Good morning, and welcome to the Corporación América Airports Fourth Quarter 2019 Earnings and COVID-19 Update Call. A slide presentation accompanies today's webcast and is available in the Investors section of the Corporación América Airports investor relations website at investors.corporacionamericaairports.com. As a reminder, all participants will be in listen only mode. There will be an opportunity for you to ask questions at the end of today's presentation. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Gimena Albanesi of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Speaking to you on today's call will be Martín Eurnekian, our Chief Executive Officer. Also with us today are Raúl Francos, our Chief Financial Officer, and Jorge Arruda, Head of Finance and M&A. All will be available for the Q&A session. Before we proceed, I would like to make the following safe harbor statement. Today's call will contain forward-looking statements. I refer you to the forward-looking statements section of our earnings release and recent filings with the SEC. We assume no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect new or changed events or circumstances. Note that for comparison purposes and for a better understanding of the underlying performance in our presentation today, we will be discussing results excluding hyperinflation accounting in Argentina, which became effective in July 2018..
Additional information in connection with the application of Rule IAS 29 can be found in our earnings report. Let me turn the call over to our CEO, Martín Eurnekian.
Thank you, Gimena. Hello, everyone, welcome to today's call. We are holding our year-end call during an unprecedented health crisis that has rapidly expanded worldwide and that has disrupted the global economy, and in particular, the aviation industry, resulting in drastic reductions in passenger traffic. There is significant worldwide uncertainty in terms of the duration and magnitude of the COVID-19 outbreak, as well as the impact it will generate on the overall macro environment and on the consumer confidence. On today's call, I will discuss briefly our key operating and financial highlights for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2019, and then move on to discuss the impact of the pandemic on our operations during the first quarter of this year. I will address the initiatives we are implementing across the company to protect employees and passengers.
Importantly, I will also discuss the measures we are implementing to mitigate the impact of this crisis on our business and to strengthen liquidity. Starting with a quick recap of 2019 results, a total of 84 million passengers traveled across our 52 airports last year, resulting in a 3% increase in total traffic for the year and nearly 2% in the quarter. The coronavirus outbreak comes at a time when adverse macro conditions in Argentina were already dampening travel demand and effect depreciation impacted performance in Brazil. This resulted in revenue declines of 6% ex IFRIC 12 for the fourth quarter and nearly 7% for the full year. Despite the impact in our top line, we delivered comparable adjusted EBITDA margin expansion of over 220 basis points in the quarter.
We ended the year with a comparable adjusted EBITDA of nearly $450 million, and an extra IFRIC 12 margin of 37%. Note that comparable adjusted EBITDA in 2019 excludes a $43 million non-cash impairment loss in Brazil, a bad debt charge of $23 million in Argentina, as well as certain one-time items in 2018 totaling $1 million. We continued to make significant capital investments during the year, totaling slightly over $380 million as we moved ahead with works at Ezeiza and Aeroparque airports and infrastructure upgrades across several other airports in Argentina, as well as in Ecuador and in Armenia. More detail in terms of our 2019 results can be found in our earnings report and the exhibits of this presentation. You can see on slide four, we have a track record of consistently driving both passenger traffic and cargo growth across different economic cycles.
Over last month, shutdown measures across all of our countries of operations are taking a heavy toll on travel industry and our business. We began to see the impact of COVID-19 on traffic flow late February in Italy and around the second week of March at our LatAm airports. Preliminary traffic for the first quarter 2020 was down nearly 17% year-on-year. As you can see on the next slide, governments across our countries of operations established a series of travel bans and restrictions beginning in March to reduce the spread of the virus. A detailed list of these restrictions is included in the slide. Operations are also being impacted by the introduction of flight restrictions in many other countries worldwide. On the chart on the left side of this slide, we have included a trend in weekly passenger traffic in March.
Preliminary figures show that traffic was down approximately 12% year-on-year in the first week, declined further to around 18% in the second week, deteriorating to a drop of nearly 60% in the third week, and over 90% in the fourth week of March. For the whole month of March, preliminary traffic is estimated to have declined approximately 45% year-on-year. Note that while we usually do not disclose preliminary weekly figures, we are providing them on this call to share with you how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted our business. Preliminary figures may be subject to adjustments. Please turn to slide six. We reacted rapidly in the face of this disruption and formed a crisis committee composed of myself and the operating CEOs of each of our subsidiaries.
We have developed a four-pronged strategy focusing on our employees and passengers, cost controls and cash preservation measures, near-term negotiations with regulatory bodies and government support, as well as negotiations of the economic re-equilibrium of our concessions. Starting with our first set of initiatives, the wellbeing of our employees and passengers is of utmost importance to us, and we have taken specific measures to protect them. This includes the enhancing safety and hygiene protocols across our operations. We have established remote working through the use of technology. Only essential staff is working on premises. For these employees, we have provided health gear and established additional sanitizing policies. Other initiatives include promoting staff communications around prevention, personal care, and family care.
Turning to slide seven. With the main objective of ensuring the sustainability of our business in this trying environment, we are implementing a number of cost control and cash preservation measures across our airport network. First, we are making significant reductions in personal expenses, including salary reductions, suspension of salary increases, and freezing new hiring, as well as mandatory use of pending vacations or advancing vacations to employees when possible. Given the unprecedented circumstances that we are facing, we made the difficult decision to place operating employees on furlough in certain geographies. In Italy and Uruguay, our employees under furlough are receiving government unemployment subsidies. Second, we are lowering our maintenance expenses while maintaining the quality and safety standards required to support the minimum level of operation in all our concessions.
As a result of these combined measures, we expect our total cash operating costs and expenses, excluding concession fees, to decrease by approximately 43% during the months that we operate under this crisis scenario. This target reduction is based on current company estimates for the second quarter of 2020 compared to the second quarter of 2019 figures. Let me also remind you that except for our concessions in Brazil, all of our operations are under a variable concession fee regime. In Brazil, fees are largely subject to a fixed annual payment, and I will discuss shortly our initiatives on this front. In addition to this, and to further protect our liquidity, we are aggressively managing our working capital by negotiating with our suppliers the extension of payment terms, while we are also reducing drastically our CapEx program. I will go into further detail shortly.
Turning to slide eight. In light of this unprecedented crisis, we have started discussions with regulatory agencies to renegotiate concession fee payments aligning to the current environment. We are already making important strides in Brazil, where we have recently obtained the regulatory approval to defer until December the variable and fixed annual concession fee payments originally due in May and July, respectively. Negotiations with regulators have also begun in Argentina, Italy, and Uruguay. On another front, we are requesting deferral of tax payments. We obtained the deferral of PIS/COFINS taxes in Brazil and are requesting exceptions and/or deferral of certain taxes in Argentina and Italy as well. In Argentina, we are pursuing the collection of approximately $40 million of certain past due receivables from a national airline and a $15 million recovery of VAT credits in connection with CapEx.
In Italy, we are in discussions with the government to obtain a grant for an amount of approximately EUR 20 million for our Florence and Pisa airports. We will update on the outcome of these initiatives once talks have progressed further. Please turn to slide nine. Another important area we are working on is the review of the re-equilibrium of the concession agreements across our airport network. As a reminder, we have different types of concession agreements. Some of our concession agreements have guaranteed returns, which comprise our operations in Argentina, Italy, and Armenia, which accounted for approximately 74% of total revenues ex IFRIC 12 in 2019. Argentina and Armenia operate under single deal schemes, where certain returns shall be achieved over the life of the concession. Our two airports in Italy operate under a dual deal model, which provides a guaranteed return in connection with its aeronautical activities.
Other concession contracts do not provide for a guaranteed return. Some of these have force majeure re-equilibrium process. This includes our operations in Brazil and in Ecuador. In Brazil, we have initiated conversations to begin the process of requesting economic re-equilibrium for the Brasilia and Natal airport concessions. In Ecuador, we have recently filed a request to begin an economic re-equilibrium process for the Guayaquil airport concession. In these two countries, the amounts and mechanisms for compensations will be negotiated with authorities and may include a reduction in the concession fee amount and/or mandatory CapEx, increasing tariffs, extending the tenure of the concession, or a combination thereof. We are in the initial stages of this process, which requires going through administrative and regulatory channels. We will be providing updates over time as they become available. Moving on to our balance sheet and liquidity on slide 10.
We ended 2019 with $196 million in cash and equivalents and a net debt to EBITDA ratio of 2.7 x. We also had approximately $66 million in treasury bills and time deposits not included in cash and equivalents. Of our total debt at year-end 2019, $247 million in principal and interest payments were due this year. Of this, we already paid down around $39 million by the end of March. In the current environment, cash preservation is a critical focus to us. To that end, over the past weeks, we have been thoughtfully and quickly implementing a comprehensive plan on several fronts. Starting April, we canceled all non-mandatory capital investments and deferred non-priority projects. Note that approximately $69 million were already invested in the first quarter of the year, including expansion works along with most of the minimum maintenance CapEx plan for the year.
Second, as I just mentioned, we have implemented a set of cost control measures to reduce our operating expenses, and we are negotiating with our suppliers extending payment terms to limit additional cash outflows. Third, we have suspended dividends to third parties in our concessions in Italy and Ecuador for an approximate amount of $17 million. CAAP currently does not pay corporate dividend, and we do not have in place a share repurchase program either. Fourth, in connection with our indebtedness, we have obtained a six-month deferral of principal and interest payments until October for all our debt in Brazil that was originally due until September. Moreover, we obtained additional funding in the first quarter for an amount of $40 million, and we continue to work closely with the financial community, particularly in our main markets, to preserve the company's liquidity and its financial flexibility in this challenging environment.
We can't predict the severity and length of this pandemic. We're working hard to be prepared for any and all scenarios. Now to wrap up, turn to slide 11. While we have enjoyed a solid track record of passenger and traffic growth across our diverse network of airports over the last five years, the events of the last few months are unprecedented and have severely impacted every corner of the global market, and in particular, travel-related business. Path to recovery still remains uncertain and is dependent on a number of factors, including the duration of the pandemic, government assistance, and the resilience of the global economies. We have been working on all fronts to reinforce our business through a series of operating and financial measures, as well as entering into key negotiations with governments related to our concession fees to align them with the current environment.
We have built a strong network of international and domestic airports and have made significant investments over the past years to further modernize our infrastructure. That will play an important role in reigniting economic growth once the current travel restrictions start being lifted. In the interim, we are focused on the health and security of our employees and passengers while working to ensure the sustainability of our company. We are now ready to take questions. Operator, please open the line for questions.
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, we ask that you please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. We do ask that you limit yourself to two questions at a time, and you may reenter the queue if you do have more. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Today's first question comes from Steven Trent at Citi. Please go ahead.
Hello, Martín, and hello everybody, and thanks very much for the color and for taking my question. My first question pertains to AA 2000. And I know in the current environment it's very hard to ascertain where we land. With respect to AA 2000 and your conversations with the government, you know, any view with respect to the probability that we could see that asset's concession extended, considering that you're owed on that guaranteed return and the government's national airline apparently also owes you money?
Hello, Steven. Thank you for your question. This is Martín here. I would say yes to your question. Of course, again, the world and Argentina in particular, and I think all countries and all sectors are experiencing something so new and so different. It's such an emergency that I think all outcomes are possible. We are having productive conversation, I think, with all of the governments where we operate. I think we will see the developments move in the next few months, as we see and start getting an idea of where the travel restrictions are going and how long will this pandemic last, and aside from that, what attitude will governments have regarding this.
We are also working with all the most important agencies in the world to try to understand how and when will the recovery start and what measures should we start thinking of to be able to reignite traffic as fast as possible. As far as our conversations with the government in Argentina and probably governments elsewhere where we operate, I think given the size and magnitude of this crisis and the fact that there are no precedents and no one really has a recipe on how to deal with this, I think we will have to all keep an open mind to work and create solutions for our industry and our airports.
I appreciate that, Martín . If I may just follow up with one very quick question. I know in the case of Italy, that market seemed to be one of the first places in the EU that got hit very hard and maybe at least lately, also showing some signs that the situation has peaked. Are you seeing anything at this very early stage with respect to anything you can see in the booking curve that would suggest that there's light at the end of the tunnel medium-term, or it's still, you know, way too early to say?
I think although it's very early to say, the conversations I have with our staff in Italy, it started very grim, and we can now see that the moods have changed. They went from all the containment measures and conversations with the governments and regulators regarding the crisis to starting to switch, I would say, this last week, to conversations with different organizations of airlines, directly with airlines and regulators on starting to think what the next day would look like. That has changed the mood for staff and people. Airlines are already talking about when are they going to restart, and airports are preparing for that. I hope that's not a false hope, but that's the mood we are receiving from Italy. That's hopeful for us because they were hit first.
They started the quarantine first, and hopefully, they'll be one of the first to come out. I think it's still too early to say how will this restart, if it will be first with domestic traffic and slowly international traffic, if new protocols are going to be implemented for travelers, for international travelers to be able to move freely in different ways, and how the pandemic will look like in the rest of the world. I think all of those things will have to do on how fast and how will the restart of the business look like.
Okay. I will leave it there. Very helpful. Thanks, Martín.
Thank you, Steven.
Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star then one at this time. Today's next question comes from Ian Zaffino with Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, guys. This is Mark on for Ian. Thanks for taking our question. I guess I just want to follow up on your concession rebidding process at Natal. When do you guys expect a response from the regulators? As a follow-up question, are there any other concessions in the portfolio that you guys are also assessing? Thank you.
Hi, thanks for your question. This is Jorge. I'm Head of Corporate Finance and also Head of Brazil for the group here. We filed the so-called friendly rebidding process approximately a month ago. We expect that this year we will be able to make progress at the three levels of the government, which are the regulator, ANAC, then the Minister of Infrastructure, more precisely SAC, and then the PPI, which is the body government in charge of the tender process, the licitation process. Once we go through those three body governments, we should be ready to sign an amendment to the concession agreement and have a date for the new bidding. Obviously, this whole situation that we are in brings some uncertainty over the timeline. We expect that the new bidding will take place sometime next year.
We are hopeful that by mid-year it will take place, but let's see. We are working very closely with the government and keep you posted.
Great. Thank you guys very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, as a final reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star then one at this time. Once again, we will pause momentarily while we assemble our roster. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Martín Eurnekian for any final remarks.
I'd like to take the opportunity to thank you very much for joining us today. We really appreciate your interest in our company. We look forward to providing updates on our business and initiatives as they become available. In the meantime, the team remains available to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you again.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. We thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines and have a wonderful day.