further ado, I'd like to hand over to Heidi to commence with the question-and-answer session. Thank you.

Well, I'll try to limit to two then. So okay.

On the presentation, you discussed a lot the jet supply -- jet fuel supply potential constraints, and that is clearly a downside risk to your guidance. So maybe could you elaborate the conversation that you have with the German government and on reports that we've seen on disruption to supply through the NATO pipeline and maybe comment on where the refinery is supplying, the pipeline source, where they source their crude from?

That would be quite helpful to understand the risk around the jet fuel supply issue. And just a second quick question on Lufthansa strikes.

What kind of level of disruption did you assume in the rest of your -- in the guidance for the rest of the year?

Yes. Thank you for your question.

Regarding your question, what's new regarding availability of jet fuel? Clear answer is, we don't know.

We are looking forward based on the working hypothesis that there is always an availability of jet fuel given we are in close contact with the German government. They told and they tell us that there's enough jet fuel available that there is, in the moment, no risk.

This is the information which we have, and we base all our guidance on these assumptions and these informations. Back to facts.

When you look on the refinery capacity in Europe, that's a problem, so to say, in Europe -- the overall refinery capacity in Europe is below 100%. So it's in the core countries like U.K., France, Italy, Germany, it's about 50% own production.

So in other words, 50% must come from other sources, wherever these sources are located. And at the end of the day, it's also a question of willingness to pay relatively high prices for jet fuel.

And based on this assumption, we assume that the availability is given, of course, based on very high prices. Another fact which is given we are receiving jet fuel via 2 pipelines, primarily via 2 pipelines.

One pipeline is a so-called NATO pipeline who is servicing also the U.S. bases with jet fuel.

And also based on this fact that we have this direct link, we assume that if there would be a shortage, then of course, there must be what the people are going to tell triage, priority system, and this perhaps unlikely event that we will be delivered with the highest priority due to the critical infrastructure case of our airport. Yes, I think I have Lufthansa strike...

Yes, Lufthansa strike, this is -- we gave a range, and now we made a correction in such a way that today, we are saying we are ending up at the lower end of the range, and this has to do exactly with Lufthansa. Let me say, on the good side, we see as planned and as scheduled, the ramp-up of the capacity of Condor.

So they are, so to say, delivering what they have promised. We also see positive elements from other airlines.

For example, yesterday, we received the information that the German government, together with the Chinese government, has increased the bilateral numbers of flights from and to Germany. So for example, now Air China up from now -- are increasing their frequencies, Frankfurt to Beijing from 10 to 12 frequencies, China Eastern is going to increase up from the 7th of June from 7 to 9 frequencies, Frankfurt to Shanghai.

We have China Southern going from 3 frequencies to 7 and increasing Guangzhou on one side and opening a new route to Urumqi. So these are good news.

And so we will see more incoming traffic from China. This is good for the number of passengers.

It's always good. It's also good for the purchasing power inside our shops.

So these are the good news. On the bad side, so to say, on the negative side, we have the reduction of Lufthansa and we have to see what is the net impact.

We assume still a positive increase of offered seats during the full year, but of course, not the volume which we had in mind when we made our financial plan in the beginning. And that's the reason why we have a little bit reduced the guidance regarding the passenger expectation for Frankfurt Airport.

At the end of the day, we have a seat capacity or an increase of seat capacity, which is lower than this, what we assumed in the beginning of the year. On the other side, we have the question mark regarding seat load factor.

There's always a second variable in the system, but we are still optimistic that we will see a lower but solid growth of passengers at Frankfurt Airport and always subject to this base assumption that jet fuel is available.

First, I was wondering if you could give us some indications of the early days of Terminal 3 in terms of retail and commercial trends. I was just wondering if the performance so far is in line with your expectations?

And if you could quantify the improvement you have observed on a per passenger basis. And second, a follow-up on what you were just discussing on airline capacity.

I mean, given what you've mentioned about Condor's plan, I assume there's no risk at all. But I was just wondering if you've had any discussions with them regarding a potential delay in the allocation of new aircraft or something like that due to the jet fuel uncertainties.

Yes. First question, retail performance in T3.

So what we have today is -- today, the second wave has been reallocated from Terminal 2 to Terminal 3 and further 2 waves will happen in the next 6 weeks. So this -- what we have now as data is anecdotal evidence, but because the number of passengers, the volumes are very low.

And you have to see the first wave was determined by Middle East carriers, which have, given the crisis and the war in Iran, relatively low seat load factors in the moment. So the number of passengers is not the biggest one, but the first sentiment or feedback from retailers is positive.

But again, this is anecdotal evidence. We have to see when all the waves are through, what are the final numbers.

But again, in the moment, it looks very positive. And again, numbers we will have when the fourth wave is through, then we have the first weeks with -- on an annual basis then 10 million passengers.

So the whole bunch of airlines reallocated and then we will see in the first weeks what is the final outcome of our new concepts in the new marketplace. Regarding Condor, there is no threat of availability of new aircraft because they just run A330neos on one side for the long-haul destinations.

And on the other side, they have A320 and A321s, also neos, for continental as well as domestic flights. So the short-haul aircraft are there.

They are increasing by reallocating aircraft from other German airports to Frankfurt. So it's just a management decision.

And regarding the long-haul fleet, they are expecting -- how many is it? How many A330s?

8 further A330s coming from Airbus. There is -- what we have said there's absolutely no risk that there will be a delay.

So in other words, the ramp-up part of Condor is protected by the delivery pipeline of Airbus, and we don't see any risk or threat that they are not delivering what they have promised to us. Jet fuel availability is again the same as Lufthansa.

Jet fuel is given or is not given, but we assume that it's always given in the next couple of months.

Two questions from me, please. Just again, staying on jet fuel, apologies.

But maybe if we could just go to the other platforms in your portfolio and just give us a little bit of color in terms of maybe the conversations you've had there with the local governments and the status of availability just in your other major international assets? And then second question, just on retail.

So Q1 spend per pax in the shopping was sort of similarly weak as we ended 2025. But now with T3, a little bit more traffic coming from China, could we see that trend sort of bottom out and turn positive for the rest of the year?

Is that what we should be expecting? Just wondering what you're seeing there on the shopping spend per pax, which has been weak for some time now.

Yes. First, starting again with the jet fuel availability in our international portfolio.

When you look on the Americas, there's absolutely no problem. Why?

Because North America as well as South America, they are producing oil. They are net exporters, and they have also sufficient refinery capacity to transform oil into jet fuel.

In other words, they are not impacted. There's no exposure regarding Iran war.

Of course, they have to pay also higher prices because of the [indiscernible] price in the world market, but availability in Americas is given. Look on to Europe, coming back to this, what I said, 50% refinery capacity in the main countries.

Regarding Greece, we have heard that in Greece itself, the refinery capacity is higher. So that is from a theoretical perspective, the exposure should be lower.

And regarding Asia, we don't have -- we don't run an airport in Asia, but we have, of course, the destinations going to and from Asia. Here, it's a little bit unclear what is going on in China, in India, South Korea.

Normally, these are countries who are net exporters of jet fuel because they have a huge jet fuel refinery capacity. So it's not the problem of refinery capacities in these countries, it's a question is enough oil over there to use the oil in the refineries to produce the jet fuel.

So what we have heard behind the curtain, they are producing like hell and increasing their storages to be protected in a case that a worst-case scenario should happen. So it's a little bit unclear what is going on in Southeast Asia.

But -- in the moment, we also don't expect any hiccup over there. Retail, we have a different, let me say, situation.

If you make a further drill down of the spend per pax number, going to the several items, we have F&B is running very well. Media is extremely running good.

Services is good. Parking itself besides spend per pax is always good.

So the -- also fashion is relatively good. So the only and main problem is the revenues in duty-free/Travel Value.

Here, we have a significant reduction. And we are sitting together with Heinemann Brothers, who are managing especially Travel Value/duty-free places, what to do in the future to improve the situation.

So it's really a differentiated situation which we have at the moment. We have a lot of good things, and we have one main item who is responsible for the reduction in the spend per pax.

And again, this is duty-free/Travel Value products. And of course, China will help us now this -- what I mentioned, this increase of frequencies.

This is in favor of us and also the coming back of the Middle East traffic. So we know from the airlines, for example, Emirates, they are back on 2 frequencies per day.

I think in next 2 weeks, they are coming back to the 3 frequencies per day, which they had before the crisis and before the war. Today, I can see already the A380 coming back to Frankfurt.

We have heard from the management team here in Frankfurt from Emirates that the seat load factor is relatively good now coming back from low numbers so that we expect a relatively good recovery, always subject to what will happen with the war over there. But the current information flow from these airlines is relatively optimistic.

So bring it all together, we are not pessimistic regarding the next couple of months.

The first one is on traffic. I just wanted to hone in on the load factor.

How much of your sort of hopes to hit the lower end of the guide is based on an elevated load factor for the rest of the year? And then secondly, on ground handling, when I particularly look at the ground handling revenues, 10% up year-over-year.

Is that the trajectory that we should expect for the rest of the year? Or as the comps basically get stronger, do you expect that to be a little bit lower than the 10%?

Yes, load factor, we assume as of today, a constant load factor compared to the previous year. This is what I mentioned.

This is a little bit the question mark. We have on one side the seat capacity increase.

We still expect an increase. Then the question is, will this be supported by seat load factor increase what we saw during the beginning of the war when the direct flights to Middle East destinations have been stopped.

So the traffic was looking for other ways and this led to a situation that on other routes to the East to Eastern destinations, the seat load factor went up. We have to look whether this is sustainable or just a temporary phenomenon.

But I would say from today's perspective, there could be an upside chance. In the moment, I don't see a downside risk.

But again, this is always subject to geopolitical topics, which might come -- occur overnight. Ground handling.

Here, we are happy with the performance. Already last year, the team in the segment showed a good performance based on gaining or regaining higher market share on one side, productivity on the other side, also price increases with a lot of customers, which we have in our portfolio.

This continues this year. Also the ridiculous wage increases are over now.

We still have too high wage increases, but not any longer double-digit numbers. And this combination, more volumes above the normal growth rates because we are gaining market share in combination with productivity increases lead to a situation that despite relatively high mid-single-digit wage increases, we were able to improve our numbers.

You saw now the Q1 numbers, which are clearly better than the previous year. And guidance was flat, but there is some chance or probability that at the end of the year, we will end up with a better number, so above previous year.

But again, this is not a new guidance, but just showing a chance which we see in this segment.

Two questions on ground handling, if possible, please. The first one, could you tell us is there any update on the negotiations on the contract for ground handling with Lufthansa?

One would assume in the current environment, Lufthansa may be a bit more demanding when negotiating for that contract. But yes, any color you could provide there in terms of your expectations of the outcome of that contract?

And secondly, could you tell us a bit how do you plan your -- in ground handling, how do you plan your workforce through the summer, the number of FTEs versus the prior year? I'm just asking from the perspective that it seems that the airlines are adjusting capacity more often than they usually do over the last couple of months.

So it seems -- at least from outside, it seems that it may be challenging to find the balance between the right number of employees and the exact number of flight takeoffs and landings that you will see. So is that challenging?

How are you thinking at the FTE growth year-over-year? Any more color there would help.

The first question, what is the situation regarding the contractual situation. So we are now in close contact with Lufthansa.

We are in close negotiation. We showed them our losses in the last couple of years with this contract.

It's a huge accumulated loss, which we had, and this was, so to say, a subsidy for Lufthansa. And we said the party is now over.

From 1st of April next year, there must be a full cost coverage with the new contract. And based on this, we showed what have been our losses, what is the gap and what is the percentage to close the gap.

This is on the table. We said there's no headroom to discuss because we are not any longer willing to pay subsidies for making a business for a partner of us.

So they have to accept it or not, full stop. There's nothing in between.

And we have also -- there is no potential for us to saying, yes, we find a compromise. There is no compromise.

The result is cost covering or no contract. So workforce in summer, this is a good question because having in mind that the -- one thing is clear there, the growth will not be in such dimension what we saw in the beginning of the year.

So with other words, our resource plan is not any longer valid, and we have immediately reacted. And so to say, overnight, we stopped further recruiting in ground handling to adapt, so to say, the workforce to the reduced growth expectation now, also especially during the summer season.

And with other words, looking on the whole workforce here at Frankfurt Airport as a whole site, we see, of course, a further increase in Q2, but this has to do with Terminal 3, which has a much greater and bigger dimension like Terminal 2. So this is the necessary number of employees to run this huge infrastructure.

But in ground handling itself, we stopped the increase of workforce. So we run now the business with these number of employees, which we today have in this segment.

And with other words, the number of employees now in the middle of this year is a peak for Frankfurt site. And looking forward in the coming years to 2030, this is not a new information.

Now we are going then to reduce the overall workforce year-by-year, step by step using artificial intelligence, robotics, digitization, all things and also in combination with further productivity measures to bring down step by step the workforce to have a compensation element against future expected wage increases, which will not come down to a level which would be necessary, so to say, to run the German industry on an efficient basis.

Can I ask about Lima? It seems to underperform.

You've built a beautiful new airport and beautiful runways, and we don't have many people there. What is the prospect for getting that going and driving the full economics of that?

And then, I mean, can I just come back to the handling negotiations with Lufthansa? You're sounding all tough and you've got to breakeven and they've got to take it or have no contract.

But they do like to highlight their multi-hub strategy and their ability to redeploy capacity around the place. And whilst you've got stability with the airport charges on a 4-year contract, this is potentially a significant increase in their cost per turn at Frankfurt that could make Frankfurt less attractive to them at the margin.

Are you not concerned about that? Or does it fit into some bigger, broader part of the relationship with Lufthansa?

So first of all, we think we have a good and productive and cooperative relationship to Lufthansa regarding the service which we are offering. I think it's absolutely clear that at the end of the day, we are talking about a personnel-intensive business.

It's a body lease. 70% of our OpEx in ground handling is determined by the workforce.

At the end of the day, whoever will use this service, he has to pay for the OpEx. And this will be a significant step up due to the fact that, as I mentioned, we subsidized this service in the last 5 years in favor of Lufthansa.

And this is now over. And so the only thing what we expect from them is to pay a fair price for the costs which are there, which are given.

And you mentioned the multi-hubbing system. So you know that also the second largest hub of Lufthansa is Munich.

In Munich, Lufthansa made a decision, I think this was 1 year ago, to make a self-service regarding ground handling. So in former times, they have been serviced, first of all, by Munich Airport, then I think they switched over to Swissport and they canceled the contract and now they are doing their own ground handling.

What I have heard, and this is not a surprise, that the cost of doing the service on your own account is extremely high. So everybody is free to choose and everybody is responsible for his own fate, so to say.

And again, they can use our service and they can do it for their own or it can go to other service provider. If they would go to another service provider, then we are stopping our business is also okay, but we are not willing to continue with subsidizing an airline, and I think this is absolutely clear.

And I think Lufthansa is also aware of this. So first question was regarding Lima.

Was this correct? It was difficult [indiscernible] in the line, there was a background noise.

And so it was difficult to understand your question. So Lima itself, CapEx is through, which is good.

Now we have a brilliant infrastructure with a capacity up to EUR 40 million. In the moment, let me say, the financial results are coming -- with the final result, the financial outcome in '26 will be as expected.

So a clear and significant improvement compared to the EBITDA number from last year. But nevertheless, the growth in the moment is not in line with this what we expected.

But this has nothing to do with the airport, which is brilliant. This has to do with some airlines and who are reallocating, have some topics.

Hence we assume that this is a temporary phenomenon and the airlines or one of these airlines is coming back or going back to the old growth plan. So that the weakness in the passenger numbers in Lima regarding the expected growth rates is just temporary.

And you don't get linked to the dispute over connecting fees? Or does it then you think is obvious...

We are talking about an amount of money, which is compared to a jet fuel cost, it is nothing. So it's a joke.

And I don't know why this topic is raised. And it's a very minimal percentage of your OpEx.

It's not relevant. And this is not the reason for the growth weakness in the moment.

Of course, it's a nice try to bring down fees. And perhaps I would do the same, but this is not the explanation why they are not growing in the moment.

It's the same. If you look now -- if you talk about generally about airport fees, if you look now, we have -- regarding jet fuel prices, we have a price increase of significantly -- nearly 200% increase.

This has a huge impact on the P&L. And if you take this number, now the current jet fuel prices and a long-haul airline has 30% to 40% OpEx based on jet fuel prices.

And if this double overnight, then you have a real impact, but they are still flying, of course, perhaps with lower growth rates or no growth rates. But then talking about EUR 0.50 airport fees, this is really comedy.

Okay. So let me ask the question.

So I think we are seeing an environment of airline ticket prices, which are rising, airline ticket prices and potentially could rise even further, and that is obviously because of the elevated jet fuel price. What is your view on price elasticity of demand?

Shouldn't there be some demand destruction if we are going to see significant double-digit increases in airline ticket prices?

First of all, there is a negative price elasticity. So in other words, whenever ticket prices went up, we have a negative impact on the demand side.

This is clear, and this works already now. And that's the clear explanation why the growth rates at all destinations are lower than this what everybody expected some months ago.

This is absolutely clear. The question is if the impact of fuel prices so significant that given 150%, 180% jet fuel price increases, the absolute amount of passengers is lower than before the crisis.

Here in the moment, we see as a negative scenario, a constant development of passenger numbers or, let me say, a reduced growth. But in the moment, we can't see markets where the growth numbers are real negative just coming from the increase of jet fuel prices.

But looking forward, if this high level would continue, it's absolutely for sure that this would have a negative impact on the long-term CAGR regarding passenger growth rates, but not in a way that the CAGR is negative. It's just a reduced positive number.

So just two quick ones. First one on -- I mean, looking just at the big picture coming out of Q1.

So you've got slower traffic at Frankfurt in May. You've got good ground handling.

I mean, what gives you the confidence basically the guidance is still holding? I think consensus is a bit below.

So it's a bit basically hesitating. Where do you think you're doing better than expected just a couple of months ago?

Is it just on your cost handle, just on ground handling? Just to see where we could flex a little bit our models.

That's the first one. The second one, can you give us a bit of color on the outlook into summer on your airports, so near, let's say, near conflict zone.

So thinking about Antalya in Turkey, Bulgaria, maybe even Greece. I mean, what are you seeing right now in terms of booking trends?

Or what are your customers seeing and what kind of feedback you're getting? That would be very helpful.

First of all, coming with the overall picture regarding our 4 segments. From today's perspective, might be tomorrow total change if some geopolitical things also would change.

So you already mentioned one segment, this is ground handling. Here in ground handling, based on higher market share than planned, also good productivity progress and improvements, here, there's a chance that we even end up better than guided in the beginning of the year.

So this is an upside and with a relatively good probability that this will also be the case at the end of the year regardless what the passenger growth is. Why?

Because what we gained on market share against our competitor is so much more compared to the passenger weakness that this is a fully overcompensation of this effect. So in aviation and in retail and real estate, it's based on lower passenger numbers, lower growth numbers.

Of course, what we have in our internal scenarios, it's lower than this what we had calculated in the beginning. So as a downside in both segments, but still a commitment to the qualitative guidance that in both segments, we are better in '26 compared to '25, but reduced to this what we saw in the beginning of the year.

And then we have the last segment, International, activities here, it's in total, always a relatively optimistic outlook. But if you go through the several assets, it's different.

Starting with Americas, in Lima itself, what I mentioned on the OpEx side is good. Retail is extremely good.

Passenger growth is disappointing. But nevertheless, as I mentioned, the EBITDA in '26 will be significantly higher than '25.

In Europe -- also Brazil is fine, both airports, Fortaleza as well as the other one, Porto Alegre. And Greece, the booking numbers are strong.

If you look on the traffic numbers, the first 3 months are always strong. Also April, what we have heard preliminary figures are always very good.

So it seems to be that we see here a very solid single-digit passenger increase after a couple of years in the past, which showed an overperformance year-by-year. So the show continues, and we are absolutely optimistic regarding Greece.

Bulgaria, it's also -- it's improving. Slovenia is doing -- the passenger numbers in Q1 is always good, but in total, this is not relevant, but everything is running in the right direction.

We have Antalya. It's not part of the EBITDA, but at equity, here, the picture is unclear.

We had a strong March. We will see a weak April, but determined by a lot of domestic traffic, which is not relevant because the money was generated by the international incoming traffic.

And here, we have to see -- and the season really starts May, June. And here, we have to see who is coming and how many.

And this is -- Turkey is unclear. What did I forget?

Nothing. But in total, if you put all the assets together, on average, we see still a clear and significant improvement compared to '25.

So that's the overall picture.

Two questions, please. One is on the ground handling contract with Lufthansa.

When is the date? By when do you expect this contract to be signed?

And my second question is on the refinancing strategy and the cost of debt for the remainder of 2026. As in the past year, there is about EUR 1 billion of gross debt to be refinanced in Frankfurt.

Do you expect this new debt to be more costly or to be about the same it currently is?

First topic, again, ground handling contract. Normally, in the next couple of months, the contract should be closed, not from our perspective, but from the perspective of Lufthansa because if they don't want to continue with us, they have to change.

And there's only one competitor in the market. This is Swissport, and to reallocate a significant number of aircraft to another service provider who has a market share of less than 10%, he needs time to prepare himself for this alternative.

And even as of today, I have no fantasy this theoretical case of a change from us to another competitor, how this should work. But again, this is not our responsibility.

So to make the long story short, time is running. And Lufthansa now should decide what to do because the time is running not in favor of them.

Refinancing cost, we have 2 elements. On average, we have a total cost of debt for the group, 3.4%, long-term money.

This is a combination of interest rates here at the Fraport AG balance sheet, which is below 3.4%. Then we have indebtedness, project financing, nonrecourse at our international assets, of course, with an average interest rate, which is higher than 3.4%.

So this is a weighted average. Looking forward, you mentioned the EUR 1 billion, which has to be more or less refinanced year-by-year.

First of all, we are not going to refinance this total amount of money. Why?

Because now there's a clear decision to go step by step down with our huge liquidity because we think it's not any longer necessary to have such a high amount of liquidity. So with other words, just a part of this refinancing necessity, so to say, is refinanced.

The other one is coming from melting down the existing liquidity. And regarding this, what will be brought to the market, we have 2 phenomenon.

On one side, our interest margin is becoming lower and lower because the risk of running an airport compared to other industries in Germany like chemical industry, automotive industry, et cetera, we are in the moment the better debt than other industries, and this is in favor of us. So banks are willing to give us the money at lower margins, which is good for us.

Then the unknown variable or unknown parameter is what will be the shape of the interest rate curve in the next couple of months or quarters. Yes, everybody expects some increases from the ECB on the short end.

The question is what will be the impact for long-term money. I would say the probability that the long-term interest rates are going up is a little bit higher.

This is our expectation. But the combination of lower margins on one side and higher interest rates on the other side is more or less leveling out.

So to make the long story short, we see a slight increase of the total cost of indebtedness in the next 18 months, but we will end up with 3.x closer to 4%, but not to overcome 4% and we feel absolutely secured against volatility regarding the shape of the interest rate curve.

Just two questions left for me. First of all, coming back, sorry for that, to the ground handling topic with Lufthansa.

Assuming that you will not find an agreement with Lufthansa and Lufthansa will go away, would this actually mean that you will face a major restructuring expense and layoffs in ground handling then as of next year or maybe you have to book a large provision at the end of this year? And second question relates to the new border control system that is in place since April, the new entry/exit system.

There were various reports about delays in travel cards at some airports after the implementation. So what is the situation currently in Frankfurt?

Are you fine with that?

First of all, again, ground handling, of course, in the case, I wouldn't say likely or unlikely, that Lufthansa would change the ground handling provider, then of course, we have to wind up our business, and this would be a one-off cost item. That's for sure.

But then I'm also happy to make it clear. We continue with profitability or we stop it.

There's nothing in between. Regarding EES, European Entry System.

This is a real problem in Europe because the system is not working fine. It's a terrible system, and this leads to delays.

And we are in close contact with the federal police here in Germany how to overcome this problem. It's not a simple topic with other words, and we try to find solutions that the introduction of this system, which is not really running in a proper way that we were able together with the police to handle the system, which is a European problem.

It has nothing to do with Frankfurt. Each and every airport in Europe has this problem.

It's again a fantastic move of Brussels, but we are always used to have such fantastic ideas, and we have to live with it, and we try to overcome the problems. But it's a given problem.

Yes. Thank you, everybody, for the good questions.

Thank you, Matthias, for the answers. We look forward to being in touch maybe on the phone, on the web or on the road.

And with that, have a nice afternoon and speak soon. Bye-bye.