Amadeus sticks to full-year guidance, flags Middle East hit (updated)

Amadeus It SA

08/05/2026 07:07

Adds analyst quote in paragraph 5, share move in paragraph 6

By Javi West Larrañaga

May 8 (Reuters) - Spanish travel technology company Amadeus AMA.MC on Friday reported first-quarter core earnings above market expectations and stuck to its guidance despite flagging a hit to air bookings due to the Iran war.

The company's first-quarter adjusted core profit came in at 661.4 million euros ($776.2 million), beating analysts' average estimate of 622.2 million euros, according to LSEG data.

Amadeus, which operates the world's largest travel booking system, said it saw solid growth and profitability in the quarter, as it confirmed its full-year guidance, which assumes recovery in the second half of 2026 and global air traffic growth of 3% for the year.

Although bookings accelerated in the first two months of the year, the quarterly number ended up falling 0.2% from last year as the war in the Middle East reduced air traffic in the region and caused a slowdown in new bookings and a spike in cancellations, Amadeus said.

"With travel trends expected to progressively improve from here, the results should be taken as a step in the right direction," Jefferies said in a note to investors.

Amadeus' shares climbed about 5% shortly after market open and were at the top of Europe's benchmark index STOXX 600 .STOXX.

Amadeus has shown resilience in the face of uncertain travel demand and lingering AI-related fears affecting technology companies, as investors scramble to decide which companies will be able to withstand or ride the wave of the disruptive technology.

Those fears might be overblown, analysts at Bernstein said in a note in April, arguing that change in the risk-averse industry would happen at the pace of legacy airlines, not of artificial intelligence, and that all-important corporate travel would continue to go through large travel booking systems like Amadeus.

($1 = 0.8522 euros)

(Reporting by Javi West Larrañaga; editing by Matt Scuffham and Milla Nissi-Prussak)

((Javier.West@thomsonreuters.com; +34 918 35 61 12;))