Welcome to the Ordinary General Meeting of Aena SME S.A. In my intervention, I will make the corresponding welcomes. First of all, I would like to give the floor to Elena Centeno, the Secretary of the Board of Directors and of this General Meeting, to inform the shareholders on the organization of the General Meeting and on how to exercise your rights to speak if you would like to do so.
Thank you very much, Mr. President. Dear shareholders, good morning. The notice of this Aena Ordinary General Shareholder Meeting was published on the website of the Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores, on the company's website, and in the Expansión newspaper on the 26th of February, 2025. Said notice contained the agenda of this meeting, which is considered read for the convenience of this meeting. As stated in the notice of the meeting, this Ordinary General Shareholders' Meeting is being held in hybrid mode, i.e., with shareholders attending in person in the room and with shareholders attending telematically, who have made use of the provision of Article 15.8 of the Articles of Association and Article 11.6 of the company's regulations of the Ordinary General Shareholders' Meetings. Please be informed that the meeting is being recorded and streamed live on the company's corporate website. The recording will be made available to the public on the website. Information on the legal considerations applicable to such recording, as well as the indications and terms for exercising the corresponding rights, are available to you in the notice of the meeting.
I would also like to inform you that in order to guarantee the participation of shareholders, the company has provided all the necessary means for them to validly delegate their proxy to vote in advance or attend telematically, together with the possibility of intervening, making interventions and proposals, and voting by telematic means. I would also like to remind you that shareholders attending in person and who wish to speak or request clarification on any item of the agenda must have identified themselves and registered at the entrance. They must also provide the written text of their intervention to the shareholders' office located next to the notary if they wish to be recorded verbatim in the notarial minutes. The intervention of shareholders attending telematically, actually, we have not received any notification that any of the shareholders connected want to do.
As you know, from the date of the publication of the notice of this meeting, all the documentation legally required for this meeting has been available to shareholders both at the registered office and on the corporate website, including, among other documents, the notice of the meeting, the proposed resolutions, the board's reports, and the documentation relating to the annual accounts. As I already stated in the notice of meetings, the Board of Directors' attention is that the meeting will be held on first call, as it is being held. I shall now give the floor to the President.
Thank you very much, Secretary. I hereby inform you that in accordance with the provisions of the Spanish Capital Companies Act and the regulations of the Mercantile Register, the Board of Directors had agreed to require the presence of a notary public to take the minutes of this Ordinary General Meeting. For this purpose, the Notary of Madrid, Fernando Sánchez-Arjona Bonilla , is present in person, and I will now give him the floor to report on this procedure to the meeting.
In the minutes of the notarial requirement dated the 13th of March, 2025, under number 688 of my protocol, there is a request made by the Secretary of the Board, Elena Roldán Centeno , in the exercise of the delegation of powers made by the Board of Directors so that in accordance with the provision of Article 203 of the Spanish Capital Companies Act, I may attend this Ordinary General Shareholders' Meeting and take the minutes of the same.
Likewise, in accordance with Article 101 of the company's registry regulations, I hereby inform you that I have deemed the capacity of the applicant to be sufficient, that I have verified that this meeting has been called in accordance with the applicable legal and statutory requirements.
Thank you very much, Mr. Notary. I would like to give the floor again to the Secretary, who will inform you about the meeting and the provisional quorum.
Thank you very much, Mr. President. In accordance with the provisions of the Articles of Association and the General Meeting regulations, this meeting is chaired by Maurici Betriu, Chairman or President of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer. I, Elena Centeno, in my capacity as Secretary of the Board of Directors, will act as Secretary of this meeting. The other members of the Board of Directors who are present at this time also form part of the presiding panel of the meeting. In accordance with the foregoing, the presiding panel of the Ordinary General Meeting is hereby declared duly constituted. I hereby inform you that the share capital asset today is EUR 1.5 billion, divided into 150 million shares, each with a nominal value of EUR 10, fully subscribed and paid up, and belonging to a single class and series. I shall now report on the provisional quorum for the meeting. The list of attendees has been provisionally drawn up by using computer software. The provisional attendance quorum is as follows. Here, at the General Meeting, there are 161 shareholders, holders of 76,875,599 shares, equivalent to 51% of the share capital.
Represented at the meeting are 340 shareholders, holders of 55,389,214 shares, equivalent to 36.9261% of the share capital. Of the shareholders present, 154 shareholders, holders of 76,875.065 shares have exercised their voting rights using remote means of communication. The share capital present or represented with voting rights is EUR 1,302,648,130, represented by 501 shareholders, holders of 132,264,813 shares, equivalent to 88.1765% of the share capital. Therefore, the attendance quorum is over 50% of the subscribed and paid up share capital with voting rights required by Article 22 of the Articles of Association for the valid constitution of the meeting on first call. I will now give the floor to the President.
Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. In accordance with the information provided by the Secretary, and as there is a sufficient provisional quorum for the meeting in accordance with the provision of the law and the Articles of Association, I hereby declare the Ordinary General Meeting of Aena SME S.A. on first call validly conformed in as far as the legal and statutory requirements for this purpose are foretold. I will now again give the floor to the Secretary for the reading of the procedures of the General Meeting established by the Board of Directors in accordance with the regulations of the General Meeting.
Thank you, President. I now shall read out the procedures of the meeting, a copy of which I have given to the Notary for the minutes. Shareholders here in present who wish to speak at the General Meeting and, where appropriate, request information or clarifications in relation to any of the items on the agenda or other legally appropriate items, or to make proposals, may do so at this time. For this purpose, they must identify themselves to the shareholders' office located next to the Notary, stating their name and surname, and if applicable, the corporate name of the shareholder legal entity they represent, the number of shares they have, or the number of shares they represent. If any shareholder wishes to have his intervention recorded verbatim in the minutes of the meeting, they must hand it in writing at that time to the shareholders' office to be forwarded to the Notary so it can be compared at the time of the intervention.
In the event of interventions from shareholders, questions will be answered by the Chairman, the Directors, or any person of the company indicated by the Chairman, provided that the information is available at the time. All other questions shall be answered in writing within seven days of the date of this General Meeting. I would also like to inform you that the Notary has had access to the means of receiving these interventions in order to record in the minutes the interventions of the shareholders who have so requested. I will now give a brief summary of the proposals for agreement made by the Board of Directors, which will be put to the vote. First, the proposed resolutions included on the agenda shall be put to the vote, followed, if any, by a vote on the proposals made during the course of the General Meeting.
Once a proposal for an agreement has been approved, all other proposals related to the same subject that are incompatible with the approved proposal shall be automatically removed. We would just like to remind you that the shareholders who attend telematically and who have registered in accordance with the procedure set forth in the call for this meeting, and who have connected virtually to the meeting through the General Shareholders' Meeting telematic attendance section of the website between 10:00 A.M. and 11:05 today, may cast their vote through the telematic attendance platform in accordance with the corresponding voting form from the time they attend through the General Meeting until the end of reading each item on the agenda through the button under the heading Voting.
Shareholders who attend the General Meeting telematically and who cast their vote telematically in the terms indicated on the notice of meeting shall be deemed to be present for the purposes of the convening of the meeting. Consequently, any proxy or early vote cast prior to the General Meeting shall be deemed revoked. We hope you have found this summary useful. I will end my intervention by giving the floor to the President to present his report to the meeting. Thank you.
Thank you, Secretary. I think the procedures are now clear, the procedures that will guide this meeting. I will present a report which I present every year, and I hope is of interest to you. Going back to what I said at the beginning, I would like to welcome you to the room, the people in the room, shareholders on my behalf, and on behalf of the Board of Directors of Aena, I welcome you to the Ordinary General Shareholders' Meeting of our company in 2025. I would like to extend a special greeting to the authorities who are with us today and who represent the majority shareholder of the company, the Secretary of State for Transport and Sustainable Mobility, José Antonio Centeno, and the Director General of ENAIRE, Enrique Maurer . I sincerely thank you for your presence at this General Shareholders' Meeting. I would also like to thank the shareholders who are attending in person and those who are following us online. I would also like to thank the other people present in the room.
As I do every year, I would like to comment on the main aspects of Aena's activity throughout 2024, a very important year, a year in which we have broken activity records and we have achieved many financial records we beat. The Executive Vice President of the company, Javier Marín , before this meeting began, was telling me that we should remember to enjoy our successes, and the meeting is going to offer good results, good feelings, and that goes beyond the turbulences which in the last weeks and days have characterized the world economy. We have achieved, in addition to giving a report on the full year, I am going to refer to the Aena Strategic Plan for 2022-2026, which expressly coincides with the regulatory period.
Aena has two kinds of activities: aeronautics regulated activity and the liberalized activity, which is the trade activity, but the regulated activity is predominant, so it makes sense to make that coincide with our strategic plan. This is a strategic plan that we've developed in fits and starts. Uncle Seth is a very competent responsible for the strategic plan. He convinced us that it was a good time to publish it when we didn't yet know how strongly our activity would, with what strength our activity would recover. I think it was a very good idea because it's always useful for the company to have a reference point to analyze the activity as it's going to be developed. It is good news updating the strategic plan because things are going much better.
First of all, I will go through the excellent evolution of all the activities of the company, the regulated or aeronautic activity, the trade activity under María José Cuenda, and the international activity, which, as you know, has a growing weight in Aena, and we would like this growth to continue in the future. On the other hand, I'm going to, like every year, tell you about the Aena Climate Plan and how it's evolving. It's part of our main activities right now, and you know that we submit this plan every year to the voting of this General Shareholders' Meeting. I will summarize the financial results for 2024, which are perfectly described in the annual accounts that we are submitting to your definite approval. We hope that you agree with them because they're very good accounts, the annual accounts.
I'll also make use of the opportunity to, with the excuse of the 10 years since we went public, talk about the share value and the share in terms of what we might call generating value for our shareholders since we went public in February 2015. In this context of the evolution of our share value, I have to mention one of the novelties in this meeting, the proposal to split the shares of Aena. I'll explain later, which is being done for practical reasons. With a view to the future, I think it's also important to design or sketch some of the main lines of action that the company has for the next few years, especially for DORA III, which, as you know, covers the period going from 2027 to 2031.
We are entering a very strong period of investments, and this financially will support the growth of the company in the medium and the long term. Finally, I will review the agreements submitted to voting technically here at the General Shareholders' Meeting. I'm going to begin with the aeronautical activity, then we'll go to the trade activity and international activity. Following the recovery of 2019 traffic levels achieved in 2023, last year, 2024, Aena handled a new all-time record number of passengers in Spain and internationally. Spain, fortunately, has experienced a much faster recovery in air traffic than the European average and the average of Europe because let's remember that the U.K. is not in the European Union any longer. In 2024, Spain topped the European air traffic ranking ahead of the U.K., Germany, Italy, and France.
Spain, probably, and it's a great satisfaction for me to have the Secretary of Transport here today. I think we can say, José Antonio, that Spain probably has the most competitive and efficient airport sector in Europe. If we look at Aena Group's consolidated perimeter, 46 airports, two heliports in Spain, together with London Luton Airport and the 17 airports in Brazil, the total number of passengers in 2024 was 370 million. I'll repeat that figure, 370 million. That means, if we simplify things, that Aena every day during 2024 handled more than 1 million passengers every single day. I always say that when you handle a million customers daily, things that you wouldn't imagine happen at airports, and they have to be dealt with.
If we add Aena's business holdings in other Latin American countries, in Mexico, Pacific airports, Colombia, that figure of 370 million passengers increases to 440 million passengers, which, as the video that we've screened said, makes us the largest airport company in the world. In Spain, more than 309 million passengers moved through Aena's airports last year, an all-time record, and 9.2% higher than the previous all-time record of 2023. The satisfaction of this lies in the fact that the quality of our service in our airports, with the help, of course, Enrique Maurer is here, the head of that department, the air department, was the quality, as I say, was really very good, very high, top quality, which is something when we have such a volume of people moving through our airports.
21 of the 46 Spanish airports broke all-time records, including, of course, all the largest Spanish airports, Aena Airports. From the perspective of the quality of airport services, this is an aspect of management to which Aena dedicates great care. Maybe investors and analysts do not pay so much attention to this, but I would like to say that, as I say, I would like to repeat that the quality of airport services is an aspect of management to which Aena dedicates great care. We take great care of engineers and all our technical personnel, and we are very proud to say that in the last few years, since 2018, Airports International Council has awarded more than 100 recognitions to Aena Airports for the quality of their service. In 2025, we were awarded 13 prizes. 13 awards were given to nine Aena Airports for their good performance.
Aeronautical engineers know that this kind of level of quality, when we have such huge volumes of passengers and travelers, is something to be highlighted. I would also like to refer to two things that were extraordinary in 2024. On the one hand, the summer operation. On the other hand, the computing issue with the company CrowdStrike. We have here the Director of the network of Aena Airports in Spain, and he knows that we always put in place the measures that are needed to deal with the stressful summers, and we call those programs summer readiness programs.
This means that in spite of the stress associated with the highest volume of activity in Aena's history in terms of passengers, operations, and cargo, thanks to the good work of the company and the collaboration of all the other partners, the summer of 2024 went off with no serious issues, and those incidents that did happen were beyond the responsibility of the company. It was a difficult summer from the weather point of view. As you know, during the summer of 2024, there was a difficult situation for air travel in the whole of Europe, and especially in Central Europe. In Spain, we had adverse weather very often, which made it difficult for planes to fly in the Balearic Islands, the Mediterranean coast, and especially we had adverse weather events in Palma de Mallorca during the month of August.
These adverse weather conditions, unfortunately, lasted until the end of October and the beginning of November when the catastrophic rains struck in the province of Valencia, and the floods caused the death of more than 200 people. It was a dramatic event, and from the point of view of Aena, Valencia Airport was partially flooded, its airfield was partially flooded, and numerous flights were diverted and canceled. In relative terms, the damage to infrastructures was not really too severe. I think that Aena's solidarity at that time was with the people of Valencia. Unfortunately, a lot of them, a lot of people died as a result of this. This is probably a bitter and lethal reminder of the effects of climate change.
Accordingly, Aena has implemented climate change adaptation plans and natural disaster studies, which define specific actions at each airport to mitigate physical risks and to increase the resilience of Aena's infrastructures. That is the first extraordinary event. I am going to refer to the second one, CrowdStrike Computer Crisis. I remember the morning of the 19th of July 2024 very clearly because when I turned on my phone, not just myself but my wife, we had a load of missed calls, messages, because from early in the morning, CrowdStrike and its difficulties were interfering with and affecting the operations of air transport and airports. We were lucky, though, because we in a short period of time recovered our information systems.
The tremendous scare of that day underlines the importance of having in the airport sector a competent, fast, and efficient ICT team, as I really honestly believe is the case at Aena. I want to thank Mariano Domingo, who leads this team, the ICT team, for the real fantastic work that his team does, and very especially their very good response on the 19th of July 2024. The intervention of the ICT team was not the only important work that day. I also want to thank the quick and fast participation of the operations team and the entire Aena airport network. I want to refer to Rafael Fernández Villasante . We must remember that CrowdStrike affected the issue with CrowdStrike affected a plethora of companies the world over. I think the news pointed this out at the time.
The balance was, at the end of the day, only 400 cancellations out of over 8,000 scheduled operations in Spain. We only had 400 cancellations out of 8,000 scheduled operations in Spain. In the light of the magnitude of the problem, it could have been much worse. I would go so far as to say that a lot of these cancellations were due to issues that a lot of air transport companies had, especially airlines. Now, after talking about these two extraordinary events in 2024, I will go to the stormy area and difficult area of forecasts. It is not easy to forecast the future at this time. We see that capital markets are in a state of convulsion. There are very important people in the financial world that are deeply worried about the events. We are going to start with the general things.
In the medium and the short and medium term, national and international aviation and tourism organizations, the ICAO, the ACI, the WTTC, the Ministry of Industry and Tourism forecast continued growth in aviation activity in the short and medium term after the toxic COVID shockwave has finally been left behind. Regarding the long-term prospects, I think that it's very important what was published by the International Airport Council a few months ago. They said that in 2053, that is to say in about 30 years' time, Spain will be one of the five countries in the world with the highest volume of air traffic. In this case, in 2053, we'll be talking about competitors, which will be the United States, India, China, and Indonesia.
We will be a rare exception in that regard because in 30 years' time, Spain will be able to maintain its relative hegemony in air travel and air transport thanks to a thick or a dense air interconnectivity, political stability, and the enormous attraction that tourism represents in Spain. It's 13%-14% of our GDP. We are talking about in 30 years' time, we are talking about a very good situation. This clearly shows that air transport in Spain has a long future in front of it. Going back to 2025, which I think is very of interest to you all here, in February, Aena published the airline schedule for the summer season, which projects a positive but moderate increase in activity compared to 2023 and 2024. Its normal growth of traffic in 2023 and 2024 was extraordinary.
We go back to growth in real terms within a positive general trend. We're talking about levels of passengers that are more in harmony with the historical trends of air transport. In recent weeks, several United States companies have launched profit warnings, talking about a reduction in air travel demand as a result of the impact of the sudden decisions of Donald Trump, the President of the United States. It seems clear that the international order that was built upon the ashes of the Second World War, which has survived to the present day, are dying out.
Beyond the chilling threat of annexation and all-out tariff policy inspired by recalcitrant isolationism, truly, and this is my personal opinion, not since Andrew Johnson, who presided over the U.S. government in the period 1865 to 1869 as the successor of Abraham Lincoln, I can't remember any other American president who so radically altered the American political and institutional paradigm as the current President, Donald Trump. As the Governor of the Bank of Spain explained a couple of weeks ago in a lecture that he gave at the La Caixa Foundation, the Governor, José Luis Escrivá, the Governor of the Bank of Spain, said that there is probably no precedent for this period of uncertainty in the economic situation because of geopolitical issues, tariff issues, monetary issues, exchange issues, etc.
In any case, there is a great level of uncertainty, which is being called Knightian uncertainty by many experts in reference to Knight, the 20th-century economist, and Frank Knight, the 20th-century economist. However, although the situation is very, very uncertain, in spite of this, Aena forecasts a good performance of airport activity in Spain in 2025, and we consider that we're going to grow by 3.4% this year. By the end of the year, we'll be at about 320 million passengers, travelers. This is based on all the information that we have: financial, regulatory, geopolitical, and also, very importantly, the reservations of slots for the summer season, which comes to an end in October. Forecasts of air traffic are based on or are affected by the restrictions in the offer that resulted from the delay in supply of new planes.
In any event, we are going to grow by 3.4%, and we are going to follow very, very closely the evolution of the reservations of slots by airlines in the airports of Spain and all the other countries in the world. I'm going to go now to the commercial and real estate activity. 2024 was an excellent year. Sales and commercial revenue figures over the past year broke the 2023 records month after month in all business lines. This was not only due to the increase in passenger numbers. Sales per passenger rose by almost 2%, and the General Commercial Director, Anne [Marta Bardón] , has reminded us of this. This 2% figure would have been greater if we had had all our layouts rolled out completely with the duty-free, the works at the duty-free infrastructure and shops finished with a new offer of products.
We have increased our sales per passenger by 2%, but at the end of last year and the beginning of this year, that was even higher, that increase. I would say, what are the factors involved in these good results? The increase in traffic, but also in 2024, the new contracts that were agreed in 2023 for restaurants and duty-free shops, and also the successful 2024 awards, which, as I said before, have caused a situation where, if you look at the layout of products in shops and restaurants at its airports, you will see that the range is wider than ever. The offer of products, the supply of products, and the range of products in duty-free shops and restaurants is wider and larger than ever. This improves the customer's experience and also increases the sales per passenger.
Regarding airport cities, the airport cities strategy, I would like to say that this activity, the airport cities activity, went very well with increased revenues. There was an increase of 11% compared to 2023, with a very significant growth. Regarding the future of airport cities, I think what is important is to make sure that airport cities, this is a long-term project, very important project for Aena Airports. It is not for all airports or airport companies in the world, but it evolves in parallel with the evolution of airports and with aeronautical activity. In other words, airport cities will develop in parallel to aeronautical activity, which is going to require, over time, the use of new land that is available around airports. Now, what does that mean currently and in the last two years?
We have seen that against what experts thought a few years ago, the load of air traffic has been more significant than we thought. This is something that points clearly at the need for flexibility within the airport cities strategy, and the company has to adapt and adjust to the market at each given time. Now, if we go into international activity, it was a good year too, 2024, internationally for Aena, and I would say, quite frankly, that we are very satisfied with the development of Aena's international activity. We are aware that some of our shareholders and analysts are not always pleased with the expansion of our activity. I hope that their skepticism is diluted by our good international results and that they continue to trust our good sense at Aena when it comes to international expansion.
You know that in the airports that the company controls, we're present in 17 airports in Brazil, one of the most important airports in the U.K., London Luton. Some years, it's even number four. In these airports, 17 in Brazil, one in the U.K., Aena handled more than 60 million passengers in 2024 in these airports. You know that if we put together the airports that are not controlled by Aena, but where Aena has a financial share in Mexico, Jamaica, and Colombia, the total number of passengers would go from 360 million—sorry, 374 million. I'm getting mixed up with a million a day. The 300 consolidated from the consolidated point of view would go up to 440 million passengers in 2024. If we put together Spanish, U.K., Brazil, Jamaica, Mexico, and Colombia airports, we arrive at a total of 440 million passengers.
Aena's total activity accounted for 9.3% of the group's EBITDA, which is a very significant figure. It's almost 10%. Is it what we want in the long term? No, not really. Are we worried about it? No. Our aspiration—and we made this public—we talked about 15% internationally and EBITDA of 15%. That's an aspiration. It's something that we would like to achieve, but it is obviously linked to the quality of the international opportunities that we analyze and the market. I've said it often. Our international operations are ad hoc. They are done based on the opportunities that we come across. If we look at Brazil, I would like to share with you my satisfaction at the 2024 celebration of our fifth anniversary in Brazil. You know that we are doing very important work in Brazil.
The two concessions in northeast Brazil, the work has practically been completed. All the work that is significant for the Brazilian regulator has been completed. Now we're immersed in the works of Aena at the—it's a Star Wars name—Boab, B-O-A-B. We're immersed in that work, in that concession. Now, what does that mean? That means that we will have invested BRL 6.4 billion in a matter of a few years. With regard to the concession having to do with the São Paulo Airport, we will have invested BRL 4.5 billion. And BRL 2.4 billion with regard to the Congonhas Airport, which is in the heart of the city. What we're going to do is we're going to double the space of the terminal at Congonhas Airport in the next few years. In London Luton Airport, things were—we did very well also in 2024.
It is the fifth largest airport in the U.K. Last week, we got very good news of the approval by the British government of the enlargement of the airport, which is going to be increased to be able to deal with 32 million passengers a year. What does that mean? What the government in England has authorized is a new master plan, which is always potential in nature. It would be normal for it to become a reality because the demand and the traffic level in Luton is very high. The technical and political considerations of the government were very interesting when they authorized an increase from 19 million people a year to 32 million passengers a year because it really shows the new political paradigm in the U.K., which is pro-growth. The British government, when it justified these expansions, authorized Heathrow, Gatwick, and Luton.
It expressly justifies them on the basis of the welfare of citizens derived from higher future economic growth, which, in the government's opinion, prevails over other considerations. This is a change that we see in Europe and which is also very clear in the U.K. with this turn that the new Labour government has taken. It's a very good piece of news, and I want to take the opportunity to publicly thank the CEO of London Luton, Alberto Martín, the Aena CEO at London Luton, and our Director of International Branches, Central Services, Rodrigo Marabini. They've done a wonderful job. They have to keep up that good work because we want to go further into the future. If the Luton Local Council agrees, who's the owner, we want to continue with this expansion in the next few months and years.
We would like to come to an agreement with London Luton Airport so that we are the protagonists of this expansion. I will now go to sustainability. I've said it often. Climate change and the adjustment of humanity to climate change is one of the most important and demanding challenges that we probably face in the history of humankind. Aena for years has committed very seriously to climate, and we've got a climate action plan, details of which we present every year here. We were probably the first large listed company in the world to every year present to the shareholders the details of the approval and the evolution of the climate action plan. The shareholders of the company, I hope, are happy with this commitment of Aena. I wanted to inform you that in 2024, the main novelties regarding sustainability were as follows.
First of all, Aena's adherence to the Science Based Targets initiative, SBTi, a system for validating short and long-term emission reduction targets based on the state of the art of climate science. Secondly, as in 2023, we reduced our own emissions by 70% in 2024 as compared to 2019, which helped us to prevent offsetting emissions. We also reduced our natural gas consumption by 40% compared to 2019, thanks to aerothermal energy and the purchase of biofuels. Fourthly, the share of sustainable fleet handling was 56%. In 2024, this is a fleet that is really sustainable, and this resulted in a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions of 18% as compared to 2019. Fifthly, we have installed in record time, and I'm looking specifically at the Secretary of State for Transport, more than 4,300 electric charging points at Spanish airports.
I am looking at the Secretary of State because this far exceeds the target of 3,000 electric stations. The Secretary asked me about this last week, so this is my answer for him. Regarding the photovoltaic, the solar energy plan, we currently have 10 airports with guaranteed access and connection rights, which in 2029 will provide 51% of consumption in terms of or as compared to 2019. In addition, in 2024, we are making progress in the planning of new solar plants for pure self-consumption without connection to the grid, as well as the study of the viability of storing surpluses from solar plants. I am going to another point of the shareholders' meeting, what we might call maybe in a bit of a solemn manner, the defense of shareholders' interests. I like to underscore this.
I like this title because this business of defending the shareholders' interests is something that we take very seriously at Aena. I'll be referring to three aspects in general: the regulatory Aena regulatory framework, the network model of Aena, which is a consequence of the regulatory framework. Aena is, from the corporate point of view, organized as a reflection of the regulatory framework, the network model, and then something that has to do with a vehement defense at the company of the interests of our shareholders. That has to do with the seventh disposition, unhappy disposition that was approved in Parliament in 2021. I am going to talk about the regulatory framework.
I have referred on several occasions in this forum to the regulatory framework governing Aena's activity derived from Law 18/2014 and the DORA, which for five-year periods substantiates it in the description of the services that Aena must provide. A lot of the aspects of this law have to do with the airport regulation documents, as I've just said. We are now in DORA II, and I will talk about DORA III. DORA is the document which, as I've already said, for five-year periods describes the services that Aena must provide: the airport tariffs, the compulsory investments, the supervision of our activity, etc. In the light of our results in the last decade—and I think it's important to refer to the last decade—in terms of air traffic volume, number one. Number two, in terms of quality of airport services. Number three, in terms of improvement and expansion of airport infrastructures. Number four, in terms of efficiency. Number five, in terms of decarbonization of activity. Number six, in terms of low airport tariffs. And seven, in terms of business performance.
I think you will all agree with me in my conclusion that the Spanish airport system and Aena work well, or rather very, very well. The Spanish airport system and Aena work very, very well. I would also like to underscore the fact that this is thanks to all the agents involved: navigation personnel, airlines, providers, suppliers, everybody involved. No public controversy can change this happy reality, which, let us remember once again, is a fundamental factor that explains the strength of tourism in Spain and, as a result, of the Spanish economy.
I am a party to this, but better than my opinion is that of the Spanish government, which in February, through the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, explained the benefits of the airport regulatory framework to the Transport Committee of the Spanish Parliament. In my opinion, it was a well-argued didactic explanation. I will now go to the tariff framework. If the debate on airport tariffs is or were sincere, which it should be, we would not really have to devote much time to it. Airport tariffs are clearly defined in Law 18/2014 and its subsequent development, and its application is supervised by the CNMV, the National Committee for Markets and Competition. On the other hand, the financial regulation and economic regulation of airports under Law 18 is based on sound microeconomic principles. And when I say sound microeconomic principles, I mean the principles in any textbook of economy.
Legally, Aena's airport tariffs are public assets, and I think that this is a clearly defined definition: public assets. Therefore, these tariffs are not ordinary private prices. I always say that the law clearly says that if airport tariffs were not charged by Aena, they would have to be legally charged by the Inland Revenue Service in Spain. These are not ordinary private prices. These public assets must be calculated in accordance with the clear precepts established by Law 18/2014 and its subsequent developments. Therefore, the modification of the tariffs on a whim of Aena or due to spurious pressure from an airline would be directly a serious illegality. I can't even think about the face of the General Secretary of the company, Elena Centeno, if we propose that these tariffs be arranged in a different way from what the law says.
Regarding the tariffs enforced in 2025, Aena proposed an increase of EUR 0.05 per passenger as compared to 2024. The tariffs that are applied as from March this year, the CNMC explained it to me one day, and I understood what they meant. They said that they, however, they said that those tariffs had to be frozen, were at EUR 0.05 per passenger. As we've done on other occasions, we protested. This is the play between the regulator and the regulated party. This happens in the energy and power industry, where a lot of the companies are regulated. It is obvious that we have to refer to the stir that was caused in January last year when Ryanair and our excellent Irish airline announced that it would reduce flights and 800,000 seats for the summer season. [Foreign language]
In your opinion, the airport tariffs, they said they were not competitive. I would explain this because I do not actually think that this was just included by mere chance. First of all, and I think it is very important, I would like to make it very clear that on a day-to-day basis, we have a good operational relationship with Ryanair. It is a very good relationship. The airline leads a number of operations at Aena Airports, which is something that we really take into account. Obviously, leaving controversies aside, the reality is that Ryanair will offer this summer in Spain, and you can look on Ryanair's webpage that they offer 1.5 million more seats in Spain this summer in 2025 rather than in 2024 in net terms, which means that even though they have said that they are going to have 800,000 seats less, they are now offering a lot more.
This means it would be 2.3x more passengers, which means that the Ryanair aircraft have removed from the regional airports will be relocated to other Aena airports, especially to the larger airports and to the hubs. Therefore, this is all a bit confusing because in theory, Ryanair is removing the planes from the regional airports, but then it means it is just moving them to the big airports and the big tourist hubs. Why is this unusual? Because if the airport tariffs in the hubs and the big tourist airports are not a little bit, no, they are considerably higher. What I am saying is a really true reality based on facts. What is this all hiding? What is behind this apparent enigma?
I think the answer is prosaic in strictly technical terms and economical terms in a context of a very widespread demand and a certain, shall we say, supply constraint due to the late deliveries of the new aircraft. Ryanair eliminating routes from regional airports is not due to the level of Aena tariffs at these airports because they're very low, EUR 2 per passenger, EUR 2 for the additional passengers. This decision from Ryanair, which is legitimate, is in line with the airline's policy to maximize profits. They put their aircraft in the routes of airports where they get a higher economic return with higher ticket prices. This has always been like this. Therefore, this hypocrisy I really do not like because I feel like saying, as every few planes, because there's a lot of restrictions on the office side.
What they're saying is, I'm going to put the planes where I feel because these are airports and destinations where the elasticity of the demand is low, so it means I can put the price of the tickets up. Therefore, there's a lot of public controversies which could be avoided. I honestly think that they're very unusual for everyone. I think that this has to remind us that the communication campaign that Ryanair is always using, and also certain members of the Spanish government, and it doesn't only happen in our country, this is just a complete replica of what this airline, Ryanair, does and has done for the last few years in other European countries like Ireland, the U.K., France, and Denmark.
They do it to intimidate the governments and to improve the airline's bottom line at the cost of trampling on general interest. When Ryanair regains its presence of mind, when it calms down and accepts that the rules of play are the same for everyone, and the song says, "Everyone is exactly the same," we will receive them institutionally with open arms. I am very sincere about this. Finally, I would like to convey a message of confidence and reassurance to the users of regional airports and their territories. The marketing team at the airports that is led by Ignacio Biosca is very active and has been very active for the last few months.
I think that Ignacio Biosca is today in Seville because he had a very important meeting for the airports and airlines and our contacts with the airlines, with the local and regional promotional institutions responsible for promoting airlines and airports. I think that in the next few months, we're going to see very positive results related to this activity because we have increased the activity. Now I'd like to speak about point two that I wanted to talk to, which is also a result of the network model. I'm going to try and be very brief now. The network model is related to airport traffics. It is a model that is part of an international comparative framework, which includes lots of advantages. First of all, the airport transport sector is number one. Two, the economy at large. Third, the mobility of people. Four, to the territory cohesion. Five, to the company and shareholders.
The strength of the Aena model, they are well known by experts in the sector, and it's a necessary condition, not sufficient, but it's a necessary condition so that Spain in 2023, 2024, and 2025, without any ups and downs, we have had a volume of air traffic that has never, ever been seen before with the most competitive air traffic tariffs in Europe. The network model is very strong, and it is able to be in line with low airport tariffs. This is one that we replicate abroad. We're doing the same in Brazil, and we would like to do it too in the U.K. If there were other airports, I was going to say English airports, but I meant British airports, which were interesting for Aena.
It is true to say that what our competitors are trying to do, like VINCI, ADP, Fraport, when they are taking part in the internationalization process. When our competitors become international, they employ this network model because the advantages of it are very obvious. It also means that if the regulatory model is a demanding model, it means that you can have low airport tariffs, but with a reasonable profit. This network model entails, or inherent to it, is what we could say could be the economic principle of solidarity. It means that individual airports that are loss-making remain open and in optimum conditions so that the company never, never appeals to the money from the Spanish taxpayers or from other countries.
On the contrary, the high efficiency of the network model used by Aena makes it possible for the most competitive airport traffics in Europe to coexist with a reasonable return on the investment for Aena shareholders. In other words, the Aena network model is a successful model, and it's the most suitable one for a country like Spain. We saw that during the COVID period, and we've also seen this when Aena has been the company which I honestly think has been able to fit in in the best possible manner the traffic when it grew back after COVID over the last few years. I think Spain and Aena have done it the best in Europe. I want to talk about the third aspect that I wanted to talk to, which is based on the shareholders' edge, which is the seventh point.
This is an old battle, and I can remember perfectly when I was told about the approval of this seventh disposition in the Parliament. I can remember how the bad feelings I got. I think this Final Provision Seven of the Land Transport Organization passed by the Spanish Parliament in 2021, which by law and ad personam substantially reduced Aena's income from the minimum guaranteed revenues from the commercial leases during COVID-19 and until the recovery of air traffic levels in the year 2019. I really still fail to understand how such this nonsense was approved. In our opinion, it has unmistakable traits of unconstitutionality, which could be approved because the evolution, fortunately, of air traffic has been better than expected in 2021.
The latest estimate of the extra cost of this DF7 to the Aena shareholders or to the shareholders' pockets is EUR 300 million approximately, which regardless is still a lot of money. This extra cost is a calculation of the Final Provision Seven and its meaning regarding to the offer that Aena did at those times. It was analyzed in detail by the Board of Directors on many different occasions for our leaseholders. This EUR 300 million, which had been set aside as a provision, and shall we say we've paid, is the one that at the moment is being judged because recently, a Supreme Court ruling on an appeal that was lodged by Aena in the specific case of the company [AIRFOODS] has resolved the following. They have declared the civil jurisdiction incompetent to listen to the matter, assigning it to the contentious administration jurisdiction.
It has declared null and void all the actions taken since the application was submitted, reserving subject to the parties' right to bring the matter before the administrative court. Although the content of the ruling was somewhat unexpected, it's true. It wasn't part of what we had expected, but as you know, in the legal world, it's very full of lots of different interpretations. We think that this content, to a certain extent, represents the recognition of the fact that Aena has a fighting spirit in the face of an unjustified attack on our shareholders. The ruling opens up lots of numerous questions. Nothing has been finally decided, but now I'm talking about a professional economist. I am now going to speculate, which obviously is just a malicious question.
What will happen to the generous million-dollar bonuses that several executives of large and multinational prosperous who are tenants of Aena received during the pandemic on account of the forced reductions in rents and at the expense of the pockets of our shareholders? Honestly, I am an economist, a professional economist. This is a technically interesting question because these millionaire bonuses of multinational executives who exerted strong political pressure for the approval of the Final Provision Seven at Parliament, they could perfectly end up constituting the bonus-minus situation, which is a typical textbook study. The legal services and the Commercial Director General are carefully analyzing all the effects of this ruling. It is very important to stress, and I've already said this, that both we and the market, a financial accounting scenario, we have digested the worst-case scenarios.
For this reason, anyone, whatever happens in the future on the legal spring of these procedures, whatever happens at court, we think it will be positive for Aena. We don't know what the probabilities are for the different scenarios, but it is very clear that the worst one has already been passed, so we don't think this would deteriorate our situation. Now let me pass on to the financial results of the company. The boom of the airport activity in 2024 resulted in outstanding economic financial figures, which for the second consecutive year, Aena broke records for net profit and revenue. I will summarize the main financial results, and these are reflected in the financial statements that we submit to this general meeting for approval today. I will only refer to the year 2024 financial year.
At the end of the month, with our CFO, Ignacio Castejón , Aena will present the results on the 30th of April for the first quarter of 2025. In 2024, the consolidated revenues amounted to EUR 527.8 million. Operating expenses increased by EUR 134 million compared to the year 2023 as a result, on the one hand, of the increase in traffic and also the consolidation of the new concession in the Brazilian airports, Congonhas related. I would like to honestly say that despite the strong growth in activity and the effect of inflation, that a lot of our costs are affected by, and a lot of the items of the OpEx, the company put in a lot of efforts to contain operating expenses at Spain's airports. How did we do this? Thanks, first of all, to a very strict and constant scrutiny of the costs.
Secondly, taking advantage of our large purchasing power ability. Third, by reducing exposure without financial hedges to certain costs beyond our control. I'll say it in other words. Traditionally, Aena didn't use derivatives to cover our exposure for the energy costs, for example. This makes financial sense because on the long term, it's better on the very long term. Of course, on the short term, if anything unexpected happens, the financial hedges make sense. The last few years, Aena has been using financial hedges, partial ones. For example, with regard to 2023, in 2024, our electricity bill was reduced by over EUR 31 million. The company's EBITDA in 2024 was EUR 3,510 million, and the consolidated EBITDA margin was a very appreciable 60.2%. The company's free cash flow rose to EUR 2,746 million, almost EUR 2,747 million. The net financial debt-to-EBITDA ratio of Aena SME S.A. reduced to 1.59x in 2024.
This, in the industry, is a very low ratio. Of course, we're very happy because it allows us to face easily the investment phase in DORA III, and it allows us to face what we expected to be generous dividends in the future. Also, if the case should arise, another international transaction. All of this, in the year 2024, we had a record consolidated net profit of EUR 1,932 million, which is 18.6% higher than 2023. The good financial and credit form of the company has been endorsed by the major rating agency. In 2024, Moody's rating was AAA with positive outlook, and Fitch ratings gave us A with a stable outlook. Now I am going to talk about the issues related to the shares and dividends, which I also think the average I am just going to explain very good news.
The forecast for the updated strategic plan for the period 2022-2026, together with the company's performance throughout the year 2024, offered a brilliant trajectory in the stock exchange last year. In last year, on several moments in time, we reached historical records for our share price. For example, we overcame the EUR 210 per share, and on the 31st of December, the year ended with EUR 197.4 per share, with an annual revaluation of over 20% and a market capitalization of EUR 29,610 million. This positive trend continues in 2025. Obviously, we have to make a break here and think that obviously there were these turbulences that took place due to the tariffs from the American government. Before these turbulent times, the share continued a great continuity. On the 3rd of April, it was EUR 223.6, which meant a capitalization of the company over EUR 33,500 million.
Yesterday, as a consequence of these turbulent global times in the capital markets, the share price closed with EUR 207, and therefore the capitalization of the company yesterday was slightly above EUR 31 billion, which positioned us as the sixth IBEX 35 company by market capitalization. I honestly think that despite this terrible economic uncertainty, which I've already referred to, I honestly believe that the share price is still high. With regard to dividends, the great results in 2024 will allow the company to pay a record amount to the company shareholders in line with the strategic plan. The payout is confirmed in for 2025, which will be paid in corresponding to 80% of the net annual profit of 2024.
Therefore, the Board of Directors for Aena proposes to this general shareholders' meeting, and I hope you pass this, the distribution of a dividend of EUR 9.76 gross per share, which will represent 27.4% more than last year. If this meeting approves this, the dividend will be paid in cash on the 24th of April 2025. Now we'll briefly talk about the 10th anniversary of our IPO, which was celebrated last February. I think we celebrated in February at a very good moment in time as the first airport company in the world for the number of passengers and of market capitalization, as with the sixth largest listed company in Spain.
I think that a shareholder who believed in us in February 2015 possibly then had a very optimistic imagination, but at that moment in time, I would never have imagined that the trajectory of the share price would have been so fantastic as it was over the last 10 years because the revaluation, without taking into account dividends of over 270%, and for someone like me who studied economics in 1990, so this positions the company in the very top positions of the IBEX 35, and for someone like me, this is very impressive. We're only behind these big titans such as Inditex, Iberdrola, Santander, BBVA, and CaixaBank.
I really think that everything I've explained is a clear reflection that over this last decade, we've done things well or even very well, I would like to say, because I would like to remember that obviously Aena's modesty is one of the things that we always do here. We're always very modest, but I'd like to make the most of this moment to make some sort of recognition to the people who were in the company before me as presidents of the company and also during the period of Aena being a listed company. Everything that I've explained is a context where we have to include the proposal to do a split of Aena's share. If you look today at the IBEX 35 companies, you will see there's a big difference because we are the most expensive share. Aena has the most expensive share.
This empiric proof is very ambiguous about what it means to do a split for the company. This proof or evidence of the past means that in general, it was not good because there are a lot of companies who in the past decided to do this. As a first Vice President said, what we need to do is to limit the reasons between cause and effect. Basically, I just think that taking into account common sense, when you are the company who has the highest or most expensive share price, it is interesting to split the share price to encourage more liquidity. I would like to give you an example. At the moment, of all our shareholders, only 0.8%, not even 1%, are retail shareholders, minority share shops, in the Spanish stock exchange. Normally, it is 7.4%.
We think that if we split the shares, this can contribute to increasing this percentage. The split will consist of dividing the shares. The company's share capital will be divided in a proportion of 10 new shares for each old share and the reduction of the nominal unit value. Each share will go from EUR 10 to EUR 1. This transaction means that there will be a change in the company's articles of association, and this general meeting should approve today. I hope that you do this in the next few minutes. When this split takes place, our share price, I think, will be within the range of the medium high of the companies on the IBEX 35, which from the perspective of the Board of Directors, I think that also from this, you know, we all thought that this makes more sense.
Now I'm going to talk about the future. I'll give you some brief brushstrokes about the future and DORA III. The rapid and unexpected increase in traffic in recent years has brought many Aena airports close to their theoretical maximum capacity, technical theoretical maximum capacity. This means that the company, if it wishes to continue to be responsible, must expand its airports. This is happening in many airports, but mainly in hub airports and major tourist airports. We have identified a need for expansion in the Madrid–Barajas Adolfo Suárez Airport, the Barcelona-El Prat Airport, Tenerife North Airport, Tenerife South, Lanzarote, Valencia, Alicante, Menorca, Ibiza, Bilbao. Aena works, likes to get, is working well in advance to plan all the actions of the large and complex expansion projects to be carried out in the coming years.
It debates all this with the airlines, discusses with the airlines and the government through the General Directorate for Transport and the Department of Civil Affairs decides what to do. With regard to the expansion of the Barcelona-El Prat Airport, all I can say is that the Spanish government and the government of Catalonia continue to work rigorously within the technical commission in order to choose the best expansion project that simultaneously offers the best environmental guarantees, not just technical guarantees, but the best environmental guarantees. I will only say that I am optimistic and I have the utmost confidence in the President of Catalonia, Salvador Illa.
In addition to expansion projects, those that I've mentioned, all Aena airports will receive the necessary investments because all these airports have to receive investments in order to comply with regulatory requirements and also to comply with the requirements that Aena itself imposes upon itself in terms of safety, quality, and the environment. Aena is working hard on the proposal for the third DORA for 2027-2031 at the end of 2025, and the Secretary of State knows these, is familiar with these dates. At the end of 2025, we will start the consultation process with the airlines, and at the beginning of 2026, we will present, we will submit our final proposal to the GCAC of the Ministry of Transport. The final DORA III will be approved in the second half of 2026 by the Council of Ministers of the Spanish government.
With regard to DORA III airport tariffs, we have a clear commitment at Aena, a transparent commitment, and also the commitment of the Spanish government in its regulatory role is to combine the high volume of investment with the maintenance of very competitive tariffs and a reasonable return on investment. You must remember that in DORA III, the 10-year transitional period provided for in Law 18/2014, which limits the volume of investment and the tariff path, will have been left behind. This was mentioned by the Minister in Parliament in February. The Spanish government, he said, considers the competitiveness of airport tariffs a priority and confirms that the lifting of the current legal restrictions on investments of EUR 450 million per year is welcome in order to tackle the important works that are needed at Spanish airports in the coming year.
Lifting these restrictions will be good for investments in and for needed investments in Spanish airports. There will be an investment just on the regulated side. These investments will be very, very significant, more than EUR 1 billion a year. There is the other side of things, but that is as regards the regulatory side of our business. We are at Aena preparing thoroughly to effectively manage a strong wave of investment comparable only to that of the 2000s. Here we have the Director of Infrastructure, Tony Rosselló, with us in the room, and he knows well that this is an obsession of the company, and he is preparing his teams in an excellent manner so that we can really materialize this wave, this huge wave of investments. Right.
The final section of my report will refer to corporate governance compliance, ESG criteria, and some resolutions of the board and the shareholders' committee. I would like to say that at the end of 2024, the percentage of women on the Board of Directors was 46.67%, exceeding the minimum makeup of 40%. Regarding the people working at Aena, we have gradually managed to reverse the trend in a historically male-dominated sector, and the company's commitment to gender equality is obvious. We actually won numerous awards for this in 2024. As in previous years, at the end of 2024, the company complied with most of the recommendations of the Good Governance Code for listed companies, with the exception, let us say it clearly, of the low remuneration of directors, which is subject to public sector regulations.
We're probably the only large listed company in the world who frequently, or that frequently, votes negatively in terms of remunerations or compensation for reasons that are different to the traditional reasons. Often, shareholders vote against regulations or remunerations, sorry, because they think that they're too high or they're not well designed. At Aena, a lot of our private shareholders vote against them because they think that they're inadequate. Good. During 2024, Aena also reviewed and adapted its corporate governance system to the various legislative changes and best practices. We modified some aspects of the corporate governance policies and approved two new compliance policies. Now I'm going to go to compliance, strictly speaking.
As at last year's AGM, I would like to refer briefly, but I hope clearly, to the alleged criminal conduct of former officials of the Ministry of Transport whose actions are being investigated by the judicial authorities. Beyond, first of all, my immense personal disappointment. Number two, the unmistakable sour taste of betrayal by people with whom one has worked. And number three, the moral nausea that I feel as a result of information that has come to light. For the sake of our shareholders' peace of mind, I reiterate that Aena has always kept clear of any irregularities that may have occurred in other areas. When we have been singled out on occasion without any basis for it, Aena has been quick to publicly respond to any insinuations or direct accusations. We are particularly annoyed, and I am particularly annoyed, to be associated with this kind of repugnant behavior.
In the few news items in which Aena's name has been mentioned, it has remained just that, a mere reference to our company without any basis whatsoever and therefore without any media coverage. Although zero risk does not exist, naturally, I believe that Aena's professional and corporate legacy, first of all. Secondly, the transparency of its procedures, and thirdly, the effective regulatory compliance system do not do away with risk completely, but they considerably mitigate the risk of non-compliance with the law. This risk is not just a risk of non-compliance with the law. It's also a risk regarding third parties and before judicial and administrative bodies and a guarantee that due preventive control is exercised over the company's employees, management team, and administrative bodies.
Any issue, potential issue, must trigger these bodies and these mechanisms of control of the company so that everything is analyzed in depth and brought under control if necessary. In any case, what is really important is that in terms of its reputation, Aena is going through a very good period, as evidenced, for example, by our first place in the sector ranking of companies in the infrastructure, services, and construction industry of the Corporate Reputation Business Monitor, MERCO. We got the first prize, the first place in 2024. In terms of ESG, environmental, social, and governance issues, these are a regular item on the agenda of Aena's Board of Directors. In 2024, Aena joined the IBEX ESG Index, which recognizes us as one of the most sustainable and responsible companies in Spain.
Although there are many Aena projects for social sustainability and support for vulnerable groups in the communities where our airports are located, I am particularly proud of the help that we were able to provide Valencia during the tragic rains and floods that affected the southeast of Spain. I will now talk about the resolutions of the board. These will be detailed by the Secretary after I finish speaking. I just have to say that I would like to express my appreciation and the appreciation of the Board of Directors to Director Irene Canó for her good professional work. She is voluntarily stepping down after the expiry of her four-year term, and I sincerely thank her for her contribution to the governance of the company in general and in particular in the areas of innovation, communication, and sustainability.
To fill the vacancy, the appointment of Ramón Tremosa i Balcells, whom I greet and welcome here today. The appointment of Ramón as an independent director is proposed to this board. Ramón Tremosa is an economist with an outstanding academic, professional, and institutional career and has a European profile, an international profile in the fields of economics and finance, international trade and transport, which will be very useful to a company like Aena, which has to now decipher the increasingly turbulent international situation in terms of the politics and the economy. On the other hand, the term of office of board members Javier Marín, Jaime Terceiro, Amancio López, and Juan Río expires, and it is proposed to this meeting that all of them be re-elected for the statutory term of four years.
I note that Jaime Terceiro and Amancio López will keep their status as independent directors for two years until completing the 12-year term from their first appointment, at which time they will become other external directors. I want to say clearly that Javier Marín, Jaime Terceiro, Amancio López, and Juan Río know that as Chairman and CEO of the company, I need them, and I've told them privately, and I've told them at the board meeting, and I want them to know, and I want to say this publicly, that I consider Marín, Terceiro, López, and Río key people, and I consider their continuity on the board is key, is essential for the management of the company.
It's not going to be we face a future which is not going to be easy, and their experience and competence will help us significantly and help the company significantly to address the decisions it must make. I also am very thankful to these four directors for their professional and personal commitment. If you will allow me, I will not detail the rest of the agreements put to the vote today because you can see them on the screen, and they will also be listed by Elena Roldán, the Secretary, a bit later. To conclude, 2024 was an excellent year for Aena. We ended the year with historical records, operational, and financial. The current geopolitical and economic scenario is extremely complex.
The governor of the Bank of Spain today, in an interview, has stated as much, and therefore uncertainty is great, diffuse, and it makes it difficult to make forecasts. However, Aena is cautiously optimistic about air traffic in Spain in 2025, which, by the way, our teams are constantly reviewing. At the same time, Aena is entering a demanding and exciting phase of heavy investment in numerous airports at the same time, a lot of investments in many different airports and at the same time. For Aena's management team, I said before when I mentioned Antonio Rosselló, it is practically an obsession to prepare for this new stage in order to face it successfully, and I can testify that we're on the right track. Since the mid-2023, we're really in a sweet spot at Aena. We have reached levels that nobody would have imagined years ago.
The retrospective view of our 10 years on the stock market proves it with a share revaluation that few companies can boast about. It is very important for the company to have the support of our shareholders. We did a roadshow recently in the U.S., and we clearly perceived the support of our shareholders. In particular, we value the support of our majority shareholder, the Spanish government, which always supports us. I want to underline this with scrupulous and admirable respect for our autonomy. The General Secretary for Transport, Mr. Santano, knows that this is the truth. We discuss things all the time, and I want to thank them and the Minister, Oscar Puente, for their support. The will of Aena's Board of Directors, and I am going to finish, and management is to extend this sweet period as long as possible.
We are taught by history of finances and the economy that nothing is eternal, but we want to make this good period as long as possible. This requires that the company's employees, in my opinion, the company's employees, managers, directors, and shareholders, first of all, savor the results achieved to date and our great international prestige, and also channel that satisfaction into maintaining a high level of competitiveness and not to fall asleep on our laurels. I've been in this company for many years, almost seven years, and honestly, I see it in a great moment in time, probably better than ever, but this is not enough. We all want more. I thank you, shareholders, for your trust in a great company like Aena and in us as managers.
It is a powerful stimulus to be convinced not only that we are satisfying our shareholders, but also that we are improving the well-being of the citizens, the countries in which our airports are present. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for your attention.
Thank you very much. I need to go back to where we had stopped beforehand. After my intervention, I am now back to the point where I left off at. Before my report related to the board meeting and before we start the intervention time, I would like to inform you that at this point in time, the shareholders' request to speak is closed, and I will now give the floor again to the Secretary of the Board so that you should give the final results of attendance and representation at the meeting. Thank you very much.
The list of attendees has been drawn up using computers. The final attendance quorum is as follows. Here present at the general meeting, there are 170 shareholders, holders of 76,875,849 shares, equivalent to 51.2506% of the share capital. Represented at the meeting are 340 shareholders, holders of 55,389,214 shares, equivalent to 36.9261% of the share capital. Of the shareholders present, 153 holders of 375,065 shares have exercised their voting rights using remote means of communication. The share capital present and represented with voting rights is EUR 1,322,650,630, represented by 510 shareholders, holders of 132,265,063 shares, which is equivalent to 88.1767% of the share capital. Therefore, the attendance quorum is over the 50% of the subscribed share capital with voting rights required by Article 22 of the Articles of Association for the valid constitution of the meeting on the first call.
I would now like to give the floor to the President.
Thank you. In accordance with the information provided by the Secretary, and as there is a sufficient quorum in accordance with the provisions of the law and the Articles of Association, I ratify the valid constitution of Aena's ordinary general meeting on first call as the legal and statutory requirements for this purpose are met. I also confirm the existence of a sufficient quorum to discuss and adopt resolutions on all the matters included on the agenda of this general meeting.
In accordance with the provisions of the Mercantile Registry Regulations, I give the floor to the Notary to address the meeting for the purposes of verifying the possible existence of reservations or protests by any shareholder on the above statements by myself or by the Secretary of the meeting regarding the number of shareholders attending the meeting, the capital present and represented, and the valid constitution of the ordinary general meeting.
Pursuant to the provisions of Article 101 and 102 of the Regulations of the Mercantile Register, as Notary of the ordinary general meeting, I hereby advise that if any shareholder wishes to express reservations or protests regarding the statements relating to the number of shareholders in attendance or the capital present, as well as in relation to the valid constitution of the ordinary general meeting, they may do so from this moment onwards using the button under the heading Register Objection. That appears on the left-hand side of the screen in the case of those attending telematically. For shareholders in attendance, at this time, you can do so at this table in order to record it in the minutes. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much. Since no shareholder wishes to express objections or protests, I pass the floor to the Chairman.
Okay, so now we are going to start the intervention time for the shareholders here in the room, but the Secretary has said that we have one request. I would like, at the beginning of this intervention, that the shareholder gives the name and, if necessary, the shareholders they represent and the number of shares holding. I would now ask the person to come up to the lectern for the interventions. I would appreciate it if the Speaker could be as concise and brief as possible. To this end, I would ask for the speech to be no longer than five minutes, reminding you that the request for information must be confined to the items on the agenda or other legally appropriate items. I'm going to be brief now.
When the intervention is finished, I would like to respond personally, but if it was not possible, I will respond either to any other member of the Board of Directors to answer or, if necessary, a member of the executive team. If the information is very specific, we will reserve the right to respond within seven days in writing. I am sure that we will be able to answer the question because I think it will be something simple. Now what I am going to do is to give the floor to Artemi Suárez Herrera , who I would like to ask to come up now to the lectern and also there to start to speak when necessary.
Good morning, Mr. President, members of the Board. First of all, I would like to welcome Don Juan Montremusa. I would like to wish him the best success as being a member of the Board of Directors of this company. This is going to be something very quick, and in fact, I do not really want this to be put down in the minutes. First of all, I would like to say congratulations for the excellent results of the company. Thank you for splitting the shares, and at the price that it is, I think it is good so that we can increase the negotiation. This is very good for the small shareholders like myself. Two very simple questions. One, firstly, I wanted to ask, when are you going to develop and enable the parking for the long-term car park at the Asturias Airport? Because the current general car park is saturated, it is very full.
The occupation levels are almost 100%, and I really think that the people from Asturias would really appreciate a long-term parking at the Asturias Airport. Secondly, this is a personal request, which I know is something shared by many other people in Asturias. I wanted to launch a proposal to put a name to the airport. It should number one of our, well, it will be a Nobel Prize winner for 90% amount from Asturias. I would like you to take this proposal into account, and we would so that we will make it to the government so that it could be done as soon as possible by the government, if possible. Finally, just to conclude, just a comment with regard to the assessments carried out by the President related to the tariffs by Donald Trump.
Just to say, let's be optimistic in one respect, in the respect that, as we say, everything will get back to normal at some moment in time. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much. Thank you for your intervention, Mr. Suárez Herrera. Before replying, first of all, we are going to show a video that, it's not sure it's a commemorate, but I think it expresses the 10 years of Aena in the Spanish Stock Exchange.
On February 11th, I know when you manage a listed company, you have to be highly competitive. Both the technical and the management teams. I believe this is a natural consequence of the constant scrutiny to which a listed company is subject. Our aim was to explain the values that make Aena a great company with great prospects.
Fundamentally, Aena's assets are its airports and their capacity for growth and the quality of their infrastructure and the professionals who make this infrastructure work, ensuring enormous levels of efficiency in comparison with other airports. There was some nervousness, but I was also excited by the huge leap forward that we were about to take. The IPO was a very exciting, very emotional moment, but also an extremely tense one. With images of the airports appearing one after another and then the ringing of the bell, we had to go into so much detail in the knowledge that there were so many external observers. Our procedures and work processes had to be adapted so that the excellence we had worked hard to achieve internally could be extended to the outside world.
Not linked directly to the listing itself, but the work that began some three years earlier was a tough process, a marathon run at the pace of a 100-meter sprint. We never slowed the pace. It was successful. Since the IPO, the share price has risen by 270%. I think in the case of Aena, one of the greatest achievements, one of the miracles, if you want to exaggerate slightly, and driven by its status as a listed company, has been the transfer of the company's very high operational precision because airports can only be operated successfully with this high level of technical precision. A listed company must comply with certain regulations. The CNMV, Aena's management team, adapted perfectly to this new status as in some way it was understood that the airport model in Spain had taken a necessary step forward.
In the end, it has brought a great deal of professionals and even more professionalism. I believe that Aena has always stood out for doing things well, but since this IPO, this extra professionalism and rigor has been even more visible. Since becoming a listed company, Aena has worked better as a network. The company's IPO has internationalized the company and our philosophy of transparency, excellence, communication, openness, and I believe we have more than succeeded in this respect. Our challenge was to adapt external communication to the reality of a listed company. On the one hand, we were faced with content and information that was completely new to us. On the other hand, we acquired an added sensitivity because we were all aware that Aena generates a lot of corporate information that creates market value.
We were aware that we needed to take a step forward, maintaining the company's core values while adapting to a new era. One example was the entry of private capital. The main challenge was to communicate Aena's values to national and international markets. Aena has magnificent airport assets with the capacity to grow with quality infrastructure, terminals, and runways. There is a technical capacity to maximize the advantage of these assets as well as its efficiency, one of the company's main attributes that has been maintained over time. I think we are a more stable, more credible company, far more visible, and with greater recognition in the markets. Ten years on, Aena is importantly our operational precision has been carried over to corporate precision.
In other words, the precision with which the company has managed not only from an operational point of view, but also from a financial, corporate governance, procedural, and governing body perspective. So much more. Undoubtedly, the greatest value for Aena is being able to manage a network of airports in the world's leading tourist markets. It's as simple as that. We are a great company. We work for a great company, the sixth largest IBEX company with fantastic financial and operational performance. That is a consequence of the previous fantastic performance of the teams and management. Our ability to manage and gain efficiencies, to manage an asset base like ours is a relatively moderate cost. It is really like a crown jewel. And Aena is a true gem, and that's how the market sees us, a gem.
As both a company employee as well as Vice Chairman, it is a source of great pride to work for a company that provides the service we do. As Vice Chairman of the board, it's also a source of great satisfaction because I can participate both in the development and management of operations. In other words, I would say, as I have said before me, it is the highest professional honor to lead a company like Aena, a company of such greatness. I would also say that from my perspective, at least presiding over Aena is probably the best job in the world.
I would really like to ask you to understand this video as part of the celebration of our 10 years because in general, we are obviously quite somber, but we do think that if one day we could go wild, we would always offer a video like this. Now I am going to answer the only intervention that we've had this morning to Mr. Suárez Herrera related to the long-term car park in Asturias. Where is the gentleman? Yes, over there. I hope to give you good news. We did in the summer, the new car park should come into effect. It's got 500 extra parking spaces to the 700 already available. I can't explain now, but maybe in the cocktail afterwards, I can explain to you. According to our forecasts, I'm not sure how much capacity these new parking spaces will be providing.
Anyway, I do have information about this building work, and we know it's about to end. With regard to the name of the airports, we have taken note of the name you have asked for. The only thing we can commit ourselves to is to formally transfer your request to the Ministry of Transport and the Spanish government because technically, the names of the airports are due to ministerial orders from the Ministry of Transport. At the most, we can transfer your request, and we also sometimes offer our own suggestions to the minister. Finally, I would like to confess to you that when we prepared my intervention this morning in our last board meeting, taking into account the turbulent times in the world stock markets, it wasn't easy for us to strike the right balance that we think we had to offer for a general shareholders' meeting.
We had the traffic forecast for 2025. We maintain the traffic figures, but obviously, we can't forget what's going on because obviously, you only have to read the press and put on the news to see what the prestigious analysts in the world say about the risks related to what's been happening over the last few weeks. This is what we've tried to do today. It's true to say that we could have been a bit more academic and not even mention the American government nor President Trump. We could have done, we could be more generic, but I honestly thought that it would be quite strange if we didn't mention this. What I will do, and I agree exactly with what you said because what you said is actually what I would have liked to have said. Anyway, I have listened to your reflection carefully.
I would just like to thank you for your question and the way you have said it because since I have come to these general meetings, I think this is my seventh edition, the tone of all the interventions has been very pleasant, and I am very grateful for this. Thank you. I understand that now we can consider that the interventions from the shareholders come to an end. As the shareholders' intervention has ended, now we will formally move on to the voting for the proposals for agreement that the board is going to offer today for the organization of this. I will pass this to the secretary. Now we will move on to the voting for each item on the agenda. We would like to meet the formal in accordance with the provisions of the meeting regulations.
The proposed regulations formulated are deemed to have been read for all purposes as they have been available on the company's website from the time of the call to the general meeting. Without prejudice to the foregoing and for the purposes of clarity, I will now briefly summarize each item on the agenda. I would like to inform you that a document containing all the proposals for agreements made by the board has been handed to the notary for inclusion in the minutes. I also inform you that in accordance with the provisions of the regulations of the general meeting, votes in favor shall be deemed by default to be those corresponding to all shares present and represented. After deducting the votes corresponding to shares whose holders have voted against in blank or have expressly stated their abstention through the means provided for this purpose.
Shareholders who intend to vote against, in blank, or abstain and who have not done so until now are requested now, through the application provided for the purpose in the event of attending telematically, or by the notary's table for shareholders attending in person, by handing over the cards provided to them at the entrance and on which they must expressly indicate their vote against, in blank, or abstention in relation to each of the proposed resolutions. The notary shall record all this in the meetings. I shall now briefly summarize the proposals for resolutions to be put to the vote following the successive items on the agenda f irst.
Examination and approval, as the case may be, of the individual annual accounts, balance sheet, P&L account, statement of changes in equity, cash flow statement, and notes, and the individual management report of the company for the year ended 31st of December 2024. Second, examination and approval, if appropriate, of the consolidated annual accounts, balance sheet, profit and loss account, statement of changes in equity, cash flow statement, and notes, and the consolidated management report of the company and its subsidiaries for the year ended 31st of December 2024. Three, examination and approval, as the case may be, of the proposed application of the company's profit for the year ended 31st of December 2024. Four, reclassification of capitalization reserves to voluntary reserves.
Five, examination and approval, as the case may be, of the consolidated statement of non-financial information and sustainability information report for the year ended 31st of December 2024. Six, examination and approval, if appropriate, of the corporate management for the year ended 31st of December 2024. 7, composition of the Board of Directors, appointment and re-election of directors. 7.1, appointment of Mr. Ramón Tremosa i Balcells with the category of independent director. 7.2, re-election of Mr. Francisco Javier Marín San Andrés as Executive Director. 7.3, re-election of Mr. Jaime Terceiro Lomba with the Category of Independent Director. 7.4, re-election of Mr. Amancio López Seijas with the Category of Independent Director. 7.5, re-election of Mr. Juan Río Cortés with the Category of Independent Director.
8, split of the number of shares into which the share capital is divided in the proportion of 10 new shares for each old share by reducing the unit par value of each share from EUR 10 to EUR 1 without changing the amount of share capital and the subsequent amendment of section 1 of article 6 of the articles of association and the delegation of powers. 9, authorization for the purpose of article 146 of the consolidated text of the Spanish Capital Companies Act for the possible acquisition of treasury shares. 10, remuneration of the Board of Directors of the company. 11, voting on a consultative basis on the annual report on directors' remunerations for the 2024 financial year. 12, voting on a consultative basis on the 2024 updated climate action plan report 2024.
Thirteen, delegation of powers to the Board of Directors to formalize and execute all the resolutions adopted by the Ordinary General Shareholders' Meeting, as well as to delegate the powers it receives from the meeting and to convert them into a public instrument, interpret, correct, supplement, develop, and register them. I would like to inform you that from now on, the vote on the resolutions of this meeting is now closed. I'll now give the floor again to the President.
Dear shareholders, having concluded the voting period, I am informed that all the proposed resolutions have received the vote in favor of a number of shares higher than the number required by law or the article association for the valid approval of the resolutions. Accordingly, the following proposals are all declared on all the items on the agenda. I would now like to give the floor again to the Secretary.
Thank you, President. The resolutions passed and the results of which shall be published on the company's website within five days after the end of the meeting. Finally, we would like to inform you that the notarial minutes will be considered as minutes of the general meeting and therefore it would not be necessary to proceed to their approval in accordance with the provisions of the Spanish Capital Companies Act and the regulations of the companies registry. Thank you all very much for a ttendance. Finally, I would like to give the floor again to the President.
Thank you, Secretary. I would just like to make the most of my last intervention to thank you very much for your good work in preparing this general meeting. Before I declare this general meeting adjourned, I would like to thank you on behalf of the Board of Directors of Aena and in my own name, I'd like to thank you for attending this ordinary general meeting, both for those here physically in the room and those who followed us in telematically. We would also like to thank you, and this is the most important thing. We would like to thank all people who make up the company, Aena, and very specially you, the shareholders, for the trust you have placed in this great company, which is Aena. Thank you very much for attending today. Thank you for your trust. Without further ado, the meeting is adjourned. Thank you very much.