Second-quarter air bookings through Amadeus' global distribution system increased 3 percent year over year to 117.2 million, the company announced on Wednesday.
That volume growth helped push Amadeus' air distribution revenue up 8.8 percent year over year to €741.6 million during the quarter. Revenue per booking increased 5.6 percent to €5.99, boosted both by higher pricing via inflation and new distribution agreements as well as "positive booking mix effects," according to Amadeus.
During the second quarter, Amadeus reported 16 new contracts or renewals of air distribution agreements. Amadeus also noted that it added New Distribution Content from three carriers to its platform during the quarter: Tunisair, Eva Air and Vueling, bringing its total to 27 airlines.
The booking growth rate for the quarter was about the same as the growth rate for the full first half of the year, up 2.9 percent year over year, and Amadeus said it represents a "normalization" in booking growth compared with the recovery growth in the post-Covid-19 years.
On a regional basis, Asia-Pacific has been the "best performing" region for Amadeus in air bookings, with bookings up 25.1 percent year over year in the first half of the year. Europe was the only other region with positive booking growth, with bookings up 1.7 percent year over year in Western Europe and up 17 percent year over year in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe over the past six months.
Air bookings through Amadeus in North America were down 7.3 percent year over year in the first half of the year, which Amadeus attributed to "volumes channeled through direct connections between one very large online travel agency and a few larger carriers" in the region, as it has in previous quarters. Amadeus said the decline's effect on revenues has been "marginal," as it relates to "low-fee local bookings." Even so, it was enough to push North America down to the second-largest region in terms of booking share, representing 25.8 percent compared with Western Europe's 28.1 percent. In the first half of 2023, North America's share was slightly larger than Western Europe.
Latin America had the largest drop in bookings for Amadeus in the first half of the year, down 12.1 percent year over year. Bookings in the Middle East and Africa were down 1.3 percent year over year during the six-month period.
Amadeus reported double-digit percentage revenue growth across its other segments as well during the second quarter, contributing to overall revenue growth of 12.7 percent year over year to €1.6 billion. Air IT solutions revenue was up 18.1 percent year over year during the quarter, and hospitality and other solutions revenue increased 13.1 percent year over year.
The company reported a profit of €336.1 million for the second quarter, compared with €278.3 million in the second quarter of 2023.
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