FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - The recovery of the passenger business from the coronavirus pandemic continues to drag on at Frankfurt Airport. Although the operator Fraport earned more in day-to-day business in 2023 than ever before, and CEO Stefan Schulte is aiming for further increases in 2024 and beyond. However, passenger volumes at Germany's largest airport are likely to remain well below pre-crisis levels this year at 61 to 65 million passengers. And Fraport shareholders are to continue to forego a dividend. The news on Tuesday morning went down badly on the stock market.

In the morning, the Fraport share lost around five percent to 49.03 euros, making it the biggest loser in the MDax, the index of medium-sized stocks. Since the turn of the year, the share has lost more than ten percent.

Following the slump in business as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the Fraport Group's business grew strongly last year. In Frankfurt, passenger numbers rose by 21 percent to 59.4 million passengers. And at its airports in Greece and Turkey, the Group counted more passengers than ever before. In Frankfurt, however, the volume was still 16% below the record figure of 70.6 million passengers from 2019.

Nevertheless, Fraport earned more in its day-to-day business in 2023 than ever before. Revenue increased by around a quarter to four billion euros compared to the previous year. Operating profit (EBITDA) grew by 17 percent to a record 1.2 billion euros, as the Group announced in Frankfurt on Tuesday.

The bottom line for Fraport shareholders was a profit of 393 million euros, around three times as much as in the previous year. However, shareholders will once again have to forego a profit distribution: Due to the high level of debt from the coronavirus crisis and investments, the Group does not intend to pay a dividend for 2023 or 2024.

This will only change once the Group's net debt has shrunk to around five times the operating profit. Last year, they were still 6.4 times. The cancellation of the dividend will hit the state of Hesse and the city of Frankfurt particularly hard: together they hold a good half of Fraport shares.

The Fraport Executive Board now wants to push ahead with digitalization and automation and is also relying on artificial intelligence. The aim is to increase earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) to 2 billion euros by 2030. For the current year, Schulte is aiming for an increase to between 1.26 and 1.36 billion euros.

With its business figures for 2023, the airport operator performed roughly in line with analysts' average expectations. However, experts had expected more for 2024: On average, they assumed 64 million passengers in Frankfurt and an operating profit of 1.34 billion euros. This was almost at the upper end of Schulte's target.

The Fraport CEO attributes the sluggish recovery in Frankfurt to the high costs in Germany. State-regulated charges and fees have doubled since 2019. With the planned increase in air traffic tax and aviation security fees, the general conditions in Germany are deteriorating further, said the manager and called for "a political U-turn." /stw/nas/jha/