Good afternoon. This is the conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Aena nine months 2022 results conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions pressing star and one on your keypad. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. José Leo, Economic Financial Director of Aena. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to this third quarter 2022 results presentation. At the call today we have sitting next to me Ignacio Castejón, who is the new Finance Director of Aena. He joined just three weeks ago. He has a wealth of experience both in the finance side of the business and in the airport industry. I will hand you over to Ignacio, who will be welcoming you and saying hello.
Thank you, José. Good afternoon, everyone. It's a real pleasure being today with all of you. I'm really looking forward to starting working with you in the near future, and I hope that we are able to to interact very soon. Thank you, José.
Thank you, Ignacio. Without further ado, we'll start going through the main slides of the presentation. Starting with the key highlights, I think we are presenting to you today a good set of results. Honestly speaking, it is a good set of results, and I will do my best to make you convinced that this is the case over the rest of the call. To start with, the traffic numbers are going really well. We see a significant growth indeed in the Spanish network, more than 140% year-on-year. Similarly, more than 133% across the group.
We will later on comment on how this involves a significant improvement vis-a-vis 2019 and an improvement vis-a-vis our expectations a couple of months ago, three months ago, and on the guidance that we provided exactly that, at that time. The total revenue is growing by 65.6%. As we discussed over the last results presentations, this is not in line with the passenger number growth, due mainly to the accounting adjustments impacting the commercial revenue that we will discuss as well in a minute. The EBITDA is now reaching a really meaningful figure. EUR 1.3 billion in EBITDA is already a very healthy figure, taking into account well the background where we are coming from and the challenges of the industry, r eaching already a more than 44% EBITDA margin, going in the right direction and trajectory.
The net result is healthy as well, close to EUR 500 million in net profit. Obviously now entirely out of the tunnel of the losses and the challenges of the COVID experience. Finally, I would like to stress very, very importantly the performance in terms of cash. We have generated more than EUR 1.56 billion in cash. The difference between the cash generated by the operational activities and the EBITDA is precisely the impact of the accounting adjustments impacting or affecting the commercial revenues, and they are obviously deducted from the EBITDA, but they have no impact whatsoever in cash terms.
I would like to stress that this is the company back in its group, its good self of generating very healthy cash very quickly, and now in full compliance with the covenants and the obligations stated in the debt commitments. Moving on to the next slide. The most relevant thing here is that as I said before, we are already recovering a good chunk, a very significant chunk of the 2019 traffic. For the whole group, we are close to 86% of the total traffic of 2019.
In the case of Spain and the Spanish network, this is 86.1%. For Luton is slightly less, as we discussed a number of times in the U.K., the traffic recovery is going slightly slower, but it's still very good at 71%. In the case of the Brazilian airports, we have already exceeded the 2019 figures, particularly in the month of September, the traffic in that group of airports exceeded the September 2019 traffic by 8%. This is a very good signal of how attractive and healthy that particular market might be.
Taking into account that the October traffic is also going in the right direction, to the point that it's showing a level of recovery even above the one experienced in the summer months, we are now indicating that we expect it to close the year with a level of traffic that will be slightly above the upper end of the range that we provided some months ago. We will be north of 85%. I don't propose to dwell any longer on this slide, so we can move on to the next slide. As you know, in the month of August, we were awarded the concession of 11 airports in Brazil. We are providing here some, let's say, descriptive information.
We may provide more insight into this project when we share with you the strategic plan in the coming weeks. Probably you are aware that we are planning to share with the market to arrange a capital market day on the sixteenth of November, and at that time, in that occasion, we will probably dwell a little bit more on this. In the meantime, I would like to share with you the strategic side of this transaction.
Of course, when you travel abroad, when you are acquiring airports in other countries, there is always an element of risks, extra element of risks, if you like, that is the knowledge of the market, whether or not you are right strategically, whether or not you feel that you can apply some of the experiences and templates you applied in your own country. Well, we believe that Brazil is ideally shaped for Aena to deliver the sort of value and values that we have delivered in Spain over the last decades. The reasons for that are, first of all, this is a large country. It's a country where the tourism industry hasn't been developed to the extent that we believe it could be developed.
It's far from the, let's say, volumes and the level of revenues that the tourism industry is generating in Spain. We believe Brazil is ideally placed to do this and even more. On the other hand, for the country, the air transport connections are critical for obvious reasons. I don't need to tell you why. There is still a huge headroom to develop the low-cost carrier business proposition. Of course, there are very healthy and very good low-cost carriers over there, but still they have room to grow and to improve that industry. Also it's a country where honestly, our experience of operating over there in the Northeast region is extremely positive in terms of the seriousness, how trustworthy the regulation and the institutions are.
With all that in mind, we believe this is a good country to be long term. This is a good country to try and apply the similar, obviously, with some differences, but similar, let's say, experiences that we have already had in Spain. We believe there is value to be generated there. Now, we are going to manage 20% of the total traffic, air traffic in Brazil, more than 40 million passengers, 17 airports, and the second largest airport in the country. We believe there is value on that proposition. I just wanted to share this with you. Of course, there will be more questions later on, I'm pretty sure.
Finally, I would go straight to the slides on commercial revenues and OpEx. The commercial revenue performance that we can see on page 10, because you know that one thing is the headline revenue figure, a different thing is the real underlying business. When we look at the fixed and variable rents that we are invoicing and collecting day in, day out, we are reaching now a level of EUR 903 million. That is 136% more than in 2021, which is not a surprise at all. When you look at the next slide, it's slide number 11, and compare these figures with the 2019 figures, that was an exceptional year in terms of traffic, as you know, the best in history.
Can we move on to slide number 11, please? You can see there that the performance of the business has been improving quarter by quarter, to the point that in Q3, overall, our rents are exceeding the same period rents in 2019 by 8.5%, with only one activity and only one commercial line, the specialty shops, underperforming for obvious reasons, because this is the part of the business that was more affected by the COVID in the sense of a number of shops ending up shut down, and they remain shut down until we let's say, put them again in the market through the different tenders. In total, we are now at close to EUR 900 million of fixed and variable rent built and collected on a regular basis.
Again, EUR 887 million in 2019. For me, this is good performance. We can discuss the drivers, we can discuss the reasons, we can discuss whether or not this is structural or it's just a matter of time that this can be impacted by other factors, and that frankly, nobody knows in full. Goodness me, this is good performance. Finally, on other operating expenses, what we can see is that what we have been telling you a number of times is the reality, no? The operating costs of this business, excluding the electricity costs, is at the levels of 2019, and I believe this is going to be the case for the rest of the year. They are the amounts.
This can be seen as bad news by some. This can be seen as a reality, and the confirmation of something that I have been sharing with you for years already. I shared with you the reasons, and I'm happy to answer again questions about what is behind this. It's a combination of structural changes in the business. It's a combination of quality standards required by regulators and passengers and airlines and stakeholders. It's a combination, of course, of change in the reality of the Spanish market, the Spanish labor market, so on and so forth. This, with regard to the electricity cost, this is the result of the evolution of the market conditions. We are not hedging yet.
I'm sure you will be asking questions on that, and I will be very happy to provide some answers. You know, the electricity is the maverick element of this year's operating cost base. Let me finish and spend five minutes trying to wrap up a number of things. Obviously, I'm not going to be focusing on any particular slide. I think Aena's situation coming out of the COVID tunnel is really good. To start with, we have improved right in the way we manage through the crisis in terms of our resources. We are not experiencing, we are not facing any of the havoc situations that other airports are experiencing across Europe.
We are accommodating a significant amount of growth and providing what I believe is a very good, never perfect, but very good operational experience with no issues whatsoever other than obviously strikes in some of the airlines and things like that inevitably we have to face. Other than that, we haven't experienced any of the terrible situations, but obviously we are not happy with that some of our colleagues faced over the last months. Secondly, the traffic is performing really well. It's surprising us positively. Believe me that we were not expecting this kind of performance to become a reality so quickly. Of course, nobody knows what is behind well or around the corner as a result of the macro conditions.
Nobody really, the airlines themselves are, let's say, watching out and monitoring this by the day. So far, they have no indication of any setback, but they remain vigilant, and we do the same. Thirdly, the revenues, the airport revenues, the airport charges are what they are. They are not coming as a surprise. You know our regulation. You know what the level of charges is set by the regulator. You know that we are until 2026, we have a cap, and this is it. No surprises. In terms of the commercial revenues, in my view, we are performing really, really well. I believe exceptionally well. Much better than we could dream six months ago.
Obviously, the headline figures are affected by the DF7 adjustment, but that makes no difference to the cash, and that makes no difference to the reality of the business. In terms of costs, the operating costs evolution is nothing we are celebrating, of course, but it's not coming as a surprise other than the energy cost that I'm prepared to take any hit you want to give me. In terms of cash, the business is generating EUR 1.6 billion in cash. As a result of that, debt is evolving very well, very healthily. The impact of the changes in the market conditions is not going to be huge. We can discuss it later.
It's not going to be a sort of make or break kind of situation in terms of the financial costs. Because we have already now, as we speak, 80%, this is not what you can see in the presentation, but we are already now hedged or under fixed rates, for 80% of our debt. In terms of the international expansion, Luton and the Northeast Brazilian airports are performing really well. They are contributing already a meaningful amount to our EBITDA. This is going to improve over time. They are good contributors, they are good businesses. In the case of Brazil, the recovery of air traffic is amazing. In the case of our international strategy, I share with you our strategic views about Brazil.
Of course, I'm ready to discuss further in detail. Finally, in terms of developing new businesses, the real estate business is already, let's say, moving on with the award of the first plot of land to P3 and with a very good results. In my view, of course, this is not the world we were used to in 2019, but I believe, honestly, that Aena from any angle is coming out of the COVID crisis in a very positive and a very attractive manner. This is it. Now we can open the Q&A session. Thank you very much, everyone.
This is the conference operator. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Nicolò Pessina of Mediobanca. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon, all. I've got three questions. The first one, we read about the approval of the new strategic plan, so I'm wondering if you can give us any visibility on the dividend policy. Second question, maybe if you can provide an update on the level of yield dilution and concentration in the nine months, and if you can give us any visibility on the full year figure and on the 2024 K- factor. A last question on the new airports in Brazil.
If I look at the material made available by ANAC in Brazil, I see a regulated tariff of approximately BRL 16 per passenger in 2023, increasing 50% in 2024, which is well below the BRL 43.6 you indicate, for example, for Congonhas, in the press release this morning. I'm wondering if you can explain how tariffs work in the contract, which kind of tariff you expect to implement, and if it's correct to assume a 50% increase over the next year. Thank you.
Okay. Well, with regard to the dividend policy, please bear with me. We should wait until the 16th of November. I think this is the kind of thing information that should be part of the strategic plan presentation rather than me discussing it today. In terms of the K- factor on the yield dilution, I can share with you the data so far, you know? This means in quarter one, we had the concentration by EUR 38.7 million. In quarter two, we experienced dilution by EUR 29.3 million. In quarter three, we experienced dilution by EUR 48.1 million. In total now we are in a position of EUR 38.6 million of dilution, yield dilution accumulated.
For the rest of the year, we may try to give you some indication later on, but frankly, I would say probably it's going to be there or thereabouts with quarter two maybe, yeah, or something between quarter two and quarter three. Please don't take this as a fait accompli, okay? What is clear is now the passenger mix and the growth of the business and the load factors are taking us in the direction of further dilution, coming back to the situation we experienced over a number of years before the COVID. Okay? With regard to the Brazilian revenues, I would rather ask you to be provided with this information at the time of the.
Sorry, the strategic plan presentation, we will be shedding some more light on that. What is clear is that the analysis we have made of that airport, and is a combination of two things. One of them is definitely financials, of course. Otherwise we wouldn't be there. On the other hand, don't forget the strategic perspective. We are going to be there for 30 years, 30+ years, in one of the largest air traffic markets in the world, and managing 20% of the traffic of that country. Any views based on assessing the coming two, three years would be, in my view, short-sighted.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question is from Cristian Nedelcu of UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you very much for taking my questions. The first one, if we look a bit at the cost of living crisis and potential implications for 2023, and I know it's very early on, but could you give us any color on how you see the moving parts in 2023 traffic in Spain? Maybe what's your worst case scenario? I mean, can you say 90% of 2019 traffic, it's a worst case scenario in a recession in 2023? Could it be more or less? Secondly, the retail revenues per passenger, the strong growth versus 2019, could you elaborate there how much of that you think is structural? You think there are still some temporary benefits in there? And how you see the next few quarters, do you think there's room for further improvements versus what you've had in Q3?
The last one, if I may, can you comment a bit about the recent new wage inflation proposal for Spain for public servants in 2023 and over the next three years? When do you expect to see a final decision there? Thank you.
Okay. Starting with views or expectations, frankly, Cristian, you know we don't provide, or at least we are not providing any views on 2023 for the time being. What I can tell you is that I wouldn't know what the worst case scenario could be. It depends very much on the severity of the evolution of the macroeconomic conditions, the war as well. I think this is definitely an element that everybody in Europe at least should keep in mind. We don't know. What we know is that so far there is no indication whatsoever of any worsening of the current trends.
When I say that, it's not only because Aena is monitoring that, it's because we are talking day in, day out to the airlines, and they don't see any indication of that. They are insisting that today the ability to predict the evolution of the bookings is, let's say almost, it has diminished dramatically, so they are mainly looking at the next month or next two months at maximum. At the same time, they don't see any indication of issues. You have to take into account as well that there is a large market closed so far, which is the Asia market. I don't mean this is a dramatically important market for Spain. I recognize that.
This market is going to open as well sooner or later, probably some point in time next year, and this will have a knock-on impact, a knock-on effect. Frankly, I cannot tell you what the worst case scenario would be. What I can tell you is that everything seems to be heading in the right direction, and the consequences of any macro conditions or work conditions worsening we need to monitor day by day. With regard to commercial revenues, well, the answer is yes.
I think the way the commercial revenues are going, I think I cannot tell you whether this is structural or not, in the sense of of course, there are a number of behaviors, social and personal behaviors taking place in our industry and other leisure industries that seem to be driven by psychological reactions and things like that. On the other hand, we have tailwinds coming from potentially the evolution of the U.S. dollar and the U.S. travelers coming to Europe more and more. The fact that the U.K. citizens are now out of the EU or obviously we can apply them duty-free, let's say prices, things like that.
I can tell you short term, and by short term I mean this year and probably good part of next year, subject to the conditions I mentioned before, I don't see any reason to see the revenue per passenger going south at all. This is not a prediction. This is just an impression. Because on the other hand, we expect the specialty shops to also join at some point in time, the trend. They are lagging behind big time for obvious reasons. So I don't see reasons to believe that this is going to change in the coming, let's say, 12 months or so. Wages. Well, in Spain, the wages are for the civil servants, and as you know, Aena is subject to the same rules, are already agreed. The best.
Let me think twice. I think this year we have a 3.5% salary increases or wage increases. Combining this year's 2023 and 2024, because the agreement has been well, it's subject to final signing, but I would say you can take it for granted. Combining 2022, 2023 and 2024, I think the compound growth in salaries will be probably around 9%, between 8% and 9%. I can check the number for you specifically, but something between those two figures. This is a given. It's already done. This is the kind of salary or wage increases that you should expect across the board for Aena's personnel.
Understood. Thank you very much.
The next question is from Luis Prieto of Kepler. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. I had a couple of questions. I had just noticed there's been a year-on-year acceleration of extra costs in Q3 versus Q1 and Q2. Could you shed more light on this and your hedging approach, because it seems that from now on, you wanna lock in your price, it is more likely that maybe you should not do anything for pending. The second question is if you could provide us with any visibility on, sort of what could happen in the reopening of operations during the international couple of months in the context of today's inflationary environment. Thank you.
Well, with regard to the energy cost, the increase in this quarter is all driven. Well, maybe there is an element of consumption, frankly, but it's all driven by the price of the electricity. In Spain, the price of electricity. Well, normally in Spain, the price of electricity, the spot price is something that is called OMIE, O-M-I-E, that you can check online if you wish. If you look at that, this has been going south, going down since I would say mid of the year, slightly later than that. That was combined with the approval by the Spanish government from June 2022 till the 31st of March 2023, of a so-called gas price cap.
This gas price cap is supposed and this indeed benefiting the whole system overall, because the price of producing electricity across the country has gone down because the gas producers have the price cap. On the other hand, this should be obviously money is not falling from the trees, so there is a levy or is an extra cost imposed to finance that across the different users. If you add to the say market price the cost of this cap. The cost of the electricity for Aena and for everybody else in the third quarter has been much higher than any quarter before. I think something like 30%, from memory.
I mean, if you add those components, the total cost has been not very far from EUR 300 per megawatt hour over the last quarter. It is. That's the reason. If you look at the market today, it's interesting because the gas reserves have grown across the continent. The autumn is relatively warm, but it's really warm, and the gas is being accumulated and not consumed. As a result of that, the price is falling. If you look at the price today, well, or yesterday, probably this is EUR 300 per megawatt of power, is probably something in the region of, I don't know, 200, so significantly lower than that. So when you look at this, you can imagine the struggle to make decisions on hedging.
Because what you can see today is that the price of electricity fell over the last weeks. Obviously nothing that you can compare with the pre-crisis prices, but they're still prices that look more attractive. So why on earth are you going to hedge? When you look at the hedging prices, they are higher. On the other hand, the liquidity of the market is really slim. So it's very difficult, if not impossible, to hedge more than a very small portion unless you are prepared to push the prices up. Then when we look at the futures, the futures market is indicating that 2023 is not looking good either, but during 2023 things improve. Well, who knows, no?
This is what the market is signaling today, the futures. It's difficult. Would you hedge taking into account that the 2023 prices today are, let me double-check. Well, on average, EUR 253 is what I have here. EUR 250, let's say, for the sake of argument, EUR 250 per megawatt hour to hedge on 2023. Not easy. It's not that we are stupid, it's simply the market is sending signals that are difficult to buy into. On the other hand, once again, the hedge capacity is very limited, at least in this country or in this market to be more precise, because this is the Iberian market, it's both the Spanish and the Portuguese market together.
Of course, we are working on a long-term solution. The long-term solution would be a combination of the deployment of solar panels that it is already part of our plan well before this took place. Secondly, we may explore some PPAs. We may explore some PPA with the right conditions and on a temporary basis because as I said before, for 2024 onwards, the market is signaling a significant reduction or, let's say, a significant fall in prices to the tune of one-fourth of the 2023 prices. I hope this helps. It's not easy. It's a very convoluted and cumbersome situation that I think we are all experiencing the crisis.
The next question is from Stéphanie D'Ath of RBC. Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you for answering my question. The first one is regarding the Brazilian airport acquisition. You mentioned we would know more about it in your presentation during the strategic plan. But I was curious to know if we look at the about EUR 500 billion acquisition and about EUR 1 billion of CapEx in euros, what, how are you thinking about financing that? What kind of cost of debt are you able to have locally? You did mention 80% was hedged, but I'm not sure I did get your comment right. Is that regarding the Brazilian debt? My second question is regarding the strong operating cash flow of the third quarter. You had a positive impact from working capital. What should we expect for the last quarter?
Still a positive impact and for the full year? Then finally, regarding other operating expenses, if I'm not mistaken, you historically said that the absolute amount of increase compared to 2019 for every quarter would kind of remain in the same range. I think for the first quarter, we were a bit above EUR 60 million higher other operating costs versus 2019. For the second quarter, about EUR 75 million. For the third quarter, that number jumped to EUR 105 million. What should we expect for Q4 in particular inside of the commentary you just made, that electricity prices have been coming down and that therefore, hopefully, the energy headwind for the fourth quarter won't be as high? Thank you so much.
Well, to start with, I may need to ask you to remind me of some of the questions. Sorry. Anyway, to start with the Brazilian, what I'm going to share with you now about the Brazilian new acquisition is the numbers to make the numbers clear, because I think there is some confusion around it. The enterprise value of this acquisition is BRL 3.2 billion. BRL 3.2 billion, if I'm not mistaken, is something like EUR 700 million and a bit. How we can come to this figure? First of all, there is an obligation to inject BRL 1.64 billion by way of capital in the company.
Secondly, we offer BRL 2.45 billion of, let's say, to pay that for the concession, the upfront payment. This in total means some BRL 4.1 billion, shy of that figure, in a billion BRL. Out of only the BRL 2.45 billion will go into the company and straight away will be paid to the Brazilian authorities. But the BRL 1.64 billion of capital will be used to deal with a number of costs, including the redundancies of all the staff in the airports, as it happened with in other concession in Brazil before. But then there will be something like BRL 800 million left in cash in the business.
That means that the enterprise value of this transaction, deducting that cash, is BRL 3.2 billion. This is the figure. Nothing else. There are no more payments to be made. Our plan is how to leverage, how to raise debt to pay for that. That is a matter that we are working on now as we speak. What is clear is for us, the equity element is BRL 1.64 billion, okay? Without sharing with you what is the particular solution we are going to implement to gain the business.
This business we see happening in the Northeast airports, all the CapEx, all the capital plans, all the developments will be funded via debt. In Brazil, that debt is always in full or to a very significant extent provided by the public banks, by the BNDES in particular. We may need to add some capital markets, some amount of debt raised in the capital markets over there. Normally, the majority of this funding is coming from the long-term public institutions in Brazil. I hope that helps. Otherwise, please let me know. There was a second question. Sorry.
On the working capital.
Don't be too fixated on the working capital, because the reason why the working capital is better this year than previous year is because remember, we were accumulating MAGs. This time we are accumulating very little by way of MAGs. So I cannot predict to the euro how the working capital is going to be evolving over the coming months. But believe me, this is in the current circumstances where the MAGs have very little weight in the business, this is not a big deal. You can see that the EUR 1.55 billion of cash generated is exactly the EBITDA plus the DF 7 adjustment.
Obviously, in the past where we have a very significant amount of MAGs being accumulated to be built and collected at the end of the year, that could play a much more significant part. Definitely in 2021 it was massive. That was massive. It was unbelievably high. You know why? Because we have this EUR 700 million accumulated that we are now taking to P&L. In normal circumstances today, this is not going to be a major element. If anything, it may involve, let's say, some of the cash to be collected three months later, three months earlier, things like that, but nothing critical. There was another question right here.
Go ahead. The last question was on other topics and the trend in terms of [audio distortion]
Well, clearly you got me. Now I'm going to be more prudent. I would say the total cost excluding energy for the whole year is going to be there or thereabouts at the 2019 level. This is my summary. Of course, there are always elements of the cost, but you cannot predict it well because in this business, the traffic, the impact of the volumes is sometimes, let's say, move the needle a bit. By way of headline, this is it. Excluding energy. Energy is something I cannot commit. Energy today seems to be going in the right direction. I would have thought that my expectation is to have an energy bill in the fourth quarter that will be below the third quarter.
I cannot commit to that because we are entirely subject to the evolution of the market and the price cap, sorry, the gas price cap, element as well.
Thank you very much.
The next question is from Elodie Rall of JP Morgan. Please go ahead. Miss Rall, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yes, sorry. Can you hear me?
Yeah, we can hear you.
Yes.
All right. Yeah.
Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Sorry about that. My first question is on the debt. You said that 80% of your debt is fixed-rate. Could you remind us of the portion of debt that is maturing between the next, like between 2023 and [audio distortion] cost and impact on the financial side.
Sorry, Elodie. We cannot hear you. For a while, you, let's say, dropped from the line.
Okay. Is it better?
Yeah.
Can you hear me better?
Yeah. Now absolutely fine. Your question was, sorry, the debt.
My question is on the debt and the maturities that are due in the next three years, between 2023 and 2025. What would you expect in terms of refinancing conditions for those maturities? If you could remind us, you know, how much is maturing and what you would expect, and the additional impact on financial costs going forward. That's my first question. My second question just quickly on COVID compensation. I think you still released some compensation in Q3. So if you could just clarify how much and what we should expect for Q4. Thanks.
Okay. The maturity schedule is something you can find on slide number 22 of the presentation. What you can see there is that there is a significant peak in 2024. 2023 is, well, frankly, a very modest year in terms of debt maturities. 2024 is close to EUR 2 billion. This is driven by the fact that we took some debt over the COVID period. We agreed to pay it back, to be perfectly honest, if and when. We are not at all concerned by that. We may even, if the conditions are right, even repay it earlier or we can refinance part of that and, let's say, spread it over a number of years.
This is the refinancing of part of that debt is something that I'm sure we will be doing shortly. Of course, that refinancing will come with a cost. That will depend on the market conditions. For instance, to get to the 80% fixed or hedged rate that we have today, meaning today, because if you look at the slide number 22, at the end of September, that figure was 71%. To get to this point, obviously we needed to pay more because we transformed some of our floating debt into fixed debt. On average, we ended up paying 3% over that chunk of debt. That is something around EUR 1.2 billion of debt.
It's coming with a cost, of course, inevitably. I mean, we are in a different world. We are not anymore in the world of let's say zero cost debt. We have to accommodate to that reality. In the case of Aena, as an individual company, of course, this will have an impact, but it's a really moderate, very moderate impact in the tens of millions euro. Nothing major. Different thing is when you contemplate acquisitions, when you are financing large capital projects in other subsidiaries, of course that will come with a cost. That will be, let's say commensurate with the reality of the market. You need to look at that on a case-by-case basis.
When you think of Aena, which is what you can see on slide number 22, the impact of any refinancing will be moderate. It's true, we are not in the war of the 0% interest, and we will see the average interest rate to go up. But still as our long-term debt is in such a good set of conditions, the average cost of debt will be at, probably, I would say, work pretty close.
The next question is from Sathish Sivakumar of Citi. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Actually I have one question on Brazil. If I look at the market share of the top three airlines in Brazil, it's around 90%. In your opening remarks, you did mention about your plans around stimulating traffic there. Given the consolidated nature of the market, and how do you actually like try to stimulate more traffic, growth in Brazil? Then just related to that, can you actually comment around the utilization of the airports that you actually won concession for, just to get a sense like, what are we doing there to actually grow for the capacity volumes, i.e. traffic? Thank you.
Sorry, I didn't understand your second question. With regard to the first question, well, there are three airlines there, but there is still room. That market hasn't been liberalized to the extent that other markets have. We believe that over a long period of time, there is still room for the Brazilian low-cost market to develop further. Of course, I have to be very clear that, particularly in Congonhas, the story is not one of growth or dramatic growth. Of course, we expect that airport to grow, but it's not one of dramatic growth because it's an airport that has a number of constraints and limited growth capacity.
It's more a matter of utilizing properly the airport and improving some other parameters, no? The rest of the airports, obviously, they don't have the weight of Congonhas. Congonhas is disproportionately important to us. But the rest of the airports have room to grow. There is a huge amount of congestion in the key Brazilian airports. In the São Paulo area, definitely this is the case. You can read in the press there that there is a need to find ways to funnel all that into other airports. Some of the airports in the portfolio are not very nearby, but not very far from being able to operate and serve to this region.
Without getting into the detail, I'm not a technical individual, but what I can tell you this is not a growth. It's not driven by growth. The equity story here is not going to be driven by growth at Congonhas. It is an element of that. There is an element of that, but this is not the critical point. There is room for growth in the other airports indeed. The second question, if you can say that again, please.
Yeah, sure. It's actually around the utilization, i.e., like, say, what is the terminal utilization today, and what is the runway utilization for the portfolio? Just to understand that how much scope is there in terms of capacity point of view to grow further.
You are asking about these particular 11 airports that we have talked about there?
Yeah.
Definitely. Obviously, there is room because they haven't recovered. Congonhas hasn't reached the level of traffic recovery that, for instance, we have in the Northeast airports. I think from memory, they are around 75%. There is still room coming from the COVID impact. Congonhas was already full, and Congonhas will be full. Congonhas will be growing moderately over a number of years, but this is not about adding massive numbers of extra capacity. This is not the case. It's full, and it's an airport which is in the middle of a city.
Got it. Thank you.
The next question is from Johannes Braun of Stifel. Please go ahead.
Yes, thanks for taking my questions. I have two. First question would be on your good performance in the commercial business. In the press release, you mentioned that you have also increased prices in car rental and VIP. I was wondering if you can quantify the price increase there. Secondly, coming back to the cost inflation, at which traffic level will you reach the 2019 EBITDA performance considering the cost inflation? Obviously, I guess we need to adjust for the MAG write down for that. Still, what would be the traffic level that you need for 100% EBITDA recovery given the structurally higher costs.
Well, I'm afraid I'm not going to answer your last question. I would rather stay silent on that. But definitely, they will be higher on the 2019 traffic level. On the other hand, commercial revenues, you mentioned car rental and VIP. Happy to share with you the price increases, but I don't know if we have them handy now. The IR team will be providing you with this. I understand that was it?
Yes.
Sorry, I forgot to answer a question before on the COVID costs. The COVID costs on quarter one was EUR 12.4 million . In quarter two, EUR 51 million . In quarter three, EUR 59 million . In total, we have accumulated in our charges EUR 122 million in COVID costs charged to the airlines. I don't know if we have an estimate of the quarter four, but anyway, we could provide that offline later on if you wish. I'm sorry for not answering before.
The next question is from Dario Maglione of BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.
I have three questions. One on cost. So understanding Q3 for Aena S.M.E., costs are same as in 2019, apart from the increased cost. Has inflation kicked in yet in the outsourced third-party contracts? If not, when will that happen? Second question on commercial revenue. Within commercial revenue from Q3, how much was energy passed through to tenants, and same figure for Q3 2019? The last question is on the P- factor, which was around 0.7 for next year tariffs. My understanding is that was calculated based on the change in cost between 2021 and the previous year. In theory, next year Aena could get a much bigger P- factor. However, the CNMC is saying that the energy cost inflation is an issue that belongs to Aena. It had been hedged, and so it's not exceptional.
What should we expect for the P- factor next year? Thanks.
Okay. On your first question, it's difficult to say. I think there is an element of inflation already in some of the cost increases, but honestly, it is not the key driver. I have to say that the level of inflation that we are witnessing these days in the Western countries, such as 7%, 8%, 9%, sort of that, hasn't been impacting us yet on our third-party services. But on the other hand, at the moment, we have 90% of the 2023 third-party services already contracted. I believe this is a protection to the extent that the disinflation rates are not going beyond 2023.
I suppose there will be a time when the, let's say, the impact will be potentially diluted and people will be back to grow aggressively. It will depend very much on the nature of these inflationary pressures. If they become structurally at that level, that will be a massive problem. Hopefully the monetary policy decision-makers will be fighting hard to avoid that to happen. If this is a transitory or temporary situation, to start with, 90% of our cost bill, third-party cost bill, is already engaged and contracted, and they should honor the contract the way they are. On balance, I believe that we are not going to be hit that hard.
If I'm honest, I cannot tell you, we have already experienced the sort of impact that these 89% inflation rates could bring about. With regard to the K- factor, because I forgot the second question. Pass-through of energy costs. The pass-through of energy costs on average for 2022, on average, should be around 20%. Obviously you can take that as a reference for the whole year for every quarter. In terms of the P- factor, you're right. We are supposed to be, let's say, passing through the energy costs.
I think in my view, the CNMC, this is my personal view after talking to them, they have a more flexible opinion about the possibility of taking a look at the P- factor on the coming years because they have realized that this index is not working at all. I have to refuse entirely that we should have hedged this. We have been over a number of years, for years, buying energy in the spot market. As a result of that, we achieved two goals. First of all, we delivered a very effective, efficient, and cheap energy bill to the airport users in general, and nobody complained about it.
Secondly, we also made sure that the regulator, when assessing the costs to be factored in the DORA discussions, they were looking at the real actual costs and nothing that on the right. It would have been legitimate, obviously, to hedge. When you hedge, normally this is more costly. Nobody complained about it. Everybody was happy with that. All of a sudden, there is a major change in the market, and we are taking the hit. Well, I think this is not reasonable.
This is a kind of discussion that will take a while to entertain with the regulators and I would say with government as well, because we will need to take a look at how these things should be hopefully modified going forward. We will do our best.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
The next question is from Akash Kumar of HSBC. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. I have two quick questions. First of all, on the retail revenue per passenger, [audio distortion] . It was dropped off in between. What kind of growth is structural? What kind of growth is not structural? How do you see the retail revenue going ahead, given that Asian traffic is still not recovered fully and they are the high spenders? There is some, as mentioned in the release, that British spending more. How do you see this overall retail spending going ahead? How would that impact your reletting of duty-free contracts?
You must have started the process and how that could impact. Second question is around your strategy update. Of course, you released that you're going to close 48 gates in November. But then what are the key themes Aena will focus on? Of course, you might not give the details, but is it possible for you to share the key themes Aena will focus on? You know, is it more traffic? Is it more revenue? What is it that we could actually think of? Finally, on the cost structure, cost inflation, how should we look at your costs going ahead, especially with the inflation rising so much? I'm sorry if you have already addressed some of it. Thank you.
Don't worry. Sorry. No, don't worry. I understand. Well, first of all, the revenue, the commercial revenue per passenger growth that well at this time is significantly over the 2019 level. As I said before, have some structural components and may have some other sort of components. It's difficult for me to specify and to be very precise. Suffice to say that I believe that this healthy performance on a revenue per passenger basis, on a per passenger basis, I believe will remain. At least for the coming year or so. I think there are drivers there that will act as tailwinds. I don't mean by that that this is not going to be the case beyond that point.
I'm confident that this very healthy commercial revenue per passenger figures will remain in place for a while. I said before, as well, subject to macro conditions. Don't forget that we are living through an uncertain time in terms of whether the consumer's reaction, the people's reaction, I don't know, the fact that the savings may grow will basically not have an impact across the economy in general and indeed on the air transport industry. Subject to that, I think there are good reasons to believe that this is here to stay at least to the point that I have visibility, no? In the coming months or so.
With regard to the things that we are going to discuss, obviously, please bear with me, I mean, I would be fired if I anticipate. No, it's a joke, but definitely anything that you may expect, anything that is relevant about the future of the business will be contemplated at the strategic plan presentation. With regard to the post, well, the cost inflation impact over the coming, let's say year or years, as I said before, I don't believe we have been hit by the inflation other than in terms of the electricity. On the other hand, 90% of our contracts are already in place, and they will be in place over the coming year, at least.
Next year, 90% of the costs will be already contemplated in contracts that are already up and running. In my view, this is a sort of insurance policy. Whether or not the inflation trends, the very high inflation rates remain beyond that point and that could be an issue in 2024, I don't know. As I said before, again, the monetary policy, the central banks are there to supposedly impede that from happening.
The next question is from José Arroyo of Santander. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon, gentlemen. Just three from me. Thank you. The first one is on the international strategy. I was wondering if Aena is happy with the footprint they have achieved now that Congonhas is in their portfolio, or we should instead expect the company to remain active in new privatizations in the near and medium term. Second, it's on electricity and energy in general. A few days ago, the chairman was on record for saying that Aena may bring forward its decarbonization target by a full decade. What did he really mean by this statement, and could this be something that Aena be considering accelerating its solar PPA strategy? You mentioned before something about PPA contracts. Could you be more specific about this? And lastly, from the.
I noticed on page 11 of the earnings report that there have been several appeals against the tariffs for 2023 by several airlines. What could this mean? Thank you.
Sorry. Yes, with regard to the international activity, the answer is yes. We remain active. If to the extent that we can find good opportunities, we will remain active in that camp, in that field. In terms of the, what the chairman said is that we were aggressive, or if you like, ambitious about bringing forward the carbon neutrality agenda and things like that. But he was not, to the best of my knowledge, speaking specifically about the solar panel development plan. This is something that is very specific. Even we have a plan for that, the carbon neutrality agenda obviously goes beyond that point. It's a result of a combination of many other things.
It's not only about your energy being provided or sourced by green sources, it's more than that. This is one piece, and that piece is still part of our plan, and we are working on it as we speak. Bringing that forward is extremely difficult because there are administrative and bureaucratic steps to be taken that in Spain are not precisely going in the right direction, to be perfectly honest. You need to get access to capacity to develop your plans. That capacity is part of a process that is put in the market as part of a process that is run by Red Eléctrica. You have to comply with a number of terms and conditions. You have to apply for a number of licenses, things like that.
Part of the process in Spain is not particularly agile. Other than that, we are very ambitious and working hard to get to where we want to get to. With regard to when I mentioned the PPA in particular, it's because between now and the time where we deploy our solar plants in full, obviously we were planning to do nothing with the electricity price. Now the conditions are such that you have to take a look at that. If you can find a way of bridging that period of time and to weather the price volatility, you should do it. As I said before, it's difficult to hedge for the coming 12 months because it is economically irrational, I would say.
Between that time and the time where we could deploy in full the panels, we may think of implementing something if the market conditions are right and the prices are meaningful and sensible. This is what we are exploring. This is what I wanted, what I meant, nothing else. We are not changing the strategy. With regard to these claims. Yes, indeed. A number of airlines appeal on the competition, well, the CNMC decision, for both 2022 and 2023 tariffs. Obviously they have the right to do that, and we need to wait and see. Obviously, we have every confidence that this is not going to fly. The CNMC was pretty clear, rejecting the 2022 appeals. They are working now on the 2023 appeals.
The 2023 appeals are still a work in progress, as you may expect, because the CNMC hasn't yet made a final decision on them. Okay. [audio distortion] No more questions I can see. Thank you very much everyone for being part of the call today. All the best. I'm sure we will see you at the November 16 event. Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over. You may disconnect your telephones. Thank you.