Intermoney | Aena released the traffic data for May on Wednesday, with the market open. Both the cumulative and the rolling month figures were up +11% year-on-year to almost 115m passengers so far in 2024, implying a +14% growth compared to pre-pandemic levels. All the relevant airports reported increases, although the difference between, on the one hand, Madrid Barajas and Barcelona El Prat, with increases in May of 7-9%, and, on the other, the main tourist airports, which confirmed growth clearly in double digits, especially Malaga (+27%) and Alicante (+24%).
Assessment: Traffics thus resume the path of passenger traffic growth in Spain above 10%, which Aena seemed to leave behind last month. Although it is to be expected that growth for 2023 will moderate due to a simple base effect, it seems that our forecast for the whole of this financial year 24e of 6.5% is conservative.
In addition to these good traffic figures, Aena should continue to benefit from some cost containment, which already allowed it to surprise positively in the Q1 EBITDA figures, in which the operator increased this variable by +57% to €581 million, in stark contrast to the €393 million in Q1 2019. Although the Aeronautics area continues to report figures somewhat below pre-pandemic levels, the strength of commercial activity, as well as the consolidation of assets outside Spain, especially Brazil, mean that the contribution of these two businesses is almost double and triple that of 2019, respectively.
