SSP, the owner of the Upper Crust food-to-go chain and Ritazza coffee shops, has revealed that it benefitted from the recent chaos at international airports, but its sales took a hit from the rail strikes in the UK last month.
In a third-quarter trading update, the company said it expected annual sales and profit to be at the upper end of its previous outlook, with sales in the region of £2.1bn and EBITDA margin of 6%
It credited a recovery in air and rail travel in all its markets since Covid restrictions were eased but said that revenues during the 13 weeks to 30 June remained at 87% of 2019 levels.
SSP noted that recent flight delays and cancellations in the aviation sector meant its airport outlets had benefitted from “longer passenger dwell times”.
Geographically, the group stated that it had seen a strong recovery across all divisions, led by continental Europe, where sales in the quarter averaged 93% of 2019 levels, and North America, averaging 91%.
In the UK, sales averaged 82% for the quarter, driven by a further strengthening of sales in Air. However, the group admitted that trading in rail was impacted by the recent industrial action.
Looking ahead, SSP said: “We are well positioned to benefit from the continued recovery of the travel sector, notwithstanding the current challenges of airport disruption, labour shortages and industrial action across certain air and rail markets.
“In common with the entire hospitality sector, we continue to face widespread and increasing inflationary pressures impacting our supply chain, labour and energy costs, and these are anticipated to persist well into next year.
“However, we are confident in our ability to manage these pressures through productivity and pricing initiatives and expect to mitigate the impact on profit, whilst sustaining the positive momentum in consumer demand.”
