GERMANY. Airport group Fraport has reported a dip in retail revenue per passenger for the first six months of 2016, due to currency fluctuation and a drop in high-spending Asian passengers.
Retail revenue per passenger fell from €3.63 in H1 2015 to €3.51 this year, with gross retail sales declining by -5% to €95 million.
In its interim report, Fraport (which owns Frankfurt and other airports) said that it had been hit by “reduced passenger numbers to China, Japan, Russia and Vietnam, adding that “passengers on these routes tend to spend more”. The company added: “The depreciation of various currencies against the Euro, including the Chinese Renminbi and the Russian Rouble, also resulted in a decline in purchasing power for the respective nationalities. The significant depreciation of the Euro against the Swiss Franc created further incentives to buy in the Eurozone in the previous year.”
The Retail & Real Estate division as a whole hit revenue of €239.9 million, up by +2.9% year-on-year.
Group revenue reached just over €1.2 billion, a decline of -1.4%, affected in part by a -0.9% dip in Frankfurt Airport passenger traffic, while EBITDA was down by -1.7% to €378.4 million in the first six months.
Fraport AG Executive Board Chairman Dr. Stefan Schulte said: “With air traffic being negatively impacted by geopolitical circumstances, several of our Group airports experienced significant traffic declines.”
The Fraport board has revised its passenger forecast for Frankfurt Airport and is now expecting a slight drop in passenger traffic for the full year.
