Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to Aena 2021 full year results. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone. I would now like to hand the conference over to speaker today, Emilio Rotondo, Finance Director. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Good morning to everybody, and welcome to our full year 2021 results presentation. As in other occasions, the presentation will be held by Aena SME Chairman and CEO, Mr. Maurici Lucena, and by the CFO, Mr. José Leo. We will not go through all the presentation, so Mr. Lucena will start, then will go Mr. Leo, and we will then move into the Q&A session. Now, without further ado, I give the floor to Mr. Lucena. Thank you.
Thank you, Emilio. Hello, everybody. I'm really pleased to present Aena's financial results and to share with you other reflections concerning activity and expectations. I will start with slide 4, which I think pretty well summarizes the evolution of activity and the most relevant economic and financial trends. Of course, I'm referring to 2021. If I start with passenger traffic, as you can see, Aena Group passenger traffic increased to 136.3 million passengers, implying a recovery of more than 44% of the traffic in 2019, which, as you know, is everywhere the point of reference before the pandemic. Concerning the traffic in Spain, where you know we have our main network of airports, traffic in 2021 in Spain was equivalent to 43.6% of the traffic in 2019. In London, concerning Luton, the Luton Airport, we registered a recovery of only 25.5% of the traffic in 2019.
You know that in the United Kingdom, I would say that movement restrictions have been harder than in other European countries. Finally, in Brazil, the recovery was a good one. In particular, 85.2% of the traffic in 2019. Actually, in the last months of 2021, traffic in Brazil was higher than the traffic equivalent to the same months in 2019. This means that the total consolidated revenue increased in 2021 to almost EUR 2.4 billion. EBITDA stood at almost EUR 650 million, which reflects a decrease of 9.8% compared to 2020. Here, as you can see, we have an asymmetry in the sense that traffic has been higher than the traffic in 2020, but financial results have been worse.
You know perfectly well that this is because of the MAGs and the approval in the Spanish Congress of a final provision that has really had a negative impact in Aena's accounts. EBITDA margin closed at almost 27% in 2021, which was a little bit lower than EBITDA margin in 2020. As I said, these figures have been clearly affected by the accounting of the MAGs due to the application of the Seventh Final Provision, we will call it DF7, and additionally, impairments for a net amount of almost EUR 100 million. Consolidated net result came to minus EUR 60 million, and if we exclude the effect of the impairments, the consolidated net profit would be a positive one, in particular, EUR 14.6 million. On the other hand, the operating cash flow ended with an increase of almost 92%, up to EUR 280.5 million.
I would like to highlight that the cash flow generation in the last quarter of 2021 was a very good one of EUR 260 million. The consolidated net financial debt of the Aena group has increased to EUR 7.4 billion compared to EUR 7 billion at the end of 2020. This increase, combined with a lower EBITDA, has led to an increase in the net financial debt to EBITDA ratio for the consolidated group to 11.5 times. You know that it is important to underline that the financial ratios included in the contracts with financial covenants are linked to Aena SME. It means not to the consolidated group. In other words, the net debt EBITDA ratio of Aena SME has closed at 10 times, compared to 8.1 times in 2020. I would like to make further comments, and I will now move to traffic trends.
We've witnessed a very good progress of the vaccination processes, I would say, across Europe. This along with the progressive lifting of the restrictions, which I think that will continue because I guess now that governments try to, let's say, balance the trade-off between health and economy. I think now that the economic recovery it's being considered more important than in the first stages of the pandemic. This clearly leads us to be sanguine about the traffic recovery. We point, as you know, to a 68% traffic recovery in the current year, in 2022. Of course, we are very prudent because our forecast doesn't mean that we can be 100% confident that this is going to happen because we are, and I would say, I'm saying this very naturally, we are entirely in the hands of the evolution of the pandemic. Again, I'm more confident and more.
I'm more optimistic at present than I was in other stages of the pandemic because, as I said, the combination of the evolution of the pandemic, the intrinsic evolution and the public sector decisions, I think that make good, or at least a better future scenario than in the past. I can confirm this with also the expectations of the airlines. You know that we've had a very good signal concerning the airlines. They have put in the market for the summer season 2022, more capacity than in 2019. Of course, I'm now referring to the summer season, and this is a capacity that they put in the market. Then we'll see how this materializes.
If airlines put this capacity in the market, it's because they have good signs concerning the demand of the market that make them, as I'd say, as I said at the beginning, sanguine about the evolution of the traffic, and I would say that what they detect in the market concerning the behavior of passengers, which I think is really good, and people and I think that they are now clearly happy with the expectations of a good summer season. Okay, you know that in this same direction, Aena has approved the application during the summer season of the current year of an incentive for passenger traffic recovery.
This is I would say a very different incentive scheme compared to the incentive schemes that we approved in the last two years because the capacity that the airlines have put in the market is a lot higher than in past stages of the pandemic. Now our new incentive scheme very in short what we are trying is that when airlines exceed what they have conveyed to us the capacity they have conveyed to us to us concerning a particular threshold we will incentivize them with respect to the seat capacity that they scheduled in or at the end of January.
In other words, at the end of January, airlines conveyed to Aena the capacity that they expect for the summer, and we will give them incentives if they overcome concrete thresholds with respect, in this case, the seats in within the planes. In other words, we will not support them with more planes, but we will support them with more passengers if they are able to bring about more passengers to the planes that they have now scheduled. I now move to regulation. You know that we've been through a tough period in regulation because in the last months we've had good news. DORA 2 has been approved. I think that this clearly conveys a signal to the market of stability.
Airlines know very well what our airport charges will be, so we are confident that this will help airlines to better structure their forecasts and their seats for the planes. On the other hand, last week, you know that the CNMC issued its resolution on the supervision of Aena's airport charges for 2022. You know that in this area, we have a little bit of complexity because one thing is the IMAJ, another thing is the IMAP. The difference between the IMAP and the IMAJ has to do with technical adjustments, but these technical adjustments could now be very significant because of the factor K and because of the very, let's say, singular evolution of the traffic in the worst months of the pandemic.
The resolution of the CNMC accepts the proposal that Aena conveyed to this institution, which implies that the IMAJ will be established at EUR 9.95 per passenger. This means a reduction of 3.17% compared to the 2021 IMAJ. You know, at the same time that IATA, Spain, and Ryanair have filed two appeals against this resolution. In particular, they consider that we should not include a part of the COVID expenses, the COVID costs concerning the first months or until September of 2021. I think this is almost. I just suppose this is also the opinion of the CNMC. We consider that it's a value to have a path of the charges that is not very bumpy.
It's better to have in 2021 decrease in charges because of factor K, but if we had not included more COVID costs, this decrease I think would have been a worse one, and again we would have faced a higher increase in 2023, which if you can avoid because you value, as I said, the stability of the path, of the future path of charges, I think it makes complete sense. In any case, I consider that the charges approved and supervised by the CNMC will not be modified. This is my guess. This is Aena's guess, and we'll see. I'm very confident that the CNMC will confirm each resolution, the last week resolution. Now I move to commercial activity. This will be my final reflection.
You know that on the third of October 2021, the DF7 I mentioned, the Seventh DF7 that I mentioned at the beginning of my intervention entered into force. As a result, MAG established in the commercial lease agreements for duty-free shops, retail stores, and food and beverage activities accrued from the 15th of March 2022, the third of October 2021, have been modified. The total amount of the reduction corresponding to MAG affected by DF7 amounts to EUR 727 million. Likewise, and this is important, Aena freely agreed to modifications with the operators of rent-a-car, advertising, and other commercial activities to reduce the lease payments. The reduction of these rents that Aena freely agreed amounts to an additional EUR 68 million. The total reduction in MAG and fixed rents accumulated at the third of October 2021 amounts to EUR 795 million.
You can see in slide 6 more information. I'm sure that both Emilio Rotondo and José Leo will complement my explanations afterwards or in the Q&A time. In parallel, concerning this legal change, DF7, you perfectly well know that Aena understands that the DF7 is very probably unconstitutional. Aena is requesting that the judicial body in all the legal disputes we have now in motion that the judicial body we could raise a question of unconstitutionality. In any case, I would like again, I'm positive concerning also commercial activity because the evolution of the commercial activity in the in the last months has been, I would say, very positive. Despite the ongoing legal disputes, our business relationships, I must say, with the commercial tenants are still working meaningfully.
Actually, recent tenders today Spanish newspapers has published as Spanish newspapers today has published recent tenders, I was saying, for commercial contracts ended with a significant interest and with increases, significant increases in the MAG offered. This confirms that the expectations in the commercial area are, I would say, also optimistic. Thank you.
Thank you. This is José Leo here. I will just spend a little bit of time on the slides that provide numbers, information, more detailed breakdowns about the commercial revenues. I would suggest to go to slide number 6. What you can see here is exactly what the Chairman and Chief Executive described minutes ago. We have remembered that the total impact of the DF7, our estimated impact of the DF7 in terms of cash over the entire life of the contracts affected, is something in the region of EUR 1.3 billion. A couple of months ago, we expected a little bit more than that, but it would be there or thereabouts, subject to the actual evolution of the traffic over the coming years. What is absolutely crystal clear is that we have accumulated part of that already in our balance sheet.
We have EUR 795 million of accumulated revenues and receivables in the balance sheet until the third of October 2021. Well, we know we will need to take that to P&L and under IFRS 16, and we mentioned that a number of times, there is no alternative other than to take it to P&L over the life, over the remaining life of the contracts on a straight line basis. This is what you can see here. Regardless the cash impact, the P&L impact will be what you can see in this particular slide. In 2021, in the fourth quarter, obviously, we have taken to P&L EUR 168 million, out of which 144 are related to the DF7 implementation. The rest are the result of contract novations. So they were willingly accepted by Aena.
Then over the rest of the life of the contracts, we will be taking the rest of the impact to P&L. 2022 and 2023 will be by far the most impacted years, as you can see here. Without further ado, I will move on to slide 11. Slide 11 is showing us the evolution of the ordinary revenue between 2020 and 2021. I mean the commercial ordinary revenue. This is the headline revenue that you know is a mixture of underlying proper business and accounting entries. It's worthwhile to take a look at it in any case, however, I mean, however meaningless it might be at this stage. You can see here that from the headline point of view, the 2021 is a worse year than 2020, despite the fact that the number of passengers went up by more than 50%.
This is clearly driven by the accounting entries. It's worthwhile to take a look at this particular slide just to, let's say, dwell on it for a while. Moving on to the slide number 12, what we try to do here is to show you the actual evolution of the underlying business. This is what we call total business activity. In this particular slide, we are including everything commercial, so not only the outlets but also the real estate revenue. Altogether, the total business activity, which is, from our standpoint, made up of two elements. One of them is the fixed and variable rent invoiced and collected on the basis of the actual number of passengers buying or shopping at the airport. This is going up by 40.8%. The MAG revenue invoiced, or to be invoiced, to be more precise, at the time of closing the accounts, is the rest.
These are MAGs that are entirely supported by either the DF7 resolution or the DF7 provision, or by the contracts we enter into with a number of players. Altogether, the underlying business activity, the proper business activity is going up by 24.1%. The rest is accounting. The first line is the accumulation of MAGs through the year, and the final line is the adjustment, the straight line deferrals of the driven by the IFRS 16 application. You will notice that this is not exactly the same figure I showed you before. The reason for that is I didn't want to create too much confusion, but the receivables, the accumulated MAGs in the balance sheet, part of them were already provided for under the potential credit deterioration parameters upon application of IFRS 9.
When we take to P&L a chunk of the receivables, we also take to P&L a chunk of the provisions. This is the reason why net-net, the impact is EUR 148 million. But I didn't want to confuse any more, and so we decided to show you only the asset side of the deterioration in the previous slide. I will stop here. I think through the Q&A, I'm sure you will be able to get more in detail information about all these issues we have discussed. Thank you.
Operator, we can now move into the Q&A session, please.
Ladies and gentlemen, we now begin the question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone. The first question from Cristian Nedelcu from UBS, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, this is Cristian. Thank you very much for taking my questions. The first one, could you please tell us a bit more about the latest trends in terms of spend per passenger, so before any MAGs and anything? Just trying to get a feeling versus pre-COVID levels, how spend per passenger is going these days. In particular, have you seen the U.K. consumer spending more after the duty-free reinstatement? Secondly, talking a bit about the OpEx bridge in 2022, can you comment a bit on the moving parts? What wage inflation do you expect? Anything on electricity costs, COVID costs, reopening infrastructure? Can we get a bit of color on that, please? The last one, you had in December this decision from the State, and they decided not to compensate Aena for the lost revenues in 2020 and 2021.
Now, I think DORA 1 clearly stipulates that you should be compensated when traffic falls by more than 10% below the regulator expectation. Do you have any hopes of turning around this decision? Were you surprised by the decision at all, or were you expecting it? Thank you very much.
Thank you, Cristian. I will answer three of the questions, and then, Emilio will surely give you some more detail on the latest trends on spend per passenger. Starting with Article 27, the last of your questions. We are completely sure and confident that the Article 27 provisions apply in full to the COVID-19 situation. We cannot think of anything more clearly, let's say provided for in Article 27. We will carry on pursuing what we believe is our right to be compensated. As ever, you can never be 100% sure whether you're going to be successful or the other way around. Rest assured that we will continue pursuing this, hoping for a positive decision on that. There are a number of avenues to do that, and one of them will be going to court, of course, and we are not ruling out any of them.
At this stage, there is very little else I can tell you, and let alone I cannot anticipate what the final outcome of this process will be. I think we have the right and the obligation to put forward our case because we believe the Article 27 and the COVID-19 situations are perfectly matched. Secondly, on the U.K. passenger expenditure, is it early? It is early, I would say. Maybe Emilio Rotondo can give you later on a little bit more color, but it is early, because, well, frankly, the U.K. passenger have been lagging a little bit behind the rest of the European passengers. For obvious reasons, the restrictions there have been probably a little bit more intense and they last a little bit longer.
It is now that we see a clear opportunity to, well, to see how the U.K. passenger reacts because we believe that the summer season is likely to bring us a huge number of U.K. passengers. Once the restrictions have been lifted, we have every expectation that the traffic with the U.K. will grow very significantly over the coming months, and we will see. I don't think at this stage we can provide any meaningful color on whether the consumer, the U.K. consumer is changing the behavior. It's true that the pound has, let's say, moved a little bit up, and this probably that will help. Finally, in terms of the OpEx, as I said a number of times, unfortunately, the trending in OpEx is one of going up, and it's going a little bit faster than the traffic recovery for obvious reasons.
One of them is that when we have opened all the infrastructures already, there is very little left to be opened in 2022. On top of that, there are inflationary pressures. You described some of them. Probably the most relevant one for us so far is the energy cost that represented an increase of EUR 70 million year-over-year in 2021, and we cannot rule out 2022 to suffer further increase in costs. We don't know. We cannot rule it out, also inflationary pressures on pay. We believe that as most of our contracts, third-party supplier contracts are already in operation, probably the inflationary pressures from the pay side will impact us maybe later on and not in 2022. But still, there are a number of headwinds.
But more importantly, I always mention that the level of efficiencies that we could reach in the future won't be equivalent to the efficiencies we reached in 2019 and years before. I described the reasons for that extensively and intensively. This remains the case. Having said that, once again, our margins will be, I'm confident, top of the list in the European landscape, and we will continue being extremely efficient operator. All this pressure will play a part. Don't expect the 2022 numbers, cost numbers to be the same as in 2021. I cannot provide any more guidance at this stage, I'm afraid.
Cristian, on your question of the retail revenues and the spend per pax, I think it's a complex answer, okay? I want you to maybe go a little bit more in depth on this. First of all, if we compare 2019, just 2019, 2020 and 2021, first of all, we have a great difference in terms of traffic, as for sure you know. 2019 being the reference, but 2020 a year in which we had almost three months of normal traffic, then with no traffic, and then the second half of the year with a progressive increase. 2021 being a year that has gone from less to more, okay? This traffic evolution has to be combined also with the shops opened.
In 2020 we had 3 months with 100% of the shops open, then all of them, or almost all of them close by 3 months, and then a progressive opening of shops, but on a different rhythm depending on the business. We have the duty-free shops that has been almost fully open, 100% of them open by approximately mid-2021. In the end, also the duty-free business is the one that has the highest spend per pax. We have the food and beverage that happened the same and the shops have been progressively opening, but that have also been affected by the restrictions to the people not being passengers to go to the land area of the airport. So those restaurants have been closed until I think it was October 2021. That also has an impact on the total revenue and also the spend per pax. Thirdly, the country of origin.
As you can imagine, as you have seen also, most of our traffic in 2020 and 2021 has been domestic, and we have almost none, didn't have any, long-haul international traffic that indeed has an impact also in the duty-free and food and beverage, in all the three businesses. Apart from that, of course, the variable rent paid in terms of percentage, in terms of shops, duty-free and food and beverage also is different. Depending on the weight of each of the activities in the period we are analyzing, also the spend per pax will be affected. All in all, what it makes is this comparison very, very difficult. In any case, I'm trying to give you some view in relation to what you also asked in the last quarter.
Duty-free shops have performed very positively also in the last quarter with a spend per pax close to what we were seeing in 2019, okay. Shops, as I've already mentioned, might be the laggards of the three businesses with lower spend per pax and also a lower percentage of shops open versus 2019. Food and beverage, in line with duty-free shops, the spend per pax is quite similar to what we saw in 2019. I have already mentioned almost all the restaurants have been reopened by now, as of today.
Understood. Thank you very much. Yeah, thank you very much.
Thank you for your question. We have the next question from Nicolò Pecchioni from Mediobanca. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon all. First question on traffic. I'd like to know your view on 2022. Is the 187 million traffic volume included in the DORA framework still your best guess? Or do you feel you are more optimistic today given the outlook provided by the air carriers with the summer capacity? Second question on the new contracts recently signed. You mentioned that MAGs for these contracts are above the 2019 level. Is it the case for all contracts? Is it the case for all the contract conditions in terms of brands duration? So just to understand the attitude of the commercial operators to signing new contracts today. Final question, if you can provide us a number for the yield concentration in 2021. Thank you.
Okay, Nicolò. Thank you. First of all, we are still expecting 2022 passenger numbers to be in the region of the DORA number. Actually, if you look, this is by the by, but if you go to the annual accounts of Aena, the year-end report, and you take a look at the assumptions we took in order to run the mandatory impairment tests, this is our base case. Having said that, and it's too early, as the chief exec said minutes ago, it is. We have to be prudent. There are a number of well positive news on the health side, but well, nobody knows. But it's true as well that we are now very I would say optimistic about the summer season.
Maybe in a couple of months or from now, I don't know, maybe we need to revisit our forecast for the year, and we will do it openly. It's early because of the unexpected situations we lived in the past, but we are more positive about the summer season than we have been in three years. That's a very promising starting point.
With regard to the new contracts awarded, clearly, I think we have awarded something in the region of 100 contracts. This is not, of course, they are not very, very large ones, but they are not anecdotal, they are very relevant as well. There are all sorts of cases. In, you could find contracts which are less attractive, others that are particularly attractive. Overall, what is true is that the level of MAG that the bidders have committed have been positively surprising us and confirming what we have said a number of times, which is the MAG framework is still valid for Aena. We don't know whether in 4 or 5 years we have to, let's say, change our mind, but we believe the MAX structure is still very valid. Simply, through a couple of years, there was no traffic.
When you have no traffic, disputes and difficulties arise inevitably. The framework is still valid, it's working. Overall, we are recovering for those 100 contracts, the 2019 MAX in 2023. I would say a little bit more than that. That's promising. The third question, sorry.
Yes. Was the yield concentration of 2021 being EUR 62.6 million.
Excellent. Thank you so much. Thank you for your question. The next question from Elodie Rall from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.
It's Elodie Rall from J.P. Morgan. Thanks for taking my question. I have three if I may. The first one is on tariffs. Now we're clear about 2022 tariffs, but I think you've also sent your proposal for 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026, 2027 for the remaining DORA 2, if I'm not mistaken. Looking for 3% increase, 2%, 1%, 1%. I don't know if you commented on that already, but can you come back to this? Is this your assumption and proposal and what's gonna happen from there? That's my first question. Second question is on CapEx. I think you reported lower CapEx in 2021 that you had previously guided for. Could you tell us if the EUR 450 million-EUR 500 million range for the next few years, per annum, is still what we should model?
Last one is on dividends. Now you expect, most likely a return to profit, in 2022. What kind of dividend can we expect on net profit in 2022, knowing they'll still be a bit depressed versus 2019, even if they are, you know, even if your forecast on traffic is maybe too conservative? Would you increase the payout versus the 80%, previously? Thanks.
First of all, we have the headline tariff, the headline charge, which is the IMAP. And this is given, it's EUR 9.89 per pax every year of the DORA 2. Then what really matters, and the gist of the question is the IMAG, the adjusted charge. And this is, you know, impacted by a number of adjustments. Clearly, the most challenging year for us, and we don't know now what the adjustments are going to be, but we can definitely envisage some trends. First of all, the most difficult year was 2022 because we had, for the first time, a yield concentration, massive yield concentration on 2020. We needed to make sure that this adjustment, this negative adjustment, wouldn't create a sort of, let's say, trap for the rest of the DORA. That was sorted.
Of course, now, after the COVID crisis, as we have costs to recover, this is filling a part of the gap. That happened in 2022, and that will happen in 2023. In 2023, first of all, we will have a level of concentration to return back to the airlines that will be lower, roughly half or less than half of the previous year. Then we will have also COVID costs that we expect to be very, very close to the 2021 figure, overall 2021's. Then we will have to recover the last quarter of 2021 as well. Time will tell. We see no reason to see the charges going down.
Let's say I mean the adjusted charges? Frankly, only time will tell, because it will depend very much on the evolution of traffic, the profile of the traffic, well, the number of factors, whether or not there will be still COVID costs to recover at any point in time, things like that. In principle, you can expect something very flattish, I would say, over the rest of the year. The investments, this is a very good guide because clearly the cost, the regulated investments is not going to change too much. It will be around this figure. Obviously, you have to add some, I would say EUR 50 million-EUR 100 million per annum, in terms of commercial investments. Still it will be something relatively predictable. I would say fully predictable. Then, on dividends, there is very little I can tell you.
The policy will need to be approved by the board. As I said before, we see no reason at the management level to change the payout ratio. I think it's attractive, and it's a very good one. Clearly the key point here is whether or not we will be delivering profits. Hopefully, we will, but what the 2020 and 2021 have been years of losses, as you know.
Can I just come back on tariffs?
Yeah, sure.
You expect flattish tariffs, basically?
No. I said it would be reasonable or you could expect flattish tariffs. Once again, I'm not telling you they will be flat. It will depend on the number. It's a reasonable assumption.
Okay. Thanks.
Thank you for your question. The next question from Luis Prieto from Kepler.
Good afternoon. Luis Prieto here. Thanks for taking my questions. A couple of them from me. The first one is the MAGs in the latest retail contract awards you mentioned sent a contradictory message regarding tenants' stance on the retail model after all these quarters of dispute between you and them. Does this imply that tenants believe that they would still be protected by the legislator in a potential future despite the force majeure clause that it seems that you have included in these new contracts? And my second question would be if you could please also update us on the duty-free retendering process. The press recently referred to you seeking support from an external advisor to, I would assume, redefine or fine-tune the contract model. Is there any light you can shed on the overall approach to this process from Aena's part? Thank you.
Thank you, Luis. I wouldn't say they are sending contradictory messages. They want to have their cake and eat it. On one side, they want to be in the business because Aena's airports are a very attractive place to do business in the travel retail arena, very attractive. And they won't pull, they won't go. This is a very significant part of their business for them. But at the same time, through the COVID, they wanted relief. I wouldn't say this is contradictory. This is simply human being and management reasonable behavior. Whether they are expecting to be protected by, I don't know, by the Spanish parliament in years to come, I don't know. What is true is that we learned the lesson, and in our contracts now, we have a different set of provisions to face these kind of situations.
In our previous contracts, the tenant committed to pay the MAG, coming hell or high water. It was given. They ended up, let's say, getting away, not paying for that commitment. What we have done now is to include clauses that state that in case of the traffic coming down by X, they will be relieved by Y. For instance, if the traffic goes below 30% of the year of reference level, they would still pay 50% of the rent. If they say now that they didn't commit it or they didn't realize, it would be just ludicrous, no? I cannot speak for the Spanish parliament or the tenants. We believe we are now signing contracts where things are crystal clear. They were crystal clear already, but just in case of anyone having any doubt.
For me, the positive thing here is clearly traffic going down dramatically is not a good situation for anyone and everyone, if you like, is trying to find the closest exit. That doesn't mean that our commercial tenants are not committed to the business because our business is attractive to the point that they want to increase the MAG over and above the initial tender conditions. TLI is exactly what, well, duty-free is exactly what you said. We are launching a process to hire some advisors in order to work over the coming months in the best possible design and to do the work proactively to work towards making the process very competitive and attractive, attracting the best in class. But it's early days. We need to wait.
The contract is still running until the end of October 2023, so we will need to launch the tender probably in the last quarter of 2022 or first days of 2023.
Sorry, Luis. Let me make a small correction to José in terms of the clause included in the commercial contract, okay? If the traffic falls more than 50%, okay, the minimum annual guarantee would be reduced by 30%, okay? Has mixed the numbers.
No, if the traffic goes down by.
Seventy.
70%.
By 70% is 50.
Exactly.
Okay.
I said if the traffic level is 30% of the original.
Okay.
That is fine.
Misunderstanding. Thank you.
I struggle with mathematics.
Excellent. Thanks a million.
Thank you for your question. The next question from Andrew Lobbenberg from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Hi there. Can I ask a simple one? Can you explain the lump of interest positive interest revenue in Q4? Second question, can you talk now. What can you tell us about the change in the board that was announced today, and how secure is the involvement of TCI going forward? Then the third question, sorry to come back to the MAGs. Really helpful slide 6, and thank you for that. You've told us how the EUR 795 million impact would be spread over the future years, but obviously you're guiding to a total of EUR 1.3 billion. We've got some EUR 500 million more to come in as an impact. How should we think about modeling that EUR 500 million?
How is that gonna be laid out, impacting, you know, roughly 2022, 2023, 2024, I guess, then it really tapers down, and then, you know, how do we spread it out? Can you just talk us through that calculation? Thanks.
This is Maurici Lucena. I will just answer the question concerning the exit of Christopher Hohn from our board. Well, I think that he's been very clear. First of all, in the letter that he sent me and the relevant point is that, you know, we have conveyed communication to the market in which I think he's very transparent. I think that Christopher Hohn has been a member, a very important member of the board for the last seven years. He told me, when we talked about his decision, the same that he has made public, that now he considers that he needs time for other activities. At the same time, it's important that, because I think it's also been. That's my reflection. It's been an important factor that he's very confident on what he considers a good job of the current management and the board.
He's expressed this publicly, and he said to me that this is an important factor because he is not afraid that not being in the board could be a problem because he thinks that the management team is very strong and he considers that we are managing the company through a very difficult period in what he considers are optimal parameters. I would add, sorry, from a personal perspective, I will really miss him because through the last almost four years, I think that Chris and I, we have built a very good professional and personal relationship. I think he's an outstanding not only investor but also a member of the board. His ideas are always very good ideas for the company, but I think that he will make this compatible with his new position from outside the board because he and I, we will interact frequently.
We have both confirmed that it's in our mutual interest that we interact frequently and we will jointly analyze the evolution of the company. He's, I think, very committed to Aena, and he will give. Let me get his inputs. All in all, I'm confident that it will not be the same as if he's on the board, but that I will obtain a great deal of his inputs and his skill through this frequent relationship. I will miss him, but I think that in the future, he at the same time will continue on adding value to the management of the company. He will remain as a very significant investor and his firm, of course, TCI, in the foreseeable future. Thanks.
Thank you.
Well, Andrew, thank you. With regard to the financial results impact, you can see that on page 17 is a one-off when the Región de Murcia International Airport agreed with the freeholder, the Government of the Region of Murcia, the rebalancing of the concession. One of the elements of that agreement has been that all the committed minimum rent, so to speak, to pay to the regional government, regardless the traffic evolution, has been waived in full. That debt has disappeared from the Región de Murcia International Airport in one go. We took that to P&L at consolidated level through the finance revenue line. It's a one-off, and it's just a debt that has been condoned in 100%. Then you mentioned. Sorry, what else?
It was the MAGs, the evolution from the 795.
Ah.
We've got on the books, and you've explained we've got to get that on current plans to EUR 1.3 billion.
Okay.
How does that play out? How do we model it?
Okay. First of all, I'm sure you know, but, from now on, we.
I really don't.
We'll talk. Just in case, Andrew, this is largely a way of opening the sentence. A polite one. From now on, we won't be accounting for any more euros on MAGs that are above the DF7. There will be no more accumulation of revenues and receivables beyond or above the DF7 level permitted by law. There will be no more. Let me use this expression. Please don't take it into account, this snowball. Okay. From the cash standpoint, of course, we will still have revenues that originally were expected under the application of the original contracts. That doesn't mean they are accounted for, so they won't be creating the same sort of, let's say, impairment impact on the balance sheet. But the, i t would be cash that we won't collect if we compare with the original situation, let's say, two, three years ago.
This is the 1.3. The 1.3 won't flow through our P&L. Sorry, won't flow through our cash account, so forget it. The only thing you have to do, this is the one I expected you all to do from day one, will have been to consider that EUR 1.3 billion of cash will never hit our bank accounts. Time-wise, it's difficult. When this money would be coming into the business, well, who knows? Probably through the You can make any assumption you like, for instance, to model it in accordance with the duration of the contract, so you can have a good proxy in the way we are going to take this to P&L, but nobody knows. It's simply that. Let's say two years ago, under the COVID circumstances, we would have expected to collect EUR 1.3 billion that now we know we won't collect.
Actually, we started by not collecting them at the beginning of 2021. I don't know if this helps, but
No, it does. Thank you.
Okay, thank you.
Thanks for your patience.
No, no. It's, I'm just joking, Andrew, please.
Thank you for your question. The next question from Marcin Wojtal from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good afternoon. I've got a couple of questions. In your presentation, you mentioned commercial incentives that you are providing for the summer season of 2022, linked to the number of passengers. Can you give a bit more detail? Are these commercial incentives meaningful in terms of, let's say, the euro amount or the average pricing? So that's my first question. My second question is, apologies, just going back to your operating expenses on your electricity costs. If I'm reading correctly in your report, your electricity bill was about EUR 120 million in 2021. I was wondering, do you have any hedging in place to mitigate the impact of rising electricity prices? Or we should basically look at the spot price. Thank you.
With regard to the incentives, clearly they are incentives to airlines to grow the passenger numbers. They are meaningful, they are relevant. Of course, they never carry material in the context of our P&L. You know that from the past. Don't expect this to amount to, let's say hundreds of millions of EUR. It would be fantastic because if we pay hundreds of millions of EUR in incentives, we will get in return billions of EUR. The reality is that normally this will end up in some tens of millions of EUR paid in incentives and hopefully some, I don't know, hundred and something millions of EUR in extra revenues. The incentives are basically providing a discount on the passenger charge or element of the tariff. These discounts are only given if they exceed a percentage of the capacity they have already committed for the summer, to start with.
There is a commitment in terms of seats available, and they have to exceed that. They have to comply with that rather than exceeding. If they comply with that, they could get a discount on the additional passengers. This is driven basically by load factors. Just to give you a headline, they will get a 50% discount of the passenger charge in the case of the short-haul and LATAM flights, and a 100% discount of the passenger charge element of the tariff in the for the rest of the long-haul traffic. That will be for the summer.
With regard to the way we operate with energy, we have over the last years, after some time when we hedge, we operated on a, let's say, close to a spot market price with the possibility of closing the price and hedging with a if we pre-announce with a particular period of time in anticipation. Well, the reality is that we were terribly successful with that. We did extremely well. 2021 represented a complete turnaround. When we realized the situation, clearly hedging was a possibility, but hedging would have been potentially a problem because hedging at the levels that we could hedge then would have in a way, let's say, make us incur the cost from day one. You know that hedging at the right time, at the wrong time, it could be the wrong decision.
For the future, we are reviewing all our policy and assessing this more deeply because clearly the world is changing and the scenario of the energy cost is changing. I hope this helps.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for your question. We have the next question from Graham Hunt from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, thank you. I think you already answered my question kind of, but the question was basically if you can give us a sense about the talks that you currently have with your duty-free operator. Obviously, I was trying to get a sense if the MAG model will structurally change, let's say in the direction of a MAG per passenger. If the target is to keep the current model, but I think you already mentioned that it will not change, right?
What I said is that our MAG model is not going to. Well, for the time being, we don't see any reason to scrap it. We believe it's still valid. When talking about the duty-free contract in particular, we are now open to all sort of inputs from. Over the coming months and close to one year, we will be working with, hopefully the best in-class expert to help us shape the new tender. Everything will be reviewed and revisited. I don't think the MAGs will disappear, honestly, even for duty-free. What we want to make sure is that the next round of duty-free shop tender will be competitive and attractive and will attract people from around the world. I'm sure Dufry will also be part of it, but I don't know. This is it.
Sure. When will the tender? Is it scheduled to start, the tender?
I think, the contract comes to an end.
Yeah.
in October 2023. I would say at the end of this year, probably beginning of next will be the launching of the tender. Before that, we will be working with third party help to shape the tender process properly.
Thank you.
Thank you for your question. The next question is from José Manuel Arroyas from Santander.
Yes. This is José Manuel Arroyas from Santander. Sorry, I have to come back to slide six. I wanted to ask you if you could give us your best estimate of the underlying revenue per pax in the commercial business in Q4, that is once you deduct the MAG write-off. The reason for asking is that slide six, which is very helpful, gives us the negative revenues that were recorded in Q4. That was EUR -168. I was wondering, since the new law from the parliament came into force in early October, in reality, this amount is not, I mean, does not tell us the run rate that would correspond for Q4, but is in reality a larger amount of revenue. Could you please give us your underlying revenue per pax figure in the Q4, if that's possible? Thank you.
This is quite challenging, José Manuel. Anyway, I think we can provide this in more detail, but let me tell you that it is well in excess of. Oh, well, not maybe well, but in excess of EUR 6 per pax. But we could provide you with a little bit more color if you need it. What is clear is that the underlying, and this is for me the main headline out of this slide. The underlying business is growing. Clearly is not growing at the level of the traffic. Don't forget that 2020 was a mixed year. There was a first quarter that was, let's say, the business was operating in full-fledged. We have a number of shops, particularly specialty shops, still closed.
All in all, I think a growth of 24% in the underlying business is good news, and the trend is clearly positive and will be more positive over the current. I said before, don't take this as a final number, but I think it's in excess of EUR 6 per pax for the fourth quarter. We would provide a little bit more detail on it.
Thank you.
Next question, please. The next question from Charles Maynadier for Kempen. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon, this is Charles Maynadier from Kempen. Thanks for taking my questions. I just have a few follow-ups on the dividends. Will the dividends in the medium term be based on the underlying earnings or the reported earnings, so that is including the P&L impact of the MAG that you provided? Second one is on the K factor. Do you expect a yield concentration or dilution in 2022? The last one on retail, coming back on the EUR 1.3 billion impact that you calculated and gave us, and the EUR 500 million impact that is left, so over 2022 and beyond. This figure is based on your traffic assumptions, I understand. I was still wondering if you could give us some color on how this amount will be spread over the coming years.
It seems quite fair to assume that it will be front-end loaded. If you could confirm that would be helpful.
Could you say it again, the last question?
Yeah. On the retail and the EUR 500 million that is left, so that should be over 2022 and beyond. You mentioned that timing is hard to forecast. But if you could maybe give us a bit more color on how this amount will be spread over the years. Will it be front-loaded or back-loaded, in your view? I assume that it's gonna be front-loaded.
Well, let me answer this first. I think it's irrelevant, to be perfectly honest. It's entirely irrelevant, and I will tell you why. If I'm wrong, please let me know. The 795 million euros of MAGs that we accounted for and we didn't collect were supposed to be collected roughly 60% in the first quarter of 2021. Okay? The 40% in the first quarter of 2022. We know that full well, more or less. What we know now is that we won't collect them. They are gone. Unfortunately, so to speak, they were already accounted for in the balance sheet. The cash never came in. Now we have to take it to P&L. Under IFRS 16, we take this to P&L through a, let's say, using a particular approach, which is a straight line through the life of each and every contract. Fine.
You said, well, you will still have an impact. You will still have an impact. What I'm saying to you is what is the impact on cash comparing what we would have been expecting, let's say three years ago, to collect under a, let's say, a situation like the COVID and what we will collect. Forget about it. This is money that will never come in. You don't have to compare with anything. Simply if you try to compare your current models with your models two years ago, assuming that the COVID was coming, that nobody knew, that would be the scenario. That scenario is completely irrelevant. It's history, in my view. Simply, when you model the future years, please take into account only the variable element of the commercial revenues and the MAGs that are allowed by the DF7.
Take that into account and model that cash and forget about it. The rest is irrelevant. It's not meaningful anymore. I don't know if I'm convincing you, maybe not, but for me it's relatively simple. The EUR 1.3 billion is just comparing with a parallel universe that never occur. Then with reported earnings or adjusted earnings. Frankly, I think our policy is very clear. It's reported earnings, unless the board of directors consider in each and every case, specifically, a potential adjustment. For the time being, I would obviously, over the coming month, that wouldn't make any difference at all. I would say you have to take into account the reported earnings approach. What else? I don't know.
No. On, yeah, on the factor K.
Yeah.
Do you expect another yield concentration or not?
It's difficult to say, because we are probably, let's say, sitting on the fence now. The traffic profile is changing, the load factors are changing. It would be difficult to say whether we will end up in a concentration or dilution scenario. In any case, they will be relatively. Well, they won't be material. They won't be the sort of numbers you have seen in 2020 or 2021. They will be probably of a completely different scale. I don't know if you understand what I mean here.
Yeah, sure. Okay. Thank you. Thanks.
Thank you for your question. There are no further questions at the moment.
Okay. Thank you very much for joining us today. Hopefully we see you back on first quarter results presentation in the end of April. Thank you very much. Bye.
That conclude the conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.