Amadeus Achieves Profitable Double-Digit Growth in Third Quarter
INDIA, 07th November 2024: In the first nine months of 2024, Amadeus delivered double-digit growth with enhanced profitability, delivering expanding EBITDA and Operating Income margins. Our Group Revenue increased by 12.6%, EBITDA grew 13.3%1, Operating Income increased by 16.9%1, and Adjusted Profit expanded by 17.4%1, relative to prior year. This solid financial performance over the first nine months of 2024 supported Free Cash Flow generation of €975.2 million, resulting in Net Financial Debt5 of €2,511.0 million at September 30, 2024, representing 1.09 times the last-twelve-month EBITDA.
Luis Maroto, President & CEO of Amadeus, commented “We have delivered a high-growth, profitable and cash-generative evolution in the first nine months of 2024, supported by strong performances across our businesses. Based on our solid financial situation to date and our prospects for the fourth quarter, we reiterate our confidence on the outlook we issued at the beginning of the year.
We are confident about the growth opportunities ahead for Amadeus and we are committed to achieving them. Amadeus is accelerating investment and aims to become the undisputed aggregator of NDC volumes for airlines and travel agencies, to lead the airline IT retailing transformation, and to be the IT provider of reference to the hospitality industry.”
1 Excluding the following effects: (i) in the first nine months of 2024, M&As acquisition related costs, amounting to €4.8 million (€3.8 million after tax), and (ii) in the first nine months of 2023, updates in tax risk assessments, fundamentally due to the positive resolution of proceedings, which resulted in an increase in Adjusted Profit of €22.6 million, with no impact on EBITDA.
2 Excluding after-tax impact of the following items: (i) accounting effects derived from PPA exercises and impairment losses, (ii) non-operating exchange gains (losses), and (iii) other non-operating income (expense).
3 Defined as EBITDA, minus capital expenditure, plus changes in our working capital, minus taxes paid, minus interests and financial fees paid.
4 Growth excluding collections from the positive resolution of tax-related proceedings of €42.8 million in 2023 and €9.2 million in 2024.
5 Based on our credit facility agreements’ definition.
Business evolution
Over the first nine months of 2024, Air Distribution revenue increased by 10.0% relative to the previous year, supported by steady booking growth of 3.4% and unitary booking revenue expansion of 6.4%.
We continued to progress well on our NDC strategy. Delta Air Lines and Virgin Australia signed NDC distribution agreements with Amadeus to distribute their NDC content through the Amadeus Travel Platform. Notably, India’s leading airline, IndiGo, entered into a strategic NDC partnership with Amadeus to provide travel sellers in India and around the world with access to IndiGo’s NDC content via the Amadeus Travel Platform.
In Air IT Solutions, revenue grew by 16.2%, supported by our passengers boarded evolution, which increased by 12.0% in the nine-month period. This increase was driven by global air traffic growth and the positive impact from Amadeus’ 2023 – 2024 customer implementations.
During the third quarter, we officially introduced Navitaire Stratos, a modern retailing portfolio for low-cost and hybrid carriers. This portfolio enhances traveler-focused services, reduces costs, and supports flexible partnership integrations, while meeting industry Offer and Order standards.
Also in this quarter, Qatar Airways expanded its partnership with Amadeus by signing for Amadeus Ancillary Dynamic Pricing, part of our Offer Management portfolio.
Regarding Airport IT, we continued to expand our customer base and sold solutions from our Airport IT portfolio to several airport customers such as Groupe ADP.
Over the first nine months of 2024, Hospitality & Other Solutions revenue increased by 12.9%. Both Hospitality and Payments delivered double-digit growth rates over the period, supported by new customer implementations and volume expansion. In Hospitality IT, CDS Groupe has renewed and expanded its agreement with Amadeus Hospitality Media and Distribution. In Payments, Outpayce will tokenize customer card details for a leading European low-cost airline.
For more information about our operating and financial performance during the first nine months of 2024, please visit our Investor Relations website.
Corporate news
Amadeus recently received the validation of its targets to decrease GHG emissions by Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). SBTi validation provides external assurance, from a trusted organization, on our targets’ alignment with the ambition to build a “net-zero” travel industry by 2050.