Amadeus maintains steady progress supported by strengthening performance across its businesses
In Air Distribution, Amadeus processed 91.7 million bookings, reaching 56.4% of Q1 2019 levels, up 5.6 p.p. from prior quarter. In Air IT Solutions, passengers boarded amounted to 264.0 million, equivalent to 60.5% of Q1 2019 levels and improving 3.1 p.p. over prior quarter.
Business evolution in the quarter Air Distribution During the first quarter of 2022, our Air Distribution revenue maintained its positive progress and reached 446.0 million euros, which represents growth of 5.8 p.p from the fourth quarter of 2021 revenue performance versus 2019. The continued recovery of our bookings across regions, supported by market share gains, combined with an improving revenue per booking performance (as the weight of local bookings continues to decline towards its pre-pandemic level) were the main drivers of revenue in this segment.
Compared to the first quarter of 2019, we registered a 44.1% revenue contraction. This was largely driven by the reduction in air booking volumes compared to that period, and to a lesser extent, by a limited Air Distribution revenue per booking dilution due to a higher weight of local bookings and an increase in the cancellation provision. These effects were partly offset by several positive impacts, including the softer contraction in several revenue lines, such as revenues from IT solutions provided to travel sellers and corporations.
In terms of our air bookings evolution, in the first quarter of 2022, we maintained the quarter-on-quarter progress based on industry recovery and higher market share, as explained above, relative to 2019. All our regions reported performance improvements. North America continued to be the best performing region and is now only 2.9% below Q1 2019 levels. The region is also the largest in size for us now, with 36.0% of our total air bookings generated in North America, followed by Western Europe, which represented 27.6%.
Some of the key commercial announcements in this segment during the first quarter were:
The company expanded its partnership with Travel Advisors Guild (TAG) They also broadened their relationship with ATPIThey announced that Cytric Travel & Expense will be embedded in Microsoft 365 - introducing Cytric Easy
Air IT Solutions In the first quarter of 2022, Air IT Solutions revenue growth improved by 4.9 p.p. from the previous quarter. Compared to the first quarter of 2019, revenue in this segment contracted by 25.9%, impacted by the lower airline passengers boarded volumes because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which were partly offset by a 22.5% higher Air IT Solutions revenue per PB. This increase in the revenue per PB mainly resulted from several revenue lines not linked to PB evolution (such as services and Airport IT, among others) reporting healthier growth rates than airline passengers boarded.
Some key commercial deals in the quarter were:
ITA Airways signed for the full Altéa PSS suiteAkasa Air became a New Skies PSS userCompany acquired Kambr, a Navitaire partner, specialized in revenue management solutions for airlines
Airline IT In the first quarter of 2022, Amadeus passengers boarded improved by 3.1 p.p from the previous quarter. PB are 39.5% below first quarter of 2019 levels. In the first quarter of 2022, several regions reported large improvements in performance versus the prior quarter. Notably, North America has been the first region to report positive PB growth in a quarter when compared to 2019 since the pandemic started, supported by the PB contribution from airline migrations, most notably Air Canada, which migrated at the end of 2019. In the first quarter of 2022, Western Europe had the highest weight over our total PB, representing 30.3% of Amadeus’ passengers boarded.
At the close of March, 211 customers had contracted either of the Amadeus Passenger Service Systems (Altéa or New Skies) and 199 customers had implemented either of them.
Airport IT Some key customer wins in this business were:
Isavia will move to Amadeus FlowIn the U.S., Tulsa International Airport (Oklahoma) contracted ACUS. Also, Ontario International Airport (California) signed for Amadeus PROPworks for its property and revenue management system.
Hospitality & Other solutions In the first quarter of 2022, Hospitality & Other Solutions revenue contracted by 15.2% compared to the first quarter of 2019, an enhancement of 9.8 p.p. over the fourth quarter of 2021 revenue performance. Revenue in this segment, which includes Hospitality and Payments, continued to be impacted by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, although Hospitality performed better as it is supported by a greater weight of non-transaction-based revenues.
Hospitality’s positive revenue evolution was supported by steady progress across all business lines: 1) In Hospitality IT, revenue evolution was mostly driven by an increase in CRS revenues, compared to the previous quarter, and performance improvements in subscription-based revenues. 2) The progress in hotel and car bookings growth rates contributed to the performance of Media and Distribution revenue. 3) Finally, Business Intelligence revenue, which has a higher weight of non-transaction-based revenues, benefitted from customer implementations.
Hospitality Some of the key commercial deals in this business were:
Event Hospitality & Entertainment’s contracted Agency360Sweden’s JA Hotel Karlskrona contracted Amadeus Property Management Advanced
Corporate update: changes in the Board of Directors In April, we announced changes to the Board of Directors, which will be submitted for approval at the next General Shareholder Meeting.
The appointment of Mr. David Vegara Figueras as independent Director, for a period of three years. He will replace Mr. Josep Piqué Camps, whose term ends in June 2022 after three years of service. The ratification and appointment of Mrs. Eriikka Söderström as independent Director, appointed by co-optation in February 2022, for an additional period of three years. Finally, the Directors Dame Clara Furse and Mr. David Webster, whose term of office ends in June 2022, will not renew their position on the Board. A reduction of board seats from the current thirteen to eleven will be proposed.
Luis Maroto, President & CEO of Amadeus, commented, “This encouraging progress was possible thanks to recovering travel volumes, and the positive momentum across our businesses with consistent improvements in air bookings and passengers boarded, with North America leading both metrics. In Air Distribution, we continued to have market share gains4 during the quarter and in Air IT we started the year with a number of new PSS deals. Hospitality registered the strongest revenue growth rate compared to the previous quarter and is the segment closest to full recovery. We are hopeful this trend will continue throughout the year”.
