Good afternoon. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining ENAV's nine months 2021 results conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal a conference specialist by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Vittorio De Domenico, Head of Investor Relations of ENAV. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Sandra. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome everybody to ENAV 9 months 2021 results call. I'm joined here by Mr. Paolo Simioni, ENAV CEO; and Luca Colman, ENAV CFO, that will be running you through the formal presentation. After that, we will be happy to answer your questions. With that, I leave the floor to Paolo.
Thanks, Vittorio. I have to underline our first nine-month results despite COVID-19 pandemic still impacting our business, and we have recently seen a reduction of its negative effects. Service units increased year-over-year by 24.1% for en route and 14.5% for terminal. More important is the 2021 quarterly traffic trend, which showed solid signs of improvement with the third quarter 2021 en route and terminal traffic reaching respectively 71.2% and 71.5% of the pre-pandemic levels. Net revenue in the nine months remained stable year-on-year, with revenue from operations and non-regulated business showing solid growth, while balance decreased year-on-year.
With regard to balance, it's important to specify that in the nine months, 2021, it was determined as per EU Regulation 1627, published in November 2020, and considering the European Commission's cost efficiency target on the terminal cost unit cost, published in June 2021.
While in nine months, 2020, it was determined according to our best estimate on the impact of the initial EU proposal published in July 2020. These two different methodologies applied to balance calculation pushed EBITDA at EUR 146.8 million, decreasing by 16.4% year-on-year, with margin at 25%. In the nine months, 2021, net profits was EUR 41.8 million, compared with EUR 75.1 million profits recorded last year, coming from the above-mentioned EBITDA decrease.
CapEx was EUR 44.2 million compared with EUR 47.4 million recorded in nine months 2020. The expenditure is in line with the guidance provided on CapEx for 2021 of approximately EUR 85 million. Net financial debt raised in the nine-month 2021 at EUR 425.5 million because of cash in operations still lower than sustained costs. Despite the increase in debt, ENAV's liquidity profile remains solid, with a cash balance of EUR 267.6 million, also thanks to new two-year tenor term loans for EUR 180 million signed in July.
Moving in the next slide, as usual, you can see traffic trends in the nine months 2021. En route and terminal service unit increased 24.1% and 14.5% respectively, driven by a solid summer season. Within en route traffic, national and overflight same segment posted the highest percentage increase, 39.7% and 30.6% respectively, with international segment growing 8.5% year-on-year.
As you can see in the chart, overflight remains the most important component and accounts for 44% of total traffic, while international for 31% and national for 25%. With regard to terminal traffic, the domestic component increased 32.2% year-on-year, while the international increased only 3.1%. Traffic increased in zone two and three by 11.1% and 29% respectively, thanks to summer seasonality, while in zone one, more exposed to the international and intercontinental flights, traffic decreased by 14.8%.
Please note that in the nine months 2021, traffic recovery in Italy was stronger than in the other major European countries. As already said, Italy en route traffic grew 24.1% year-on-year, compared to a Eurocontrol member state average growth of 8.3%. The most important thing to note is that 2021 quarterly traffic trend, which shows further improvement compared with the 2019 pre-pandemic trend. In fact, our en route service units in the first quarter 2021 were down 69.4%. In the second quarter 2021 were down 62.6%, while in the third were down only 28.8%.
Terminal service units follow the same path with 1Q 2021 decreasing by 75.1%, 2Q 2021 by 64.3%, while the third quarter declined only 28.5%. One additional growth that I want to underline to you is regarding the October performance, which shows further signs of traffic trend stabilization with a prolonged summer season. Last month, we managed approximately 77% of the flights managed in October 2019, which means only 23% down year-on-year.
Finally, I can anticipate to you that the first week of November, managed flights were approximately 85% of those managed in the pre-pandemic period in the same period. With this, I leave the floor to Luca for a detailed view of the results.
Thank you, Paolo, with this last very recent information about the traffic increase. I think I'll start with the next slide, number four. Before commenting the financial results, let me provide you with a more recent update on the regulation. Without annoying you with the well-known regulatory development that you can see in the slide, I just would like to underline one point.
As you maybe already know, in October 2021, ENAV and the Italian supervisory authority submitted to the European Commission the RP3 performance plan that should be approved by year-end 2021 or at the beginning of 2022. Let me now highlight two main elements. First of all, ENAV's performance plan is fully in line with the revised union-wide performance target approved in June 2021.
Second, in a couple of months, the sector will go back to normal, with the tariff reset at the correct level, higher level, compared with 2020 and 2021, and based on updated traffic forecast which consider COVID-19 effect.
I would move to the next slide, where we can see net revenue at EUR 587.6 million, stable year-on-year, reflecting a positive performance in the regulated and not regulated business, counterbalanced by lower volume in comparison to the last year. This year, en route revenue increased by 18.5%, while terminal revenue by 40.7%, thanks to a reduced impact from COVID-19 pandemic.
Please consider that the year-on-year comparison is not homogeneous because of COVID-19 differently impacting nine months 2021 versus the same period of the last year, when January and February posted a 10% average increase in traffic. Another element to take into account in the year-on-year comparison, as mentioned by Paolo, is that balance calculation that was based on two different regulatory frameworks.
In the nine months 2021 balance has been determined, considering the June 2021 Commission's cost efficiency target to be applied on the determined unit cost, while in the nine months 2020, it was determined according to our best estimate on the impact of the initial EU proposal. Our best estimate was built on the assumption of a reduction of ENAC's total actual determined cost of 2019, in accordance with Italian national authority, ENAC, to be applied to the 2020 cost base.
Looking now at revenue from non-regulated business, those increased by 24.6% year-on-year, reaching EUR 20.4 million, mainly driven by IDS solid commercial performance. We signed the new contracts to provide software and update existing technology in Colombia, Brazil and Russia, which boosted IDS contribution to the group revenue.
Turning to page seven, we can see how nine months 2021 total operating costs increased by 6.6%, mainly as a result of a traffic increase going almost back to normal during the summer. With regard to that, I would like to highlight that in August, ENAC managed domestic traffic volume that were 107% of those managed in August 2019, pre-COVID-19 pandemic.
As shown in the first graph, personnel costs went up by 5.8% year-on-year due to a rise in variable pay. This increase was caused by the lower use of holiday balance that was grown almost to zero in the nine months 2020, setting an unfair point of comparison with nine months 2021.
The higher cost related to traffic almost back to normal during the summer, pushing up overtime and holiday working of air traffic controllers. Analyzing external costs, those increased by 6.8% year-on-year, mainly driven by maintenance costs and controllers business trip in connection to the restart of the normal operation. This coupled with higher expenses from non-regulated business and the Eurocontrol contribution. Turning to slide eight, we can see ENAC's net revenue evolution in the nine months 2021 compared to the same period of last year.
Net revenue remained stable as a combination of regulated and non-regulated business revenue growth, coupled with lower year-on-year balance accrued in the period due to the traffic increase billed and the different way utilized for balance calculation.
Within revenue from operations, the largest year-on-year increase was recorded in the en route component which grew by EUR 34.5 million, while terminal revenue went up by EUR 26.6 million. Both solid performances were driven by recovery of the business, thanks to the positive evolution of traffic during the summer. As previously said, the year-on-year decrease of EUR 69 million balance came out from the traffic increase and the different regulatory frameworks. Above all, the diverse efficiency target on costs applied to the nine months 2021 in comparison with the nine months 2020.
This non-homogeneous perimeter will fade away in the full year results when both years will follow same rule in the balance calculation. As a result of the abovementioned movements, EBITDA stood at EUR 146.8 million, decreasing 16.4% year-on-year, with EBITDA margin at 25%.
Let's now look at items below EBITDA in slide nine. D&A decreased by 5.7% year-on-year, mainly as a consequence of reduced capital expenditure in the previous year. Provisions and write-downs also declined by EUR 1.6 million year-on-year, mainly due to the higher than usual provisions in nine months, 2020 related to same summer litigation.
Those provisions have been released in 2021 when related litigations have been successfully closed. As already occurred in the first half, we have a positive financial income and expenses mainly due to the balance actualization, including the financial income. Those financial income total is EUR 6.2 million, completely offset financial expenses of EUR 5 million. Moving now to the income taxes, we can see EUR 2.7 million decrease because of the lower taxable income of the group in the nine months, 2021.
As a result of these movements in the P&L and thanks to the regulatory protection which characterizes our business, in the nine months 2021, we achieved a net profit of EUR 41.8 million, lower than the one recorded in nine months 2020 for the effect of the already mentioned different regulatory framework that was applied in this year.
In the last slide, as usual, we can see a summary of ENAV's liquidity and financial position, which remains solid despite the challenges coming from the pandemic. We closed the nine months 2021 with EUR 268 million of cash, and that means a EUR 48 million decrease versus year-end 2020. As of September, cash position includes liquidity coming from new two-year tenor term loan signed in July for a total of EUR 180 million subscribed by UniCredit, Mediobanca, and BNP.
Which also accorded ENAV a new revolving credit facility for a total of EUR 70 million, fully undrawn. In addition to the available cash, we also have undrawn credit lines of approximately EUR 294 million, out of which EUR 220 million committed and including the new RCF signed in July. If we now look at our net financial debt, we see that as of the end of September, it was EUR 425 million, increasing EUR 180 million versus the end of 2020. The change is mainly due to cash in from operations still lower than sustained costs.
The good news is that summer traffic level puts ENAV in a cash neutral position, not yet fully visible in the September figures, given the unusual, I would say, two months billing cycle. The net debt on 2020 full year EBITDA ratio stood at 2x compared with 1.1x at the end of the last year. With that, we have ended the presentation, and we are now ready to answer your questions.
Excuse me. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touchtone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star followed by two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone with a question, may press star and one at this time. The first question comes from Nicolò Pessina from Mediobanca. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one is if you can give us an idea of the tariff for next year, at least the tariff that has been so far proposed and included in the performance plan that's still under discussion. Second question is on the timing for the cashing of the balance of 2020 and 2021.
I mean, in the past, we learned that the idea was to recover the balance of 2021 over a period of five years between 2023 and 2027. Now, Eurocontrol recently released new traffic estimates that are much more aggressive than the ones included in the performance plans. What does ENAV plan to do to maybe reduce the tariff between 2023 and 2027 and maintain a recovery period of five years? Maybe to maintain the tariff as high as it may be in 2022 and to cash in the balance in a shorter period, maybe just two or three years? Thank you.
Yes. Okay. Nicolò, I'll try to answer your question. For what concerns tariff, we confirm what we have said in the last meeting, I guess, in the second quarter, where the tariff with the consensus is at the moment confirmed. If I'm right, the consensus around EUR 85-EUR 90 for 2022 en route tariff.
At the moment, this is what we have, in some way forwarded to the European Commission in our performance plan. For what concerns the balance, it's still at the moment, we are still confirming our planning in terms of recovery 2020 and 2021 balance recovery in five years starting from 2023. Let's see what will happen in the next month, but at the moment our strategy isn't changed.
Okay. Very clear. Thanks.
The next question comes from Aleksandra Arsova from Equita. Please go ahead. Ms. Arsova, your line is open. You may ask your question.
Can you hear me?
Yes. Now, yes.
Okay, great. Just a couple of questions on my end. First of all, just to go back to the new Eurocontrol traffic forecast, are you comfortable with the new traffic forecast, or do you think, according to your view, it's too aggressive, or if it is, I mean, okay for you given also the improvement you're seeing in October and currently?
The second one is also related to this new forecast because as far as I understand, the October submission of the performance plan includes the old forecast of Eurocontrol, the one with definitely lower traffic for the coming years.
So since there is a difference in the new expected traffic and the old traffic, do you think this could in some way change something in the negotiation process with the regulator? Since on one hand, of course everybody wants to close the regulation as soon as possible after two years of back and forth in negotiation.
On the other hand, having a new traffic expectation, which is 20 or 30% higher than the previous one, it means on one hand higher cost to bear, and on the other hand also potentially higher traffic, and so maybe a lower tariff to apply for the airlines, in the case you apply a new traffic for also for 2022 and beyond. Color, a little bit of color on this. Thank you.
Okay. It's Paolo speaking regarding the traffic forecasting published a few days ago by the Eurocontrol. Really we waiting for this information with the update upgrade of the previous forecasting clearly. The level of increasing it's consistent, and we are confident then that for the next year this forecasting will be confirmed during the year. I don't know really if it's the upper level of the forecasting or a little bit up above or under this upper level, but we will expect a real good increasing the next year.
Great. As Paolo said, we are very happy with this with the new forecast because this means that the things are going better and better. You can also have seen in the presentation of our nine months results that the traffic above all for what concerned Italy was the increase was quite important and higher than the other comparable countries under the Big Five. We are considering the new traffic. We are talking with our regulator at the moment, national authority. At the moment we haven't decided any action yet. If we will update you, but at the moment that's the situation. Yes.
Okay, thank you.
Gentlemen, so far there are no more questions.
Thank you. Thank you so much, everybody. If you have some, let's say, follow-up that comes to your mind later, the IR department is available here in Rome. You have our contact. I hope the call was useful. Have a nice evening, everybody. See you for full year results. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over. You may now disconnect your telephone. Goodbye.