France's ADP reports Q1 revenue jump as air traffic recovers

(Reuters) - French airport group ADP on Wednesday reported a 78.9% rise in first-quarter revenue as the travel industry recovers from the coronavirus crisis.

Revenue rose to 848 million euros ($903 million) from 474 million a year earlier.

The company, hit by a fall in travel demand during COVID restrictions, expects traffic to improve and reach pre-pandemic levels between 2023 and 2024.

"During the first quarter of 2022, the recovery in air traffic was confirmed in all our airports and it even accelerated in March," chief executive Augustin de Romanet said in an earnings statement.

The operator of the French capital's Orly and Roissy Charles de Gaulle airports saw a 211.8% increase in passenger traffic for its Paris airports over the quarter. For the whole group, traffic was up 79.7% for the period compared with a year ago, representing 62.6% of 2019 levels.

The group also said it did not anticipate that the consequences of the conflict in Ukraine would challenge its financial forecasts and traffic hypotheses, despite the impact on air traffic and airports across Europe.

ADP, which also has stakes in international airports in India, Turkey and Chile among other countries, said in February it expects its traffic to reach 70%-80% of pre-crisis levels in 2022.

($1 = 0.9390 euros)

(Reporting by Valentine Baldassari and Elena Vardon; editing by Jason Neely and Andrew Heavens)