Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Aena first quarter 2022 results presentation conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be the question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star and one on your telephone keypad. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to our speaker today, Emilio Rotondo. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning to everybody and welcome to Aena's first quarter 2022 results. Good having you back. We are here, José Leo, CFO of Aena, and myself as the speakers. I will leave the floor to José to start the presentation. Thank you.
Thank you, Emilio. Welcome everyone, and thank you for being part of this call. As usual, we will start sharing with you the key aspects of the quarter one 2022 results on slide number four. As you can see, we have a significant increase in the number of passengers between quarter one 2021 and quarter one 2022. 280% up for the whole consolidated group. This is clearly not coming as a surprise to anyone because the quarter one 2021 was a really bad one, fully impacted by the pandemic. Which is more relevant is the level of, well, the recovery that these numbers represent vis-a-vis the quarter one 2019 figures.
This is close to 72% of the traffic at that time, which is very good, particularly in March. The level of traffic reached something in the region of 78% in the Spanish network of the March 2019 figures. This is an indication that the recovery that we started to experience at the beginning of the summer 2021 and that was, let's say, temporarily interrupted by the Omicron variant is back. We are optimistic about these trends going forward. Having said that, I want to be very upfront. At this moment in time, we are stopping short of reviewing or revisiting or announcing any new guidance for the whole 2021, sorry, 2022 traffic. Of course, we are positive.
Of course, these traffic trends are very promising. Furthermore, the summer season capacity that the airlines are putting forward is indicating that is looking good. There are a number of uncertainties that are leading us to believe that it's better to wait. Probably in the coming months, we will be back to you making a more clear statement about our views for 2022. In terms of clear statements, I mean in terms of specific levels of recovery we expect for the year. For the time being, suffice to say that we are optimistic that clearly the trends are indicating that things are going in the right direction. Potentially, who knows? The 68% traffic recovery for the year can be considered conservative.
I wouldn't call it conservative. I would say it's just a view that to be revisited, we need some more clarity. Moving on to the revenues. Clearly, the revenues are going up by 93%. Everybody can see that this is not consistent with the passenger numbers, with the recovery in the passenger numbers. There is a very significant element there impacting the figures, and this is the accounting entries affecting the commercial revenues that we will discuss later on. This translates into a positive EBITDA of EUR 72.6 million, clearly against the 2021 losses. Of course, I'm sure we will discuss this later and to what extent this is affected by the operating expenses evolution.
Still, we are incurring losses in quarter one, 2022, EUR 96.4 million. The loss is driven by the fact that quarter one is normally a quarter heavily impacted by one-off costs, namely the impact of the local taxes accounting treatment. It's true that this happened as well before the COVID pandemic. Nowadays, it is more difficult to get back to normal, let's say, and back to profit. Until such a time where the traffic is in full-fledged. I think this will be happening in the coming quarters to be clear. In terms of the cash generated by the operating activities, this is good news.
We have already delivered EUR 343 million of positive operating cash flows. Of course, you may notice that this is pretty inconsistent with the EBITDA figures. The reason for that is mainly driven by the accounting things around. Well, there is a combination of things. To start with, the accounting entries on the MAGs that are impacting EBITDA, but clearly have no effect in terms of cash. Secondly, also the collections in the first quarter of the year of the MAGs accumulated in the previous year, and these MAGs are all of them, obviously, fully supported by contracts and the DF7 . So we are not talking anymore about MAGs that were disputed by our tenants.
Moving on to the next slide, I would like to highlight the operating cost side of the business. Clearly, the OpEx is also evolving in a way that is dragging a bit the EBITDA. The most relevant part of it is the electricity cost increases to the tune of EUR 47 million more than in the first quarter of 2021. To give you an idea, this is fourfold the electricity costs in the first quarter of 2021. On top of that, there are some other elements playing there.
Looking at the Spanish network, clearly as the traffic is recovering, and as we mentioned in previous calls, we open substantially all the facilities. There are a number of items that are growing, such as the security costs, the maintenance costs. I wouldn't point out any particular operating cost item. I would say across the board, different elements of the service provisions are involving a higher cost, not coming as a surprise. I think I mentioned that a number of times previously. On top of that, our subsidiaries, Luton and the Brazilian airports, are also starting to work on a completely different environment.
Luton, for instance, kept the costs very tightly managed, and now obviously they need to start getting back to normal. This is also impacting the cost bill for the group. Likewise, the Brazilian airports that are now in full operation, frankly, operating at 100% of the traffic levels of 2019. Both Luton and Brazil are adding some EUR 35 million quarter-over-quarter. It's part of a broader picture of everybody coming back to normality. Other than that, I would jump to the slide number nine, commercial revenues. When looking at this slide, what you see is roughly the accounting, the headline, so to speak, the headline revenue figures indicating that our revenues overall are down year-over-year.
Of course, the commercial revenue per passenger is also down big time because in quarter one 2021, there were MAGs accumulated on the basis of the contractual arrangements, so well before the DF 7 came into place. This is just the headline figures that, in my view, have no interest at all for you anymore. Let's move on to the next slide, where we are trying to provide a more insightful information. Splitting the figures between the two, the business activity, what we can say is the underlying business activity. You see their revenues growing by 177%. That is a combination of two different lines.
The rent that are being invoiced and collected monthly, they are a combination of variable rents in the cases where the contract arrangements provide for that, or fixed rents in the cases where contract arrangements provide for this other form of rent. Both of them are literally the everyday life of the business, billing and collecting. This is going up by 224%. This is more consistent with the traffic evolution. With regard to MAGs, the MAGs are being, let's say, calculated here pro forma for Q1 2021, as if in Q1 2021, the DF 7 would have been already in place. Clearly for 2022, this is the real, the actual figure. Those two lines are showing the reality of the activity.
Below that, what you see is the two adjustments, accounting adjustments, very positive in 2021. Although we know that that didn't fly finally, and negative in 2022, as a result of the accounting treatment that we already discussed, when submitting the year-end accounts. For me, this is probably the most relevant slide of the presentation, I mean, in terms of providing some more clarity about the underlying commercial business. Let me give you a headline and then I will hand you over to Emilio, who will be dwelling a little bit more on this particular aspect of the business. I have to say the commercial business these days is doing well. I think we are witnessing a recovery, which is really positive.
I would say, surprisingly positive at times. This is clearly can be seen in the fixed and variable rent line there, which is growing very healthily. It's getting us back in terms of the underlying activity, the spend per pax to levels of 2019. By way of headline, this is what I wanted to share with you. This is promising. I don't know whether this is going to be the trend as we have more and more traffic, but I have the impression that this is going to last for a while.
On top of that, the new contracts that we are tendering out in the commercial business are coming back to us with very competitive offers, and the new contracts are being signed with MAGs at the level of 2019, being back very quickly in overall or on average by 2023, we expect for these contracts to recover in full the 2019 MAGs. The combination of both things, the current underlying activity, the trends that we can witness in the business and the new contracts being tendered and awarded are very positive signals of the evolution of the commercial business. I will stop here.
As I said before, Emilio will give you some more color on the commercial business trends, and then we will start the Q&A. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Thank you, José. Regarding the commercial sales, I'm going here to speak about sales, not the revenue for Aena, but the sales of our commercial operators versus 2019. As Jose was mentioning, in terms of spend per pax, the trend that we have been seeing the last quarters in duty free and food and beverage continues to be very positive. The spend per pax is above 2019, mainly due to the positive effect of having the other shops closed. That means that a more number of passengers use and go to these duty free and food and beverage shops.
Also, we have seen the recovery of Brits during the last quarter, and this English passenger is spending more than in the past. First of all, mainly because just the well-being something that's just recovering the vacations and coming back to Spain, but also because we are seeing that the effect of the Brexit, that they are now using duty free versus duty paid is also positive for our sales and also positive for Aena revenue as duty free pays a higher variable rent in terms of percentage than duty paid. On the specialty shops, the spend per pax of specialty shops continues to be lower than in 2019, mainly due to the number of shops that continue closed.
If we do the exercise of a like for like spend per pax, so we adjust the spend per pax by the operating area, which nowadays is 53% of what we had back in 2019, the spend per pax would be similar to what we had back in 2019.
Rent a car continues to be very positive with a very positive trend. In fact, both, well, sales and also, Aena revenues are above in absolute terms than in 2019. Mainly due to the, lack of a stock and the, higher prices that are driving these revenues up. In terms of VIP services and parkings, both trends are in line with traffic performance, maybe slightly better VIP services than parkings, but both in line with the traffic performance. Also for the future and also tackling, the tenders, the new tenders that José mentioned. Since November, we have tendered 18 contracts in food and beverage and 113 specialty shops.
All together in 2022 Minimum Annual Guarantees are also just slightly below 2019 Minimum Annual Guarantees around 90%-95%. 2023 Minimum Annual Guarantees will be above 2019, around 110%-115% higher than 2019 numbers. I think all these figures and trends very positive and confirming what José just mentioned of the positive evolution of the commercial business. This is it from our side. Now we can move to the Q&A session. Thank you.
Thank you. Dear participants, we will now begin the question and answer session. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press the hash key. Once again, please press star and one if you wish to ask a question. The first question comes from the line of Cristian Nedelcu from UBS. Please ask your question.
Hi. Thank you very much. A few questions, please. Maybe firstly on OpEx. In Spain, I think you have around EUR 400 million in staff costs and maybe around EUR 700 million in third-party contracts with subcontractors. How should we think about the wage inflation that we'll see here? Should we put in a sort of 5% , 7%, 10% wage inflation? I think your average duration for the third party contract is three to four years. So we should start seeing this gradually, the inflationary pressures gradually kicking in. In relation to this, how should we think about the measures that Aena can take over the next few years to mitigate the inflationary pressures? And my last question, if I may.
If you look a bit at what the travel retailers are doing these days, and we have 10% inflation in Spain, are you seeing prices increasing in duty-free food and beverage specialty shops? Are they increasing in line with inflation? Because at the end of the day, this could be helpful if this elasticity is not harmed so much. But yeah, anything you're seeing there. Thank you very much.
Okay. Thank you, Cristian. First of all, we would struggle to anticipate a clear view on the impact that inflation can have on our OpEx, because frankly, still what we can see is just probably more than enough, but just the electricity costs going up very dramatically, the energy costs in general. Frankly, we are not yet experiencing any sort of inflationary pressures. From the point of view of our staff, I think, honestly, there is, so far, no sense of urgency. There are no pressures coming from the unions. Everybody is, of course, looking at discussions on the next, let's say, agreement.
I cannot see any tension, let's say, above the standard and the usual and the normal, let's say, experience in the past. Nobody is speaking about, let's say, high level salary increases. I have to say that the Spanish labor market, I think I mentioned that a number of times, is not exactly the same that you can see in other northern European countries and indeed in the U.S. Frankly, for the time being, I see no indication of this becoming a problem. With regard to the third-party contracts, third-party services, we expect everybody to honor these agreements.
Whether or not in the coming years as some of them are coming to renewal, we'll have a different sort of underlying staff costs, time will tell. Frankly, I will struggle to give you any indication of any real sense of that. For 2022, I would say I don't expect any major inflation pressure other than the one coming from the energy costs. Maybe in the investment side of the business, in the CapEx side of the business, some pressures because some of the materials are, let's say, experiencing problems for both in terms of supply and lead times and costs. This is on the CapEx side.
Sorry, I'm not able to give you any more color, but for the time being, I cannot tell you that there is any real sense of pressure. Time will tell. 2023, 2024, we'll see. But for the time being, I would struggle to quantify that. In terms of the the. Well, your question was also about what can we do if and when these inflationary pressures manifest themselves? I would say our process is extremely transparent. We run competitions for everything. In every case, we run a process that ends up in an electronic auction. So there is full transparency and full ability by every supplier to compete. This is the market, so I would expect that the market will give you the best answer.
Beyond that, there is nothing you can do. You cannot squeeze anybody's, let's say, finances or to get them bust or something like that. No. If they are competing and they put on the table a competitive offer, you will get the best in terms of any third-party service, security, cleaning, whatever. This is the way we work. Of course, you can reduce the level of resources, but frankly, I have to be extremely clear on that. I don't see Aena or indeed any other major European airport cutting corners, going forward because the regulatory frameworks are very, very demanding in terms of the quality of the service, the standards that you have to meet.
The opportunity to discuss that again is the opportunity of the next DORA discussion with the regulator. There is no way you can cut corners and reduce the level of service or let's say, turning back on the regulatory, let's say requirements. Finally, in terms of the impact of inflation in the other side of the business, so far I haven't seen any major price increases. Indeed, we haven't seen any price reduction. Probably there are some price increases in the duty-free shops, because honestly, they are now facing a situation where the alternative shopping outlets are closed to a great extent. In any case, I haven't seen anything major.
You are right, if there is a price increase in our retailers, we will benefit from that, of course. That will be the flip side of the coin of the inflation. So far, I would say nothing relevant other than the car rental activities where, as Emilio said, there is a shortage of cars and the prices are going up to the point that with less number of contracts, with less number of services, we are obtaining a higher level of revenues. Actually, our revenues today are higher than the revenues in 2019 in terms of the for the car rental business.
Yeah. Excellent. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Nicolo Pessina from Mediobanca. Please ask your question.
Yes, good afternoon all. I have three questions. First one, if you can comment on the summer capacity, if you have seen any change in the last month as suggested by the pricing that indicates summer capacity now broadly in line with 2019. Second question, maybe if you can comment on the level of bookings and how it compares with 2019. I would also have a final question again on the electricity costs. What could be the implications from the recent agreement on the cap on gas prices in Spain? My understanding is that there should be benefits for retail users at the detriment of corporate users. Can you share with us your expectations for the rest of the year on this cost item? Thank you.
Starting with the summer capacity, I think, the summer capacity initially declared by the airlines was something like, close to 2% above the 2019 figures. I think there has been some degree of attrition recently, but very minor. This is something very, very common. You should expect between now and the summer, and every particular month of the summer to see some attrition. So far, there are no news about any significant change. Overall, the capacity available will be in line with 2019, there or thereabouts, with significant growth in the, let's say, in the islands, mainly in the Canary and Balearic Islands and the holiday destinations, and slightly behind for the large airports. This is it.
Of course, you need to see every single month how this translates into the effective number of passengers, and this will be driven by the demand reaction. In terms of bookings, frankly, I don't have the information now. I can try and get some intelligence, but I don't think we will have the full information available ourselves. In terms of the electricity cost, well, yeah, I think this is an agreement that is going to benefit the, let's say, retail users.
In terms of us, what we are doing is just working with the market, with the Iberian market directly and getting to potentially hedge partially if and when we consider that to be appropriate, to hedge partially the electricity cost to reduce the volatility. Frankly, I expect the whole year, the 2022 figures in full to be impacted by this. I think we are not going to get away with, let's say, without having a significant impact. Hopefully, that will be less than the current one, but I cannot promise anything. Just, we are monitoring the market and coming to hedge partially our energy needs for the coming months. This is what we are doing.
Very clear. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Siobhan Lynch from Deutsche Bank. Please ask your question.
Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. Just two quick ones from me, if possible. Firstly, you mentioned in a previous question about CapEx costs and the potential that they rise. Just to check, are there any ways in the DORA regulation that this can be adjusted for, or is this a risk that you have to bear in the same way that you bear the risk on traffic and on OpEx? Just a quick follow-up on staff costs. When do you typically start negotiating for the year ahead? When will you start kind of discussing for the 2023 staff costs? Thank you.
Well, in terms of the OpEx, we bear the risks entirely. Of course, I suppose that if there is any, let's say, I would say, sort of earthquake or something like that would be a different thing. Normally, we take in full the risks and the reward as we do with the traffic evolution. I always said that this DORA is demanding on OpEx, that we have been extremely lucky to be able to navigate through years with a really low cost level, unparalleled across the European airport industry, and that we will continue being the most effective and the most efficient airport operator in Europe. Having said that, our cost bill is going to go up.
I'm discussing the cost bill from the point of view of the level of resources and the level of service. Obviously, the discussion on inflation is a different story altogether, and this discussion on inflation, I think we will be, frankly, pushing hard to get to something more consistent with the rest of the European regulations. From the point of view of the resources needed, the fact that our facilities are needing more resources than before because the requirements are higher and more demanding, this is it. We cannot reopen the DORA. Well, we are literally starting to get in touch with the unions. I think probably in the second half of the year, there will be discussions.
Honestly, I don't see any sort of, let's say, confrontational stand here in Aena. I feel this will be. Of course, discussions on pay will be probably more difficult across the board now with the inflationary pressures. I don't see in Aena any sort of, let's say, once again, confrontational approach, generally speaking. We will come to terms, I believe in reasonable conditions.
Great. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Luis Prieto from Kepler. Please ask your question.
Good afternoon. Thanks a lot for taking my questions. I had a couple of them, if I may. The first one is keeping in mind that the OpEx mechanisms that you just described, would it be possible to provide us with a very rough, and I reiterate, rough idea of what unitary cost inflation could amount to over the next couple of years? Is it 2%, 3%, 4%? I'm thinking of factor P calculations in the 1% cap against factor of the cost inflation reality. The second question is if you could provide us with any update on the unconstitutionality questions at judicial level and the administrative appeal against the Article 27 compensation denial. Any progress there? Thank you.
Frankly, Luis, I would be misleading you if I give you any indication of the trends over the coming two years driven by inflation, because I don't really know. What I know is the level of resources we are expecting to require to deliver the DORA II commitments. As I said before, that will take us to a territory where the margins maybe wouldn't be any more in the 62% region. They will be some points below. I never mention any particular figure, but I always said they would be still very healthy, very solid and best in class.
If you ask me to what extent the new reality of inflation, let's say, being higher, is going to impact us, I don't want to speculate because really, nobody knows. There are still discussions about whether or not these inflation trends are temporary or they are permanent, whether or not, of course, they are driven by events and circumstances that nobody expected, as the war, things like that. You know, in that regard, I wouldn't give you any view on that. I would be a little bit, let's say I would be misleading you, honestly. The next question. Sorry, Luis, I-
Yes. The next question.
Yeah. The legal disputes.
Yeah.
In terms of the Article 27, we carry on waiting for different judges to come with different views. You know, we have something in the region of 100 different disputes, so far, no judge has, let's say, opened the door to an unconstitutionality question. That's absolutely clear. I think we are still at, I don't know, 15%-20% of the total number of the disputes to be dealt with by the judge. We are still waiting. We only need one to open that door. Of course, this is going to be a very long and protracted and complicated process, but we are not going to surrender.
We will carry on arguing our case because it's our obligation, it's our duty, and it's our right. With regard to the Article 27, the latest news are communicated in our management report this quarter. We submitted an appeal to the Spanish High Court, the Tribunal Supremo, Supreme Court, because in our view, after a couple of, let's say, decisions made at the administrative level, rejecting our request, we believe that this is somehow a responsibility for the government, for the Spanish government cabinet, for the council of ministers. The way to get to that point is to appeal to the Supreme Court, and this is what we have done.
Once again, a complicated, potentially long process, but we are where we are because we believe we are right.
Okay. Thank you very much. Bye.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Elodie Rall from JP Morgan. Please ask your question.
Oh, hi. Thanks for taking my questions. Can you just come back, sorry, on the regulation and the ability to cover inflation in there? Did you say that basically there is no protection at all on the higher inflation until the end of DORA II? Is that what you said? How about the P factor? If you could remind us how the P factor works. My second question would be on the EBITDA bridge, sorry, to come back again on OpEx. In aviation, you said that electricity costs are up, like, EUR 46 million year on year in Q1. But I think OpEx are up to EUR 430 million or so in the aviation segment, excluding depreciation.
I think there is a delta there, because if you look at EUR 368 million of OpEx in Q1 last year, if you add the EUR 46 million of electricity costs, you get to EUR 405 million. What is the delta in terms of extra costs? Should we extrapolate that in the coming quarters as well? Thanks very much.
Well, thank you. We are protected against inflation partially because we have this index mechanism. It's true that the index mechanism is capped. We are looking at that obviously very carefully because we are very concerned about this cap, and we will turn every stone to find out whether this can be changed. Initially, this is capped at 1%. This is a problem because so far that was fine. Now inflation levels are likely to be above 1%. Having said that, there is a something relevant in this mechanism. The P index applies on the per unit airport charge, so per passenger airport charge.
You may end up through increasing the number of passengers or through having a higher level of passengers recovering inflation in absolute terms, well above the 1% cap. I hope you understand me. You have a cap of 1% in terms of the inflation you can consider when setting the airport charge per passenger. If you have, let's say, double the number of passengers the year after, in absolute terms, you will be recovering more than 1% of the inflation. Of course, still this is a position that is not consistent with the other European regulations where CPI applies, and still you can get the upside of the traffic volumes.
In our case, through the traffic volumes, you can recover part of the cost, the inflation cost, but it's still not right to have a cap at 1%. The answer is we are protected against inflation to a level that is not enough in the current circumstances. In terms of the electricity cost, I'm not sure I understood your question in full, but clearly the costs went up by EUR 46 million to EUR 61 million or EUR 62 million in total. This is the cost. Of course, there is an element of that cost that is passed through on to the tenants because, you know, our costs bill is always split into two components, the regulated side of the business and the unregulated side of the business. And this is always done under the supervision of the CNMC.
They review our cost accounting systems and practices. Part of that is recovered from the commercial side of the business, and this is something in the region of 20%, more or less. Of course, we retain 80% of the negative impact. Whether or not this could be extrapolated for the rest of the year. Well, not really, because the second half of 2021 was already affected by the increases in energy prices. We don't know whether the second half of the year, the prices will be the same or higher or lower than the prices in the second half of 2021. Clearly, quarter one and quarter two of 2021 and 2022 will be completely different scenarios in terms of the energy costs.
Whether the impact will be EUR 46 million again or not, I have no idea, to be honest. What we are not going to do is to hedge 100% of our needs. This is something we don't believe is right. I cannot fix the price for the whole electricity needs. We are not going to do that.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Johannes Braun from Stifel. Please ask your question.
Yes, thanks for taking my questions. I only have two left. One is, I'm sorry again, on cost and cost inflation. The one question I would still have is, I mean, you said that you will potentially partially hedge the energy costs going forward, but is there any reason why you haven't hedged anything in the past? Because I think your peers did. That's the first question. Second question, you said that you would need more clarity to revisit the traffic guidance. Question would be, what are you actually waiting for? I mean, we have travel restrictions being obviously canceled. We had a good Easter period, and the capacity outlook by the airlines is pretty bullish. What kind of clarity you are basically waiting for? Thanks.
The reason why we didn't hedge is I think I explained that back in February. We have been working with an arrangement that was really consistent with our business model. We could pass through the cost of energy, and we were naturally hedged. We had no reason to hedge. Although we work with a mechanism where we could hedge with a three-month notice. We were operating in the market with a, let's say, market price, but with the possibility of closing the price with a three-month notice. We didn't do that, never. First of all, we were naturally hedged and secondly, frankly, we were always right.
You may or may not be, but for a number of years, we always were very, let's say, happy with checking that our prices were better than the alternative fixed price available. At the early days of the summer 2021, all of a sudden, we were taken by surprise by the energy price hike. This is a purely psychological behavior and mechanism. Should we hedge at that time? We said, "No, let's move on." You enter into a situation where the whole energy market, let's say, got out of control, on top of that, the war.
It's the usual situation where you have been enjoying a very positive experience, and then one day overnight, you have to make a decision, and you decide to wait, and this is it. Of course, in the current circumstances, we are changing our mind, and we are starting to hedge partially the cost of the energy. This is it. No more and no less than that. This is very simple explanation. Whether or not others did that, did hedge or not, I have no idea. To be honest, I'm not sure. In our business, of course, it is very usual in the airline business.
With regard to guidance, when I said clarity, what I mean is we need to see a little bit more of this traffic taking place over the coming months, let's say couple of months, and whether or not there is any impact coming from the current uncertainties surrounding us. I said before, we are optimistic, but we struggle to give a new guidance today. This is it. We are not in a position to give a new guidance so far. We will do it for sure over the coming couple of months. For the time being, we struggle to give a new guidance that we believe is right. We are optimistic.
Fair enough. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Sathish Sivakumar from Citigroup. Please ask your question.
Hi there, thanks for taking my question, actually. In terms of going into the summer, right? As you said that, yeah, the capacity is like in line with 2019 or slightly above. What is your view in terms of hiring plans? Do you see similar disruptions that we have seen in the U.K. or even in Frankfurt? Do you think that the traffic surge in traffic as you go into the summer is actually very well factored in your hiring plans in terms of headcount? That's point one. How should we actually think about in terms of traffic as we go into winter for the latter part of the year? Do you expect it to have a typical seasonality that we have seen in, say, 2019?
Do you expect a similar momentum? Thank you.
Well, with regard to the impact of traffic on OpEx, I think that it will be some, of course, but what you can see today in our numbers is already the full deployment of, let's say, the fixed component of our cost structure, which you know is relevant because we are in a business with a level of operating leverage, which is, it is what it is, no? The reality is that we are already incurring significant costs as a result of opening the facilities, getting everything ready to accommodate passengers above the current figures. Of course, there is always a variable element of that, and this will trigger some additional costs.
I would say what you see today is substantially already taking a significant part of these costs of running the Aena's airports fully at full capacity. With regard to the summer and winter season, it's difficult to say. This is one of the interesting conundrums here, is whether or not the shock waves that the war and the inflationary pressures and the cost of the fuel are sending across the world in terms of macro conditions worsening, whether or not that will have an impact on the continuity of the trends that we are seeing for the coming months. I'm not saying I have any reason to be pessimistic, frankly.
We need to get more understanding of that because all of us know that the macro conditions are worsening. The growth expectations are going down across the board. The fuel price is going up, and the airlines are unlikely to, let's say, maintain ticket prices at very competitive levels for too long. We need to wait and see. Having said that, I'm not pessimistic. I have the impression that even considering all these circumstances, there are also good reasons to expect the traffic recovery to be maintained. I don't know if I'm answering all your questions or I missed something.
No, thank you. That's very clear.
Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Marcin Wojtal from Bank of America. Please ask your question.
Yes. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. The first one is on your operating expenses. I just wanted to follow- up on these expenses related to COVID, I believe EUR 26 million in Q1. Do you expect these expenses to actually continue even as pandemic recedes over time? Also, when should we expect actually a compensation for these expenses? Is it only in 2024, so two years after the actual expense is incurred? Question number two, just on the commercial segment if I can. There are certain business lines like car parks and VIP services that you run directly. What is your pricing strategy in those?
Are you perhaps increasing prices right now, to offset the cost inflation in those segments? Thank you.
Well, with regard to the COVID costs, the answer is, I don't know. We don't know. We suspect this will come to an end at some point in time. Frankly, I would not be in a position to tell you when. It may last. Probably some of the routines will be discontinued sooner, and some of them will be maintained for longer period of time. I suppose that this will end up in a reduced level of costs at some point in time. I don't know if at the end of this year or later on.
The recovery of the costs, our expectation is to recover in 2023, as we did in 2022, the fourth quarter of 2021, the costs incurred in the fourth quarter of 2021, and the costs incurred in the first nine months of 2022. This is our expectation. This is what the CNMC did within the previous year, and this is driven by the need of having the information available when discussing the charges for the year to come, and it's impossible technically to get any information beyond the 13th of September. This is our expectation. With regard to the commercial business, the businesses we are running, as you rightly said, internally are the rent-a-car, the car parks and the VIP lounges.
In terms of the VIP lounges, definitely we are using some price strategy in combination with an improvement in the quality of the service. This is a business that is growing. I think more and more people are willing to be treated this way, and there is opportunity there. We are planning to invest in better facilities. We are, as we speak, improving the quality of the service massively, and obviously, that is coming with a price increase. It's, let's say, pretty consistent. The answer is yes. Not price increases for the sake of it, but the price increases because we are upscaling the quality of the service and the quality of the experience.
With regard to the car park, it's a different story. This is much more complicated business where you are, if you want to be successful, you have to manage your yield. This is not about increasing or decreasing prices arbitrarily. It's to keep an eye on the rest of the alternatives, to manage the loyalty programs, to attract people onto those loyalty programs and the online bookings and to manage the price. Overall, you will attract more value, hopefully. This is the plan. Not necessarily through massive price increases. Not so far.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Andrew Lobbenberg from HSBC. Please ask your question.
Oh, hi there. Apologies if this was asked before or clarified on. I did drop out for a little while. Is there anything you can tell us about the process of the new duty-free contract in terms of your preparatory works or what concepts you're looking at? Second question might be around Luton and what is your optimism for the traffic recovery there? It clearly was lagging a bit in Q1, but I suspect it's going quite strong now, but I'm curious to hear. If I can just come back to an area that some of our colleagues were dancing around, and it is on the other costs. I mean, you've been very clear and discussed the impact of electricity.
I think what we're all struggling to understand or eager to understand is what is the balance of that sort of EUR 100 million that's not electricity, and how do we accept, you know, the balance of it?
Yeah, Andrew, I didn't quite understand your question on Luton. Can you say again, please?
What's the traffic prognosis? What's the traffic outlook?
Well, in terms of the duty-free contract, we are working, literally. I think today has been announced the appointment of an advisor to help us with this process. We are working with, I wouldn't say a blank sheet of paper, but with an open-minded approach, and we will see what is best. Frankly, other than telling you that, when this contract is tender, at the end of this year or very early days of next, we will consider all the learnings and the lessons learned from our advisors, the information we have been capturing from different airports across the world, different players in the duty-free activities, talking to people, and with an open-minded approach.
I personally said that before. I personally believe the MAGs will still be there. I would bet. I'm open-minded, but at the same time, I know what this particular market and this particular airport network needs, and I wouldn't struggle to see the MAGs disappearing. But other than that, open-minded. What we are not going to do is, I think, create any joint venture or do things like that. We are not going to be involved in the business, but we want to be open-minded and capture all the best practices. In terms of the Luton traffic, frankly, the view is positive.
The view is that the recovery that has already started in the U.K. is going to continue over the summer and, subject to my comments before, through the winter. Of course, with the seasonality that is typical of our business, but fine. Once again, I would apply to Luton the same comments I made before, more generally. Whether or not the macro conditions could sooner or later impact negatively these trends, we don't know. I'm, if you like, ignoring any new COVID issues. Nobody knows what is going to happen, but I'm not going to consider that. Just what we can see today, which is macro conditions worsening, could potentially erode part of the recovery.
I don't mean the traffic will be disappearing, but the trends might not be as positive as they are expected to be over the summer. Other than that, Luton is experiencing a very healthy recovery. Every month is better than the month before. I think the summer will be brilliant if nothing changes.
Finally, t he OpEx. What I can share with you is the sort of items that gave rise to the cost increases year-over-year. Please bear in mind that the 2021 figures were first quarter 2021 costs incurred by airports that were only partially open. After electricity, which is the lion's share of that, EUR 47 million, we have also increases in security of EUR 30 million. That means something in the region of 50% over quarter one, 2021. We have also maintenance growing by EUR 8 million, something in the region of 20% of 2021. Cleaning is also growing, EUR 4 million, but representing 50% of 2021. This can.
At the same time, you have cost increases which are driven by revenue increases by literally commercial activities, let's say, being deployed. For instance, the VIP business, as it is increasing, providing a very significant increase in revenues, obviously, you have the corresponding cost increases, which is also EUR 4 million. Likewise, car parks. You need to manage the car parks. They are the management services. Costs are going up because the car parking services are also generating more revenues. So these kind of things. It's a combination of different things, nothing particularly material or extremely material other than the energy costs in absolute terms. Is that answering your question, Andrew, or did I miss something?
No, that's definitely helpful. I guess the thing to lay on top of it would be, can you remind us when terminals open? You know, do you expect the same rate of increase in security, maintenance, cleaning just for the facilities being open throughout the whole year, or did they open in Q2 last year?
No. From the summer last year, we opened substantially all the facilities. Maybe some of them were still lingering, but the summer already was a good summer in terms of experiencing a recovery, and then we deployed all the fixed elements of our cost structure.
Some pressure on costs in Q2 because you weren't fully open in the early part of Q2 last year, but thereafter, that pressure eases.
I think Q2 probably is going to be similar situation to Q1. From the second half onwards, the second half of the year already had substantially all the facilities up and running.
Cool. Thank you.
Thank you, dear participants. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from the line of José Arroyas from Santander. Please ask your question.
Good afternoon, gentlemen. I just have one question. It's on the upcoming Brazilian tender. There are three lots that are coming to the market in the coming weeks, and I wanted to check if Aena remains willing to participate in the auction. Assuming Aena participates, if the company has any preference for any of the three lots or they are, in principle, equally appealing to the company's business model in the country. Thank you.
Well, the only thing I can tell you is that we remain interested in the Brazilian market. Other than that, I cannot share with you any more information for obvious reasons. We remain interested in that market, definitely.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Cristian Nedelcu from UBS. Please ask the question.
Hi. Thank you for allowing me to add one more question. Retail revenues, I think in 2019 it was around EUR 1.25 billion. Once you get back to the 2019 traffic, how should that number look like? Can it be the same or higher? Will it be lower? Any comments that you can make there? You talked earlier about the British tourist spending more. We have some inflationary pressure. Any color, please?
Honestly, Cristian, I cannot answer this question because I don't have an answer for this question. It's not that I'm Jewish. Probably if I had it, maybe I would share it with you, but literally, I don't know. Some of the trends, what is clear, and Emilio was mentioning that in detail. First of all, the trends that we can see today are positive. Some of them, you can realize very quickly, will be temporary. I suspect some of them, hopefully, will be more sustainable.
The second point is the contracts that we are tendering now for, so far for food and beverage and shops, and hopefully that will be the same for duty-free activities next year, are delivering MAGs above the 2019 MAGs committed, before the 2019 traffic is expected to be back. Both are good signals of a business that hopefully will be very healthy. We of course carry on working on initiatives to change the profile of some of the commercial offer, improving loyalty programs, improving the use of innovation and making the business more up to date, no? Those trends are positive. Whether or not that will deliver a particular figure by a particular time, Cristian, I don't know. So far, I don't know.
Understood. Yeah. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. There are no further questions. I would like now to hand the conference over to our speakers for closing remarks.
Well, thank you to everybody just for joining us to this conference call, and see you next at the end of July. Thank you. Bye.
That concludes our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect. Have a nice day.