Istanbul Ataturk Airport (IST) enjoyed a +10% rise in international passengers in the first quarter but this did not translate into higher spending per passenger: at the gateway’s duty free and travel retail operator, ATU, duty free spend per pax fell to €15.80 in the quarter (from €16.50 in Q1 2015).

According to IST operator, TAV Airports, the -4.2% fall affected both the business performance and margin of ATU Duty Free [which is 50% owned by TAV Airports and 50% by Unifree in which Gebr. Heinemann has a major interest].

Across all its operations, ATU saw stable revenue at €144.2m/$162.4m in Q1 (up slightly on €143.2m/ $161.3m in Q1 2015) but margin slipped to 2% (from 7%) and Ebitda fell sharply to €3m (from €9.4m in Q1 2015).

Spend per head at ATU stores at IST and across its business.

The company noted a “dilutive impact of transfer pax in Istanbul” which resulted in zero growth of commission from duty free. IST accounted for 71.3% of all TAV’s 98.8m international traffic in the first quarter.

Commenting on the overall business, TAV Airports CEO, Sani Sener, said: “This year, we had a very challenging start, mainly due to security concerns driven by increased geopolitical risks.”