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TAV Airports Holding Executive Board Member & CEO Sani Sener stated “The commercial passenger traffic of Istanbul Ataturk Airport was transferred to the New Istanbul Airport on April 6th 2019. As TAV Airports, we had three main objectives during the transfer. Our first objective was to continue running Ataturk Airport smoothly until the last day of operation which we achieved.
Our second objective was to transfer part of our operations to the new Istanbul Airport. We will continue to provide services in the new airport with 12 thousand employees. Our largest operation in the new airport will be our ground handling partnership with Turkish Airlines as the exclusive ground handler of Turkish Airlines for 15 more years. Havas will also continue to provide ground handling services to its clients in the new airport. ATU will be operating luxury stores and BTA will be operating a 4000 m2 catering area.
Our third objective was to minimize the impact of the transfer on our employees. We have coordinated with the Human Resources of the New Istanbul Airport during this transition and have managed to offer 85 percent of our employees a position in IGA or another group company. We paid all the termination benefits due to our employees which totaled a significant amount even for a company of our size.
After the departure of Istanbul from our portfolio, the second most immediate change will be in our headquarters. We will move to our new headquarters building in Vadistanbul after the furnishing of the building is complete. Our discussions with the State Airports Authority (DHMI) advised by KPMG on our side and PWC on the side of DHMI, on the compensation from early closure of Istanbul are ongoing as we speak. We hope to finalize these discussions soon.
In the first quarter of 2019 our international passengers increased 10% compared to last year boosted by addition of Antalya. In the first quarter of 2019, our revenue increased 9% and reached €270m, Our EBITDA increased 2% and reached € 98m and our net income increased 233% and reached €24m.
Our post-Istanbul portfolio consists of 14 airports that we operate in 7 countries with an EBITDA between € 330 to 350 mn and around 90 to 95 million passengers served. Our post-Istanbul services network comprises 75 airports in 21 countries. With the inclusion of Antalya in our portfolio in 2018 we already recovered 25% of the EBITDA loss from Istanbul. In addition to organic growth of our existing portfolio, going forward, we will also be looking to grow our services offering that comprises 37% of our revenue and we will be looking for profitable inorganic growth opportunities. At the moment we are evaluating close to ten different projects in CIS countries, Africa and Eastern Europe. As always, our main criteria in inorganic growth will be value creation.
I would like to use this opportunity to thank all our employees one more time, who through their selfless efforts grew Istanbul Ataturk Airport five times, turned it into the 10th best airport in the world and the 5th largest airport in Europe. With the dedication and social capital of our employees and the trust of our shareholders and business partners we built a global brand. I am certain that we will take this global brand much further in the next twenty years. “
