Flughafen Wien Stock

[Audio Gap] The year kept us rather busy because we saw challenging market conditions. On the one hand, we had a decrease in our tariffs of 4.5% in passenger tariffs and 2.1% in landing tariffs. We saw the move of Wizz Air from Vienna to Bratislava and the closure of their base in Vienna and also Ryanair decreased seat capacity. And on top of that, the conflict in the Middle East also substantially negatively influenced passenger numbers.

The volume to the region was down roughly 45% in the first half of 2026. We see now a recovery, but it's still at roughly minus 30, so not at the previous levels. So putting all that together, it resulted in passenger decrease in Vienna. And what we not expected in that amount, all that was outweighed by a dynamic growth in Malta and also in Kosice. So Malta grew with 15.6% and Kosice above 40% plus. And Kosice is the reason that public service obligation was awarded from the Republic of Slovakia to Wizz Air to serve the destination Kosice to Bratislava.

So putting all together, we saw slight increase in turnover and a slight increase in total passenger numbers for the group. Resulting from that, we can slightly improve our passenger and financial guidance. So our passenger guidance can now be raised to approximately 42.5 million from before 41.5 million and a plus of 500,000 to 30.5 million passengers in Vienna. We also can slightly improve our financial guidance with a revenue of around EUR 1.080 billion, EBITDA of around EUR 425 million and net profit before noncontrolling interest of around EUR 220 million and net profit attributable to equity holders of the parent of around EUR 190 million. The difference from EUR 220 million to EUR 190 million outlines the growing impact of Malta for our group results.

So if we look at the figures in detail, you see that revenue is more or less flat with 0.9%. EBITDA is up 7.3%. EBIT is up 9.1%. Financial results are still positive, but decreasing that is due to lower interest rates and also to lower volume as we will see later. So the group net profit ends up with EUR 123.2 million. It's a plus of 7% and after noncontrolling interest to EUR 108.3 million, plus 5.4%.

The reasons for the higher profitability are, on the one hand, cost management and cost reductions. If we go into the detail, for example, one major position is maintenance, and we have not reduced the level of maintenance. So the expenses are more or less around the figures of last year, but we had provisions for some of the projects who could be used this year. And higher investments also include more own personnel used for these investments. So also there, we see a positive effect for overall results. And February -- January, February had a very severe winter. So also revenues from de-icing contributed positively. But more than half of the positive effect comes from the results in Malta.

If we look at the operating expenses, you see depreciation and amortization is slightly up. And this is a trend we will see also in the coming years, both in Vienna and in Malta, and it's the result of our investments there. Other operating expenses are strongly lower with 13.8% to EUR 74.6 million. And very important personnel expenses are only up with 1.2% due to the fact that we reduced staff throughout the year, roughly 200 headcount.

The reduced maintenance expenses, as I already outlined, are connected with provisions we could use from last year. And there are cost reductions and cost improvements all over the Board and all our departments and daughter companies were part of our cost savings program. Cash flow is slightly lower than last year. Also free cash flow, CapEx is up to EUR 150.8 million. Net liquidity is strongly reduced due to the fact that we paid out dividends, and we are also paying for the investment.

The dividend payment has also slightly reduced our equity, but the equity ratio still is at 72.4%. If we look at our AirportCity development, it's really going very, very well, especially our SpaceHub. We have in total 5 new companies who settle on the airport. And the cooperation between the European Space Agency, Phi-Lab and the companies here is very productive. So this autumn, the first Austrian satellite will be launched, and it was assembled here in Vienna and 3 more will follow next year. And the companies have very strong growth expectations for the coming years. And as Austrian will move out of our Office Park 2 and settle down on the new Office Park 4 NEXT, we will have plenty of room for further development of these companies.

The new hotel has already started operation end of June. It's now owned by Leonardo Group. And that's a very professional hotel operator. And I think we will see a good development also there. The regulatory environment still is very difficult. And it's homemade and it's Europe made, partly both. The problem with the ticket tax is an internal problem of Austria. Only 9 countries within the European Union charge a ticket tax. Austria is among the most expensive ones. And for low-cost carrier, that's a very substantial burden. And Bratislava is just 55 kilometers from Vienna and there, the tax is 0.

So we need a substantial reduction of this tax. And the first announcement of the double budget is that roughly EUR 30 million per year for '27 and '28 are now reserved. And we hope that there will be the possibility to even increase this sum so that the competitiveness of our airport can be strengthened again. On the other hand, we see a very burdensome legislation on the European level. And if we compare the development of the aviation sector in Europe to other regions, we see that Europe is losing ground all over the board. And there is an urgent need to reform the hostile EU regulations against the growth of aviation.

Financial guidance, I already mentioned. So putting again all together, revenue approximately EUR 1.080 billion, EBITDA EUR 425 million, group net profit EUR 220 million, after minorities EUR 190 million, CapEx EUR 330 million. So on the basis of these developments, let me continue with traffic development for our group. So the growth in the first half of '26 was 1.9% due to 15.6% in Malta and 43.5% plus in Kosice, which totals to 1 million something in passenger numbers and plus, and we saw minus 3.2% in Vienna.

If we look at July figures, you see the growth in Malta is more or less the same with 14.7%. Kosice is growing less with 16.9%. So we could outweigh the negative effects in Vienna through the growth in Malta and Kosice. If we look at Vienna in detail, we had 14.3 million passengers and the decrease in July was 4.7%. So for the rest of the year, it will be somewhere around minus 5% for Vienna. Local passenger 3.9% (sic) [ minus 3.9% ], transfer passenger minus 2%. Flight movements, minus 4.6%. Cargo was more or less even.

What was very positive is that the seat load factor increased by 1.7 points. And what should be stressed is that Austrian, our home carrier, had a very robust growth of 6.1% to 6.9 million passengers. And the seat load factor there was up 3.1% (sic) [ 3.1 percentage points ]. So they had offset partly what Ryanair reduced in Vienna. Unfortunately, the high fuel costs put their results into a negative territory. If we look at the market share, we see that Austrian gained market share and Ryanair still is the second largest carrier, but has lost market share. And then you see Eurowings, Turkish and the rest of smaller airlines.

Lufthansa Group has increased its overall percentage of total passenger volumes to 52%. And it was a shift in favor of network carriers, low-cost traffic down by 18%. If we look at the regional development, we see plus in Western Europe and North America and also Africa, strong plus for the Far East, reduction by 45% for Middle East and minus 12% for Eastern Europe, where we also saw a decline.

What is very important from our perspective is that in respect of operational performance, Austrian is best-in-class within Lufthansa. And in regard of punctuality, we are really still among the best in Europe and that has been a little bit also supported by the fact that we have this summer relatively few thunderstorms, which normally disturb summer operations to a certain degree. But the partnership between our home carrier and the system partners here in Vienna is very productive and enables these developments.

We have been awarded Best European Airport 2026 from 25 million to 40 million passengers by ASQ. And our Vienna Lounge was named Best Airport Lounge in Europe for the third year in a row by Priority Pass. So I hope you have sooner or later the possibility to pass by and use it.

Despite the overall turbulences, we had several new airlines or new frequencies, so airBaltic, China Eastern, Air Corsica, Royal Jordanian, Salam Air, AnimaWings. And we are serving right now roughly 200 destinations from Vienna and 21 long-haul destinations to North America and the Far East. So we hope that the aspiration of Austrian to grow, especially long haul will be supported by Lufthansa. 3 new Dreamliners already arrived, 2 more should come in the coming months.

So altogether, as already mentioned, a slight improvement of traffic forecast by 1 million. And we are quite sure that we can reach these figures if not a new hot war breaks out in the Middle East. If we look at the segments, clearly, Airport segment suffered from lower passenger volume and reduced fees. The termination of winter incentive was partially offsetting this unfavorable development. And we had a very successful implementation of the entry/exit system. Unlike in many other airports, we have no problems and waiting times are within reasonable frame. So this is a very positive fact to be mentioned.

Handling & Security Services have profited from de-icing income in the winter month and before, I think, end of July, a new license was issued for a handling agent in Vienna, which will replace [ Airport Assistance Swiss ] from October this year. Retail & Properties developed well, especially income for advertising and also food and beverage outlets, the lounges, lower results we saw in parking because they are closely related to local passenger numbers.

We had gains from cost efficiency program and therefore, overall profitability of the Retail & Properties segment improved on the EBITDA margin with 3.6% to 52%. Malta, I already mentioned the growth in the airport is more or less related and closely connected with the growth of hotel capacities. And therefore, I think it's well secured and grounded and hand-in-hand with these passenger numbers going up. Also the investment program in Malta is accelerated. There is an investment of roughly EUR 300 million for especially terminal buildings for office park, hotel and infrastructure that should be realized in the coming years and should contribute to the further positive development of Malta.

If you look at the figures, you see EBITDA is up EUR 8.1 million, 17.9%, EBIT is up EUR 6 million, 16.3%, and revenue up EUR 10.6 million, 14.8%. Our South Expansion is the biggest investment and project we are working on right now. It's in budget, it's in time, and we are optimistic that the time schedule will work so that we can open it in the second quarter of 2027, and it will substantially improve the situation here in regard of shopping of security control of restaurants. And I hope people will feel very, very fine in this new environment. So that's from my side, and please come forward with your question.

[Operator Instructions] Vladimira was the first one this afternoon.

Congratulations. Very nice set of numbers, definitely better than expected in the first half. And I would have just a few questions. First one would be related to this new fund you mentioned that the Austrian government is making available EUR 30 million per annum into its budget. So in total, EUR 60 million. What kind of benefits do you see for Vienna International Airport? If you could be a little bit more specific in which areas you will be benefiting?

Next question is related to the winter flight schedule. Of course, this is practically around the corner. So far, we have got really not much information. But for example, Austrian Airlines mentioned that streamlining of winter flight schedule is unavoidable. What do you think it could be impact on you in this case? Or if you have maybe a little bit more information, both related to Austrian Airlines as the most important carrier in Vienna, but maybe some other airlines as well, what to expect from winter schedule.

And then one technical question related to the segment performance. We have seen in segments that in Handling, you had some benefit from de-icing. Without de-icing, of course, assuming until the end of the year, do you still expect that the segment will be in black territory on the EBIT level for the full year? What is the outlook?

Yes. Starting with your last question, yes, I think we should be in positive territory throughout the year. I mean it will depend a little bit on the winter schedule, flight schedule, but let's hope things are expanding somehow, and we will not see a real war again in Middle East because this would, in any case, negatively affect traffic also here in Vienna.

Winter flight schedule, we have no detailed visibility so far. What we heard is that especially Lufthansa and Austrian as a part of Lufthansa has reacted to higher fuel prices with a very severe cost savings program. And some destinations might be canceled. Some have already been announced like Graz, which was served by Austrian to Vienna and which will not be served in the winter schedule. Yes, I mean, it's -- I think full year were 60,000 passengers Graz to Vienna and back. So it's working, but it's not a decisive thing.

And the allocation of funds from the government should be used to reduce the ticket tax. And I hope that they can find more money because it's one of the few possibilities where you can steer growth more or less immediately through public measures. And if you put together all effects, the growth we could expect by, for example, halving the ticket tax would bring finally at least the same income for the state or even more than keeping it as it is now. So there are new -- there would be additional jobs, additional restaurant hotels and all that stuff for additional passengers. So I think it would be a very wise move to allocate some additional funds for this measure to steer growth, at least in the aviation and tourism sector.

Just to clarify this, you are talking about existing funds allocation of this EUR 60 million or hopefully...

No. This is already passed.

Already passed. Okay.

Elias, please continue.

I've got a few left. I'll take them one by one. I guess my first one is on your new traffic guidance for 2026. I'm just wondering because for Vienna, I mean, passenger volumes declined by just 3% in the first half, including second quarter around 7%. And your current guidance for 30.5 million passengers would imply a quite significant decline of around 9% in the second half, which would seem quite unlikely from today's perspective, I guess. I mean, just considering Middle East headwinds somewhat moderating in terms of the latest traffic developments we see. So I guess my question is, does the new guidance still include a margin of safety here? Or what sort of adverse scenarios have you baked into the current traffic guidance for Vienna?

It includes a little bit of caution because we have no real visibility about Middle East developments. And as discussed before, we could see some destinations canceled by Austrian in the winter schedule.

Okay. That's clear. And I guess just sticking with the sort of traffic development. I mean, I know we've got the Wizz and Ryanair capacity cuts that are still weighing on traffic development. And if I recall correctly, at the beginning of the year, you mentioned that you'd be able to offset around 1/4 to 1/3 of that headwind of around 300 -- 3 million passengers to that shortfall from Wizz and Ryanair. So I'm just wondering, given Austrian airlines expanding capacity and other airlines adding new routes, whether you still expect to have around 1/3 of that or what the current share of these low-cost carrier capacity...

It's more. I mean it's a little bit more now due to the growth of Austrian. I mean it's definitely above initial expectations that they could grow by more than 6%. And it will very much depend on the further development of the fuel prices. I mean, if fuel prices would go down, I think this would help to keep some of the current destinations. If fuel prices stay up high, I think this would trigger maybe some capacity reductions from airline side.

Okay. Great. But so more than the 1/3 that you were previously sort of hoping, just said. So I guess maybe around 40% would be a good guess right now.

Yes. Yes.

Okay. And I guess 2 final quick ones from my side. One would be on the cost trends. I mean, how should we expect material and personnel costs to evolve over the remainder of the year with material costs largely flat in the first half, personnel costs slightly up. Just wondering whether you sort of expect a similar development in the second half?

Yes. Personnel costs should be up a little bit more because the new collective agreement with 2.4% plus started 1st of May. So the full effect will be included in the second half.

Okay. But on the material side...

Material side should stay stable.

And a final one, just on the Austrian air travel tax, I guess. I mean, I'm just wondering if there's anything you can share in terms of conversations you've had with airlines. How material is the risk that you see further capacity cuts further down the line, just given the stark contrast Bratislava has 0 aviation tax versus very high at EUR 12. Just wondering if there's any color you can share in terms of conversations with airlines, what you're hearing?

For the low-cost carriers, it's a very substantial burden. So given their flexibility to place airplanes here or there, I would not rule out that they move to further cuts if nothing happens. So the first signal that at least a reduction of EUR 30 million is underway might bring some relief. I mean, it's not enough, definitely not. And the volume has at least to be more than doubled to have an immediate positive effect. But it's more than nothing. So given the overall problems in regard of the budget, I think it's already a good signal.

Simon, you previously raised your hand. Now you put it down. Have all questions you wanted to ask been answered? Or was it accidentally?

No, all questions have been answered so far already.

Any other questions to be asked, any other topics something we didn't touch. That seems all fine. Then thank you as every quarterly result for your interest in the company, for dialing in, for asking your questions. We are out on a couple of road shows in the next weeks. It's next week, Kepler Digital Transportation Conference, then it's [ BADA and New Ways ] in September. So anyone taking part in this conference is happy to reach out in person. And otherwise, I'm always here for you for any questions you might have, and wish you a good afternoon and rest of the day.

Okay. Thank you. All the best. Bye-bye.

Thanks very much.

Bye. Have a good afternoon.

You already saw our main results, and we had a moderate revenue and earnings increase in Q1 '26. Revenue up 6.1%, EBITDA up 8.2%, and group net profit up 5.3%. We saw overall a positive traffic development in the group with 5.3% plus, especially resulting in strong growth in Malta and Košice. In Vienna, it was 1.6%, including Air India transit passengers in the refueling stops. We saw a positive non-aviation performance, higher de-icing revenues and no winter incentive compared to 2025, which positively contributed to our results. We successfully implemented and are still in the process of implementation of our cost saving and efficiency measures. And I hope we can realize all the plans throughout the year.

Clearly, the Middle East conflict is increasing uncertainty for the coming months. And hopefully, these negative effects will stop very soon. What might be of more importance midterm, at least are the effects of higher fuel costs, which might result in some airline capacity adjustments and also higher ticket prices by many of the carriers to offset these additional costs. Despite all that uncertainty, we can confirm our passenger and financial outlook for 2026 so far. And I hope that the rest of the year will not prove us wrong.

If we move on, you see that our financial results are positive, also reduced by half due to the fact that interest rates came down on the one hand. And on the other hand, we are spending cash. So the overall amount is also slightly melting down. The termination of the winter incentive last year had a positive effect for this first quarter and overall development was also supported by higher de-icing revenues as we had a very harsh winter in January and February.

If we move on, you see a slight margin improvement and overall good cost discipline. Personnel costs still are slightly going up, which is the result of the salary increase last year. And we now will see step-by-step the effects of a decline in the number of employees throughout the year. Our new collective agreement with the trade unions was signed and is valid starting of 1st of May, and it includes a salary rise of 2.4%, which is 1% below inflation. We saw higher maintenance expenses and additional expenditures for environmental measures for our neighbors. Overall, EBITDA margin and EBIT margin was slightly increased and moved in a positive direction.

Looking at the cash flow, you see not dramatic changes. CapEx is up to EUR 85.8 million. And the biggest project is the South Expansion but we already also started Office Park 4 and investments in Malta with 11%. The decline in the cash flow from operating activities is attributable to higher income tax payments, a reduction in liabilities and payments of incentives for the financial year 2025. Net liquidity remains at EUR 407 million compared to EUR 413 million year-on-year. And it will be substantially reduced now due to the dividend payment which will follow the approval of our dividend proposal by the Annual General Meeting on the 3rd of June.

Despite the reductions in traffic, we will see in Vienna this year, we continue investing in quality and capacity, especially in our terminal projects. And the total CapEx for 2026 will amount to roughly EUR 330 million and will most likely continue in the following years. It will very much depend on the framework, whether we see growth and we see positive expectations. So we started the planning of the different projects and the realization will then be subject to the actual figures and expectation when we come there. So the main projects are the Terminal 3 Southern expansion, the remodeling of parts of Terminal 3 due to this new building and following then the extension of Pier North. Office Park 4 next, which is already under construction. And important projects will be the development of a new zone for settlements and an increase of the land used by our airport, but also Apron electrification, grid expansion, the icing areas, expansion of aircraft, parking positions in Pier North and the renewal of passenger boarding bridges.

In the case of Malta, the terminal is expanded due to the very, very substantial growth. The runway is modernized and also the airport Apron is expanded. And the SkyPark 2 office building is on the way and also the car park expansion. So you see a lot of projects will be on our schedule for the coming years.

Our biggest project is Thermal 3 Southern expansion, and it is proceeding on schedule. And we hopefully will have it operational in 1 year from now. Also, the airport city is growing fastly. We have new companies in the space sector who come and settle down on the airport. We are on the brink of developing additional cargo areas and the new hotel after some delays will now open in June. So putting all together, we can confirm the financial guidance for 2026, which is known to you, and there is no change necessary right now.

So that's from my side. I hand over to Julian.

Julian, are you muted? Julian, you are muted.

Do you hear me now?

Yes, it works now.

It was the wrong microphone, sorry. Yes. Good afternoon from my end. I'd like to continue with traffic results and the segments. I mean, starting with Q1, which does not reflect, unfortunately, the future development of 2026. Q1 was actually better than expected, and we saw some growth in Vienna here as well. Vienna had a growth rate of 1.6% despite the removal of Wizz and despite the bad Middle East traffic starting in March. Malta did extremely well, 15.4% growth, Košice, 40% growth. So overall, we saw 5.3% growth in the group. And April then changed the picture, minus 8% in Vienna due to low-cost reduction, Middle East and Easter being in March and not in April in 2026. Still Malta does very well, plus 13.5%, in Košice plus 66%, mainly driven due to the new connection between Bratislava and Košice, which is doing very, very well.

So overall, we stand with slight growth until the end of April, minus 1.5% in Vienna and 2.9% growth in the group. Maybe a closer look at the Vienna figures. I think what is interesting is cargo, which I would say is holding on, although there is now -- we see growth in the road feeder service and reduction in actual air freight, mainly due to the reduction in wide-body planes from the Middle East. We've got a very significant reduction in capacity from Dubai, from Qatar, from Abu Dhabi. So this obviously reduces air cargo. And overall, we saw in the first 4 months of this year, a reduction in 1.5% in passenger numbers, 4% in aircraft movements, and we saw a slight growth in cargo overall.

What's positive is the seat load factor, plus 2.5 percentage points over last year. And this is a bit of a counterweight to the reductions from the Middle East and the reduction from the low-cost carriers. All the other flights are really, really full. What I would like to point out as well is that we saw growth from refueling stops of Air India in the first 4 months but from May onwards, we will see a reduction in transit passengers. As you know, transit passengers don't pay a passenger fee. So we have roughly 20% of the average fees there. But now due to the high kerosene price, Air India decided to reduce capacity to North America. So that's why they have less tank stops now in the coming months and they reduced capacity to Vienna as well from 4 to 3 weekly flights.

In April, Middle East, we saw a reduction of 83% Eastern Europe minus 17%, Eastern Europe due to Wizz Air moving part of its capacity to -- so from the total removal from Vienna, part of the capacity went to Bratislava. And Middle East in April was minus 83% in terms of passenger numbers. In between, we are at about 70%. So still the capacity is not where it was before the war in Iran and load factors are significantly lower than they used to be. So overall, we stand right now at roughly 30% of the passenger numbers of the time before the war started.

Just a brief look at the regional passenger development in Q1. Europe was still growing. I mean, Eastern Europe will look different in the months to come. North America growing. Middle East, you already see the effect of the war. Far East doing very well, plus 19%, Africa doing reasonably well, 8%. And what we see now is, as I said, a slow recovery of the Middle East traffic. So the airlines are announcing that they want to come back and they are putting more planes in, but the load factors are still very low. So that's why we stand right now at minus 70%. Far East is doing pretty well, very good load factors. And we see some weakness towards Turkey, towards Egypt. So I think we see a mix there in high oil prices and lower demand than last year. But overall, I think from a booking perspective, the summer still looks good.

I think I mentioned most of the information on this slide already. So 8 airlines to 9 destinations are planned for this summer. As I said, load factors are still relatively low. I think the positive situation we have here, and this is significantly better than in many other airports is the kerosene supply. We have a refinery just 4 kilometers away. We've got a pipeline from this refinery to Vienna Airport. So as long as they have crude oil, we will have kerosene here at Vienna Airport. And there's no reason to believe that we should have any shortages in the months to come. Obviously, still, there's a high level of uncertainty around this conflict, and yes, I have to stress that now after the war in Ukraine, which affected roughly 4% of our overall markets, now we have a war in the Middle East, which affects 6% of our overall passenger numbers.

So overall, yes, we have a very significant reduction in potential passengers due to this geopolitical situation. So we definitely hope that over the course of this year, there will be peace in the Middle East. And let's hope that sooner or later, there will be a peace or at least a ceasefire in Ukraine as well. I think I would see both conflicts subduing passenger numbers right now, but I would see both conflicts as potential growth destinations for the future.

Maybe just a few words about the current airline developments. You know that Ryanair reduced their stationed aircraft by 4 to 14. Wizz Air closed the Vienna base, which were 5 aircraft. So we see significantly less LCC or ultra-LCC traffic here in Vienna this year. Austrian Airlines is growing. They get a new 787 Dreamliner as of June '26, 2 more expected until the end of this year, which is in principle a positive development. We saw now China Eastern connecting Vienna with Xi’an, Royal Jordanian want to come back and connect Vienna with Amman. We got the connection to Cluj. We will get the connection from SalamAir to Muscat. Air Baltic is growing to Tallinn, and Air Corsica is launching Ajaccio and Bastia. Still -- I mean, it's a good sign that airlines are coming to Vienna. But obviously, to make up for the loss of roughly 9, 10 aircraft, this will take some time. And therefore, obviously, the reduction in low-cost traffic is still hurting.

We stick to our passenger guidance of roughly 30 million passengers. So in our definition, roughly 30 million means something between 29 million and 31 million passengers. I'm still optimistic that we will be pretty close to the 30 million, partly due to the higher load factors, which we saw in the first 4 months of this year. So what we saw in the first 4 months that we had a better passenger development than expected in January. Now obviously, we have a significant hit in the Middle East. Overall, still with increased load factors on the long-haul market and in the short-haul market within Europe. Overall, I'm optimistic that despite the situation in the Middle East, we will be around 30 million passengers, and therefore, we stick to our passenger forecast. And as Gunther already explained, we stick to our financial predictions for our guidance for the year 2026.

And I don't have to stress that with all the heightened uncertainty in the current geopolitical scenario. Obviously, the situation would significantly change if there's not enough kerosene to cater for all flights if there is -- or if there is significant -- another significant hike in kerosene prices. And obviously, I think looking forward into 2027, which is -- seems still far away and impossible to predict at this point. But obviously, what we all have to be aware of that with every week when airlines are not hedging at current kerosene prices, obviously, the uncertainty for 2027 is increasing. And I think what's extremely important that we will see in the second half of this year, actual peace in the Middle East and a reduction in oil prices and kerosene prices. Otherwise, the impact next year on airline profitability and route profitability might be pretty devastating than in 2027.

So our guidance, Vienna, around 30 million passengers, the group roughly 41.5 million passengers, and we can confirm this today. I think the quality situation in Vienna is significantly better. We got an ASQ award for best airport departures, 25 million to 40 million passengers. We got another award for Lounge of the Year. Our Vienna Lounge got an award again. Overall, the level of on-time performance, the level of waiting times, everything is really, really good. Next year, with the opening of the South extension, which we highlighted more than once, we will improve the quality for our passengers further, and we are still set to become a 5-star airport until 2030.

A few words regarding our segments. We saw a reduction in the airport segment in Q1, EBIT minus 11%, mainly due to reduction in passenger numbers, reduction in airport charges and there was probably not that much expected positive impact of the removal of the winter incentive. But overall, we saw a decrease in EBITDA and EBIT and a slight increase in the external revenue.

The Handling & Security Services did pretty well, mainly due to substantially higher de-icing income and slight traffic growth. So revenue grew by 14.6%, EBITDA nearly doubled and EBIT increased by nearly 200%. Unfortunately, there won't be any de-icing in the months to come. So we have to wait for next November, December again. The coming months will be dominated by the reduction in traffic as well. Retail did pretty well, plus 1% parking revenues, plus 2% rental revenues and plus 7% center management and hospitality. Even now in April and May, I think the spend per passenger is holding on actually, I think many other airports struggle in this respect. In our case, the revenue per passenger is holding on pretty well in the duty-free shop and in F&B sector. So I hope this remains the case in the rest of the year. And overall, a pretty good development with plus 19% EBIT and plus 14% EBITDA.

Overall, we're in the final stages to conclude the last contracts for retail in the new South extension. Retail is -- the environment is right now much more difficult than it used to be in prior years. So luxury is really in a difficult environment. But overall, I'm under the circumstances, I would say, I'm satisfied with the contracts we are signing right now. F&B, better than expected, to be honest, and better than predicted. I think we concluded already contracts for all the available outlets, and we're expecting high quality and high return from this area.

Malta, still doing very, very well. Growth rates will go down over summer and the focus is really there on increasing the capacity of the terminal. This is of utmost importance. But overall, very good development, plus 11% revenue, 17% EBITDA and 14.7% EBIT. So overall, an excellent development. And yes, we are looking at a very good year for Malta Airport in 2026 as well.

That's it from our end. So we are happy to take your questions now.

Yes, please. Floor is open for questions. I see the first hands raised. Elias New is first. Please go ahead.

I've got 3 questions. I'd like to take them one at a time. So perhaps first, starting off with Ryanair and carrier capacity. It looks like Ryanair has further reduced capacity for the summer schedule from 15 aircraft to 14. Do you see any further risk of capacity cuts either from Ryanair or other carriers? And how are your discussions with airlines evolving, particularly surrounding the Austrian aviation tax? Do you see any potential for change here in the short term?

I mean this is really a difficult question. Budget discussions in Austria are currently ongoing. And I think the Minister of Finance gives his speech on the 10th or 11th of June, if I'm not mistaken. So we as an industry, we are pretty much united on this, and we are trying to convince government to at least reduce our ticket tax in the years to come. I cannot say if this will be successful. Obviously, the budget situation is very, very tight. But I mean, this decision is extremely important for the future development overall for the aviation industry in Austria, not only for Vienna Airport, probably some regional airports will be hit even harder. But I mean, obviously, I cannot exclude further capacity reductions in the years to come. If there's no reduction in the tax. Actually, if there is no reduction, it's pretty likely that there might be further reductions. And we will have to see and wait what's happening on this front.

But knowing Ryanair and you all follow the developments in Berlin, the discussions Ryanair is having with Fraport in Greece. So obviously, there will be lots of pressure on capacity if the cost situation in terms of tax is not improved in the years to come. I don't foresee any significant cuts or otherwise in -- from other airlines. But obviously, I mean, within Lufthansa Group, Austrian is always fighting for their position within Lufthansa Group. Profitability is not where Lufthansa wants to see Austrian. So I don't think that we would see any immediate change if the tax environment stays where it is. But obviously, this could have an impact on future growth or will have an impact on future growth as well.

Understood. And perhaps coming to my second question, which would be coming back to the traffic guidance for 2026. So I understand there's obviously a lot of uncertainty about how the situation in the Middle East will evolve. But just sort of wondering what assumptions you've currently baked into the traffic guidance for the Middle East. Are you sort of assuming a similar impact as we saw in April maybe for the remainder of the year? Or are you kind of currently assuming that the conflict will cease and that will return to normal levels of traffic within the next few years?

I mean -- yes.

Any color on that would be helpful, yes.

And our prediction for -- so the approximately 30 million passenger forecast does not include a full recovery until the end of this year. So what we have -- so the underlying assumption is that there will be a recovery, but a slow recovery. So we assume that from the 30% we see now, we will see a slow but sure recovery over the year, but not seeing the levels before the war, before next year.

Okay. That's helpful. And finally, on the sort of cost savings side. So looking at your personnel costs, they still increased in Q1 year-on-year, up around 6%. Headcount also slightly increased. So just wondering, do you still expect personnel costs to remain stable for 2026 compared to 2025? And then also on the material side, how do you expect material costs to evolve in '26? I mean they were also slightly up in Q1. So should we expect material costs to be down for the full year compared to 2025 as you were guiding previously?

Material costs from my perspective, will stay more or less stable. And personnel costs might be slightly higher than '25, but should also come down due to the reduction of workforce step by step. I mean you have not the immediate effect, it takes some time to see the financial effects of it. Overall, the assumption for full year is that we will see maybe a slight increase, 2% to 3%, but not the growth we saw in Q1.

Thank you. And I hand over to Vladimira.

Just 2 quick questions. First one would be, you mentioned that the spending per passenger is holding well. So where do we stand currently? And what do you expect for the full year maybe? And maybe also a slight look into the future once the Terminal 3 extension will be finished? Do you expect any boost to this spending per passenger?

And then next question will be related to the cost savings program. Do you have any overall figure for how much you want to achieve this year, maybe next year? Or where to find some overall target in this respect? And then last but not least, this winter incentives, you mentioned that impact was bigger. How much was it in absolute terms? And do you plan to continue with any winter incentives program in the future?

I mean we have stopped the winter incentive. So -- and for the time being, we don't plan to bring it on again. Maybe [indiscernible] could deliver the exact number of last year later on.

Regarding spend, I mean, overall, we are right now roughly 2% up per passenger. And to be honest, it fluctuates a lot per week. But overall, if we could remain for the full year, and you have to have in mind as well that we have significantly less passengers to the Middle East, and they are drivers of revenues, especially in retail as well. So if we would end the year up by 2% in spend, I think this would be very positive. Obviously, yes, we expect revenue per passenger to grow in -- after the South extension opens. And I mean, overall, predictions are pretty hard now because, I mean, since we started the project, the passengers from Russia, the passengers from Ukraine got lost. Now we have a significant reduction in passengers from the Middle East. So we will update our guidance on that with the H1 figures.

Yes. Regarding our cost-saving program and efficiency program, it was built in into the budget. And if you look at it very grossly, you see that the result of 2025 in 2026 compared to lower overall revenue, you can somehow estimate the amount that should be the result of all the programs and all the measures that we have designated.

Simon, happy to take your questions now.

I have 3. The first one is on passenger growth, again, so similar to Elias' question, but slightly different, I hope. And that's -- I mean, clearly, there's uncertainty regarding the Middle East situation but how should we think currently about passenger growth trajectory at Vienna from here on? Essentially, what I'm wondering is, I mean, was April the trough in growth, excluding further Middle East uncertainty? Or is there any further pressure from the summer schedule fully phasing in?

My next question is then on the fuel supply situation because you highlighted that there's no known fuel supply shortage at Vienna because of your proximity to the refineries. Now does this have relevance for the airline partners in allocating capacity to you, i.e., are they increasing capacity potentially because that's an advantage they see with Vienna Airport?

And then my last question is on CapEx because you brought it up your pipeline into 2030. And I'm wondering, will it gradually decline from this '26 peak, or is there any logic that you can further share with us here?

What was the last question again, please?

On CapEx, what's the phasing here into 2030?

Okay. No, I leave this up for Gunther. I mean I think in terms of absolute numbers or absolute reduction, minus 8.2% in April, I'm optimistic that we -- the reduction in passenger numbers in terms of percent will be lower in the months to come. So I think this should have been the peak where I have to say. I mean, it's too early to say anything about November, December. So that feels even further away than usually at that point in the year. But in the end, November, December, they don't have this much of relevance.

So overall, I think the reduction in passenger numbers should have peaked. We should see a slow but sure recovery from the Middle East. And therefore, we are pretty optimistic at this point in time that we will be close to the EUR 30 million we guided in January, especially due to the high load factors we are seeing right now.

And in terms of if it's an advantage to have a relatively safe fuel supply here in Vienna. To be honest, I would not see this as an upside, but I think this is -- let's say, this is a risk reduction regarding a potential downside. So I don't think -- I mean, airlines on short, they don't switch aircraft and capacity that fast. So I don't think that this will mean anything positive for the summer schedule for us. But on the other hand, it reduces the likelihood that airlines have to cancel flights because of fuel shortage. So I think this should be pretty neutral for our projections of this year.

Yes. And regarding investment, I mean, you saw the projects that are considered necessary in the coming years. The planning will be started step by step and some of the projects already are in realization. And given our expectations for the coming years, each project that is further down the road will be decided then when we come there if it is economically viable and if we think that it's the appropriate time to start the project. So we will drive by site. So but I think it is essential to have everything ready and to be able to start once we think it's necessary and it's wise to do it.

Are there any further questions? Obviously not.

So I thank everyone for dialing in, following Vienna Airport, showing the interest in our results. I close the call, and wish you a good afternoon.

Bye-bye.

Thank you. Bye-bye.

Thank you.

[audio gap] Gave also an outlook for 2026. So if we go to the first slide, you see the headlines. We had a rise in our revenue of 7.2%, which reflects a very good business performance. And in all divisions and in all our daughter companies, we had positive contributions to earnings. Saying that, we have to remind you that the project of the third runway was abandoned. And out of that, we have roughly EUR 55.9 million of assets that are now removed from our balance sheet. And therefore, net income, EBITDA are negatively affected. So net income is down from EUR 239 million to EUR 210 million. And as you can see in these figures, it was possible by a better operating performance to offset half of this negative effect. So it was only relative to the expectation, EUR 26 million that are now offset and EUR 29 million that came through to the net income.

As the recognition of assets, these are one-off effect and has no cash impact, we decided to keep the dividend stable. And the proposal is to pay EUR 1.65, as it was the case in 2024. That equals a payout ratio of 75%, which is above our dividend guidance so far, but I think is justified given that we had a very good development of the business overall. If we go more into the details, you see that the financial result was again positive in 2025. We had less as it was in '24, so from EUR 15.5 million to EUR 11.1 million. This is reflecting the effect of lower interest rates. And we foresee that our net cash position will be substantially reduced in 2026 as we have a new record high in regard of CapEx and investments of EUR 330 million.

What is interesting is that we see a growing contribution of Malta Airport to our group net profit. So roughly one-fourth in million, EUR 49.8 million are coming already from Malta operation. If we look at the development of our costs, you see that consumables and services used, especially energy was more or less flat compared '24 to '25. Personnel expenses unfortunately went up around 12%, including Gate 2, which was now only included in an equity consolidation instead of full consolidation. So if we add that, it's a little bit more than 12%. Other operating expenses are up slightly plus the EUR 55.9 million due to the third runway cancellation. They are included in other operating expenses.

Clearly, EBITDA margin is down from 42% to 36.5% and also EBIT margin is down from 29.1% to 24.8%. So if we move on, you see that the development of our cash flow from operating activities was down roughly EUR 110 million. On the other side, free cash flow is up at EUR 45 million. And CapEx was EUR 281 million compared to EUR 189 million last year. So we have been able to increase by roughly EUR 100 million. And net liquidity is reduced from EUR 511 million to EUR 413 million due to our payout of the dividend and also the investments. Equity is up to EUR 1,626 million and equity ratio is slightly up at 71.6%. One of the reasons why our operating cash flow is reduced is that we have had a higher payout for taxes. and this will continue also in 2026. And that's due to the fact that we had lower prepayments in the COVID period. And now we have to fill this gap with cash payout for taxes in Malta and in Vienna.

As I already mentioned, dividend yield of 3%, payout ratio of 75% and a stable dividend, and it's in line with our general attempt to have a sustainable dividend policy and let's hope that we can fulfill this promise also in the next 2 years. So maybe more important for you is the outlook for 2026. Clearly, we have to digest the revenue reduction of 4.6% and also the anticipated passenger decline in Vienna. On the other hand, we see good growth both in Kosice and in Malta. So for the group, a major part of the expected decline in Vienna will be offset by new destinations or by growth in Malta and Kosice. So how is it possible to guide a stable net income of EUR 210 million and after minorities of EUR 185 million. The reason for that is that we decided a company-wide cost optimization program and cost reduction program.

And with that program, we have more or less offset the effects of the lower revenues we expect for 2026. So hopefully, we can realize all the cost-cutting measures. And if we do so, we will end up most likely more or less where we ended up in 2025. So summing up our financial guidance for 2026, we expect revenue at approximately EUR 1.50 million, EBITDA approximately EUR 415 million. Group net profit EUR 210 million, group net profit after minorities EUR 185 million and CapEx around EUR 330 million. EUR 330 million includes also Malta. So the best guess is that we will have EUR 65 million investment in Malta and EUR 265 million here in Vienna. What are we doing with the EUR 330 million South extension, it is in time, in budget, and it will most likely be opened as expected in the second quarter of 2027. We had the groundbreaking for our new office park and the work has already started there.

The new building should be finalized end of 2027 and should start operation beginning of '28. We built the central logistics center and there are many other projects on the way, especially after the South extension, the extension of Pier North with additional gate positions. And in Malta, there is terminal expansion and modernization of the runway and also a new business park and a new car park. That all sums up to roughly EUR 330 million in 2026. Our airport city is developing very, very well. We have increased our leased space in the last 10 years by 100%. So from 100,000 square meters to 200,000 square meters. And we have around 20 new companies who settled in 2025 at the airport. And one specific initiative is our Space hub. It is developing very well in cooperation with the European Space Agency.

And additional to the 3 companies that are already operative and are growing very fastly, 5 new space companies will come to the airport in the coming weeks. And the first satellite built by GATE Space will be sent to the orbit throughout this year. And very important innovations are underway from these companies. So not only the new turbo for satellites, [indiscernible] motor, but also the possibility to retank satellites. So GATE Space is working on the project to refill the energy for satellites who run out of their fuel. which is a very, very attractive and productive business case because the costs of refueling satellite are several percent compared with bringing it down and send up a new satellite. Our development Zone West is also a very huge project with 47 hectares of additional space for especially logistic facilities. And hopefully, we can start throughout the year.

And there is very, very high interest for a lot of companies to come to the airport, and we will be able to fill it very, very quickly. So altogether, and also our new hotel is opening in the next weeks. It's ready. It just waits for the start of the operator. And altogether, we see that the business there will be very attractive. Aviation still is a growth factor in the growth sector. On the other hand, European regulation is very substantially hindering equal growth in Europe compared to other parts of the world. So we think it is very, very essential to change the current regulation in the review process that is planned for 2027. So especially the Green Deal, I think, has been so far a failure. No other region in the world has followed Europe's approach. And the hubs outside the European Union are growing and Europe is more or less stagnating. And therefore, I think the regulation has to be substantially changed and also the attitude towards the aviation sector of the European Commission has to be changed.

And hopefully, the discussion will bring some progress there, especially the sustainable aviation fuel regulation is counterproductive. It's too little, it's too costly. And there is no major investment to provide for the necessary amount of subs that would be needed under the current regulation starting from 2030 on. So there is a lot of work to be done there. And hopefully, the decision-makers join those ideas that will bring additional growth for Europe. So that's from my side, and I hand over to you, Julian.

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, before I start with the current -- with the segment report, just a few words regarding the current situation. Right now, we have roughly 5,000 passengers which are on a daily basis, affected by the cancellations due to the closures of several airports in the Middle East region. Over the weekend, there were 9,000 passengers affected, 43 cancellations and roughly 5,000 more passengers will be affected now day by day. We've got a couple of aircraft parked here in Vienna right now. But essentially, the only thing we can do is to wait and see how this conflict will play out. So far, we are hopeful that the military actions will not take longer than a couple of days or weeks. Therefore, we have not changed yet our passenger forecast of roughly 30 million passengers.

Overall, last year, the Middle East was 5.7% of our overall passenger numbers. This year, we expected it to be roughly 6% of the overall passenger numbers. But as we said, so we think that right now, it's too early to jump to any conclusions. Looking at last year results, I think you know already record passenger numbers in all 3 airports in our small group, excellent quality performance in Vienna and throughout the group. And we are looking forward to open in the second quarter of next year, our South expansion of Terminal 3. So those are the highlights for this year.

Let's go to the Airport segment. Overall, good results in 2025, given the situation that this was the segment which was hit by the derecognition of assets due to the third runway or the cancellation of the third runway project. So overall, revenue plus 6%, EBIT minus 24%. But if you adjust it for the derecognition of assets, the Airport segment delivers the highest EBITDA contribution in our group at 48%. This year, obviously, the segment will be hit quite hard by the reduction in passenger numbers and the reduction in passenger and landing fees. So overall, we expect this year, obviously, yes, some changes in this segment.

Let's come to quality. We are very happy that we have been announced just a couple of days ago by ACI again as best airport departures in the bracket of 25 million to 40 million passengers in Europe. We got for the fifth time, we got the best airport stuff by Skytrax. We were again the third most punctual airport above 25 million passengers in Europe, ground handle of the Year from Payload Asia. So overall, I think really, really good results. And with the south extension of Terminal 3, we aim at the fifth star from Skytrex in the year to come. Ground Handling segment is -- had a good year as well. One part of the Handling & Security Services segment is ground handling, obviously, for the third consecutive time, we were in the positive territory there after the pandemic.

Overall, ground handling, cargo handling, security service all driving the external revenues. Overall, this is from a margin perspective, obviously, a very, very difficult segment, tough competition in ground handling, high cost pressure and overall, yes, an EBIT of EUR 8.7 million. This is a slight increase over 2024. And yes, Vienna Airport Handling is still by far biggest ground handling operator at the airport with a market share of 86%. Retail & Properties, good development as well. The biggest share of revenue in this segment comes from center management and hospitality, so F&B and retail and the lounges, which were operated by Vienna Airport with a share of 53% of revenue, parking 30% revenue and plus 4% growth in 2025. Rentals, 17% share and plus 3%. Overall, revenues up 6%, EBIT up 3.5% to EUR 97.2 million. And yes, 25% share of the consolidated EBITDA in the full -- in the group.

We already confirmed the F&B operators for the Southern expansion with a lot of Austrian and Viennese top F&B operators DO & CO, Figlmuller, Landtmann and so on. So overall, the food offer will improve significantly with this area. We have not yet finalized the contracts regarding -- regarding the retail offer, but the last month have proven that luxury brands are really, really difficult to get due to the crisis in the luxury segment. We expect to sign the contracts in the next 2 months, and we'll inform them accordingly about these new contracts. Malta, again, if you look just at January, after a record result with 10 million passengers, again, significant growth by 17% in January 2026. Overall, revenues up nearly 10%, EBITDA up 9%, EBIT up 7.6% overall 20% of the consolidated EBITDA in the group.

So really excellent development. And I think the major challenge here will be to invest now in the coming years without jeopardizing our ongoing operations. We will invest here in Malta. Maybe we can jump to the next slide in the terminal building, but as well on the land side. So we urgently need more terminal space. There will be more retail space. There will be more -- the check-in space will more or less double. We will get more gates. So overall, this is the major challenge in the next few years. And this year only, we will invest EUR 70 million in Malta. Kosice had a good development as well, more than 800,000 passengers and huge growth in January with plus 35%, mainly due to the connection between Kosice and Bratislava, which is now operated 13x per week. So we are hopeful that we will surpass the 1 million passenger mark, which would be a record as well. We are making roughly 2 million net in Kosice, and we will invest there due to passenger growth as well in the modernization of the terminal in the expansion of the current capacity.

As we said, so far, we don't see a reason to change our passenger guidance. We will obviously follow the current events in the Middle East very closely and monitor the situation. If need be, we will obviously get back to you with a revision. But so far, we think this would be premature. Still, we want to grow in the future despite the difficult situation we faced in 2026, where we expect a reduction in passenger numbers in Vienna by 2.5 million to roughly 30 million passengers, and we expect more than 41 million passengers within the group.

Overall, we expect in Vienna to grow until 2035 to roughly 40 million passengers. This would be roughly growth on top of the 30 million we expect in 2026 of roughly 3%. We are right now in really good discussions to adjust the strategy of Austrian Airlines and Vienna Airport. And we are working on a common hub strategy, Vienna Airport 2030 plus. Overall, we are committed to invest further in quality and capacity. Right now, we are rolling out the new CT scanners, which should be installed at all security checks by summer 2026. The terminal South expansion is on its way. We will furthermore extend Pier North and add 5 new Pier Gates and 9 gates in total, which should be finalized by 2031.

So overall, we are committed to invest and we will discuss with Austria in the coming months, all our contractual relations, and we are optimistic to come up with a joint strategy to develop and grow the hub in Vienna. What's needed for this as well is a bit of political support. So therefore, we are doing our utmost to, if not a complete abolishment of the ticket tax, so at least a significant reduction. This is obviously going to be difficult discussions and negotiations, but we are convinced that this would be not only help the aviation industry in Austria, this would help tourism industry in Austria.

This is something the regional airports in Austria need. And therefore, we hope that we manage to convince government that it's not only about budget consolidation, but it's about growing the economy as well. And I think this would be a relatively small investment with quite a huge impact on important industry here in Austria. But by summer, we will know if we have been successful. So we will definitely do our utmost to convince government to move in this direction. So that's it from our end, and we are now happy to take your questions.

Yes, let's come to Q&A and the discussion. I see virtual hands raised 1, 2, 3 already. Vladimira, please go ahead. You have been the first one. Vladimira, we cannot hear you.

Can you hear me now?

Yes.

Okay. So one little question regarding your guidance. You are navigating us to net profit before minorities of EUR 210 million after minorities, EUR 185 million, same figures as we had seen in '25. But at the same time, you are talking about above-average growth at Malta, especially. So indirectly, it implies that we would see minorities at the same position. So I would like if you could elaborate maybe on that discrepancy.

Next question would be related to that impact of the reduced presence of low-cost carriers in Vienna. In your opinion, how this will impact revenue per passenger because you will have a slightly different maybe change in structure of passengers. And by the way, what were revenues per passenger in 2025, and what is the expected development in '26? And then last but not least, it's related to your cost reduction efficiency improvement program. So if you maybe could share with us a few numbers, what do you want to achieve, especially in the area of personnel costs because you will have definitely also some negotiations or discussions regarding wage increases from 1st of May. So what is the visibility here? What is the targeted figure for personnel cost in '26? For now.

Yes. To start with your last question, definitely an agreement that is below inflation rate. And overall, personnel expenses in 2026 should be flat to 2025. And it will mean that we reduce headcount and that we lower the cost increases that are more or less built in the structure. And to understand the Malta, Vienna Airport relation in Malta, we will see additional depreciation due to the fact that the investments already started -- investment phase started 2 years ago.

So although they will have a very substantial growth as it looks from now in 2026, this will partly be absorbed by higher depreciation and also by starting interest costs because Malta needs credits for their investments. In Vienna, we will invest out of our liquidity reserves and will not see substantial debt maybe before 2029. And the cost saving program is concentrating in Vienna. So it's not made for Malta or for Kosice because both of them are still growing and expanding. And therefore, the cost saving program is directed to Vienna. And it is related to all kind of costs, so personnel costs, materials and services. So all over the board, we see reductions.

Let me continue with the average revenues per passenger from the Aviation segment. We had -- in 2024, we had roughly EUR 15.50 net revenue per passenger. In 2025, we will be a bit above EUR 16. So an increase of roughly 3% and 2026 is now really difficult to guess. But my best guess would be that we are somewhere in between the EUR 1,550 and the EUR 16. I mean we will have -- on the one hand, we have a downward pressure due to the decrease in our charges. On the other hand, Ryanair and Wizz Air were eligible for the volume discount. So their cost per passenger net is a bit below the average. So I would guess we will be somewhere in between EUR 15.50 and EUR 16, although with all the current developments, this is really difficult to guess.

Overall, I mean, you asked regarding the low-cost carriers. I expect -- and we saw a good development or a better development than expected in January and in the first half of February. Now obviously, everything has changed. But overall, the reductions of the low-cost carriers will kick in with the summer flight plan from April. And therefore, even today, our best guess is that we will be around the 30 million passengers. I think the strategy of Ryanair will depend a lot for the future on the political circumstances and tax burden.

We've seen in Germany that with the announcement of government that they will reduce the ticket -- the German ticket tax, Ryanair started to put more capacity into Germany. If there's no change in Austria in the coming years, I would expect that they would probably reduce even a bit further, not completely leaving the market, but slowly but surely reducing capacity. So -- but this is the -- we have to wait as well and probably we will know more in the second half of this year.

Let's continue with Elias.

I have 2 questions. I'll take them one at a time. The first one on CapEx. So you're guiding for around EUR 330 million for 2026. Could you give us a sense of how you expect that to evolve in the outer years, so perhaps '27 and beyond? Because I think you mentioned '26 should be the peak, but just any visibility beyond that would be very helpful.

Yes. I mean 2026 definitely will be a peak because the main part of the South extension will be included. But given the scope of our projects, we will have a higher level also in the following years compared to '23 or '24. So I would expect it will definitely be more than EUR 200 million also in the following years, peaking then again once we are realizing Pier North extension. And the exact plans for that are still work in progress.

Great. Very clear. And second question on Malta. I mean you saw great 2025 in terms of traffic in Malta. Could you perhaps just give us some color on your expectations for 2026? I mean January was, again, a very strong month in terms of traffic. Do you expect this trend to continue in 2026? So should we see another year of double-digit traffic growth?

I mean that would be nice, but I wouldn't bank on that. So I'm sure that when summer comes, the growth rates will significantly go down. And I would expect something between, yes, around 5%, maybe a bit more, but single-digit numbers. Depending, obviously, I mean, in Malta, we've got some Middle East connections as well, depending obviously on the political environment as well.

Let's continue with Stella -- or Simon. Sorry, no, I mentioned Stella first. So let's stick to my words. Stella, please. Go ahead.

I have 2 questions, and I will go one by one as well. So the first question is, could you please share with us the dividend guidance for 2026? Will it be maintained at the same level as of 2025?

I didn't get it.

My question is for 2026, could you please share with us the dividend guidance? Will it be the same level as in 2025?

We will try our best. So if our expectations are fulfilled, it should be more or less at the same level, yes.

Okay. And my second question is in terms of the energy cost hedging considerations, are there any impacts foreseen to the 2026 cost base under the current disruption scenario?

I would not see it for now. I mean the price development of oil is very cautious, I would say. So it was roughly $78 for Brent several hours ago. And -- this is mainly affecting the airlines. And gas prices now went up fiercely in Europe, but I hope that the crisis should be very short-lived so that more or less within 1 month, maybe normality should come back. And electricity prices, we are not exposed at all because we bought the electricity we need from outside sources already 18, 24 months ago. And we are producing roughly 50% of our electricity consumption by our own photovoltaic production. So that is not at all affected from any of these price developments.

Simon, I apologize strongly, but now the floor is yours. Please go ahead.

So I have 2 topics that I wanted to discuss or get your opinion on. And that's, firstly, if you could explain a bit more the Iran conflict impact on to your business. To start off with a clarification, as a base case, 6% of passengers are at risk as long as the airspace in the Middle East is closed. Is that correct? Then a follow-up, how do you rate the chances to benefit as a hub, for example, from catering to the Asian region when airlines redirect their capacities? Thirdly, also in this bracket, do you plan any additional cost adjustment measures due to the conflict? And also with respect to your guidance, it's a point estimate. I mean, I know it's an approximation, but at what level would you adjust your guidance? I don't know, is it 2 weeks of conflict, 1 month of conflict with closed airspace. Is that EUR 1 million deviation you consider sensible to be the implied range? What's your thinking here? And I go with the dividend question thereafter.

Look, I think overall, it's much too early to jump to conclusions at this point in time. My best guess today would be that this conflict will not have a material impact on this year's results. If in 3 months from now and 4 months from now, we are still in the same situation, then I have to apologize that I was wrong. But I think we have to really wait now for 1 or 2 weeks how the whole conflict plays out, if there will be a regime change in Iran. So I think it's by far too early. Overall, I think if this conflict and the current -- the impact on the aviation industry of this conflict would be maintained over weeks and months, I would not underestimate the impact on the overall -- the world economy essentially.

I mean, on the one hand, obviously, the Strait of Hormuz is a major issue. But on the other hand, if really Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi as global hubs would be taken out of operation for months, I think this would be a huge impact on the whole world economy. And overall, as long as we have these airspace closures in the Middle East, obviously, there would be additional impact. So on the one hand, yes, we expected this year that 6% of our passengers would come from the Middle East or go to the Middle East. But a lot of passengers, for instance, in -- from Tel Aviv, they're going on to North America, to the U.S. mainly.

So you would have an additional impact on certain flights because of transfer in Vienna. On the other hand, there would be a kind of positive impact if the hubs in the Middle East really would be out of operation for a longer period of time because there would be more passengers looking for direct flights to East Asia, which would be a positive impact. So in the end, my best guess still would be that in a couple of weeks, we will be back to normal. On the other hand, the situation in the Middle East in terms of air traffic was not normal last year and the year before last year. We had many huge impact on Tel Aviv in current years. So overall, it's simply too early to come up with calculations. It's really -- I think it's too early to jump to conclusions, but rest assured, we will monitor the situation very closely, but it's too early to jump to conclusions.

The latest news are Israel already opened up again its airspace and the airports are operating again. And the same is for Dubai. So Dubai Airport already restarted operations. And I think we will see it's a very minor issue.

Okay. And then the second topic was also on the dividend, and I wanted to follow up on Stella's question. And in particular, the outlook for '26 and probably also the years thereafter. You now mentioned that you aim or that it would be a sensible logic to keep it more or less stable the dividend, whereas I'm also wondering to what degree you do this for political purposes because we have some workforce reductions and you also demand -- ticket tax adjustments and to what degree it reflects your truly perceived cash needs -- what's the combination here? Because also from a financial engineering standpoint, it can make sense to have some net debt. And I wanted to see what's your underlying logic here also going into the next years.

Yes. I think if we look in general to the maybe next 10 years up to 2035, we will see some rebalancing of our balance sheet that means that from today's perspective, we will not, for the whole period, be able to finance all the projects that are planned just out of the pocket. So yes, there will be maybe starting with '29 new debt. And for the dividend policy, I would not fundamentally change our general guidance that the payout ratio should stay between 60% and 70%. Given the fact that the third runway project had no cash impact, we decided to keep the dividend stable because if you look at our -- our revenue and our business results without this depreciation, we would have also fulfilling the 65% perception of last year, we would also end up with roughly EUR 165 million.

So from that point of view, I think it's very consistent. And for the years to come, we should be in the corridor of 60% to 70% payout ratio given the respective business results and also the development of our projects. But for the time being, and I would even say for the next 10 years up to 2035, if not really extraordinary shock hit us, it's a very stable, sustainable and calculable development.

Are there any further questions or follow-ups? Seems not to be the case, no virtual hand raised. Then I thank you all for participating in our results conference call for the Q&A. If there are any further questions, please come back to me and contact me. Otherwise, I wish you a good afternoon, and enjoy the rest of the week. Goodbye.

[indiscernible] also give guidance for traffic and financial results for the current year 2026. More flavor on the numbers and the outlook will now give Julian Jager and Gunther Ofner and I hand over to you, Julian.

Thank you, Bernd. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Yes, we -- 2025 was a record year for Vienna Airport in many aspects in terms of passenger volume in Vienna, Malta and Košice in terms of cargo throughput in Vienna. So overall, we are looking back on a strong year. The outlook is a bit more challenging. So we expect around 30 million passengers in 2026. And probably we'll talk about that a little bit later in more detail.

And one main aspect for us to remain competitive and to see more growth in the future again is the necessity to reduce or better abolish the current aviation passenger tax of EUR 12. So those are the 3 key messages we gave to the Austrian press today. And in my presentation, we will focus on these things as well. I will go pretty quickly over some slides, which are probably not that interesting for you. But obviously, we are, as always, happy to answer your questions later on.

As I said, 32.6 million passengers, plus 2.6% in Vienna, plus 12% growth in Malta, 10.1 million passengers, really an astounding growth and a huge success story. And Košice had a record last year with plus 12% and 825,000 passengers. Overall in the group, 43.4 million. Maybe a few details now on Vienna. Seat load factor remained very high, above 80%. Cargo, 313,000 tonnes, plus 5.3%, very strong as well. And yes, overall, I would say, from a traffic perspective, which is obviously the main driver for our financial results, an absolute record year.

The growth was mainly driven by Asia, Southern Europe, Middle East. So Asia or East Asia, 21% growth, Middle East, plus 10% growth despite the geopolitical conflicts there. In the last quarter, we were hoping that, yes, we would see a more quiet development in the region now with the protests and the reaction of the regime in Teagan, we see some turbulences now as well. But we do hope that there will be a more peaceful future even for the Middle East in the future. And I think this would be a very substantial opportunity for traffic development from this region to Vienna.

Southern Europe did extremely well. Eastern Europe was growing. Western Europe and North America, pretty stable. You can see here Austrian with a market share of 46% Lufthansa Group, roughly 50% Ryanair, flat development in 2025 and Wizz Air already on the decline, still holding out. So currently, Wizz Air has a market share somewhere between 4% and 5% in January so far, but they will close down their operation in mid-March. And so we will see a stronger impact than from March onwards.

Yes, in respect of countries and destinations, I mean, I think more interesting than the 2024, 2025 results is the relation to 2019. You can see here Germany still 25% down; Switzerland 30% down; France, close to 10% down; Netherlands, 24% down. And I think you can relate here as well to the competitive environment in these countries. Germany, Austria, Netherlands, France, those are all countries with the ticket tax. And I think that this is a consequence as well that the traffic in these countries is still significantly below 2019. Southern Europe, you saw huge growth, and this is essentially holding on right now as well.

Let's continue with the next slide. I think quality is one important success factor as well. 2025 was a strong year in this respect as well. We were the most punctual hub above 30 million passengers, the third most punctual hub above 25 million passengers. This is until October, we don't have any figures for November and December yet, but we are hopeful that we will remain in the top places here at the end of the year as well.

So we still focus a lot on quality. We were awarded again best airport stuff in Europe in 2025. And I think the major game changer here will be the South Expansion of Terminal 3, which is on track and should be opened in the second quarter of 2027. We are on our way to award the F&B contracts in the coming days essentially. Next week, we will announce them, and it's definitely a kind of best of Vienna. So quality will improve in this aspect very significantly. And in terms of retail, it will take us probably another 2 months to finalize all the contracts, and then we will announce this as well.

We have an all-time high for cargo. I think the main driver here was belly cargo. Trucking was up 17%. Exports were growing, mainly technical goods. Pharma was growing plus 6.4%. So overall, I think a very positive development. And we got some very important contracts here as well. We got an extension of our Korean Air Cargo contract. We signed a cooperation agreement with the newly found Korean airline AirZeta. And we signed a 5-year ground handling contract with Turkish Airlines. So overall, I would say, good news in this area as well.

Yes. Malta last year, 10.1 million passengers, and the expectation is to grow further in 2026. So overall, really astounding. When I left Malta in 2011, we had 3.5 million passengers. Obviously, this is the effect as well from strong GDP growth of the whole island in recent years. We have an excellent cooperation there with the government, with the tourism authority. And we have a very much business-oriented aviation-friendly, tourism-friendly government, obviously. So I think this leads to these great results.

We have to deliver now on a vast expansion project. So in the last 14 years, the infrastructure hasn't changed in the same way as the passenger numbers. So we will invest here very significantly in the next 5, 6 years. So roughly, we have to invest here to cater for the strong growth and -- but not only in the terminal building, we will expand the airport city at the airport in Malta as well. So overall, a very positive development in 2025, and we expect Malta to do very well in the coming years here as well.

Košice, obviously not that important. Malta has already a share of 23% of our overall traffic. Košice is a small contribution to our results. Nevertheless, good development in 2025. The new domestic route to Bratislava is doing very well, 9 frequencies per week from Wizz Air. So overall, I think the development here will be very positive in 2026 as well.

Coming to our outlook. Vienna, we expect roughly 30 million passengers. And I know that some of you think that this is maybe too conservative. So I hope you're right, one. Secondly, I would not expect more than 30.5 million passengers, and it could be that we are below the 30 million passenger mark as well. So I really believe that approximately 30 million passengers is a very thorough guidance for this year. And what we see now and what we saw in the last quarter, we saw very high load factors. We saw Middle East coming back. We saw Ryanair not reducing as much capacity as expected. I think it took them a bit longer to adapt, and we still don't know exactly the summer flight schedule. But I believe that we will not be far off the 30 million mark.

And what you should be aware as well that in the first quarter of last year, we saw very low load factors. Lufthansa Group was pricing them out a bit last year. So we see now a relatively good development in the first few weeks of January. We saw a good development in December. But don't forget load factors were pretty low last year. And therefore, I think we will see the full effect of the reduction of Ryanair and the exit of Wizz Air with the summer schedule. And I don't think that there will be in summer a year where we get close to the passenger numbers of 2025.

Nevertheless, and I think this is the good message, we see a lot of airlines which are growing in Vienna. Maybe if we go to the next slide. So we have a significant reduction at the ultra-low-cost carriers, Wizz Air and Ryanair. But we see a lot of other airlines growing in Vienna, Austrian, 2 additional aircraft in the summer schedule. SAS launched again Copenhagen. Scoot is increasing. Their connection to Singapore, Air Corsica is new. Salam Air is new, finally, a direct flight to Muscat. Yerevan, we have Flyone. Air Arabia is growing to Sharjah. Air India is growing to Delhi. Condor is significantly going to Frankfurt. Baltic starts Tallin again.

So overall, I think the trend we will see is that we will see a lot of smaller airlines, which increase capacity on certain routes, which open new destinations. So we will not find one airline to make up for the reduction in capacity of Wizz Air and Ryanair, but we will see many airlines who grow into Vienna. And I think this is the way forward to be less dependent on individual low-cost carriers, but have many other airlines which are growing in Vienna.

And therefore, I'm optimistic that until 2028, we will make up for the likely reduction in passenger numbers in 2026. Well, I forgot Etihad is growing significantly as well. We got more traffic rights. So overall, I'm optimistic to see probably some new routes to East Asia as well. And we have a lot of discussions with the airlines to attract them to Vienna. Low cost is more of a challenge. This is mainly due to the current tax environment, while a number of countries like Hungary, like Sweden abolished the aviation tax completely. Germany is going to reduce in 2026, their aviation tax. So we are still trying to convince our government that essentially the aviation tax is shot in the foot and that it would be overall economically much more -- much better for the whole economy to abolish it or at least to reduce it.

And if you look at the taxes in Europe, in Austria, we have the third highest short-haul tax. You can see here only the Netherlands and Germany are more expensive for short-haul airlines. So here -- and Germany is going to reduce this to EUR 1,250 something. So overall, I think this explains the competitive disadvantage we are having. And as you can see, I mean, Ryanair, it's not only a decision based on how good routes are and how much money they are making on certain routes and on certain basis. It's mainly as well to push governments to go into their direction. And as soon as the German government announced that they will reduce the aviation tax in Germany, they shifted capacity back to Germany.

So I think this for us, if we want to see very significant growth from Ryanair, I think some movement in the aviation tax would be very important as well. We will try to convince our government in times of very, very tight budgets. This is not easy, but we will try to -- we will definitely try to make some advancements in this direction. One thing which obviously was an important decision in 2025 is the fact that we will not continue our third runway project. The main driver of this decision was essentially a change in the environment. And I'm not just comparing 2025 with 2008. But even since 2019, we saw a very -- a changing pattern of traffic and aircraft are bigger and bigger. They are fuller and fuller. And therefore, we expect to handle in a 2-runway system, more than 50 million passengers.

Austrian, apart from us, came to a similar conclusion. And therefore, we will and we want to grow in the future, but we will grow in a 2-runway system. And the business case simply was not there. In this respect, it was a very easy decision, and we had intense discussions as well with Austrian Airlines, our home carrier, but we consulted Ryanair as well. And neither of them would be willing to pay for a third runway. Both of them are of the opinion that they can grow in Vienna without a third runway.

And therefore, the costs, which have been rising, obviously, since the pandemic as well of roughly EUR 1.6 billion plus EUR 400 million for the land necessary. So the business plan simply didn't add up. And therefore, we decided not to follow up on this project, and we had to write down nearly EUR 56 million in 2025.

So that's it from my end, and I'm happy to hand over now to Gunther.

Yes. Good afternoon. And my task now is to give you more details on the financial guidance for 2026. And overall, and as I think positive message is that our net income 2026 should be exactly what the guidance for 2025 right now is EUR 210 million. Why is this possible? Looking at the decline in passenger numbers and the reduction of air fees because we made a company-wide efficiency and cost optimization program and have reduced the personnel and material costs. And these measures helped us to at least half offset the revenue losses and the negative effects of airport charges reduction and passenger reduction.

In numbers, especially for the personnel costs, our plan is that they should stay even to 2025. So the higher collective agreement and all other cost driving effects are offset by reducing overall staff in an amount of roughly 200 persons. Mostly and almost all of them are the natural fluctuation, and we have no program with special measures or one-offs for restructuring of personnel. We did it in a very, very low number and small scale in 2025, and there is nothing included in the budget for 2026 for that.

The bigger part of the cost savings are on the material side. And there, we have cost reductions all over the company and the Board. And so energy, maintenance and all other parts had to contribute. And I'm pretty optimistic that we will reach the cost goals throughout the year.

Nevertheless, we will see a peak in investments of around EUR 330 million in Vienna and in Malta. In Vienna, it will be around EUR 260 million and in Malta, EUR 70 million. Financing in Vienna will be out of our reserves and the cash flow and Malta will finance a bigger portion of their CapEx through credits. And therefore, they are now again debtors in regard of their investments.

The main projects are the completion of the South Expansion of Terminal 3, which is on time schedule and within budget and should be opened in the second quarter of 2027. And the major part of the work there should be finalized end of 2026. Other projects are the building of our Office Park 4 NEXT, roughly 17,000 square meters of office space. And also the development of a new Zone West, which means an expansion of the airport of roughly 74 hectares. And the project will start throughout 2026 and will offer very unique possibilities for companies to come to the airport. And we see a very, very huge interest. So much more than we can offer to move to this Development Zone.

We are also in the process of planning for the extension of Pier North which should follow the completion of the South Expansion in the Terminal 3. And there are a lot of smaller projects also that amount altogether to roughly EUR 260 million here in Vienna.

The financial guidance for 2026 in detail, revenue EUR 1.50 million, EBITDA, EUR 415 million, net profit before minority is EUR 210 million after minority is EUR 185 million and CapEx, EUR 330 million. Our airport city continues to grow. The new hotel is ready and will start operation most likely in March. And we see very high interest for our space hub. So 5 new companies will come to the airport in the coming months and will further strengthen the space hub here on the airport. And roughly 20 companies settled newly last year.

So we are growing steadily. And I think with the development of the Zone West, we will see a very substantial leap forward in regard of our airport city strategy. Julian addressed the issue of ticket tax. I think it's also the matter of EU overregulation and cost increases that has to be addressed. The expectation is that Fit for 55 and certificate trading and all other regulations could amount to an increase of ticket prices of roughly 20% up to 2030. And this would be an additional pressure on the competitive disadvantage of European airports and airlines. And non-EU carriers and hubs are growing much faster. And I think there is a fundamental change of EU aviation regulation necessary in the wake of the 2027 revision.

And what is especially painful is that SAF requirements cannot met without significant changes in regulation because currently, nobody is investing in new production facilities and the SAF is too costly. The supply is inefficient. And given the fact that it should go up to 5% addition in 2030, nobody can see how this would work without investments in production.

So all that issues are hindering growth in Europe. And it would be very, very urgent to change the direction and to support the European aviation industry so that it can grow at least at the same speed as Asia or the U.S. is growing. So that's from my side, and please feel free to ask your questions.

Yes. Now we come to the Q&A session. Please raise your virtual hand. [indiscernible] please go ahead, open the floor.

Thank you very much for the presentation and sharing with us some details. I would like to maybe learn a little bit more, especially regarding, as you mentioned that for Malta, you plan to raise some debt, you consider external financing? How big debt you are talking about? What could be likely conditions on it? Regarding CapEx, also quite sizable CapEx of EUR 260 million planned in Vienna. How big portion out of this will go to Terminal 3 Southern Expansion? And then last but not least, if you can share with us maybe some thoughts regarding -- initial thoughts regarding dividend on 2025 results.

Yes. CapEx for the South Expansion is more than EUR 100 million. And the substance of the construction work is around EUR 100 million, but then you have IT and a lot of other by projects. So in total, it should be somewhere around EUR 125 million.

Malta is now in the preparation of their financing. And what I learned so far is that they get very favorable conditions from the offers of Maltese Financial Institutions. It's right now not finally decided how big the portion will be that has to be financed by credit, but it will be the major part of the EUR 70 million.

Dividend policy will more or less remain stable. You know our guidance, it's 60% to 70% and the payout ratio lately was around 65%. So we would have maybe a little room to maneuver on the upper side, but that is not decided and will be public on the 2nd of March when we have our full year's results available.

Elias, please go ahead.

I'll just start on the likely impact from the low-cost carrier capacity reduction. So I was just wondering if you could give us an update for what you expect here in terms of the headwind to passenger numbers. I think at your Q3 results, you were sort of guiding towards 2.5 million and looking to offset around 1/4 of that impact. So just wondering if that is still sort of roughly what you're thinking and perhaps also whether you think you'll see some more Ryanair capacity reductions -- so beyond the 15 planes that they now expect to have by the summer schedule, if I'm correct?

Yes. I mean, Ryanair is always very difficult to judge because I think -- and if you look around, I mean, they are now -- they have a fight now with the Belgian government. I think they put a lot of pressure on the Austrian government, and you see this in many places. So therefore, it's really difficult to judge. I think we are very well based with the roughly 30 million passengers for this year. So we expect low cost to shrink by roughly 3 million, and we see some growth from other airlines, as you've seen before. And that's why we believe that we will be around EUR 30 million.

Look, if we see a more peaceful situation probably in the Middle East, I think this is -- this would be an upside, probably higher load factors than expected would be an upside. But we -- it's difficult to judge right now the effect of significantly more capacity in Bratislava, which is pretty close to Vienna. So overall, I think we will not be far off the 30 million passenger mark at the end of the year.

And looking forward, I think one major factor in Ryanair's decisions regarding capacity will be our ticket tax because, I mean, you can follow Germany, for instance. They have reduced year by, year by, year by year capacity in Germany. And now that the government announced that they would even just reduce slightly the ticket tax. They are shifting capacity back to Germany. And therefore, I think this will be a critical factor.

But it will be partly also offset by growth in Malta and Košice. I mean, this is one of the side effects that you see in our overall financial guidance. So the reduction in the group is lower than the reduction assumed in Vienna.

Understood. And just a follow-up from my side, perhaps. Just in terms of the decision not to pursue the third runway project, obviously, that frees up quite a bit of cash. So I was just wondering in terms of sort of capital allocation, whether you would be more focused on perhaps M&A activities going forward or sort of increasing shareholder returns through dividends.

I mean the main strategic focus is to further develop Vienna and Malta, especially. There is an investment program for Malta of roughly EUR 300 million for the coming years. And we are now preparing major projects also in Vienna, so the Extension of Pier North and other terminal projects.

And therefore, we have not a cash depot we made for the third runway. Instead of that, we are investing now primarily in the development of Vienna and Malta. And if we perform as we want to perform, I think also the shareholders should be happy then.

Regarding M&A, maybe one comment. So far, we have not decided to change our policy in this respect. We've decided in 2012 that we will focus on our existing airports. One exemption was always Bratislava. In the current political circumstances, I don't see any change in the opinion of the government in Slovakia. So I think this will not come on the market. I mean, we monitor the global aviation market. But for the time being, I don't think that we will engage ourselves here in significant M&A activity.

Any further questions or any follow-ups? Seems not to be the case, then I thank you all for your interest in the company to follow our '25 passenger numbers and guidance for 2026. Next scheduled event is March 2 with our preliminary financial results for financial year 2025. For any questions you might have in addition, please reach out to me. I close the call. A replay will be online soon, half an hour around about, and wish you a nice day.

Thank you. Bye-bye.

Thank you. Bye.

[Audio Gap]

[Audio Gap] the 3 quarters of 2025. And as you maybe already saw in the presentation, we have plus 6.7% in revenue to EUR 845 million, EBITDA is up 2.4% to EUR 377 million, and group net profit up 4.2% to EUR 215 million . So overall, very, very encouraging results. The only problem we face since maybe the last 3 years, but especially '24 and '25 is an ongoing cost pressure, which burdens our EBITDA and is slightly reducing our productivity.

As you see in the latest figures of passenger growth, our guidance for 2025 is well based, and we can confirm it right now with already a clear visibility for full year expectations. What we need now is an efficiency improvement and cost reduction program, which is under work right now because we are in the process of making our budget for 2026, which will be for approval in our supervisory board mid of December. And details for the program, we will release beginning of January with the traffic results of 2025.

But what we hope for is and what we are working on is through at least partially mitigate the effects of the tariff reduction and maybe lower traffic results for the coming year. I mean cost management is always a very important issue. And I'm very positive that we will reach a lot of effects throughout the whole company in all departments, in all our daughter companies. And last but not least, we will also reduce our personnel costs, which is the most challenging issue all the time. But with a step-by-step approach, I think we will be also successful there.

If you look at the figures more in detail, you see that despite the fact that interest rates are going down, we maintained positive development of our financial results only slightly below the first 9 months of 2024 with now EUR 11.6 million compared to EUR 11.9 million. And from today's perspective, we will have a lower EBITDA margin. It was 46.5% in the first 9 months of 2024. It's now 44.6% for the first 9 months. So it's not too bad at this level, but definitely it's less than it was the year before.

And the reason for that is that cost increases all over the board and especially also with personnel costs negatively impacted overall profitability. If we move on to expenses, you see that consumables and services used kept more or less stable. Personnel expenses went up by 9.2%. If we put into account the change in consolidation of our subsidiary, Get2, which is responsible for the cleaning, the personnel cost increase would even be 13.4% year-on-year, including also a high degree of increase from Malta, that's even beyond the cost increase here in Vienna.

Other operating expenses went up by 11.6%. That is the other side of the coin of the personnel expenses of Get2, which has been included for in the personnel expenses and is now in the other operating expenses. Depreciation is slightly below the figures of 2024. And as already mentioned, EBITDA margin at 44.6% compared to 46.5% and EBIT margin at 33% compared to 33.9% in the last year. If you look at our cash flow, you see that it is slightly down.

The cash flow from operating activities from EUR 322 million to EUR 268 million. On the other hand, the free cash flow went up 26% from EUR 114 million to EUR 145 million. The increase in CapEx is as planned. So we went up from EUR 131 million to EUR 199.5 million. And we will see how much will be added until the end of the year. So we will end up below the expected EUR 300 million but not too far from that. The net liquidity was slightly reduced, also by the high dividend payout and is now at EUR 438 million compared to EUR 511 million. But it's still on a very satisfying level given the fact that we are now in a cycle of investments and still we plan that we will finance the major investments of the coming years out of cash flow and net liquidity.

So we will not need credit for the foreseeable years now. Equity went up from EUR 1.667 billion to EUR 1.731 billion, so a plus of 3.7% and an equity ratio of roughly 70%, which still is a very good figure. Our Southern expansion of Terminal 3 is on budget and on schedule and will open as planned in 2027. We now are going to work on the tenant fit-outs and interior construction work and all the technical systems and the energy supply and as well as the connection to the existing terminal areas.

But everything so far is on plan and no no major issues there. We are also expecting the new hotel to open operations already in December. And we will start the next weeks the expansion of our Office Park 4, so that we can start the operation there at 2028. A lot of other projects are underway. And so far, everything is within the plan. So last but not least, to remember the financial guidance for 2025, we expect a revenue of EUR 1.080 billion, EBITDA about approximately EUR 440 million or even a little bit better. Group net profit, approximately EUR 230 million, maybe a little bit better given the latest traffic results and CapEx somewhere below EUR 300 million. But more or less close to EUR 300 million we should end up at the 31st of December. So that are the main information and figures from my side, and I hand over to Julian.

Sorry, Yes, I will continue with the traffic development. In the first 3 quarters, we saw growth in the group of 4%, 32.9 million passengers, mainly driven by Malta plus 10.8%; Vienna, plus 1.9%, Košice nearly 10% growth. Yes, we had a strong October. Vienna was better than in the rest of the year as well with 3.1 million passengers plus 3.7%. Malta, again, a stunning 16.7% and Košice more than 15% growth. So overall, we are at 4.3% growth in the group in January to October and plus 11% Malta; plus 10% Košice; plus 2% Vienna.

If we continue on the next slide, the peak was very strong. So we had a solid passenger growth in summer. We had in August the highest month passenger volume in history, 3.4 million passengers in Vienna. We had a new single day record with more than 120,000 passengers in August. So overall, very positive development here in Vienna, ongoing robust cargo growth of 7.8% to 233,000 tonnes in Q1 to Q3. So overall, I think we can be happy with the development as well, although we know we will not reach these figures next year, but I'm coming to that later.

I think load factors are really strong. If you look here at October, last year, we had a record year in terms of load factors. This year, October was even better and January to October, slightly below the 2024 figures. So overall, I think we can be quite quite happy with the development. If we look at the regional distribution, I think the only thing which is probably outstanding on this slide is Asia Pacific, +25%, market share of 4%. So we saw growth to Tokyo, Bangkok, Singapore, Beijing, Chengdu, overall, as expected, Asia, East Asia is coming back, with a certain delay after the pandemic.

North America essentially flat. So Europe, essentially flat with the exception of Eastern Europe, here mainly Southeastern Europe, Tirana, Pristina, Košice, Burgas growing. Middle East, slight growth, plus 2.2%. And Africa plus 2.9%. So overall, I would say, a satisfying development.

Looking at the airlines, Austrian, slight growth, plus 0.8%; Ryanair, flat this year, we already a slight reduction of minus 4.4%. Yes. And I think the rest is pretty solid. Pegasus growing, Etihad growing. Overall, I would say, yes, an okay development Lufthansa Group, pretty much flat, close to 50% market share. Low-cost carriers probably for the last time for a couple of years above 30% market share, 30.4%. So we will see here quite some significant changes in the distribution of our passengers next year. But overall, yes, a good picture this year.

What works really well in Vienna is operations, punctuality, again, amongst the top 3 above 25 million passenger airports, just also in Copenhagen in front of us with an average of 83.7%. Again, like most airports this year, we improved punctuality in 2025, but we are still, yes, in the top 3. So I think better than Munich, better than Frankfurt, better than Zurich. So especially within the Lufthansa Group, we kept our need as the operationally best hub of Lufthansa Group.

Yes. What do we have to expect in terms of low cost next year? Wizz Air will close their base operations in Vienna, it already went down to 3 aircraft in the winter schedule, and we'll close the base completely mid-March. Essentially, I think this was the result of a strategic change of Wizz Air, I think they will concentrate again more on Eastern Europe. We had -- until -- yes, mid this year, we had interesting discussions with the top management about a possible base of XLR here in Vienna and flights to India.

As you know, they reduced the order of the XLR then very significantly from more than 40 to less than 10. So I think this strategy has changed from Wizz Air again. They are leaving the Middle East essentially. In Vienna, we always had a high proportion of flights to the Arabian Peninsula. So overall, yes, we would have had to reduce our charges so significantly that -- on the one hand, we didn't want to do that. On the other hand, I think even legally, this would not have been possible for us. So that's why we eventually decided to close their base here.

Ryanair, in my perspective, will take Wizz now in Bratislava and we will see quite some growth here in Bratislava next year. My impression is that Ryanair wants to get rid of Wizz Air in the catchment area. So therefore, yes, my impression is that what we've seen here in 2019 that Ryanair is fighting their turf and showing [indiscernible] will happen next summer in Bratislava. And yes, it's anybody's case how this will end.

Obviously, I would say in terms of Ryanair reductions, we are a bit the victims of the circumstances in terms of tax environment in Vienna, we have a flat EUR 12 per passenger tax. As you know, Ryanair is fighting all the governments, which have taxes on aviation in place. So the same here in Vienna. They are taking the Austrian government quite fiercely. If this strategy works out or not, we'll see in the future. But obviously, if you -- if you take this EUR 12, this is roughly a 40% increase on our airport charges. And obviously, in a competitive environment, where Hungary, Sweden reduced the charges to 0, whereas Slovakia is actively supporting airlines, especially for the intra-Slovakian flight from [indiscernible] to Košice. This is a competitive disadvantage. So therefore, we will, yes, do our utmost to get here at least a reduction in the future.

But yes, which is difficult to achieve on the short term. We still don't exactly know the flight plans of Ryanair for next summer. I think we will see -- hopefully, we have some more clarity here in January. I mean those reductions are painful and will put pressure on revenues, costs and result next year. But I think we have to see it a bit in perspective as well. And -- you probably -- those who are covering us for a couple of years already know that we had extraordinary change in 2018, '19 following the Air Berlin bankruptcy.

So to a certain extent, it was always clear that probably not all of the growth is really there for the long run and really sustainable. So we saw a huge growth between '17 and '19, we went from 24 million to 32 million -- or nearly 32 million passengers. We recover very quickly after the pandemic. And now we will see next year a reduction of something around 2.5 million passengers from Ryanair and Wizz Air, probably a bit more. But overall, if you see our average growth, which was 5.3% between 2000 and 2019, so significant above the European average I think we will sustain a year or 2 where we are below our record, which we will achieve this year and I'm pretty optimistic that we will reach the 32 million passengers and probably surpass this mark in 2025.

To talk about the positive developments, Austrian is, let's say, fighting back. They will base 2 additional aircraft next summer, they will launch a Dubai service. we will see increased frequencies to Bangkok to Mauritius to Rome. So overall, I think a good summer flight schedule as far as we see it today for '26. Scoot will increase next year by 1 frequency to Singapore, Air Kosice launches new flights to Ajaccio and Bastia. Air Baltic resumption of flights to Tallinn as of March. SAS has come back to Vienna recently 12 frequencies per week to Copenhagen. Condor just increased their frequencies to Frankfurt up to 3 daily. EasyJet is expanding their offering. Air India is going to 4 frequencies. Air Arabia with the daily frequency to Sharjah. What is not on this slide, but what news which reached us very recently, we expect Etihad to increase by 4 weekly frequencies by next summer.

So overall, there are positive developments as well. And we will lose a bit of ultra low cost, but we will get some other capacity as well. And I would say, overall, the passenger outlook for 2026 remains challenging at this point. Typically, airlines announce their capacity at the beginning of the year. So there's still a lot of movement. And you can see here that we still get news in the one or other direction. So therefore, as I said, the capacity reduction of Wizz and Ryanair from today's perspective should be roughly 2.5 million passengers, maybe a bit more -- but we are confident to compensate around the quarter of this reduction. And as usually, we will get in much more detail in these respects in January.

Yes. I think I've said everything to this slide. We can confirm our passenger guidance. We will probably slightly hit the 32 million in Vienna. We will get very close to the 10 million in Malta. We will have a record in Corsica. So I'm optimistic that we will surpass the 42 million passengers in the group. Yes, record results wherever we look, but we all know that 2026 will be challenging for us. Still, I would say there are some -- we can see some light on the horizon as well. I think -- if the Middle East remains -- or will get more peaceful then in 2025, I think this would be a huge opportunity for Austrian. I think these are extremely important passenger flows from Tel Aviv to the U.S. but as well from Tehran, the whole region Amman.

So I think there's a lot of potential for Vienna in the Middle East, obviously, Ukraine was always a very important market for us and would be a strong market for us again. So midterm, we are optimistic that sooner or later, these geopolitical tensions will ease, and I see quite some growth potential from these areas. Coming to the segment results. Starting with the Airport segment, yes, I think we obviously capitalize on the passenger growth Q1 to Q3, plus 7.8% in EBIT, plus 4.1% EBITDA, plus 5.7% revenue, overall healthy results, I would say, Obviously, there as well.

And then in so far, we'll get a double whammy next year with reduction in passenger numbers, reduction in passenger charges, so the passenger service charge, minus 4.6% lending fees, minus 2.1%, would be expected. The formula kicks in again. But obviously, this will not make our life easier in 2026.

Coming to handling. I think we had a strong third quarter overall still below the 2024 figures. EBIT of EUR 8.4 million versus EUR 10.9 million in 2024. Obviously, this is the area where the personnel expense increase hits the most. We've got 1,500 people in ground handling. We have 1,000 people in security. So overall, this is where we feel the heat. Still, I think in terms of revenue, things are going in the right direction. Cargo in particular, very strong. So overall, we -- I think the development is okay.

We are significantly positive, but we see here the pressure in terms of staff costs, and this is an area where we will have to focus on a lot in the coming months and years. Just last week, we celebrated the establishment of AirZeta, the newly established South Korean cargo airline, which officially launched their operations in Vienna, and selected us as their primary European hub. So overall, we're still optimistic that cargo will continue to grow and and we are doing our utmost to keep here very close relations in particular with the big Korean airlines like Korean and the newly founded AirZeta, which is a joint venture of [ Asiana ], which went bust and yes, Incheon.

Retail & Properties, yes, I think in reality, the result is better than the figures show here actually because we have a flat EBIT development when the revenue increased by nearly EUR 8 million or even more than EUR 8 million. I think we had a number of negative one-offs respectively, one positive one-off in the same period of last year. So we were impacted here by increasing personnel expenses, mainly provisions and costs related to the demolition of existing buildings for the purpose of space optimization. This is a negative one-off or those are the 2 negative one-offs in the third quarter this year, and we had a positive effect relating to the reversal of a bad debt allowance in the previous year.

So overall, if we remove these one-offs we would have the normalized margin here in the Retail & Properties segment. So overall, I think the negative one-offs were a bit more than EUR 4 million. The positive effect last year was a bit more than EUR 1 million. So overall, we are talking about more than EUR 5 million one-offs, which seem to burden this segment. What is still encouraging. So I think overall, sales in center management and hospitality and parking in Vienna are above the passenger development.

So center management revenue plus 7%; parking plus 5%; rentals plus 2% and we see a lot of interest in our tender for the space in the south extension of Terminal 3. We are in the very final stages of choosing the operators for our 10,000 square meter extension. And in particular, in terms of F&B space, we are at the very late stage, and it will be sincerely best of Vienna with very good commercial offers as well. So we will disclose this in the coming weeks, and we are quite happy with the outcome of this tender.

Yes, let me come to my last slide, Malta, yes, uninterrupted rising passenger volume revenue, plus 10%; EBITDA plus 6.7%; EBIT plus 5.4%, EUR 62.7 million. Strong growth to Poland again, Ryanair growing, Wizz Air growing, more frequencies, new destinations in the winter flight schedule. So as far as I can judge. I think the outlook for next year is not bad as well. Hotels being built or extended in Malta. So overall, Malta is still banking a lot of growing tourist numbers, and therefore, yes, we remain optimistic in Malta as well. Obviously, as you know, we have a very significant investment program in Malta. We need to urgently extend the terminal building. which has just started now, I would say. We have already extended the Apron, which will now cover us for the coming decades, I would say, in terms of aircraft parking space.

We are building a new Sky Parks building a hotel. So overall, I think there's a lot going on here in the next 3 years, I would say. But due to the significant growth, this is urgently needed to cater for the growing passenger numbers. Yes, that's it from my end. Thanks a lot for your attention, and we are happy to discuss our report now.

Yes. Let's start the Q&A session. Happy to discuss any topics of interest, hence, are already raised. Let's go in order, Vladimira, please go ahead.

Yes. Congratulations to a very solid set of numbers and seems to be that growth is maybe more dynamic now in October than 1 would originally anticipate. My question would be focusing on upcoming challenges. That means 2026, you said that plan to introduce cost reduction and efficiency improvement program. Could you a little bit more elaborate what are the key elements of the program? And if you can share maybe already some preliminary scope of savings you want to achieve?

Next would be you pointed out to the lower passenger numbers because of the withdrawal or partial withdrawal of low-cost carriers -- do you have maybe some plan here how to improve position of Vienna increase its attractiveness. Do you take some active measures to fill in this gap and get maybe more passenger traffic or you simply wait and see what are the plans of other carriers. So this would be my major questions.

Yes. Starting maybe with your first question. That's our daily work now in work in progress because we are in the second half of our budget process. And what you can expect is that through the whole company in all departments, in all our daughter companies, we defined measures to improve productivity and to lower costs. So material costs, service costs, personnel costs. So in all parts of our operations we are defining such measures. What is not possible right now is to give you an exact number what it will end up because this is part of the budget that will be approved by the Supervisory Board in 4 weeks from now. And what I can generally claim is that we try to offset as much as possible from the effects for 2026. Will we be able to offset all of the problems? No, that would overstretch I think, the possibilities, but it will be a very substantial part of it.

Yes. Let me continue with your second question. We obviously never just wait and see, Vladimira. So I think we are always very actively engaging with our airlines. Regardless, if these airlines are already operating in Vienna, or the not yet operating to Vienna. So we are obviously and our team is in touch with, I would say, all relevant European airlines. And obviously, it will not be easy to replace 8 or 9 aircraft here in Vienna on the short run. There is no airline I can see which would just come and Phase 8, 9 aircraft here in Vienna.

So I think we will have to work with many individual airlines to replace the capacity over the years in total, but not with one bang and one airline. I mean, obviously, easyJet comes to anybody's mind. But easyJet is a very slow mover. And therefore, as I said, I think -- and I think you saw the list. So there is a number of good news that airlines coming back to Vienna, growing in Vienna. But it will take until we replace this intra-European capacity. And on long haul, me and my team, we are constantly in touch with airlines, mainly in Asia, who could fly into Vienna, and they are optimistic as well.

We will see in the next 1 or 2 years, like we saw in recent years with the comeback of Air India. Now this year, we got Scoot from Singapore. So I'm very optimistic that we will see here some long-haul growth as well. In terms of competition, we reduced our charges or we have to reduce our charges next year anyway. So this should improve our competitive position a bit we will definitely do our utmost, but probably in a completely different style than Ryanair to convince our government that overall, it would be a net contribution to the Austrian budget, if there would be a reduction in the tax because this would be financed with more tourists coming to Austria. And but I don't foresee next year, any other changes in terms of charges, I think a reduction on average of 4% is anyway a significant improvement. And what we will stop next year is the winter incentive. So the winter incentive is still applicable now in January and December, but it will not be applicable anymore next year. .

Yes, this was my sub question, if you have any incentives already in plan maybe to attract more airlines, increase activities of existing players. .

Our -- for new airlines and new destinations, we have an attractive package anyway in place. For airlines, which have a certain volume, I think we have good conditions. I think what really harms us is the ticket taxes, and you can see the development in Germany, where the German government now is reducing the ticket tax. They are not abolishing it. But I think in terms of ultra low cost, our biggest problem is the ticket tax.

And I think it shows how strong our market is that in the years after COVID, they didn't care. But now more and more countries reduce aviation taxes and this makes, obviously, the competitive environment for us is more difficult.

congrats on the strong results. I have -- yes, one question regarding the latest topic we just talked about the air taxes. So we already mentioned Germany is reducing them, not abolishing them. But I've seen that in Austria, there's a parliamentary motion to abolish it completely. This is, I think, by the FPU or the opposition party. So sort of what your assessment on this that it might go through even. And then direct follow-up question, would this maybe alter the decision of Ryanair and Wizz Air to reduce? Or is this more or less final? And maybe then speaking more long term, this may be reduced, we will see this effect now the Ryanair and Wizz reduction now, but then maybe 2027, 2028, they will come back now because the capacity planning is already done. so what sort of your idea here, what's your take on this?

I think there's a 0% chance that this motion goes through. I think it does not help. And this is where I completely disagree with Michael O'Leary, although probably not in content, but in style. I think there would be a lot of discussions behind closed stores necessary to get a reduction or an abolishment of the ticket tax. It does not work with the sledge hammer, I would say. But let's see. So I don't think that -- I mean, we have a double budget '25, '26, and nobody in the government would touch this budget now. So the earliest imaginable reduction would be in 2027. We will do our utmost and I think we have a lot of good arguments, but there will be no change immediately.

I think Wizz Air even -- I mean, in the end, they had a lot of troubles in recent years as well with the capacity, with engines and so on. So I don't see Wizz Air coming soon. I think we will -- it will be interesting to see how the battle between Ryanair and Wizz air will turn out next year in Bratislava. But obviously, yes, if there would be a significant reduction or even an abolishment [Audio Gap]. So I think we will have to wait and see. We will try to convince our government to give here really a reduction in the financial burden on the airlines. And then I would be optimistic that we would see ultra low-cost growth again in Vienna, probably more from Ryanair than from Wizz Air Wise. .

Thanks. Thanks for the political sort of more color on this. That helps a lot because we don't follow in Germany Austria news on a daily basis. So it's always good to have this picture. Then second question for me is maybe for Dr. Ofner, I've seen the operating cash flow was lower due to cash out for taxes mainly. And this -- I see -- if I look at the P&L, there's a discrepancy between P&L taxes and cash taxes, so what's sort of the difference here. And can we expect something like that to revert back in the coming quarters or years? Or what's sort of behind this?

Yes. I mean in the phase of corona and immediately after that, all our prepayments have been reduced. And now we have to, let me say, refill what we didn't pay in advance. And we also have now higher advance payments. And all that sums up to roughly EUR 120 million. And it includes also the tax payment in Malta for 2025, which amounts to roughly EUR 33 million. So it's a normal process. And in '26 and the

following years, we will not see such extraordinary events because the prepayment now is adapted to the expected results.

Right. And then my last question, I I think also for you, Dr. Ofner. On next year, personnel expense. So now the inflation rate is still at 4%. The Vifor expects 2% for 2026, if my understanding is correct. So that gives us sort of something between 2% and 4% for, I think, a demand for the collective labor wage increase for next year as well.

So this is sort of against your cost efficiency program or one step against this. What sort of your take if you had -- I mean, you don't have it, of course, but if you had a glass ball to look in the future, what would your estimate be on the wage inflation for 2026 for the one in May, actually?

So it will definitely below inflation rate. I mean Finally, we will have to agree for the new collective agreement in May 2026. But we definitely will be below inflation. And we will reduce workforce throughout the year. So altogether, I hope that we can see an absolute reduction in personnel expenses compared to 2025.

Philip, your questions are still on the table?

Hope you can hear me. First question. I just would like to revert on the incentives, on the winter incentives of this year again. So could you elaborate again why you don't want to repeat those incentives given the pressure on traffic is much higher this year. So what basically changed here on your thinking compared to last year?

And then also regarding traffic, can you already judge how much of the planes of the ultra-low-cost carriers that have left the Vienna base will maybe be compensated by them still flying into Vienna from other bases? Is there any visibility that you have here? So this would be the first 2 questions that I would have.

Yes. To start with your second one, no, we don't have visibility there. I don't expect that Wizz Air will fly a lot into Vienna, probably not at all. But Ryanair, we don't have yet full visibility. So we don't even have a full visibility for February and March. So there are still some things in the air. And yes, overall, I just have to delay this discussion for January. We'll get every day some good news, some bad news, but the net effect of the reductions of the ultra-low cost in next year, we will just get a better idea in January. Regarding your first question, I think this is pretty easy to answer. When we introduced the winter incentive this year, we looked at a very significant increase in airport charges, plus 4.6% passenger service charge. And what our idea was back then to even it a bit out.

So that's why we introduced the winter incentive. And I would not see that, again, the winter incentive would have any significant positive impact on capacity next year. And therefore, with a reduction of 4.6% on our passenger service charge and security charge, we -- that's why we discontinued this incentive for next year.

Okay. Okay. Understood. And then maybe one more for the retail segment. Do you also see any weakness here as regards to the spending per passenger from any potential weaker macro? So is there a feeling that you see that passengers just take back on their spending at your shops at the airport?

Actually, this is something we expect all the time, but it doesn't really happen that much. What we see is a reduction in banks. This is not a major part of our business. So the market share here is minute. But this is an area where we see constant decreases, which is not a big surprise given that we don't have a lot of Russians anymore that we -- so passengers from areas where you usually carry some cash and exchange it are significantly less than probably before the pandemic. But all the rest is at passenger development or even above. So this year, so far, we cannot complain. And in terms of F&Bs, it's good. or it's significantly above the passenger development.

Duty-free is slightly above the passenger development. So overall, we are satisfied, I would say, with the development. And yes, as I said, PRR center management and hospitality cumulated is 5.7% passenger development is below 3% in Vienna. So overall, it's okay, I would say.

Okay. Okay. And then maybe one more, if I can, on Malta. So the EBITDA margin reduction in Malta that led to basically a flat Q3 EBITDA year-over-year -- is it mainly due to investments that you are now conducting? Or is there any other effect here weighing as well that you would see pressuring margins?

I mean it's -- I would say it's not only investment. We see some cost uplift overall in motor as well. But CapEx is part of it and CapEx will expand in the coming years. So we will invest more than EUR 100 million probably next year, and we will invest more than EUR 300 million until 2030, so in the next 5 years. So overall, I think we -- I mean, if you see the the passenger numbers going through this small terminal, which has insignificantly changed since I left in 2011 when we had 3.5 million passengers. I think everybody will understand that we will have to invest here very significantly.

And therefore, yes, I would say probably not next year, but in the years to come, the margins in Malta will reduce here as well. But overall, I see still a very strong sentiment in Malta. I see a very ambitious government in terms of how to grow tourism figures. I see a very strong cooperation between the tourism industry, the airport and government. So overall, we are very optimistic for the future development here. But yes, obviously, to sustain these levels of passengers and cater for future growth, we will have to invest here very significantly.

Any further questions? No hand is raised, then I would thank everybody in the call for discussing the topics of interest for showing the interest in Vienna Airport. And the next scheduled event is January 20 with the traffic figures for 2025 and the outlook -- financial outlook for 2026.

Thank you.

Thank you. Bye-bye.

Thank you. Bye-bye.

So hello, everyone, and a warm welcome to the roundtable of the Vienna Airport. So in this case, we're delighted to welcome the Head of Capital Markets, Bernd Maurer. So he will speak right now and give us some insights about Vienna Airport. So having said this, Bernd, I hand over to you.

Good afternoon. Thank you all of you for your interest in our company in Vienna Airport. Yes, let's kick off with a brief overview what we are doing. I guess all of you are familiar with the City of Vienna and have kind of a clue about the business model of an airport operator. So we can jump right into what we are doing and what's going on currently at Vienna Airport.

We are one of the European airports who topped or which topped already last year the passenger numbers of the precrisis year 2019. You might know, of course, COVID was a big, big challenge for the industry with passenger numbers down 70%, 80%. And many European airports, but -- by far, not all already recovered from this kind of crisis. For example, German air traffic is around about -- is still around about 15% below the pre-COVID volume. But as I said, many European airports are already above. We, Vienna Airport topped this level in 2024 with slightly above 31.7 million passengers, and this number is expected to increase further in 2025.

When we talk about the listed company, Vienna Airport, then we mainly talk about the airport in Vienna, but not only. We are not a globally operated -- operating airline group like our peer group companies, Fraport or Paris Aero, but we also own the airport in Malta and the airport in Kosice in Eastern Slovakia. Kosice is not that much of a driver for the group with below 1 million passengers, but Malta is not to neglect, growing strongly in the last years. Within the last 10 years, passenger numbers more than doubled. And so Malta accounts currently for around about 20% of group passengers and around 20% or even a bit more of group earnings.

We are one of the 4 Lufthansa hubs next to Frankfurt, Munich and Zurich. Vienna is the fourth Lufthansa hub with Lufthansa Airline, Austrian Airlines being the home carrier here with about 45% market share.

An important characteristic for us, and I will come to this in more detail a few slides later, is our large catchment area. And it's obvious that we capture most of Austria or at least the Eastern part of Austria, but we -- our catchment -- yes, Eastern part of Austria, but our catchment area ranges far into Central and Eastern European countries, respectively, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. And simply Vienna Airport is the biggest airport in the region, offering the most destinations and especially frequencies.

When I mentioned the business model before, so I think everyone has a clue what the airport operator is doing, although when it's about details, then it's a high level of logistics services, but there are 2 different business models: Being a full-scale provider; or to outsource some services. Here, we, Vienna Airport, is a full-scale service provider, which means mainly that our handling, operations and security services are also done by Vienna Airport and our employees, respectively.

I want first to comment about recent developments and then go into the general pillars and drivers of our investment case. Looking at H1 and the passenger development, which is, of course, the basis for the financial development, then you see robust growth of 4.7% in the group in H1; good development also over the summer months; slight growth of Vienna. Here, the COVID -- the big COVID recovery is behind us, as I mentioned that 2019 levels were already surpassed again last year. So we are back into this normal structural growth of European aviation, strong growth driver in H1. Malta with continued double-digit growth rates of almost 12% in first half. Kosice, also very strong, plus 19%. But as I mentioned before, with about a bit more than 300,000 passengers in first half, it's not the driver of group dynamics.

Asking why Malta is doing that strongly? As I said before, more than double the passenger numbers within the last 10 years from 4.3 million to 9.0 million last year. It's twofold. It's, of course, the obvious good development of the tourism sector on the island of Malta, but Malta is also doing economically very well. Looking at statistics of European GDP dynamics, then you see on many league tables, Ireland and Malta on top of these rankings.

Yes, some details at which record levels we are at the moment. In Vienna, the August this year was the busiest month ever on records. Also, we set a new daily record with more than 120,000 passengers on the 3rd of August. And in Malta, July and August this year were the 2 months, which for the first time, topped 1 million passengers within a single month ever.

How did this translate into earnings? Revenues up 7%, EBITDA plus 3.3%. Net profit after minorities almost up by 6%. Drivers, of course, traffic growth in the group and tariff adjustments. Tariffs were up in Vienna Airport with 4.6% this year. So rule of thumb revenue estimation, passengers times revenue increase -- sorry, passengers times tariff increase gives an indication of aviation revenues, which account for about 2/3 of our group revenues.

Margin is a bit not under pressure. This would be too much, but margin is a bit lower -- was a bit lower than the last year by around about 1.5 percentage points as personnel increases -- personnel cost increases deriving from, how should I say, quite generous collective bargaining agreements in the last 2 years ate a bit into profitability, but still decently above 40%.

And you see here positive financial result that's rarely seen, I would say, for an infrastructure company as we are a net cash positive infrastructure asset, which invests a net cash position of EUR 400 million to EUR 500 million and then interest income or a positive financial result. What you see here is the interest income of our net cash position with EUR 9.3 million in H1, a considerable contribution to our group profit.

This brings me to the guidance for the full year, which is so to say, no surprise that we expect continued small growth this year at the airport in Vienna and in the whole group. This guidance is unchanged since we issued it the first time in mid-January of this year. It was confirmed with Q1 and confirmed with H1 numbers.

Talking about the environment, to leave here 2 marks on geopolitics. The conflict in the Middle East is an important factor to watch out. Passengers flying between Israel and Vienna Airport account for about 2.0% of total passengers of Vienna Airport. That's perhaps a bit more than someone would expect. It's 4 carriers which flew the destination: it's Austrian Airlines, [ it's LI ], it's Wizz Air, and it's Ryanair. And Vienna is a go-to transfer hub for Israeli passengers flying to North America. So including transfer passengers flying from Israel via Vienna to North America, this number is even a bit higher than 2%, around about 2.5%. So looking at next year, when hopefully the situation eases, traffic has potential to recover and would bring some additional passenger growth next year.

Second factor, but unfortunately, not that much for the short term, rather for the midterm is, of course, the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Just a number. Before the war, passenger flows from Russia, Belarus and Ukraine to Vienna accounted for 3.5% of total passengers. So if we reach a ceasefire and especially sanctions in the air transportation sector against Russia would be lifted, this would bring a considerable portion of this 3.5% back within a short period of time as Vienna is a very popular destination for Russian and Ukrainian people.

Financial guidance is the same. You see the numbers what we round about expect this year, also unchanged since we issued the first time in mid-January this year. This was the update about the recent developments of H1 and the traffic numbers over the summer months July and August. September traffic figures are scheduled to be reported next Tuesday.

And I will now switch to a broader top-down perspective, what, in our view, determines the investment case for the share of Vienna Airport. It's comprised of the 6 headlines, so to say. It's growth coming from passengers, meaning growth of the aviation business and growth of the non-aviation business; profitability, having operating a business model with an EBITDA margin of sustainably above 40%. We are net cash positive, what I outlined before. This enables an attractive dividend policy. We operate an airport in a very attractive destination, the City of Vienna. Quality is important to keep our main customers, meaning the airline is happy. And of course, sustainability and important transportation sector is in focus and especially energy efficiency is of high importance at our company, within our company as the measures implemented so far had a clear impact on the P&L and bringing costs down and improving profitability. And I will now outline main points for those 6 headlines of our investment case, starting with the growth of the expected growth of the aviation business in the mid to long term.

Two important charts that line out the sustainable long-term and structural growth of the aviation sector. You see on the left-hand side, the aggregate of European airports -- European airport passenger numbers between the year of 2000 and last year; and on the right-hand side, passenger growth and passenger development of Vienna Airport. It doesn't matter if we grew a few tenth of a percentage points more than the European aggregate in the last 20 years, what I want to outline with these 2 pictures is on the one hand that you clearly see the trend growth. If you calculate any trend line, then if the actual development is for whatever reason, a bit below, a bit above, within 2, 3 years, traffic is back to this trend growth, at least the pattern in the last 20 years.

The second effect, what is visible from those 2 charts is a very quick recovery after downturns. When passengers are down for whatever reason, be it the terror attacks in 2001, be it the economic crisis following the banking crisis in 2008 then to 2010, be it COVID now which you see on the chart was clearly a different animal, but nevertheless, passenger numbers just a couple of years are back where they have been before and with other less severe crisis, they were even back to the trend growth, which was projected.

This structural trend growth of global and European aviation is confirmed by long-term outlooks of Airbus and Boeing. The current global fleet reaches around about 25,000 aircraft. This is expected by both producers to double more or less within the next 20 years that the global fleet reaches around about 50,000 airplanes by 2044. Of course, the biggest growth driver will not be Europe. This will be Asia, especially China and India. But yes, the biggest dynamics we will see within Asia, but many Asian people out of the growing middle class coming to Europe are coming to Vienna and Malta also, and push European growth to a higher number than what in the European traffic would look like without this boost, without the boost from Asia.

Also to put it into perspective that the global flight traffic tripled times 3 since the year 2000. So it confirms the long-term structural growth of aviation traffic, and the aggregate of European aviation passengers is already some 5% above the pre-COVID level now in H1 2025.

But to be frank and fair here, 2026 will bring some challenges to Vienna Airport. Talking about the structural growth before, absolutely true for the mid and long term, but will likely not be applicable for the financial year of 2026 as the #2 on Vienna Airport, Ryanair; and the #3 on Vienna Airport, Wizz Air announced to reduce capacities. Wizz Air is going to withdraw from Vienna Airport. They operate currently 5 aircraft, which will shrink to 3 with the winter schedule starting at the end of October, and the remaining 3 aircraft will move somewhere else with the summer schedule and starting as of the end of March.

Next year, second negative news, so to say, was the announcement by Ryanair to reduce capacities. They operated 19 aircraft in last year's winter schedule. Ryanair is operating currently 18 aircraft in the summer schedule now. And as of the coming winter schedule, Ryanair will deploy 16 aircraft out of Vienna. So it's a reduction by 3 airplanes when you compare winter schedule to winter schedule and a reduction of 2 airplanes when you compare summer schedule to winter schedule.

This will cost us, for sure, passengers. But since Wizz Air and Ryanair announced to reduce the capacities, other airlines already announced to come to Vienna or increase their capacities. Especially worth to mention, our home carrier Austrian Airlines, which will deploy 2 more aircraft as of the summer flight schedule. Then also airBaltic announced to fly Vienna-Tallinn. Scoot, an Asian low-cost carrier, announced to increase the frequencies on its Singapore route. SAS will fly Vienna-Copenhagen with a high number of 12 weekly frequencies; and Air Corsica is linking Vienna to 2 airports on the island of Corsica.

So best guess is that what we see on the right-hand side will likely not recover all the passengers and all the capacity that was offered by Wizz Air and Ryanair, but a substantial part. The point I want to make here is that not all the capacity what Wizz Air and Ryanair are removing from Vienna is lost.

Note, when one airline is not flying to Vienna destination anymore or cancels the one or the other route, then another airline is stepping in. Everything will likely not be covered by other airlines immediately from one flight schedule to another. But within a couple of flight schedules, you can expect other airlines coming to Vienna or airlines which already operate out of Vienna take over the one or the other frequency and destination from Ryanair and Wizz Air.

And what we should not forget, a clear positive out of this is that when 2 low costers in Vienna reduce capacities, then this is a big positive for our home carrier, Austrian Airlines. And the better the state, the competitive position and the financial position of our home carrier, Austrian Airlines, the better it is also for us as the operator of Vienna Airport.

I was now talking about one more topic also rather on the headwind side for next year is that we face a small cut of aviation charges next year following a period of a strong rise of tariffs in the last years. In Vienna, we have -- or all over Austria, we have a tariff formula in place, which is a function of traffic growth and inflation. As the disruptions during the COVID pandemic made this tariff formula inappropriate, Austrian airports were allowed to hike or this formula was suspended during the COVID period and Austrian airports were allowed to hike tariffs by the rate of inflation.

In the last years, Austria was kind of a high inflation country and unfortunately, still is, but this led to a tariff increase of some 20% to 25% in the last years. As we surpassed again our pre-crisis passenger numbers, we fall back now to the tariff formula. And applying this formula for 2026 will lead to a reduction of passenger tariffs by 4.6% and by landing tariffs by 2.1%. So on average, tariffs will be down by 3.5% next year.

I talk now about the growth outlook of the aviation business. I mentioned before talking about the pillars of the investment case, the growth comes from 2 sources: Aviation, on the one hand; and non-aviation on the other hand. And non-aviation growth is -- or was stronger than aviation growth in the last years, and this is a trend expected to continue like this. As we have, so to say, 2 growth projects in the non-aviation business. One is the Terminal 3 Southern expansion. Terminal 3 is the main terminal of Vienna Airport routing most part of our passenger traffic. This will be expanded by 70,000 square meters and open in 2027. And this will lead to an increase of the space being rented out to shopping and catering tenants by 50% to then 30,000 square meters. So you will see a visible revenue increase from shopping and gastro as of 2027, which will trickle to a higher degree down to profitability lines, especially, of course, EBITDA.

Second source of growth is the so-called AirportCity. AirportCity is everything here on the airport side, which is not directly linked to the aviation business. Think of all the logistics companies here, all the businesses which rent office at the airport side, the fitness center, the kindergarten. Around about 20,000 people work at the whole airport side, but the company, Vienna Airport employs on site here just around about 5,000. So almost 20,000 people, 18,000 when you calculate it correctly, are employed at companies active here on the airport side, which is mostly our premises where we gain rents or income from granting building rights.

A lot is going on. There is a boom in business location projects. Just over the summer months, TUI Austria relocated its Austrian headquarter to Vienna Airport. A new logistics park with 80,000 square meters started operations in June. Over the last 1.5 to 2 years, a space hub for companies being active in the space industry as was established and built up at Vienna Airport. A new hotel is commencing operations in December. We have 4 office parks. And the newest one, the Office Park 4, will started to be enlarged with construction work already next year. And there is a bigger development project, so-called Development Zone West with a potential of 47 hectares of logistics and industrial area to be developed. Project -- development project could already begin next year or in 2027.

This brings me to one characteristic of Vienna Airport that we own all the properties, all the land, all the buildings necessary for the aviation and the non-aviation business. We are not a license taker. We do not have to renew a license and spend a couple of hundred millions or billions likely. No -- all is -- all assets are our property; no royalties to pay; no license fees to pay; and also no costs for a potential or eventual renewal of any license. And of course, this gives us the opportunity to develop the land bank, what I outlined before with the so-called AirportCity with its different projects.

Another characteristic, what I already mentioned or stated is our net cash position, what you rarely can find within the universe of infrastructure stocks. EUR 500 million at the end of last year; we paid out EUR 130 million on dividend payments. Adjusted for this, net cash position would have increased slightly in H1. So it was EUR 400 million in H1. This gives us a very comfortable leeway for investments -- growth investments, and pay out -- we pay out at least 60% of our net profit. This led to a dividend of EUR 1.65 per share last year, yielding -- calculated on the average share price of 2025, 3.2%, which is also around about the dividend yield when you take last year's dividend and calculate with the current share price.

Talking about the City of Vienna. At the end, you can operate the most efficient airport, if it would be in a location where no one flies to, as we had one example in Spain in the early 2000s, then it would not be too profitable asset. But Vienna, you can clearly see is an attractive destination being a tourism hotspot, a leading global congress city, the headquarter of many international organizations. We headquarter the United Nations in Vienna, we headquarter OPEC, we headquarter the International Atomic Energy Agency and so on and so forth. You see a couple of logos on the slide. And Vienna is also an attractive headquarter city for global -- or groups operating their headquarter for Central and Eastern European activities out of Vienna.

This is important when focusing on incoming traffic. When looking at outgoing traffic, I mentioned them, are quite far-reaching catchment area, on the one hand, the City of Vienna and its surroundings capture one of the most affluent regions of all over Europe. On the other hand, CE region is growing fastly with one of the highest -- or if not the highest growth of income per capita in Europe. And this you see in statistics of how many flights a person takes a year. This is rising strongly in the countries of Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. And this is to the benefit of us here at Vienna as Vienna Airport offers, by far, the most frequencies in this region.

I would -- yes, no, I do not keep it as quality is important as it secures -- if we are a punctual airport, then Austrian Airlines is a punctual carrier. And the more punctual Austrian Airlines is, the more happy Lufthansa is with Austrian Airlines and secures the capacity of Austrian Airlines and allows our home carrier to grow. And as I said, Austrian has almost 50% market share. So any additional capacity Lufthansa gives to Austrian Airlines is, of course, to the benefit of Vienna Airport. And you see here Austrian Airlines is, by far, the most punctual airline within the Lufthansa Group.

Finishing with 2 comments on sustainability. We are operating our activities here, Scope 1 and Scope 2 already CO2 neutral according to the ACAS classification. And our CO2 -- sorry, our Scope 2 emissions are already 0. We operate now the second biggest photovoltaic plant in Austria. When we started operations, it was the biggest. The other 50% of electricity requirements are CO2-free, thanks to hydropower certificates.

There were many, many energy efficiency measures implemented in the last years, which especially had a direct positive impact to P&L, bringing the cost down with making all the buildings more energy efficient. We use district heat, e-mobility, of course, and mainly it's about the topic of using new technologies, which reduce the energy input of all the buildings, be it office buildings, be it terminal buildings, be it energy necessary for the airport operations.

With this, I would conclude, and I'm happy [ to leave some ] time for some Q&A.

Thank you so much, Bernd, for presenting Vienna Airport to us. So now I really feel like flying off on vacation listening to you. So ladies and gentlemen, we are now happy to take your questions. [Operator Instructions] And with a view of the queue, by now we have no virtual hands, but there is a question in the Q&A section.

So the question is, in the first half of 2025, Vienna Airport reported a meaningful rebound in passenger numbers and solid financial metrics despite challenging global conditions.

Yes. Well, nice summary of our development. Yes, as a picture, what I want to leave is that the COVID rebound is behind us, and we are back to this structural growth phase of European air traffic in Q1 -- in H1. It was -- I see that another question comes in or further question, but I finish saying that we are back to the structural trend growth where H1 was quite representative, I would say, with increase of 2.7% in Vienna.

Which segments are recovering fastest and where do you see greatest upside? When we would split our business in aviation and non-aviation, then over the next years, non-aviation would recover faster or would show higher growth rates than aviation. Main trigger is the opening of the Terminal 3 South expansion where simply when you increase space for shopping and gastro outlets by 50%, this will trigger a substantial increase of rental income from shopping and gastro. And this should give a big boost to the non-aviation business. This is the reason why non-aviation will be faster growing than aviation.

When we only look at the aviation business, then I would see -- and if you mean talking about different regions, then I would see Asian traffic to recover or to show the strongest growth rates. In H1, Asian traffic grew by 30% as, one, it's still a bit of a legacy of COVID as long-haul destinations were later -- were coming back later than traffic within Europe. But we saw new airlines coming to Vienna. We saw existing airlines from Asia increasing frequencies to open new destinations. So Asia shall bring the highest growth. So the region in the next year showing the biggest growth rates.

Competitive -- question continues. How does our competitive position look with other Eastern and Southeastern European airports, connectivities -- with respect to connectivity services and incentives?

Good question, and thanks for answering this. Yes, this announced to shift their capacities from Vienna to Budapest or to -- and to Bratislava. Nevertheless, I would say that competition between the 2 airports is -- there is practically no competition.

Talking about competition, I would say, Munich and Zurich and later Rome are our competitors, meaning other hubs within the Lufthansa network where Lufthansa, when thinking of adding a Chicago destination out of their hubs, then it's about quality, then it's about fees. Where to put the plane to operate a flight? Munich-Chicago, Vienna-Chicago, Zurich-Chicago or Rome-Chicago?

The low-costers are going now to Bratislava. For sure, Bratislava is cheaper than Vienna. For sure, Budapest is cheaper than Vienna. All the second-tier destinations of low-cost carriers are cheaper than Vienna. But our competition is Frankfurt, Zurich, Munich. And here, we are cheaper than our competitors in the Lufthansa network.

I guess that's the main answer to your question. If some low costers increase capacities to Budapest or Bratislava, yes, nice. But when you want to come to Vienna, then you fly to Vienna. When you go to Bratislava or Budapest, then you fly to Bratislava or Budapest. But for transfer traffic, the competition within Lufthansa is the most important thing.

So next question. Do you want to read or shall I?

I don't see it, so please you.

Okay. So it's a quite long question. So recently, Ryanair dropped 3 Vienna routes and demanded lower airport fees and regulation setting cost pressures. Wizz Air also plans to cease base operations in Vienna by March 2026, complaining about airport costs. How do you respond to these pressures? Will you adjust your tariff structure, rebate terms or negotiate bilateral agreements?

No and no. We cannot negotiate bilateral agreements as the tariffs stipulated in the aviation law are the same tariffs for each and every airline. As an airport operator, you are more flexible with incentives, which are kind of discounts, which we offer for new destinations for the increase of frequencies and for the increase of passenger numbers, for new long-haul destinations, you see it here. But we do not plan any significant changes to the incentive scheme nor can we do it for tariffs as such.

Anyhow, the tariff formula leads to a tariff decline next year, which increases the competitiveness of Vienna as a destination. And yes, let's see how many -- how much capacity is really lost next year. The low costers are threatening -- or put it that way, the low costers cannot move out from every country and every airport they are threatening to fully move out. So let's see what capacity is really lost. But we react with the cost reduction and efficiency program here, which is already started to be implemented to cash in the financial effects from the lower capacities and work to attract new airlines to come to Vienna when -- if carrier A is not operating in a certain destination, then carrier B is stepping in and of course, are happy for any uptick, especially of our home carrier Austrian Airlines. And you see here on the right-hand side of the chart a couple of airlines already announced to increase operations out of Vienna or even come newly to Vienna.

Because [indiscernible] [ 5% ], which is now up for competition between other low-cost carriers or broadly speaking, new airlines in Vienna. And many, many now look if certain destinations make sense from a business perspective for the airline.

Thank you so much, Bernd, for answering. So the investor said, thank you as well. So -- and he's done with his questions. And it seems we did not receive any further questions. And in view of the time, I guess we're quite on point. So thank you, everyone, for your shown interest in the Vienna Airport. And also a big thank you to you, Bernd, for, yes, representing Vienna Airport to us. So from my side, thank you for being your host today. And final remarks, Bernd, belongs to you.

Yes. Thank you for the interest in the company. Thank you to Airtime for the platform and the Austria ON AIR product. Happy and glad to participate. And to all investors, this was a more comprehensive slide selection of our roadshow presentation. Looking at the Investor Relations section of the homepage of Vienna Airport, you'll find a more detailed roadshow slide deck called Investor Presentation. When I -- when you got some appetite or when it rose some questions, please contact me and/or look into the more comprehensive roadshow slide deck to get further information. Happy to meet you on any other roadshow occasion, otherwise, via Airtime.

Thank you so much. Bye-bye.