Intermoney | Aena (Hold, PO€170) announced yesterday, after the market close, an upgrade of its guidance traffic growth in Spain for 2024, which it now forecasts to be +8.3% compared to 2023, compared to its previous estimate of between +3.8 and +7.1%, published last March. This guidance would imply traffic for this year of around 307 million passengers, or +11% over the pre-pandemic 2019 figure.
Assessment: The increase in traffic guidance comes as no surprise, although we were already expecting it to coincide with the publication of H1 results. Data since the beginning of the year have been showing year-on-year growth of more than +10%, specifically +11.5% cumulative to May. The comparison in the summer months is expected to be somewhat more demanding, so we consider the guidance of a +8.3% rise to be very reasonable.
Aena will announce its H1 figures on 31 July, when we will see if the excellent figures published in Q1 (+48% vs. Q1 2019) are confirmed, helped by both contained costs and the strength of the commercial business, mainly. Our current forecast of +8% in consolidated EBITDA in 2024e (€3,264 million) has a clear upside bias.
