France's ADP hikes annual guidance as it returns to profit

French airport operator ADP on Thursday raised its financial guidance as it returned to profit for the first time since 2019, boosted by a recovery in traffic in the first half of the year, in particular at Paris Aeroport. ADP, operator of the French capital’s Orly and Roissy Charles de Gaulle (CDG) airports, now expects an EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) margin of between 32% and 37% of revenue in 2022 and 2023, against its previous forecast of between 30% and 35%. Last week, ADP raised its traffic outlook for the year, saying it expected total traffic of 74%-84% of 2019 levels across its whole network of operated airports, and 72%-82% of 2019 levels for Paris Aeroport. ADP, which around the start of July was hit by strikes at its CDG airport, said it estimates a “tiny” material impact of two salary increase agreements for its employees at E13m in the second half of the year. “We should have increased salaries without any strikes so it doesn’t have a lot of incidence,” CE Augustin de Romanet said in a call. Several European airlines and airports have experienced strikes in recent weeks as workers push for higher wages and better working conditions. In Paris alone, traffic in the first half of the year was up by 249.2% year-on-year to 37.5m passengers, at 71.6% of its 2019 level. A total of 118.2m passengers passed through all of ADP-operated airports from January to June, a 134.4% rise year-on-year, or 71.9% of pre-pandemic levels. That lifted ADP’s net result to E160m in the six months to June, more than double the 78 million euros expected by the analysts in a company-complied consensus. <br/>