Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico SAB de CV
BMV:GAPB
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Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico SAB de CV
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Good morning, and welcome to GAP's First Quarter 2019 Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Maria Barona of i-advize Corporate Communications. Please go ahead.
Thank you and welcome.
[Audio Gap]
First Quarter 2019 Conference Call. Today from the company, we have Mr. Raul 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 differ from current expectations. For a complete note on forward-looking statements, please refer to the quarterly report issued.
At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Mr. Revuelta for his opening remarks. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, Maria. Good morning, and thank you all for joining us today. As always, we appreciate your interest. Today, I am going to focus on traffic evolution, our airport performance and the various airport projects underway for the quarterly report issued last week. In terms of traffic and operations during the first quarter of 2019, GAP transport over 11.9 million passengers throughout our 13 airports. This amount represents a 5.2% increase compared to the first quarter of 2018. Most of this increase was driven by the growth of -- at our top airports: Tijuana, Montego Bay, Guanajuato, Guadalajara, Puerto Vallarta, Los Cabos. Domestic traffic rose by 4% while international traffic rose by 7%. It is important to mention that these figures are just below our 2019 traffic forecast, positioning us solidly for reaching our guidance numbers for the year.
Regarding network expansion, there were 16 routes opening during the quarter. 9 of them domestic and 7 international. Montego Bay and Hermosillo led with 4 opening each; Puerto Vallarta welcomed a new airline to its routes, Swoop Airlines, which in general, began flights from Hamilton and Abbotsford. Volaris opened 8 new routes during the first quarter from Guadalajara, Hermosillo,Tijuana and Mexicali. Mexicalli announced 10 upcoming ones for the next few months.
In terms of individual airports, let me briefly review each one: first, Tijuana was our main traffic generator in the quarter. The CBX terminal continues to benefit travelers from various regions with a growth of 9.5% in terms of total passengers' traffic. As you know, the Cross Border Xpress drives users by offering quick and convenient access to Southern California for travels. Most of the 640,000 users of this terminal we're going to acquire represents 32% of Tijuana total passengers. This was an increase of 27% when compared to the same period of 2018.
Therefore, maintains solid growth, mainly due to the high load factor, new routes and added further to this over by Volaris and Viva routes. Montego Bay transported the highest volume of passengers in its history, growing 12% for the quarter. We believe that this is a shift in passengers' demand from the Cancún area into the other Caribbean destinations including Montego Bay. It was more related due to the sargassum seaweed plant that has affected certain markets of the Caribbean area.
Overall, however, international passengers demand remained strong as a result of different routes offered by the U.S. low-cost carriers such as Spirit, Southwest and Frontier significantly increased.
The Guanajuato airport experienced the best performance in terms of domestic passengers' growth with an increase of 32% versus the first quarter of 2018. This growth can be attributed to the addition of almost 200,000 seats by Volaris and VivaAerobus. Guadalajara experienced a modest performance this quarter. We believe there is a lot of opportunity in this airport. Evidence of this is that during the first quarter, connected passenger represent a 6.5% additional [indiscernible] fees, 3.4 million passengers, domestic traffic grew by 2% and international traffic increased by around 1%. I also want to mention the opening of a new route to Charlotte, offered by American Airlines and Volaris. International traffic experienced an increase that was slightly below our forecast. However, we estimate that traffic will recover steadily in the following quarters due to the upcoming routes.
In Puerto Vallarta, the Canadian market drove most of the international growth at this airport with approximately 40% of the total traffic. Origin cities such as Calgary, Vancouver and Toronto as well as the new services from this will continue to promote airport traffic to and from Canada. Domestic traffic with passengers were with a 4% decrease while international traffic rose by 3%.
Moving towards Lose Cabos. Load factors grew by 6.4% during the first quarter from 74.9% to 85.8%, one of the highest increases in GAP. With over 70,000 available routes, Los Cabos is a favored destination for both domestic and international travelers. Thus for the quarter, domestic traffic grew around 2%, while international traffic grew 4%. Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth and Phoenix are among the top airport international destinations for the quarter.
Now let's continue with the non-aeronautical revenue where we witnessed an outstanding performance increased by MXN 152 million or 20%. It results in a 14% higher non-aeronautical revenue per passenger. This increase was mainly due to the performance of the most recent expansion in commercial areas at Guadalajara, Tijuana, Guanajuato, Montego Bay and Mexicali airports.
In terms of GAP business unit, among the strongest performers were: Food and beverage is the business unit that is really driving commercial revenues. This unit grows by MXN 35 million or 44% compared to the first quarter 2018. This outstanding performance was mainly due to the offers in Tijuana and Guadalajara airports that began operation during the first quarter in '19. The -- it is important to mention that there are a few projects underway for the food and beverage area at the Tijuana airport that are expected to be completed by the end of the second quarter of 2019.
Duty-free increased by MXN 23 million or 21% compared to the first quarter 2018. In Los Cabos and Guadalajara airports, specifically, additional storefronts located at the arrival zones began to operate at the end of the last quarter. Additionally, we recently opened another store with a completely new layout at the Guadalajara airport located at the security checkpoint.
VIP lounges increased by MXN 19 million or 41% compared to the first quarter of 2018. During the first quarter of 2019, we opened 2 new VIP lounges at the Mexicali and La Paz airports. As part of our 2019 commercial strategy of boosting commercial revenue business, GAP-operated units, we are already signing and expanding the VIP lounges at Aguascalientes, Guanajuato, Guadalajara, Los Cabos, and Tijuana airport.
Retail revenues increases by MXN 10 million or 13% compared to the first quarter of 2018. One of the various construction projects at some of GAP's airports are temporarily affecting retail sales. During the first quarter, a few new storefronts opening includes Tous, Swarovski, [indiscernible] and [ family center ] Guadalajara airport, La Casa de Chocolates, Steak House, and Samsonite and Swarovski are at Tijuana airport. These renovations are also almost complete and should be operating by the end of the quarter underway.
Now in terms of the construction works at each of our airports. At Guadalajara airport, we are consistently working on refurbishment and expansion of the terminals to increase capacity and also a better level of experience and quality service for our passengers.
We conclude the expansion of the remote boarding concourse, concourse E, with 4 additional remote boarding gates, achieving a grand total of 10 new remote boarding gates at this boarding lounge. We continue working in the terminal expansions with a new vertical transportation course that is elevators, corridor and pedestrian stairs to move passengers from the new boarding lounge D upstairs through the baggage claim area that is located downstairs.
This expansion is expected to start operating in July. Additionally, we are still working on the refurbishment of the priority boarding lounge C, which is a part of the boarding lounge D. This is expected to be completed during the fourth quarter of '19. The public area of the international arrivals, including a new car rental area, is also being renovated. This is expected to be completed into the 3 quarter of '19 -- the third quarter of '19.
At Los Cabos, the terminal building renovation expansion is underway. Our plan is to increase the terminal surface by approximately 5,000 square meters and renovate another 10,000 square meters, approximately. The project is expected to conclude at the end of 2019.
In Tijuana, we expect to complete a terminal expansion in May and continue with the refurbishment in other areas including renovating the security checkpoint. This is expected to be completed during the third quarter of '19. And we should mention that despite this nearly 90% of the commercial area are in operations. We continue working on the design of the new terminal building turning in 9,000 square meters in 3 levels. In this terminal, we will process mainly international passengers using the CBX.
GAP expects to complete the redesign phase for the third quarter '19, and in parallel, we expect to begin the foundation and main structure in November of 2019.
At Aguascalientes airport, we continue with expansion or refurbishment works of the terminal building that began during the third quarter of '18. Due completion, the boarding lounge will be 30% larger and the commercial area will also be significantly bigger. We expect to complete these works by the end of the third quarter of '19.
Finally, at Morelia Airport, we began the expansion or refurbishment of the terminal building during the fourth quarter of '18. Upon completion, the boarding lounge will be 30% larger and the commercial area will also be significantly bigger. We expect to complete this work by the end of this year.
To conclude that quick review of the financial results. EBITDA grew by 12% compared to the first quarter of '18, reaching roughly MXN 2.5 billion, an EBITDA margin of 70.80%. Total revenue rose by 14% mostly driven by traffic performance, increase in passengers fees due to inflation and the opening of new commercial spaces.
The increase in the operating costs were mainly driven by the concession taxes, which increased roughly 25% mainly due to the Montego Bay airport concession fee where a monthly concession fee is required per workload unit to have some additional concession fee equal to the 45% of any excess revenue earned per forecast revenues established in the concession agreement. Thus, based on the strong performance at this airport, we have to pay a higher fee to the [indiscernible].
Additionally, personnel increase. There were salary adjustments, security maintenance expenses as well as the higher energy prices as well as an additional consumption due to the opening of new areas in our terminals.
Before I move to the Q&A sessions, I just want to confirm that the guidance issued last January still stands. Additionally, I want to mention that at the ordinary -- General Ordinary Shareholders Meeting, which took place last week, all the items of the agenda were approved. Therefore, we will begin planning the distributions to our shareholders after the resolutions. Thank you for your attention. We will now be pleased to take your questions. Operator, please?
[Operator Instructions] We'll take a question from Mauricio Martinez of GBM.
My question is regarding cost of service. This quarter, it continue with its upward trend and some brackets caught my attention that increased heavily such as other operating expenses and personnel. So my question is if we should expect such increments to continue during the year? Or do we expect them to normalize going forward? That will be my first question.
Mauricio, this is Saúl Villarreal. Yes, the cost of services is now, from our perspective, stabilized in the level of 15%, the cost of service increase. We saw some increase in the other operating expenses. It is good because in this row, we have the VIP lounges cost and the convenience stores cost, which represent that we are opening additional stores and additional VIP lounges at our airports. But it is an increase in the revenue and that's an increase in the other operating expenses. So it is a good way -- or is a good number for us. Obviously, it comes with a revenue. What is our concern is about the utilities because the cost of energy in Mexico is increasing. And we saw an increase in average in the tariffs near to 50%. So it's something that is out of our control. Now in this quarter, we have more terminal spaces, so we have more consumption. We have different strategies to control the consumption. However, the problem, the main problem is the tariffs, which is since the last half of 2018, we saw an increase on tariffs. And in this first quarter, we continue with the same level of tariffs. And that's it, in general. And the main increase comes from the concession fees that we pay in Montego Bay. As you know, we pay a fixed fee and an additional concession fee that is equal to the 45% of excess in the revenues established in the concession agreement. So in general, that's the answer to the increase of the cost of services. However, we maintain our expectation in -- for the EBITDA at the end of the year.
Great. Very helpful. And my second question would be on the traffic front. The first 2 months came quite weaker than your guidance would hint. So if you can help us understanding better what the drivers were? I knew that some planes were grounded but any additional thought would be great there.
Thank you, Mauricio. This is Raul. Mainly, we have, I will say, 2 big effects on the first quarter of the year: first is VivaAerobus have some of their planes due to a problem in the engine during February on ground. That was a good impact -- a big impact in us because on the original forecast, we foreseen a big expansion of routes and a number of seats from VivaAerobus, so in some ways, has an effect on our original forecasting; second, the case of Interjet. As you know, Interjet has, leaving the Sikorsky, the planes -- the Russian planes that they used to fly, they put it out of service. And that was also an effect that we were not completely considering in our original forecasting; and the third is related with the 737 MAX from Aeromexico that also have some of effect. That was -- all these together, all these 3 airlines, have an impact in the -- for sure, in the original forecasting. And the second part that I would like to mention to understand how we are looking for the first quarter is that, as you know, the Easter was not exactly in the same month on this year when you compare it with 1 year ago. So we have a mix of effects there that in some way looks like a flatter growth in some of our airports. But we are really confident that these numbers will be in a much better shape for the coming months. We are seeing a really strong summer and a great last quarter just thinking on the seats that -- the additional seats that we're seeing on the programming from our airlines.
We'll take our next question from Rodolfo Ramos of Bredesco BBI.
My first -- just 2 quick questions. The first one is on your MDP negotiations. If you can give us a little bit more -- a little bit color of how is this progressing? And specifically, how does it compare to previous negotiations in terms of timelines, in terms of just the overall feel of the process? And secondly, on your CBX project, when exactly are you expecting to have the additional building functional and having this capability of, in practical terms, having a U.S. airport within the Tijuana airport? What is the potential in terms of traffic that you see? And how much longer can you sustain this level of passenger traffic growth that we've seen? That looks very interesting.
Rodolfo, first in terms of the MDP negotiation, I would like to begin with a timeline. It's important to remember that in terms of the airport loan in Mexico, the day for the filing to the SCT of the MDP would be June 30. At the end of June, we're going to have to file to the SCT of the MDP. And the SCT will have until December 31 to give us the final tariff and CapEx for our master plan. Only 6 months are used to negotiate and to analyze from a final MDP with the Minister with SCT. I would like to say that on these first 6 months -- or in the first half of the year, we are receiving feedback from their airlines and from different users and authorities, local governments, and we are using all this feedback for reinforce or to review all the details of our master plan. So in general terms, we're going to be ready for file our master plan at the end of June. And then we're going to be our -- open the negotiation and discussion formally with the SCT.
On the second question related with the building at Tijuana that will be used for -- mainly for connections that come from CBX, we are beginning the construction on November of this year, and we expect around 30 months of construction. What we are expecting from this building as soon as -- once complete and in operation, is that it will help us to attract additional routes mainly from hubs as it could be Panama and other Central American routes as Guatemala, El Salvador, San Jose, Costa Rica, for sure, continue the growth on the Asia market that if -- it plays a really important role in our Tijuana airport. So the results of the traffic will be gradual for sure and will be -- will take a couple of years until we have a really -- to have all the potential from this building. As you know, this is a completely unique infrastructure that will give us the, in some way, the ability to act as, in some way, as an expansion of the San Diego airport but in Tijuana. So we are really optimistic about the future and the potential of -- to attract new passengers through Tijuana airport. But this change would be gradual and will begin as soon as we have this new terminal into operations.
Did you say -- just to confirm, sorry, did you say 30 months, 2.5 years?
Yes. Of construction, yes.
[Operator Instructions] We'll move next to Alejandro Zamacona of Crédit Suisse.
Just a follow-up question on the MDP negotiation. I know that you have announced that you are expecting around MXN 20 billion in CapEx commitments for this 5-year period. But our question is what are your assumptions for the next period in terms of CapEx commitments?
You are -- that -- I mean, going farther than the 5-year plan is that what you're saying of?
Yes, exactly.
Okay. I will mention that a big part of this master plan includes some new terminals at the Guadalajara new terminal and the Puerto Vallarta new terminal and the big expansion or new terminal for Tijuana airport. And also the second runway of Guadalajara. These kind of expansions occurs one time. So in some way, the impact of the -- this should be the biggest CapEx period in the history of the concession. I would -- I will say that some of this expansion, as the second runway is going to happen, only once in all the concession lifetime. So what we are -- we could see for the coming periods of master plan will be, in some way, a smaller amount of investments. I will say that we will go back for our original CapEx per workload unit. If you could see the history of our concession, our investment per workload unit is really stable. Just on this period of 5 years, we have this onetime effect of the runway, so the big terminals, that in some way are increasing this ratio of CapEx per workload unit. But in the future, what we are expecting after this 5-years plan, we are expecting to going back for our original or standard investment per workload unit.
[Operator Instructions] We'll move next to Stephen Trent of Citi.
Some of mine have already been answered but one on overseas investment. So you guys have invested in Montego Bay and you have that Norman Manley airport now. Are you looking or at least considering anything else in the Caribbean Basin or Latin America?
Well, Steve, good to hear from you. And thank you for your question. Yes, we -- as you know, we are looking for many opportunities all the time. Indeed, we were expecting RFP for the Guatemala airport, La Aurora, which we are -- which was postponed due to the elections in Guatemala. And -- but we are very interested in this airport. There are a few opportunities, not so good. We dismissed the process in Brazil. Now the only one that we have in the pipeline is the La Aurora airport. That's the only one.
[Operator Instructions] We'll move next to Josh Milberg of Morgan Stanley.
So I had a follow-up question on the traffic scenario. You guys mentioned your expectations for better performance over the remainder of the year. And I was just wondering how much that expectation applies to the specific case of Puerto Vallarta and Los Cabos? Obviously, we've seen sort of mid low single-digit growth in those 2 airports year-to-date. And I was just -- wanted to have a -- get your sense of whether we could see a pickup there too just also considering that we've heard from one of your competitors that they're seeing considerable pressure on traffic growth from the U.S. to Mexico.
Josh, this is Raul. I would like to just say that what we are seeing in terms of additional seats made us feel really comfortable about our original guidance that goes around from 6% to 7% of -- 6% to 8% of growth. We are really comfortable with that. Same that for the case of Vallarta and Cabos. We are seeing an increase of seats, programming seats for -- after the Thanksgiving period. So for the end of the year, we're going to see an important increase on seats on these airports. What is important to mention in these both airports is that the occupancy level or the load factors from the rooms are really high on these 2 destinations. So what is happening right now in both of destinations, in Cabos and in Vallarta, is a really major expansion of hotel rooms in the area. For the case of Los Cabos for instance, Cabos is a Baja California Sur state, that is the state where Cabos is located, for instance, posted an increase of more than 25% on the GDP of construction in the last quarter of the year. That is huge. What we are seeing in Cabos is a huge expansion on terminal -- on hotel rooms. So we are thinking that the increase of passengers or a most robust increase of traffic will happen as soon as all these rooms will be in operations. In Vallarta, it's happening the same. There is a big expansion of rooms mainly with the Mayan expansions, the Cirque Du Soleil project that will bring a huge amount of additional rooms to Puerto Vallarta. So in both of our airports, what we are seeing on the end of the year is, for sure, an increase of number of seats, but we are looking that the -- a more robust increase on traffic was going to happen in the next 2 years as soon as these additional room -- hotel rooms come to service.
Okay. That's great color. And, Raul, can I take it from your comments that -- Saúl, can I take it from your comments that you're not seeing any pressure on traffic demand from the U.S. specifically?
And I will say that if -- I mean, our probably -- that if you see our load factors for Vallarta and Cabos are really healthy. We are not seeing -- at least for the moment, we are not seeing that additional pressure. What we are seeing in both destination is the need of additional hotel rooms. But we are -- I mean, we are happy with increase of -- even on the load factors for both of our airports. We just look forward for the expansion of hotels and expect that everything begins in the same way for a better and robust growth on the coming year and the last quarter of this year.
Okay. That's great. And then just as a second question. I was hoping you could provide a little updated perspective on how you see the evolution of the government's efforts to develop the Santa Lucia airport. I think that, that relates to you guys a little bit just in that you've highlighted the possibility for Guadalajara to capture more connecting traffic in years ahead?
Yes. Sure. I mean our basic assumption for that is that for the increase of the possible -- or the expansion of the potential and bring to the reality the potential of the hub of Guadalajara is really happening. We are seeing that increase of connection in the airport is still happening. I mean just this year, 2018, we closed, in terms of the connection traffic, we had 11% of connected passengers to the Guadalajara airport, that is a big number and a historic number. For sure, Santa Lucia project is also happening and the current government just announced the program for this -- all this expansion and the beginning of the construction of this project on the next -- on this summer. But for the case of Guadalajara, we are seeing that Guadalajara is covering the regional central of Mexico, the area of Guanajuato, Jalisco, Aguascalientes area that are the states with the bigger expansion in terms of GDP in all the country. This is mainly related with the out-of-market manufacturing for instance and other services that also, for the case of Jalisco, software and technology expansion, agricultural hub and exports sent to the U.S. That is happening pretty good. So what we are seeing for Guadalajara is that would be a center of connection that will attract all these -- the population of all these key areas to the airport. So it's not -- I will say that the Santa Lucia project is not, in some way, a merit that the potential of Guadalajara airport is. What we are seeing is that are completely complementary one airport and another, it's a net of airports, and we are seeing that Guadalajara airport could take this position to attract all the passengers of the Central and Western area of Mexico.
[Operator Instructions] And we have a question from Andrés Nieto of Signum Research.
I have a question regarding your 2019 expectations. I was wondering if -- just to see -- you already commented that you expect the traffic to achieve the forecast due to all those in the beginning of the year. But it -- will that be the case also for the revenues and the EBITDA and the EBITDA margin?
Yes. Andrés, thank you for your question. Yes, our expectations are in line in all the lines we mentioned at the beginning of the year. In the case of the revenues, we expect an increase as we mentioned in the guidance. In the case of aero revenues our -- according to the opening of our commercial area, we will start increasing little by little our net revenues. So at the end, we will deal in all the lines, traffic revenues, non-aero revenues and also EBITDA and EBITDA margin.
[Operator Instructions] And it appears we have no further questions at this time. I would like to return the call to management for any concluding remarks.
Thank you, again, for your attention. I look forward to interacting with you in the next -- in the near future. Have a good afternoon. Thank you.
Thank you. This does conclude today's GAP's First Quarter 2019 Conference Call. You may now disconnect your lines. And everyone, have a great day.
Thank you.