Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Mina, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Aegean Airlines conference call to present and discuss the full year 2023 financial results. All participants will be in a listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on your telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Eftichios Vassilakis, Chairman. Mr. Vassilakis, you may now proceed.
Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to our annual results review for 2023. Just to note before we start, that our CFO, Mr. Kouveliotis, our Treasurer, Mrs. Dimaraki, and our Investor Relations Manager, Mrs. Katelani, are all here with me to answer questions should you need to have more questions. Let me get on with my initial comments.
I think we now know that Aegean has had a truly excellent year in terms of all aspects of both growth in passenger count, in revenues, in terms of expanding in new destinations, in terms of developing its investment toward the MRO and the training facility, and of course, very materially in terms of profitability in all aspects, and even perhaps more important than profitability, cash flows as well, to such a degree that not only the investments have been financed in an adequate way and an efficient way, but also we have lower loans by the end of the year relative to the beginning. And also we have proceeded with the decision and then the repayment of the warrants of the Greek state.
Therefore, all in all, a very, a very successful year. Again, I will give you some highlights, and then we'll stop for questions. So, during 2023, our overall revenues increased by 27%. Our passenger counts increased by 26%. This is significant because the whole market in Greece was up by 14%. So in 2023, we had a significant outperformance of the development of the Greek market, both on the domestic side, where we grew 22%, and on the international side, where we grew, where we grew 29% in terms of passenger count, passenger count, as, as I said, with an average development of traffic to Greece by all carriers of 14%. So definitely recovery in terms of growth and, and market share across the board.
Following another very strong year, of course, for us and the Greek market, which was 2022. And to be more specific, we offered 3 million more seats overall, reaching 18.9 million seats over the year. We got 3.2 million passengers more, so a substantial increase of load factor as well by two or three points. And of the 18.9 million seats that we actually offered to the market, around 350,000 were by our subsidiary, Anima, part subsidiary, 51% of Anima in Romania, which we divested end of the year. So from now on, we'll consider our starting point to be around about 18.5, 18.6 million seats for Aegean Proper and Olympic in 2023.
So we did add almost 30 destinations last year. Many of those were on regular networks, some in the charter network, reaching 180 destinations in total and 49 countries. Certainly the largest network we've operated. But more than anything else, the success of the year, of course, was reflected in revenues and profitability. We reached essentially EUR 1.7 billion of revenue. As I said earlier on, 27% higher than the year before. EUR 400 million of EBITDA, reaching a margin of 24% for the first time for Aegean, which is a very high margin for the industry, I believe, with a 46% improvement from the year before in terms of total EBITDA to EUR 400 million, as I mentioned.
246 million of EBIT, with a 68% improvement relative to the year before. Again, operating margin, EBIT being among the top ones in the industry. A pre-tax result of EUR 215 million, up 52% from the year before, and an after-tax result of EUR 168 million, up 58% from the year before. So all these extremely strong numbers, and if I might add, it is significant to say that, if we look at the development of the company between 2019 and 2023, we see certain elements which are actually worth to mention. One, that it is one of the few, if not the only, listed non-low cost carrier, which is actually operating at 110% of ASKs of 2019.
So we've grown from what I've seen, we're the only listed non-low cost carrier that is actually higher in 2009, sorry, 2023 in activity materially higher than in 2019. But also what's important to note is that our improvement in terms of revenue and profitability has come with a RASK increasing from 2019 of a total of 18%. So our revenue per available seat kilometer is up relative to 2019 by 18%. It's actually very close to the RASK number we had also in 2022. But what's actually led or allowed us to improve our margins is the fact that we only increased our cost per ASK, including fuel costs for all these five years between 2019 sorry, four years between 2019 and 2023 by 12%.
So basically, what has driven the improvement in margin has been a moderate increase of revenue per ASK at 18% relative to what we've seen other carriers report. There's been stronger unitary revenue increases, which are yield driven by other carriers, but also they've had higher cost per ASK increases relative to 2019 in these four years. And therefore, we see in Aegean that comes with a substantially improved margin, improving its balance, its positioning relative to other carriers in terms of margin, and that improvement of margin to come out of a moderate revenue per ASK increase with a contained cost per ASK increase, which in our view is better news because it's more defendable. And also, of course, it's important that we remain attractive to the customer in a market that is very much leisure driven.
Industry leading, I think, at least for non-local carriers, EBITDA, EBIT and earnings after tax margins balanced in their origin relative to a few years back, from revenue unit improvement, but also cost containment. We feel very good about achieving these levels. In terms of some other elements that are worth noticing, cash flows, as we have noted also in the press release, after operating leases, operating cash flows stood at EUR 335 million for the entire year. This has meant that we've been able to finance, of course, without any issues and quite competitively, all the aircraft we've accepted. We've actually increased during the year by circa EUR 100 million our unencumbered assets, either in aircraft or engines.
We've decreased, I'm sorry, by around EUR 70 million outstanding loans during the year. And having said that, we've reached at the end of the year a cash balance of EUR 709 million, up from EUR 530 million the year before, so plus EUR 180 million. So if we want to adjust for the warrant payment that was made actually two days after the beginning of next, of this current year, still a net of plus EUR 100 million of available cash post the payment of the warrant, while we increased unencumbered assets by EUR 100 million and repaid loans of EUR 60 million, which I think altogether shows the health of the company.
Also, during this year, we have proceeded with the development of our, and the construction or reconstruction and development of our MRO and, simulator training facility. The simulator training facility is actually operational already as of December 2023, and it's great, to see the efficiency of our crews now being, trained or retrained on the sims right next to us, as opposed to having to travel distances to other countries with their trainers and, reducing their productivity. And at the same time, we've opened the doors to third parties in our JV with CAE, for the training. So, that part is doing well, and it's already operating. The MRO facility is very near to being completed. The relocation from the current smaller facility, to the larger one, will take place in around a month, a month and a half.
So we expect that facility to be operational as well, in a very short period of time. So all in all, as we also note in the press release, a very successful year in terms of increasing our market share, in terms of improving our profitability and doing it in a relatively sustainable manner, coming both from revenues and cost containment, and at the same time, investing in the development capacity of our, let's say, underlying skills, whether it is on the MRO side or in the training side. So, a successful year and one which we create a much stronger starting base for 2024. A few other things I would like to highlight. Of course, this is going to be the first year after four years where AGM will be paying a dividend.
And we are doing that at EUR 0.75. The suggestion, the proposal to the AGM that will take place at the end of April will be for the dividend to be EUR 0.75 per share. This represents roughly a 40% payout ratio out of our net income for the year, and therefore, we consider that it is a sustainable level going forward, where we would like to remain or even increase in the years to come.
And of course, the dividend reconstitution comes after the completion of the cycle caused by the pandemic of the loans that we have to secure, the aid we received, the warrants that had to be there, and the repayment of all these aspects, be it the loans or the warrants. And therefore, we now go into our regular, I would say, I would hope, operating period, where the company, again, like it had before or up to 2019, is going to be paying a significant dividend on a year-by-year basis to shareholders.
Having said that, it's important for us to highlight that it's not only the shareholders that will be benefiting by this year's performance, and hopefully the continued performance of the company in the same direction, but also our employees have benefited from the profitability of the company. The staff, to a great extent, contributed to the resilience of the company during the COVID period. Of course, because there were many of them in reduced work schemes, they had contributed part of their income or lost part of their income during that period.
Now we're happy to report that in the results that you are reviewing, for the whole year of 2023, there is an overall amount of circa EUR 24 million that refers either to extra bonus or profitability-related payments made to our employees, or a six and a half million provision that's been taken versus against a long-term incentive plan, 2022-2024, that we now know will mature positively to the benefit of the employees concerned. So what's important to note is that from a number which was circa EUR 6 million in 2019, became EUR 12 million in 2022.
This year, the payout was actually EUR 18 million, and there was a provision for an additional EUR 6.5 million to employees in various profitability and bonus sharing and profit sharing plans, which will mature at the end of 2024. So, to describe what happens there, we have round about now 600 people in the company that actually participate in the end-of-year bonus plans in different levels and different ways. But also during 2023, and in fact, also during 2022, another 2,000 employees that have been in the company for more than two years and did not participate already in the bonus plans or the profitability plans, received an extra salary this year as a bonus for the extremely good performance of the company.
So in a nutshell, what we'd like to communicate very clearly is that we believe that the whole ecosystem or the constituents that relate to the company, be it shareholders, be it personnel, are now back in a very specific and very positive, I'm sorry, growth path in terms of their income. And that's, of course, positive, especially when it is achieved within a cost-contained, I would say, efficiency-driven operation, which brings the increase of margins with a balanced performance between revenue per ASK development and cost per ASK development, as I explained earlier. I feel I should mention a couple of things with regards to the GTF engine issue, because it takes us from the performance, the excellent performance and growth of 2023 to what's gonna happen in 2024.
We've explained to you in our last call, I believe, quite specifically, the nature of the issue. It's now very well publicized over the last six to seven months from all airlines. Pratt & Whitney has identified certain sensitivities in the components, some components of the engines of the Neos. They have, both they and the regulator have recommended or required that the engines come for inspection early or go for inspection early. This results in a higher number of engines than what is available for spare, for GT, from the manufacturer or from the company stock our own, to support the aircraft while the engines are in inspection.
As a result, will cause a high number of AOGs for an extended period of time, that we'll think will last for sure during 2024 and 2025, possibly going into 2026. This has been presented in our previous, in our two previous, I believe, calls. There's no particularly big news there, since that time, except to say that the company has now reached an agreement with Pratt & Whitney in terms of how it will be compensated for the issue. It is, of course, substantial compensation. Nobody discloses exact terms. However, what we should say is that we believe it covers a substantial part of the cost of the issue, not the full cost.
And the full cost of the issue refers, of course, not only to inefficiencies from the point of view of fuel burn or seat loss or maintenance costs, because we will be flying, we'll be extending some of our older aircraft to replace aircraft Neos that will not be flying. But also, of course, to the reduced ability to grow the company forward because of the number of aircraft that will be unavailable for a significant period of time. We can go into that into Q&A, if you like. Just to say that, of course, this is an important part of the equation of what's going on for 2024 in terms of growth. Because of that issue, we have taken several decisions. One, of course, to extend some of the expiring leases.
Another is to divest Anima in Romania, so we can repatriate two of our own aircraft back into our proper operation. A third decision is to further cut back on charter operations that are non-core to our company. A fourth decision has come with to employ one or two ACMI aircraft and third operators to support the remaining charter operations, so that our proper fleet can serve our main bases and our network operations. And through all that, we have managed to produce a capacity, to have a capacity, an effective capacity for 2024, which will allow the company again to add about 1.1 million of scheduled seats, between around 800,000 in international and 400,000 in domestic.
However, the charter operation, as I said, will be cut by around 250,000 seats and with another 300,000 seats missing from the Anima operation in Romania, the overall growth will be smaller. But what's important is that the scheduled operation, which represents the core of Aegean, will continue to grow at its regular, almost regular rate, slower than 22. But definitely, we think, well enough to keep abreast of the market developments here in Greece. So what you will see in what you should expect from us is, as I said again, round about 1.1 million scheduled seats more in 2024. These seats will be coming out, will be added mostly in Athens and Thessaloniki.
But in terms of growth, the international seats out of Athens and Thessaloniki will be circa +10%. On the domestic seats, circa +5%, for an overall ASK, scheduled ASK expectation of around 7% growth for the whole year, which will come more in the early and late stages in the year and less at peak for a variety of reasons, referring to the seasonality of different operations, but also due to various congestion issues and operational issues that we faced last year that we are trying to making a lot of effort to improve upon.
I think I should repeat here that something we've said in the past, that one of the challenges in the post-COVID environment, despite the fact that the demand has recovered, is that many issues, be it in supply, be it in the operation of airports, be it the operation of air traffic control, both in Europe and in Greece, for many reasons, including the closure of the Russian and Ukrainian airspace, have become more problematic and therefore having more, what's the right word? More spare capacity, more, slack. What is it?
The additional, more excess, a little bit of excess here and there to be able to cover for shortfalls or delays, is very important to the balance of operation and the image of the company to the customers, which is very, very important to us, as we are definitely a company that tries to be at least as close to the customer as possible, and we try to be with small differences in relatively short distances, but also our consistency, we hope in our service, a customer choice, and to be able to command through that a marginal increase in revenue, at the same time as we labor to contain our costs.
That's what I wanted to say, as a start, and happy to accept, for me and my colleagues, to accept your questions, on last year or what we're giving you as an outlook for 2024. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star, followed by one on their telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, then you may press star and two. Please use your handset when asking your question for better quality. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question comes from the line of Achal Kumar with HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking my question. First of all, of course, just a quick clarification. So you mentioned you'll be adding 1.1 million seats, and that comes out to be about 20 million seats, 20.03 million seats, if I may say. But then in the statement you mentioned that you'll be offering 19.5 million seats. So which is the correct number? Is it 19.5 or is it 20.03?
They're all correct, but it depends what they're referring to. In 2023, we offered 18.9 million seats. Those seats include 350,000 seats in our subsidiary, Anima, the Romanian company, which we divested the last few days of. Was it the beginning of this year or the end of last year?
February.
Anyhow, February this year. So net of that, that's 18.5 million seats. What I said then following that, is we will be adding 1.1 million scheduled seats, and we will be dropping 250,000 charter seats. So plus 1.1, minus 250 on top of 18.6, will take you where the estimate for 2024 is, give or take 50 or 60 thousand, which is always, which is always variable. So-
Fair enough. Yeah.
Okay. It's basically, we are bringing in aircraft that was not in Athens or Thessaloniki, that we're not operating on our scheduled network to protect our scheduled network. So we are trying to deal with the shortfall of aircraft by shifting from areas that are non-core for us, and in fact, not part of our scheduled activity, and also less profitable, or not profitable at all relative to our scheduled activity and trying to emphasize the core.
Perfect. Thanks. Now, the real question is, if you could please discuss a competitive environment in Athens and in other bases, maybe mainly Thessaloniki, you know, how the competitive environment looks like. You're adding a lot of capacity in Athens. I mean, you're adding 7% seats in Athens. So, if you could please suggest about the industry capacity and you know, how the competitive environment looks like in terms of, you know, whether LCCs are coming, whether FSCs are coming, you know, and along with that, if you could also talk a bit about how the yield environment looks like, please.
Right. So, the overall environment in Greece. If we look at 2023 versus 2022 and then 2024 versus 2023, you have basically a gradual slowdown of the overall growth of seats offered to the country. Specifically, if we look at what's out there now for the summer period of this year, for the overall international capacity to Greece, we see on Q2 something like 10% more published seats relative to 2023, and we see 5% more seats in Q3 relative to 2023. So, the overall capacity of international players towards Greece and also the Greek carriers, of course, that fly internationally, that's what characterizes the overall capacity offer that we see now being that has been published.
This winter that we went through, if we consider, for instance, Q4 of the year and Q1 that we're currently going through, the delta relative to the year before was around 23% for Q4 last year, and actually 16% for the Q1 that we are now going through. So, what I'm trying to say is we're coming out of a significantly higher investment into Greece to slightly a mitigation of the overall investment in the country. Not a retraction, but a lower rate of growth, pace of growth to the capacity being added. Now, if we look at Athens and Thessaloniki in particular, it's fair to say that they have been the focus of additional capacity during both 2023 and 2024, relative to the other destinations.
And that the growth pace that we expect to see in Athens and Thessaloniki is higher than the average for the whole country, but again, lower than the numbers we saw in terms of capacity being added the year before. Now, how does this all translate to current or recent trends in yields? The first quarter that we had a small decline in revenue per available seat kilometer was Q4 of last year, maybe about 2%, I think, relative to the year before. Because quite frankly, the winter of 2022 to 2023 was one where there were effectively very few carriers operating in many important routes to Athens and Thessaloniki, particularly from Germany.
This got reversed in a very aggressive way, the winter of 2023-2024, and so we operated in an environment, as I said, that could be 23-24% more capacity, winter 2023/2024 relative to winter 2022/2023. And in that environment, during that quarter, we lost about 2% in yield. What's encouraging is that even though now in Q1, we're still in an environment which has substantially higher capacity in both Athens and Thessaloniki, effectively, there is no capacity international to non-Athens and Thessaloniki routes early in the year. We're actually back to a small increase of revenue per ASK relative to the year before. So, it looks like what has been put into the market is being absorbed nicely and revenue per SK for now is keeping up.
I think all carriers are very much revenue quality driven. I think all carriers have cost increases, inflationary ones, airport-related ones, fuel-related ones, ATC, delay, compensation-related ones, labor-related ones. And therefore, everybody is reasonably careful with their management of revenues and the capacity being offered. So, again, less than last year and less than the year before in terms of pace overall. It will be more early and late in the year, rather than in the summer, when things are congested and people find difficulty in operation. And again, it will be concentrated in Athens and Thessaloniki. We did see a small decline of yields in the last quarter. It has been reversed on a, on a comparative basis Q1 this year relative to Q1 of last year.
Of course, we need to wait to see what will happen in the summer. So far, so good, but also, Kumar, very early.
Right. Fair enough. Then my second question is about the capacity at Aegean. So basically, of course, the capacity will remain tight and partly due to, of course, the Pratt engines, GTF engines. But now, how do you see the capacity in 2025, when probably you'll get all the planes back, and then probably you'll have additional deliveries according to the schedule? And then rather it's not Aegean, of course, the whole industry, I think, the Pratt engine will start coming in. So how do you see the overall capacity environment in 2025? Do you see a risk of overcapacity situation there? And so, I mean, so if you about Aegean and about the industry in terms of capacity in 2025, please.
I don't think the capacity will return in 2025. Actually, probably the specific problem that we are discussing will probably peak somewhere between the end of 2024 and mid-2025. So actually this is at least a two-year problem. This problem of actually addressing this the early inspections of the engines for the number of aircraft that's out there, which seems to be around 1,350 aircraft that have been affected by that. By the time this whole issue is dealt with, this will be about 30 months, I think, starting from, let's say, November, the last year or so. It will go up to either before the summer of 2026 or maybe to even include parts of the summer of 2026.
So in terms of when o f course, that does not mean that the whole fleet will be out, but if we assume that, let's say one aircraft out of three, it starts with one aircraft out of four being out, then we'll go to one out of three. We'll stay to one out of three for a while, and then we'll start coming down to one out of four, out of five, and be done with it as the whole cycle completes. So that cycle will take about two and a half years. That's response number one. Now, the other part, how will supply go, two and a half years forward? I'm sorry, I cannot tell you that. I don't know.
I don't think there is going to be a sort of a momentous jump. I think there are a lot of problems that we read and hear about that keep supply in check, including not only relating to actual aircraft. Some of them relate to congestion, some of them relate to ATC, some of them relate to labor. There are a bunch of issues that keep capacity somewhat constrained. Okay? Now, I don't have a better answer than that, but I don't feel that 2025 is going to be materially different than 2024. Beyond that, it's too far for me to say.
Right. Fair enough. And then, sorry, final two questions. First of all, in terms of Athens Airport, which has been privatized now, I mean, you know, I'm sure infrastructure would improve and all. How do you see, do you see improvements in the overall capacity? And do you see a positive impact on traffic overall? How do you see that situation? And secondly, of course, you know, after being privatized, I mean, as happened with other airports, which Fraport is managing, I guess, the airport charges are going up. So overall, I think the cost pressure is mounting, right? I mean, so how do you see the situation? How do you see the situation there?
Let's take it from the end. Your last assumption is wrong. There's no effect at all to what the airport can do with its charges, quote unquote, "Now that it is privatized." The concession agreement has not changed at all in that aspect. The concession agreement had a limit from the day it was constituted, that has what the airport will describe as a double till restriction on the yield of the airport. Which means what? That the return on investment that owners of the airport can get out of aeronautical charges, the regulated charges, departure taxes for the passengers, landing parking fees for the aircraft and the like, is actually capped at 15%. That remains the same and is not affected by the fact that the airport is now listed.
The airport has been privately run since day one. The state, since 2001, when it was first constituted, the foreign investors, they've changed ownership a couple of times, but, they've always been the ones appointing the general manager of the airport, and the current CEO of the airport, and, the ones that have had to adhere to the restrictions of the agreement. So we had a very expensive airport from the start, but it's not going to become more expensive because it's listed. There's absolutely no effect at all on that aspect. On the other aspect, will the listing affect the ability of the airport to invest on its development? Well, no, because it's not an IPO.
It was actually a sell down of shares by the Greek state, so there's no money going into the airport. However, again, by the same concession agreement, they are bound to make investments in the expansion of the airport as certain passenger development targets or benchmarks are exceeded or reached. Now, they've hit that benchmark, which requires them to increase, I believe, the capacity of the airport, the terminal of the airport, to 36 million. And they've already announced that they are proceeding with plans to expand the terminal capacity of the airport in a construction effort that will take place between now and the end of 2028. I think it will start somewhere in mid-2025. This year is gonna be more about design and then auctioning off, tendering the construction contract to different people.
So in a nutshell, do we expect charges to change? No, they will not. They are already at the profitability limits from the aeronautical charges that the concession agreement will allow. Therefore, they cannot go up. The airport profitability can improve by basically the non-aeronautical net revenues. They have around EUR 9 per passenger benefit that doesn't come from regulated charges, and those of course go up the more passengers they have. And of course, also, as they make more investment, then they are allowed to make more money, but not per unit, from the aeronautical side as well. So we're not worried about that. It's always been a well-run airport. It's always been a well structured airport in terms of its operation.
In the last two years, it has been somewhat restricted in terminal comfort, let's call it that, because there's now more passengers, and because the investment to expand has been delayed by COVID, because the trigger to expand was pushed back. And therefore, we look forward to this expansion because the comfort level of our passengers, the number of boarding bridges, will be expanded. However, to be clear, the airport is not restricted in terms of runway capacity or apron capacity, so there's nothing restricting us or anybody else adding more flights.
But so long as the terminal is still restricted and hasn't been expanded, the experience of the customers and certain issues, like the time it takes to go by bus to the plane, because there are no more boarding bridges, will get worse, and that has some operational effects together with the air traffic control issues. I hope, I hope I've described what's going on with Athens Airport to the best of my ability.
Sure. Thank you much. Thank you.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone. The next question comes from the line of Alexandros Boulougouris with Euroxx Securities. Please go ahead.
Yes, hello. Thank you for the presentation. Very quick question regarding the payout ratio. You mentioned about the 40% payout ratio from 2023 earnings, and we should expect, I would presume, good free cash flow again in 2024 and hopefully in the following years. So, should we consider this 40% as a floor in the payout ratio? And that's my first question. And my second question, a bit regarding the hedging levels for 2024, 2025, if you could elaborate a bit on that. And another clarification, the 7% ASK growth that you mentioned, I assume this, as you said, on the seats as well, refers to the scheduled, correct?
Yes. Yeah. So, apart from the end, yes, the 7% is on the scheduled seats. The total... I'm sorry, is on the scheduled ASKs. And more or less the seats, because the average segment length is not going to be significantly different year by year. And yes, all of that is going to be on schedule, and not on charter, which is going to go down, not up. So, and the total number of seats you should expect is 19.5 million for the year 2024. You asked whether you should consider 40% as the lower limit of our payout ratio. I believe you are correct.
We would be looking to be at that or somewhat above that, going forward, always keeping in mind that, sustainability of a specific nominal level of dividends is very important to companies, as a practice. I missed the middle question. You said the heading of 2020.
Hedging, hedging. Sorry, the hedging.
Oh, hedging. Hedging, sorry.
Yes.
Ah, okay. Hedging. Right. So the hedging of 2024, we seem to be hedged a little bit more than 50% for fuel. And we are at, let's say, 5% lower levels than the current spot rate in the market. It was 15% under spot rate in the market just two weeks ago. The market is significantly volatile, particularly in jet fuel, more so than in Brent. In any case, we are about 53% hedged, and we are also around 50% hedged on the US dollar at a little bit over 1.10.
And the year after that, we have small positions, about 15%-20% in fuel, at market and, about 25% in US dollar, more or less at market or a little bit above market, so in the money. If we look at our, I mean, if we were to mark to market our total hedging position, it would be positive by EUR 6-7 million today, looking both at dollar and fuel, in aggregate. So, a little bit better than what the market shows today.
Okay, got it. Thank you.
And that's about 10%, of course, lower in terms of hedging rates, in terms of level at which we are hedged, not percentage of hedging, than what we had effectively last year. Last year, I believe we were at $850 jet fuel, and now we're about 10% below that.
Okay.
But of course, the market is different as well.
Thanks.
The next question comes from the line of Osman Memisoglu with Ambrosia Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello, many thanks for your time. Just wanted to clarify, maybe I missed it, regarding capacity growth in Q1 2024, you mentioned 16%. Is that for the sector?
Uh, 16.
How much are you growing?
The 16% is the growth of international seats to Greece during Q1 of the year, and then it goes substantially lower, 8% and 5%, going to Q2 and Q3. We are round about plus or minus, one or two points, in our own investment in international seats, for the three quarters, the three respective quarters. There's one quarter, the first one, we're a couple of points below, then we're kind of couple of points above, and then again, maybe one point below. So we're pretty much at the same level of the market, quarter by quarter, which is, as I repeated, 16, 8, and 5, Q1, Q2, Q3. Q4 has not necessarily been published, because November and December has not been published by anybody, this is why we don't mention it. And so our growth is similar to the overall market on the international scheduled side.
On the domestic side, would they be roughly half or so?
You'd be about right, yeah.
Okay.
Yes, roughly half. And we are a little bit better than market in there.
Okay. So in general, your market share has been relatively stable, is what we can?
No, our market share increased significantly on the year that we passed, 2023 to 2022.
Yes. Okay.
If we assume that our capacity exploitation will be similar to our capacity investment, then our market share should be neutral. In reality, I would expect in the areas that we focus, which is basically Athens International, Thessaloniki International and domestic, to have a small increase of share out of outperforming a little bit in load factors.
Fair enough. And the second question is, again, maybe I missed this. Apologies in advance. Pratt & Whitney compensation, any color on timing, when we would know, how much this will be?
We already know, but we're not telling you.
Yes, yes. I can appreciate that.
So you... So I'm sorry, but nobody, nobody is allowed to disclose, and nobody actually, of the 60 or so carriers, that I'm sure have, you know, similar issues and compensation issues with Pratt & Whitney, actually discloses the level of compensation. What I did say is that it is substantial, it covers a substantial part of the problem, but it does not negate the problem for us, either in overall cost effect or net cost effect after compensation, or after considering of course the reduction in our capacity to grow. Therefore, that is not a cost-positive equation. The effect of flying less of the newer aircraft, having to extend some of the older aircraft, using ACMI for charter versus actually receiving the compensation with Pratt & Whitney.
That is something that's going to take something away from our margin. But okay, the biggest part of the shortfall is being compensated for. That's as much specificity as I can give you, but net-net, it's clearly a negative thing, both on cost, and on ability to grow.
Understood. This will just be accounted in other operating expenses or something, you know, throughout the quarters? How will it be accounted?
The way we will use the amount, assuming our auditors agree to that, is basically offsetting the effects in maintenance, in fuel burn, and lease costs. That's what we want proposed to our auditors. We are not sure yet how we will agree to disclose it, but we will make sure that once we have the agreement with our auditors, that will be communicated by investor relations, so that analysts can know where the offset will be and where to expect things to be in excess and where they expect things to be in balance. We will try to put it in what gets hit, so you see it gets hit less.
And what gets hit is basically fuel burn, maintenance costs, newer versus younger, versus older aircraft, and of course, lease costs, because we have, aircraft that are idle. And we have to have a higher fleet for a higher fleet count for the same number of aircraft flying. So, these are the three main areas where the offset will be, will go, unless our auditors suggest otherwise. Correct, Mr. Kouveliotis?
Correct.
Correct for now, says our CFO. Until it's not correct.
Understood. Final question, labor cost trends, are you seeing any cost issues there? And how are those trending?
Well, I mean, you know, we, it's very clear that in our country especially, you know, that salaries are on a rebounding trend, which is not only the post-COVID inflation environment, but also, you know, the finally an economy that comes closer to full employment. We're still some part away from that, but we're a lot closer to full employment than we were 6, 7 years back. For us, that has two sides. It has the side of Greek consumers being stronger, as more of them are employed, their real estate is worth more, and their activities are more profitable on the average than they were 5, 6, 7 years back. So that's a good thing on the balance for Aegean.
On the side of how we deal with it on the employee side, we do two things. We do one, of course, we have increases in the fixed salaries and of people, but also we have the profit-sharing schemes that affect a high number of our higher value or higher level staff. And I'm not talking about one or two people. It's actually 600 people in the company that participate in the profit sharing or end of year bonus plan, and those include senior captains, senior technical engineering staff, marketing, sales, everybody, administration, management. So it has a high number of people.
And having said all that, the most important thing to maintain control of our costs is continuing to have a modest but steady growth rate, that allow us to introduce people in the company on junior levels and then upgrade them, be it in the cabin, be it in the cockpit, be it in the technical side or in the commercial side. Because the growth of the company allows people to graduate to higher levels of responsibility in operations and otherwise, and that creates a productivity positive, personally positive and cost per ASK neutral, or even positive, trend. Because you understand, if you consider yourself today, when you enter as a pilot that has received a co-pilot, that has received a scholarship from Aegean two years ago, you enter today as a co-pilot.
If you become a pilot four to five years down the line, your salary is going to change materially. So in the course of seven or eight years, you've gone from applying for a scholarship to somebody paying for your scholarship, to having a decent but not so high salary as a junior co-pilot, and then to be a pilot five years down the line, captain, five years down the line. Therefore, that kind of evolution in different levels of the company, and this is now growing also in our technical department with the third party facility, but also continues to grow, within different areas.
That mobility is a very, very important part of developing not only the salaries, but also the loyalties of the loyalty of the people and maintaining that even as you pay people more, your productivity and your cost per ASK will stay reasonably unaffected or affected in a more reasonable, balanced way. So that's what we're doing in the company, is a mix of yes, the market expects higher pay, the inflation is higher as well, so we need to do that. We do much more profit sharing. I explained earlier on that the EUR 6 million of 2019 was EUR 18 million in payout for profit sharing schemes in 2023. And that we made a provision of another EUR 6.5 million for the long-term plan.
This kind of thing helps, and the evolution of people as you introduce them to the company and then gradually upgrade them if they deserve it, is what keeps things going in a positive direction for us. But there's no doubt that we do have a fuller employment economy, and that, of course, is both positive on the one side of demand and also more challenging as you try to develop your people in the future, but we feel happy with how we are today.
Understood. Thank you very much.
As a final reminder, to register for a question, please press star and one on your telephone. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Vassilakis for any closing comments. Thank you.
Thank you all for attending our call. I hope and I believe that we'll keep going forward in an equally positive way as this year has been. Certainly a very good year for us behind us. Our general assembly is going to be on April thirtieth, I believe, the Tuesday before Easter. That's when we will also determine the cut-off date for the dividend, which should be sometime after Easter. Thank you very much for attending, and all the best for the year. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for calling, and have a good afternoon.