Good morning and welcome to GAP's third quarter 2022 conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the presentation, we will open the floor for questions, and at that time, instructions will be given if you would like to ask a question. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to GAP's investor relations team. Please go ahead.
Thank you and welcome to the Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacífico's third quarter 2022 conference call. Presenting from the company today, we welcome Mr. Raúl Revuelta, GAP's Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Saúl Villarreal, Chief Financial Officer. Please be advised that forward-looking statements may be made during this conference call. These do not account for future economic circumstances, industry conditions, the Company's future performance, or financial results. As such, statements made are based on several assumptions and factors that could change, causing actual results to materially differ from the current expectations. For a complete note on forward-looking statements, please refer to the quarterly report. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Revuelta for his opening remarks. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, Maria, and thanks to everyone who took the time to join us here today. I will start with a brief review of GAP operational performance and financial results for the third quarter of 2022 prior to taking your questions. Passenger traffic across our airports continued to perform positively, reaching 41 million passengers for the first nine months of the year, an increase of almost 15% compared to 2019. This put us on solid footing to surpass the annual growth objective that we established in our guidance. Tijuana, yet again, was the best performing airport in terms of traffic, growing by 42% during the quarter compared to 2019. Tijuana's traffic increase was mainly fueled by the Cross Border Xpress, with a passenger traffic penetration of 34%.
Tijuana has also gained market share from the Los Angeles area, mainly on the routes to Guadalajara, Mexico City, Morelia, and Mexican beaches destinations such as Los Cabos, Cancún, Puerto Vallarta, and Mazatlán. Puerto Vallarta, Los Cabos, which are our main beach airports, continues to benefit from higher traffic, mainly driven by the domestic market, with a respective 42% and 32% increase [audio distortion] this quarter. Also, during this period, we opened the routes from Los Cabos to Madrid, Los Cabos to Toluca, and Los Cabos to Santa Lucía, as well as the Puerto Vallarta to Toluca and Puerto Vallarta to Santa Lucía. We expect to develop additional routes to these three destinations, and during the upcoming winter season, we will see the Canadian market actively increase as is typical for the season.
There has been a less positive performance at the Guadalajara Airport, mainly reflecting the slow recovery of the business travel market. However, during this quarter, we saw a positive trend comparing to 2019. We continue our efforts to make Guadalajara a hub. As such, just last week, we initiated the routes from Guadalajara to Bogotá, Colombia, operated by Viva Aerobus. With this addition, Guadalajara now has three international routes outside of the U.S., these being Madrid, Panama, and Bogotá. Moving on to Montego Bay, this airport continues slow but steady recovery. In third quarter, reaching the first positive quarter following the impact from the pandemic, we had 3.2% increase compared to 2019. In total, during the quarter, 15 new routes and one international route were added.
Looking ahead for the quarter, in addition to the new Guadalajara-Bogotá route, we expect to open two other international routes from Puerto Vallarta to Edmonton and to Vancouver, operated by Flair Airlines. As a result of the passenger traffic performance, a higher passenger fee, aeronautical revenue increased by almost MXN 2 billion or about 74% during the quarter compared to 2019. For the nine-month period, aeronautical revenues increased by almost MXN 5 billion, or about 62% compared to 2019. Non-aeronautical revenues rose by 14% this quarter compared to 2019. For the nine-month period, the revenues increased by 36%, most of it from food and beverage, retail operations, as well as duty-free.
I just want to mention that the best performing non-aeronautical revenues were food and beverage and retail operations, particularly in Guadalajara, Los Cabos, and Tijuana airports, while duty-free was the highest performing segment in the Los Cabos and Montego Bay Airport. This revenue performance was partially offset by a 46% increase in the cost of service during the quarter by 2019 and a cumulative increase of 34%. Personnel expenses increased by 74% during the quarter, mainly due to the hiring of additional staff required for the new areas as well as the change in labor law.
GAP directly hires personnel for the VIP lounges and the convenience stores, when formerly these were subcontracted. Safety, security, and insurance increased by 38% for the quarter, mainly due to more security staff related to the opening of the new terminal processor building and other new operational areas, as well as due to the salary increases. This new opening has also impacted energy and water consumptions, thus leading to 31% increase higher utility costs for the quarter. Even so, on our 14 airports have solar panels, as we are currently generating 13% of total energy consumption, the price per kilowatt was recently increased significantly compared to 2019. Looking ahead, we do expect higher costs given the terminal expansions and inflationary effect. As a result, EBITDA reaches MXN 4 billion for the quarter with an EBITDA margin of around 71%.
For the nine-month period, EBITDA reaches almost MXN 12 billion with an EBITDA margin of around 72%. Moving on to the balance sheet, cash and cash equivalents increased by 77% compared to September 2019, reaching a total of MXN 16 billion. On September 26, we issue MXN 2.8 billion in sustainability-linked bond to refinance the bond certificates under the ticker symbol GAP 17 during November of this year, and to fund investments committed under the Master Development Program for 2022. This issuance is GAP first sustainability-linked bond certificate. Further evidence of our commitment to sustainability and especially of our goal for reducing gas emissions. We look forward to updating you on these initiatives and to continuing integrating sustainability into our operation and infrastructure.
With this issuance, we reached almost MXN 34 billion in debt, and we continue to be at healthy leverage levels, which is our net debt to EBITDA ratio for the trailing twelve months of 1.2x , complying with all our debt covenants. CAPEX continues in accordance with the committed Master Development Program. The deployment has been and will be our biggest challenge this quinquennium because of the size of the investment and inflation levels. We began the construction of the second terminal in Puerto Vallarta, which is expected to be finalized at the end of 2024. Additionally, the second Guadalajara runway is still in progress, as well as the mixed-use building and other commercial areas, which at this point has reached 70% progress rate with an expected conclusion date in 2023.
In Tijuana, we are currently expanding and rehabilitating the aprons which will allow us to serve more flights. The same project is underway in the Los Cabos airport. In Montego Bay, we completed the commercial area expansion, adding new food and beverage areas, and expanding duty free. Before I conclude, I want to remind you that we will hold our infrastructure site visit from November 8th to November10 th. We will tour the Guadalajara, Los Cabos, and Tijuana airports to showcase the constructions that are currently in progress as well as the future growth expectations. We hope that you can join us. Please contact our investor relations teams for more information. With that, I conclude my comments and I ask the operator to please open the call for new questions.
At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and one on your touchtone phone. You may withdraw your question at any time by pressing the pound key. Once again, to ask a question, please press star and one on your touchtone phone. We'll pause a moment to allow questions to queue. We'll take our first question from Rodolfo Ramos with Bradesco BBI. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you for taking my question. Good morning. A couple of questions. My first one is on your expectations for Tijuana. You know, the long-term drivers continue to be there. I just wanted to see if you foresee growth moderating perhaps in the short to medium term, you know, especially as airlines continue to, you know, to try to pass through some of the cost pressures that they're seeing. A second part of this question, you know, what are the next milestones for your international handling passenger facility in Tijuana? Thank you.
Thank you, Rodolfo. This is Raúl. I would say like the main drivers of Tijuana is still there. I mean, the first one for sure, the Mexican market that has been really fully served by CBX. The second part is the Mexicans going for some business or leisure to Southern California area. In that part, after the pandemic, we saw in some way a decrease of that market because as you remember, the cross-border were closed for Mexicans, or in other words, it was only open for U.S. citizens during the pandemic.
We are beginning to see a really interesting recovery in markets such as in Mexico to Tijuana, Guadalajara to Tijuana. The third part related with the market of mainly US citizens going to Mexican destinations such as beaches. We are still seeing a really great room for growth over there. I mean, we begin to see more and more frequencies with great new factors happening there in terms of the market, but I would like to add that for sure the coming months could be challenging for airlines for sure due to the additional pressure from the cost of the fuel. But also we are seeing that there's new planes arriving to the country, mainly from Volaris and Viva Aerobus.
Some of these planes will not be allowed to be in U.S. markets due to the fact that Mexico is still on the second category for FAA. In that way, we also see some kind of temporary upside for additional growth in Tijuana due to the fact that some of the markets, mainly to Southern California, will be covered through Tijuana rather than direct flights to, for instance, additional frequencies to Los Angeles market, for instance. For sure we see that the coming months will have additional pressure from a possible economic recession and also the cost of the fuel. Also we have, on the other hand, additional fleet that will be on the airport in the very short term. We still see room for growth in Tijuana.
We will look really closely what will happen in the Tijuana economy due to the fact of the nearshoring. At least in the last quarters, we are seeing a continuous growth in the real estate for the, mainly industrial storage, mainly that are used for nearshoring. That is an additional fact that we are following that today we don't have all the complete view of the possible impact on traffic for the future. We see in some way positive that Tijuana area will have some additional tourism on the economy if the nearshoring continues to grow on that area. For the second question, the case of the facilities of Tijuana, the next milestone really important is to be fully operating the international area of the terminal building.
Today we are working in what we call the phase two that was related to an expansion of the international arrivals area that will be ready to operate in May of the coming year. From that moment we expect to bring some international routes to the airport. As we have mentioned in the past, we are seeing that the first international operations in Cabo and Tijuana will be the coming back of the route from Shanghai to Tijuana with Hainan Airlines. We are seeing the markets of Central America that will be operating for the next summer on that new facility.
Just a follow-up, if I may. Thank you, Raúl, for that. On the category rating, so you would expect if Mexico does recover Category 1 as it is expected now with the new AFAC leadership and the updated budget to happen in the first quarter of next year. I don't know if you agree with that, but
Mm-hmm.
You know, is it safe to assume that once we have category 1, you will start serving, you know, other U.S. domestic destinations? I don't know if commercially that's complicated or is this a market that you are, you know, perhaps, I don't know, Phoenix, you know, people that wanna go to Southern California from Texas or other states in the U.S.
For sure. I mean, one that will be a clear opportunity as soon as we recover the category will be, for instance, the Tijuana-Oakland. As you remember, when you see the Mexican Americans or the heritage of Mexicans in Southern California and California in general terms, we have really successfully covered the Southern California area. But the second part or the second area with most Mexican heritage is the one of the north area of California, mainly the area of Oakland and even Fresno and that area.
One of the points that we for sure see like a great opportunity is to have a direct flight from Tijuana to Oakland and arriving to Tijuana to have, using all these 39 domestic destinations to in some way fit all the different domestic markets. We really see that in the long term or the medium term, we will see Tijuana acting more like a hub for some different opportunities in the market. That for sure is also related to the biggest U.S. market hubs at Dallas or Phoenix, but also R&D operations as could be Oakland that will fit the Mexican markets from Tijuana and the rest of the country.
Great. Thank you, Raúl.
We'll take our next question from Alejandro Zamacona with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Hello, Raúl, Saúl. Thank you for taking my questions. My first question is on the guidance for 2022. Looking at the results year-to-date, it seems your expectations in the guidance will be somewhat conservative. Do you have any thoughts for the fourth quarter or any updated estimates for that initial guidance?
Hi, Alex, this is Saúl. Thank you for your question. You are correct. We are looking that we will be in the highest of our numbers, provided according to the guidance submitted. We do not expect to update it. It will be in the range that we already provided.
Okay. Thank you. My second question, if I may, on the cost of service. Do you have any expectations going forward? I mean, I'm probably talking about 2023. Any expectations for maybe high inflationary environment, or to what extent we can see the cost of service on a unitary basis increasing, considering all these expansions that you are planning?
Alex, well, everybody is concerned about the inflation effect in all our costs. We have to consider that we have another kind of issues additional to the inflation effect. We do expect a pressure to our margins for 2023, not only because the inflation, also because we will have full operation of the new passenger terminal building in Tijuana. For instance, we will have another expansion open and operating in Los Cabos. We will continue opening different additional expansions in Guadalajara and other airports. For instance, in the case of Montego Bay, that we did a full expansion of the food and beverage area. We will have an additional area to maintain.
The costs related with all the suspension and besides the headcount, we will have a significant increase. We have another effect related with the cost, but what we can tell is that the margins will continue in the range historically from 69%-71%. The return we expect is to maintain the same EBITDA margins.
Okay. That's useful. Thank you.
Take our next question from Pablo Monsivais with Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I have a quick one on Jamaica. Can you please provide some outlook. What is your expectation of traffic for 2023, considering that perhaps travelers from Europe is gonna be on the soft side? If you can provide some update on the price. Thank you.
Hi, Pablo. This is Raúl. In the case of Jamaica, first I will begin with Montego Bay. The Montego Bay, just in this third quarter, begin to see a really positive trend. In general terms, we think that the U.S. and the Canadian market will continue their expansion or their recovery for the coming year. For sure, we are seeing in some way, with some caution, mainly the market of the European market, as could be the British market from Montego Bay, that could be maybe not recovery as we originally expect.
In general terms, I will say that Canadian market will have a great recovery, or we are expecting that at least for the first quarter of the year, we wanna have a really positive trend on that specific market. In general terms, we will see that the next year we will have a full recovery in terms of the absolute number of passengers. For sure, I expect that we wanna be really close to a double-digit growth on EBITDA. For the case of Kingston, the main market of Kingston is Diaspora, mainly from routes of Miami and New York.
We are expecting that all the full offer of seats that we used to have prior to the pandemic period. We expect that in the coming year will be completely recovering in terms of that, those specific markets. For sure we will have some kind of pullback from British markets, that also we are seeing some kind of a slow performance for the coming year. But in general terms, we see that Kingston will be really close to recovery the passengers prior to 2019 at the end of 2023. That would be my general view. In terms of the tariff, we continue with our review with the government of Jamaica.
We have the schedule for finish the renegotiation of tariff and we expect that for March of the coming year, we're gonna have a news about the new tariffs on those airports.
Perfect. Thank you very much.
I'll take our next question from Filipe Nielsen with Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. I have two questions on my side. The first one is a follow-up on the Category 1 upgrade on the Mexican market. I just wanted to have your thoughts regarding how you expect the timeline for this upgrade to happen. The second question would be if you foresee any opportunities for expanding through acquisitions and new options and not only expanding your current airports. Those would be my two questions. Thank you.
Thank you, Filipe. For the first question, in terms of the Category 1, I mean, the Mexican government just have a change in their leadership of the Federal Civil Aviation Authority. It just happened last week. One of their main goals is trying to recover as fast as possible the category. At least what the Mexican government is saying that they expect to recover on the first quarter of the coming year. We think that just taking into account that the new federal government budget includes increases on expenses for the Federal Civil Aviation Authority, and also with this change of the leadership, we think that that time could happen.
At least in our view, the latest time for the recovery of the category would be the summer of 2023, if all the plans of the Mexican government happens. At least in our personal view, the latest time will be 2023 on the summer of 2023. If everything, all the plans of the government happens in the time that they are expected, will happen on the first quarter of the coming year. I will pass for the second question to Saúl.
Thank you, Raúl. Thank you, Filipe. Yes, we are analyzing some opportunities for acquisitions. As we have mentioned before that we were in the process of the prequalification for the Barbados Airport. However, the government suspended the process for now. We don't know if they are going to continue with this in the following months or years. We are open to see any kind of opportunities. In a couple of weeks, we will participate in the Global Airport Development, where it is a forum where there are several opportunities to invest and expand in all over the world for airport. After this congress, we will see if there is any other opportunity. For now, we are only waiting for that congress.
Great. Thank you very much. Yes.
I'll take our next question from Gabriel Himelfarb with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. Thanks for the call. Just a quick question. Can you give us a bit of color about maximum tariffs? Are you gonna be able to reach your maximum tariffs this year? Do you think that next year, maybe with inflation, we could increase tariffs for 2023? Thank you.
Hi, Gabriel. This is Saúl. Thanks for your question. It is complicated. In terms of the maximum tariff, we have reached a level of 97% of the maximum tariff. So far we are expecting trying to reach 100% at the end of the year in the fourth quarter. It's complicated because, as you know, we increased two times the specific tariff during the year. In the way that the inflation is higher, we have a gap in the current tariff of the specific tariff versus the maximum tariff updated. It depends on the level of inflation for this year, and obviously for next year, we will try to adjust the specific tariff with the objective to reach 100% of the maximum tariff.
It's a fact that we will have the inflation to the tariff. Yes, we are expecting that because it's part of our CapEx, our MDP, the investments needed to be updated with inflation also. The effect that we are suffering in terms of OpEx, it affects also the profitability of the company. We have to pass through the inflation to the tariffs. Absolutely.
Do you expect that, for next year, about, for example, on the first half or second half, do you see that inflation could materialize into tariff?
Yes. What we do is, we adjust the tariff at the beginning of the year, and then we analyze. We have an expectation of inflation, an expectation of exchange rate for international tariffs. What we do is update the tariffs at the beginning of the year, then we look at the trend of the market in terms of this effects. Once we have more visibility, we are able to make another adjustment. According to the law, we have only two chances to adjust the tariff. We will do it at the beginning of the year, and then we will look if in the second half, probably August, September, October. It depends on the trend of the inflation and exchange rate.
Okay. Thank you very much.
As a reminder, it is star and one on your touch-tone phone if you would like to join the queue. Star and one. We will move next with Alan Macias with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, and thank you for the call. Just a follow-up question on the Canada traffic. Can you remind us your exposure to this traffic? Thank you.
Thank you, Alan. I mean, for the case of Canadian traffic, Puerto Vallarta is really close to 20%. The case of Montego Bay is really close to 18%. For the case of Cabo, it's around 12%. They are mainly our exposure. In those markets, those specific beach markets, we have not, in 2022, we have just received in the last month the first planes coming back to the market. In 2023, what we are expecting is that we're gonna again have all the effect of the seats that we used to have in those markets.
It will have a great increase just talking about the comparison of 2022, where we didn't have seats on the Canadian market.
Great. Thank you. Great color. Thank you.
We'll take our next question from Guilherme Mendes with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Hi, Saúl. Raúl, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. A quick follow-up question in terms of traffic. You mentioned about Jamaica for next year, but do you have an initial consolidated view for traffic in 2023 on a year-over-year basis? Thank you.
Hi, Guilherme. This is Saúl. What we are expecting for Jamaica in terms of traffic at the end of this year, 2022, that traffic will be recovering almost at the levels of 2019. We have a lot to recover in the aggregate for 2019 level. For 2023, what we do expect is for Montego Bay to reach the level of 2019, absolutely. With as we explained the Canadian traffic, the effects from Europe, and obviously the recovery from U.S. market will boost the recovery in for Montego Bay. In the case of Kingston, it will be late a couple of years.
We do not expect to recover in 2023, probably in 2024, but it will delay it a little bit more because it's more a VFR market. That is, it could take a couple of years to have full recovery. For GAP in general, what we do expect is just to reach the 100% of the 2019. Indeed, for this year, we will be almost in that level.
We could say, for at the end of this year, in the overall, we will have, we will be above of the levels of 2019, in the growth for 2023 is so, it's complicated to see how will be the trend in the overall for GAP for traffic. We cannot for now announce how will be the growth. But we can tell you that, we are not expecting a double digit. It will be complicated as Raúl already explained the effects of the fuel. The effects of the global economy could affect in general trends. What we are foreseeing right now is single-digit growth.
Probably, but it will depend on the last quarter. The first quarter of 2022 will be very important. For now, it's the visibility that we have.
That, that's super clear. Thanks for taking my question.
We will now take the webcast questions. I will turn the call over to management.
Thank you, Nikki. We have some questions from Pablo Coloma, from MetLife. Are you planning to issue more debt since you didn't issue the full amount planned last month?
Thank you, Pablo, for your question. We are not going to issue during this year. Probably in the first quarter next year, we will plan another bond issue. As you know, we have been leveraging the full CAPEX as a strategy and maintain the level of leverage that we have. We will look for a new issuance next in the first quarter 2023.
Well, the second question from Pablo is, if we are going to have additional dividend payments or share buyback during 2022.
Yes, Pablo, we have another tranche of the dividend payment approved by the shareholders' meeting. We are planning to make the second tranche of the dividend in this quarter. We are deciding if it's November or December. As soon as we decide, we will make the payment of MXN 7.20 per share. That could represent 3.7 billion MXN as a total payment. We have to fulfill with the instruction from the shareholders' meeting. Regarding the share buyback program, we already concluded the program instructed by the shareholders' meeting. We are not going to continue for now with this program.
Thank you, Saúl. The expected net debt to EBITDA ratio for the end of 2022.
Well, so far, according to the debt that we have at the end of September, we have 1.2x net debt to EBITDA ratio. We are expecting once we make the dividend payment, once we make the payment of the bond, GAP 17, which will mature in the following weeks, the net debt to EBITDA will be in the range of 1.4-1.5x .
Thank you, Saúl. That is all the questions we have.
We show no further questions over the phone. I will turn the call over to Mr. Revuelta for any closing remarks.
Thank you everyone again for joining us today in our third quarter result conference. On behalf of GAP team, we wish you a great day. Thank you.
This does conclude today's program. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.