Airline bookings through Amadeus dipped slightly year on year in the third quarter but at a much lower rate of decline compared with the previous quarter, as the tech company reported a drop in the number of cancellations.
Amadeus’ total air bookings declined 0.8 per cent year on year in Q3 to 121.2 million, which compared with a year-on-year drop of 7.6 per cent in the second quarter. Key rival Sabre also last week reported a slight year-on-year decline in air bookings in Q3, with executives noting that corporate travel demand was “resilient” during the quarter.
During an earnings call on Friday (6 November), Amadeus CFO Carol Borg said the industry has seen a deceleration in new bookings, reduced air traffic and increased cancellations globally since March due to the Iran war, with bookings through the nine months of the year down by 2.8 per cent year on year.
“In the third quarter, as we predicted, we saw a notable improvement in our booking performance relative to the prior quarter, supported by a gradual normalisation in the level of booking cancellations,” added Borg. “Revenue returned to growth, driven by healthy revenue per booking growth.”
Amadeus' air distribution revenue increased 4.9 per cent year on year to €806.8 million in Q3, which Borg said was driven by increased revenue per booking “primarily resulting from positive pricing effects from renewals, new agreements and inflation”.
For the first nine months of the year, air distribution revenue reached €2.4 billion, up by 0.6 per cent year on year.
On a regional basis for Q3 air bookings, Amadeus noted that each region had improved compared with the second quarter, although bookings were still down year on year in most regions.
Europe was an exception as it returned to growth in the quarter: bookings in Western Europe went up 1.4 per cent year on year and bookings in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe rose by 1.3 per cent compared with Q3 of 2025.
Unsurprisingly, the biggest percentage fall was in the Middle East and Africa, down 3.4 per cent year on year, while Latin America bookings were down by the same rate. Bookings in the Asia/Pacific region declined by 1.7 per cent year on year in Q3, and North America bookings dropped by 0.8 per cent.
Borg said Amadeus currently has about 80 New Distribution Capability (NDC) contracts, with around half of them currently live. She said the share of NDC bookings among bookable inventory "is still in the low teens, but it's progressing and growing very actively month on month and quarter on quarter".
Madrid-based Amadeus' total group revenue increased by 6.4 per cent year on year to €1.7 billion in the third quarter. Air IT solutions revenue rose by 6.5 per cent year on year to €645.2 million in Q3, which the company said was more moderate compared with the previous quarter due to the timing of implementations for airport IT, including some work had been delayed due to the Middle East situation.
The highest quarterly growth was in hospitality and other solutions revenue, up by 10.8 per cent year on year to €288.7 million. Amadeus reported strong growth in both hospitality and payments in the quarter, with hospitality propelled by double-digit percentage growth of customer implementations of its central reservation system and hotel distribution.
Amadeus reported a profit of €381.4 million in the third quarter, up by 5.7 per cent year on year.