2023-07-28 14:31:20
The RATP is struggling to get its head above water. With a loss of 129 million euros in the first half, according to the results published on Friday, the group suffered from the inflation of its charges and sees a new year in the red looming after 2022. The losses of the Régie in January to June almost reached those recorded for the whole of 2020 (134 million euros), yet still marked by the Covid-19 pandemic. Admittedly, the return of passengers has been confirmed with an increase in attendance of 6% in the first half compared to the same half of 2022. This is especially true for the rail mode (metro, RER, tram), with between 9 and 10% additional attendance, while the bus declines (-3%) due to operational problems.
In June, attendance was down only 6% compared to 2019 and before the pandemic. A decline of 15% over the entire semester. But on the financial side, the increase in energy prices, the wage increases granted by the group led by Jean Castex to respond to the purchasing power crisis and the penalties paid for an insufficient bus service (27 million euros). euros), severely affect the company’s accounts, even if the turnover increased slightly to 3.2 billion euros (+2.4%). These half-year results “testify to the major economic challenge we are facing today, due to the inadequacy of the contractual mechanisms to cover the very significant effects of inflation on our operating expenses”, underlined the CEO, quoted in a group statement.
Explosion des charges
The RATP indeed blames a contract concluded in 2020 with its client Ile-de-France Mobilités (IDFM), organizing authority for public transport in the Ile-de-France region, before the inflationary wave. This contract, which covers the period 2021-2024, includes clauses giving the right to compensation in the event of an increase in the operator’s charges. Regarding “the increase in salary costs”, these compensations are capped at 1.5%, but the RATP’s payroll increased by 5.2% in the first half of 2023 under the impetus of Jean Castex, one of whose missions was to appease the social climate in the company.
Ditto for energy costs. If the surge in fuel prices is reflected in the contract signed with IDFM, this is not the case for electricity, the main resource used by the RATP. The impact of these cost increases reached 203 million euros in the first half, already more than for the whole of 2022 (200 million). The compensation paid by IDFM only partially covers the explosion of these charges and the net impact for RATP is 127 million euros. The strikes against pension reform, little followed within the Régie, still cost around 10 million euros. As for the cost of the riots at the start of the summer, the bill reached 6 or even 7 million euros, because of the destruction of around twenty buses and a tram. The group’s debt is increased by 538 million euros, to 6.1 billion (+10%).
Good health of subsidiaries
The only reason for satisfaction was the correct performance of the RATP Dev and Cap Ile-de-France subsidiaries, whose turnover rose by 7.2% to 823 million euros (more than a quarter of the group’s total). . RATP Dev, which brings together transport operations outside the Ile-de-France region, has started operating the Laval and Toulon networks, but also Raleigh and Durham in the United States and the automatic Sydney metro line in Australia.
The operation of buses in London is however loss-making and penalizes the group’s overall result. Despite this, the RATP maintained its investments over the first six months of the year: 883 billion euros were injected into the scope of the public establishment of an industrial and commercial nature (Epic) which operates traditional transport activities in Ile-de-France, including 149 million for the extension of metro line 14 to Orly.
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