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Grupo Aeroportuario Del Pacifico, S.A. de C.V. (PAC 1.04%)
Q1 2021 Earnings Call
Apr 30, 2021, 11:00 a.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Good morning and welcome to GAP's First Quarter 2021 Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]
It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to GAP's Investor Relations team. Please go ahead.
Melanie Carpenter -- Investor Relations
Thank you and welcome to the Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico's first quarter 2021 conference call. Presenting for the Company today, we welcome Mr. Raul Revuelta, GAP's Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Saul Villarreal, the Chief Financial Officer.
Please be advised that forward-looking statements may be made during this call. These do not account for future economic circumstances, industry conditions, the Company's future performance or financial results, as such statements are made based on several assumptions and factors that could change causing actual results to materially differ from current expectations. For a complete note on forward-looking statements, please refer to the quarterly report issued Wednesday. Please note that unless stated otherwise, all comparisons in this call will be versus GAP's results for the comparable period of 2020.
At this point, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Raul Revuelta for his opening remarks. Please go ahead, Raul.
Raul Revuelta -- Chief Executive Officer
Thank you. Good morning, everyone and welcome to GAP's first quarter 2021 conference call. In today's call, I will be briefly reviewing operational and financial figures for the first quarter of 2021 prior to taking your questions. GAP's results remain impacted by the pandemic. However, there are important changes in the landscape that I will discuss.
During the first three months of 2021, we did see a continued recovery of traffic with a 37% decline year-over-year or a 38% decline versus 2019. Keep in mind that on March 31 of 2020, the Mexican government suspended all non-essential travelers for two full months. Therefore, the main effect of the pandemic will not be fully reflected until the second quarter of 2021. The recovery trends we saw in the first quarter of '21 was driven mainly by stronger domestic traffic. As an example, the airport of Tijuana experienced extraordinary recovery following a negative 9% in the first quarter of 2021 versus the first quarter of 2019. However, in the case of Guadalajara, the recovery was at a slower pace, with a 36% decrease versus the first quarter of 2019. On consolidated basis, we believe that the recovery of Guadalajara is a key element to bring us back to 2019 figures.
On the other hand, international passengers' traffic continued to be impacted by the U.S. imposed travel restrictions that were implemented on the 25th of January. There were also bans of travel to Mexico and Caribbean imposed by the governments of Canada and United Kingdom in an effort to reduce the spread of COVID. Looking ahead, however, we fully expect a continued recovery of domestic traffic and we are also optimistic of international recovery as we see decline in COVID cases together with the rising of vaccination rates. It is important to mention that this summer will be a great indicator on the recovery we hope achieve, not only in terms of the leisure destination, but also of the metropolitan airports such as Guadalajara.
It is important to mention that Volaris and Aeromexico recently announced the addition of eight and 28 new planes in the near future, respectively. In addition, JetBlue just announced the start of operation in Los Cabos this summer, adding Puerto Vallarta during the first quarter of 2022, with the opening of Los Angeles and JFK New York routes. Also, Spirit Airlines will start operations with Los Angeles-Puerto Vallarta route. In the case of Volaris, they also announced the route of [Indecipherable] Las Vegas; Morelia, Sacramento; and Morelia, Portland, which is a good sign of growing market and is also final -- a faster than expected recovery.
Moving on to financial performance, I would like to highlight GAP's ability to maintain a strong balance sheet in the COVID situation, which was enabled us to maintain flexible throughout this crisis. Cash and cash equivalent increased by 34% or MXN3.7 billion versus our first quarter of 2020, reaching a total of MXN14.7 billion. During the first quarter of 2021, we generated a positive cash flow from operating activities of MXN1.8 billion. As a reminder, we restarted the repurchase of our own shares on March 1 of this year and as of today, we have repurchased 24 million shares for a total of MXN531 million. On the debt front, total debt reached MXN24.5 billion. Maturity payments during the first quarter of 2021 were $119 million, which were refinanced for an additional 36 months' term.
In the first week of May, we expect to issue another tranche of debt bonds to the Mexican market for MXN3 billion with a ratio of 50% in a mixed format of variable and fixed rates depending on market demand. We will use -- we will be using these proceeds for capex and refinance on the July 2021 maturity. It is important to mention that the S&P and Moody's both ratified their AAA rating the local scale due to the solid results and ratings [Phonetic] that the Company has.
Moving on to P&L, aeronautical revenue decreased by 32% driven by overall lower traffic through GAP's network. Even though the increase in maximum tariff [Indecipherable] approval was not reached in this quarter. We expect it will be reached by the end of 2021. This was mainly due to the international passengers' traffic decrease of 46.9%, modeling Vallarta Puerto and Los Cabos airports, which have passenger charges denominated in U.S. dollars. The Company expects that the rising vaccination rate on the U.S. population will help create international traffic in the coming quarters. When we see more activity from these passengers' profile, we believe that we will be closer to the cap of maximum tariff.
Commercial revenues decreased by 37%, most of this impact was from the time shares and duty-free operations. However, in an effort to incentivize consumers spending at the airports, GAP will be launching a mobile phone application that passengers can use to order food and have food delivered to the plane gates and improve the overall experience of the convenience at the airport. Additionally, we initiated construction of our new commercial complex in Guadalajara airport, which will include a new hotel, corporate office and commercial spaces. We are expecting that this complex will be ready at the beginning of 2023, adding new business lines and commercial revenues.
Regarding cost reductions, we achieved 9% lower operating costs compared to the first quarter of 2021, driven by a 18% decline in maintenance and 15% decline in utility expenses as a result of green energy generation through solar panels at 11 of our Mexican airports, as well as in the Montego Bay airports. As a result of [Indecipherable] marketing strategies, and an increased passenger traffic, improving commercial revenues and our cost control policies, EBITDA was MXN1.8 billion for the quarter, with an EBITDA margin of 65%.
Moving onto the capex, during quarter, GAP executed capital expenditures for approximately MXN830 million. These positioned us well in order to comply with the challenging Master Development Program that we have in place. We have started a second runway in Guadalajara airport. We continue with the construction of the processor building in Tijuana with more than 60% executives, as well as expansion of Los Cabos terminal building. These two last projects will be ready at the end of 2031.
To conclude, I want to mention that our ordinary and extraordinary shareholders meeting took place earlier this week and all the proposals in the agenda were successfully approved with a quorum of 87.2% for the ordinary shareholders meeting and 90.2% for the extraordinary shareholders meeting.
Now, I ask the operator to please open the floor for your questions.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
[Operator Instructions] And we will take our first question from Alejandro Zamacona with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Alejandro Zamacona -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst
Thank you. Hi, Raul. Thank you for the call. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two questions, actually. The first one is on the traffic recover. Can you remind us what was the drastic recovery period assumption in the last MVP? I guess for the competitors, it was three years give or take. But I just want to confirm what was the traffic recovery for you? And from the recent data that we have seen regarding traffic, do you believe that there is some upside to recent scenario by means of a shorter recovery?
Raul Revuelta -- Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Alex. First, in terms of what we originally expect for the recovery, we saw that we will have the same amount of passengers that we used to have in 2019, for the 2024, for the end of this period of five years. Today, with all the news -- with the great news of additional fleets from the Mexican companies, and also the new openings -- the new announcements of openings that we are seeing in the last months, we are expecting to have a recovery really more in the 2023.
It is important to mention that it will depends of each of the airports, I would say for instance, that we are seeing that, for instance, Tijuana going to be the first of our airports that we have a fully recovery of traffic. Even, it could happen at the first quarter of the coming -- of the coming year. So, we're going to see various different of pace of recovery. For sure, we will have -- really, we are optimistic about the recovery of airports at the Los Cabos, leisure airports because at least on the coming months, we are seeing a great opportunity for capture passengers that just may leisure on long hauls, that in some way will feel more comfortable or safe to fly to [Indecipherable] Cabos, that is really a sure flight from South California, for instance.
So in general terms, I would say that we are more optimistic about the pace of recovery and we're seeing there is some room for offset of the original projections of the master plans.
Alejandro Zamacona -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst
Okay, thank you. It was really clear. And my second question, Raul, if I may, it's on the domestic airlines. And so, I mean, Interjet was a relevant airline for GAP in some way, but the airline has stated now that they are intending to restart operations by the year end, although they are starting a formal Chapter 11 process. So have you had any discussions with them to restart operations in GAP's airports?
Raul Revuelta -- Chief Executive Officer
I will say that first just for everybody in the peak time of operation of Interjet, they used to have around 10% of the total share of passengers on GAP. Really important to mention that all the routes that Interjet used to operate were routes where more than one competitor operates also. So Interjet didn't have any exclusive working in GAP's network. That is really important to mention because at end of the day, the rest of the capacity of the rest of the companies in Mexico has covered in some way the space that Interjet left in our network.
About this Chapter 11, we -- I mean, we are still in communications with the legal team of Interjet, but I really don't have any additional information about a possible restart of operation of them.
Alejandro Zamacona -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst
Okay, thank you very much, Raul.
Raul Revuelta -- Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Alex.
Operator
And we will take our next question from Pablo Monsivais with Barclays. Please go ahead.
Pablo Monsivais -- Barclays -- Analyst
Hello, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two quick questions. And kind of a follow-up to what you Raul was saying in your remarks. My first questions is on the -- my first question, sorry, is on the tariff strategy that you have for this year. Are you already planning to be very close to the maximum tariff or what's the pace of the increase that we might see in the next couple of years, in this year for instance? And my second question is kind of a follow-up to Alejandro's questions on the Mexican airlines. We know that Volaris and Aeromexico, they announced new -- they are increasing the -- its fleet. Have you talked to these guys in terms of the potential opening of new routes or increase in frequencies? How has the conversation has been with Volaris and Aeromexico in order for you to have more traffic in your network? Thank you.
Raul Revuelta -- Chief Executive Officer
Thank you. Thank you, Pablo. The first part related with the maximum tariff, we expect that in this year, quarter-by-quarter in some way gradually we will be closer to the fulfillment, the 100% fulfillment of the tariff. We expect that on the last quarter of the year, as soon as the international traffic begins to have a more clear recovery, we expect to be really close to the, I believe, 98% of fulfillment and for the coming year will be 100%. But -- so that is related to maximum tariff for the next of the coming years, we expect that we're going to be 100% fulfillment.
In terms of Aeromexico and Volaris, for sure, we also are in really important contact with them, talking with the planning department and talking about specifically these new planes. As you know, Volaris has two of the most important base of operations in Guadalajara and Tijuana airports. Also for GAP, it -- on this year for instance, they are also the -- almost the 50% of our participation in terms of passengers. So, one of the things that we are beginning to see for the case for instance of Volaris, they already have different financings for beginning operations in November as I told, to Morelia, Sacramento to Seattle and to Portland, or [Indecipherable] to Las Vegas. So, at the end of the day what we are seeing is, lot of these [Phonetic] recovery operations in the route that they used to operate until they get the 100% fill of the seats that they used to have then, for sure there will be really great change in the opportunities to begin operations on new routes. So, I would say that in general terms, for sure we expect that we could capture part of this additional capacity in our airports.
Pablo Monsivais -- Barclays -- Analyst
Perfect. Many thanks. And just -- do you have a sense of like those additional partners will be more leisure driven or VFR driven just to get a sense of the potential commercial revenues increase there? Thank you.
Raul Revuelta -- Chief Executive Officer
I will say that we have one of the things that we are seeing clearly is an important pick in terms of the leisure markets. I believe what we are seeing in Cabos from Southern California -- South California and Texas is really very interesting. Also, we have some new routes for Los Cabos airport coming for New York with JetBlue and with the American Airlines also. So, we are seeing a really interesting increase of passengers on the leisure. But also in the VFR markets, for sure, we are expecting an additional increase of passengers driven by the -- some of the fiscal supports that the U.S. government will bring today to the economy in some way, one of the things that we are seeing on the past is that as soon as the U.S. economy recovery, we will begin to see more VFR markets coming back and forward to Mexico and the different destinations that we have -- they have in the country. So, I will say that at least what we are seeing today with -- in some way, more possible lower pace of recovery is the routes that are more related to business as could be the Mexico, Guadalajara, for instance. I mean, we are seeing for sure recovery, but it's still far away from what used to be the standard size.
So, in general terms, I would say that we will see a really important recovery of passengers on leisure market. In the case of Vallarta, we need to expect the opening of the Canadian border that at the end of the day talking about seasonality, if we could capture the winter season on November for Puerto Vallarta and Montego Bay airports for Canadian markets will be great. For the vacation ratio of VFR, as I say, we expect really important recovery and also remember that the VFR market was really resilient in some way during the peak part of the pandemic. So, for sure, we will see important recovery, but it will be faster in terms of percentage what is going to happen on the leisure.
Pablo Monsivais -- Barclays -- Analyst
Okay. Thank you very much.
Operator
We'll take our next question from Guilherme Mendes with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Guilherme Mendes -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst
Hi, Raul, Saul. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two questions. The first one is regarding the potential rebalance in Jamaica, just wondering if there are any updates regarding the timing and the potential outcome of that negotiation? And the second one is related to the discount programs that you have been implementing to the commercial tenants and to the airlines. Just wondering until when this program should last and what's the average level of discounts that you have been implementing in the case of the airlines? Thank you.
Saul Villareal -- Chief Financial Officer
Hi, Guilherme, this is Saul. Thank you for your questions. Well, regarding the negotiation of rebalancing with the Jamaican government, we are working. They decide to have a team to analyze our proposal. There are two different proposals, one from -- for MBJ and another for Kingston. And the idea of this is the final outcome will be at the end of this year because we will have to have conversations with this new committee, is not already integrated, so it could take around six months of conversations. So, we will have to wait. The potential [Technical Issues] of our request is an adjustment in capex some review the timeline of the concession -- the concession period and some other adjustments in terms of expenses. We are not adjusting tariffs. We believe that the tariffs are just enough to recover the level of investments. Raul?
Raul Revuelta -- Chief Executive Officer
Related to the discounts policies, I would say, first, we're really good airlines. As we talked on the last conference call, we will continue our policy that incentivize to discounts, the opening of new routes and the recovery of frequencies. So, it will not be a general -- applied of general discounts [Indecipherable] is just related to the specific routes that are -- that will begin operations again or that will bring additional frequencies again.
The second part related to the commercial revenues, we will continue at least for this year with the discounts. As you know, our policy of discount is related -- is a discount of the -- on the minimum rents for the -- when we compare the result of traffic of 2019. So, the size of the discount is the difference of passengers between 2019 -- the same month on 2019 versus the same month on 2021. So, we are seeing in different airports and for sure, the variable part of rent is still in the same level. So, one of the things that we are seeing is gradually these discounts will be diminished until these discounts will almost fully disappear on this year. So one of the things that we are seeing in different airports is for the next quarter, some of the specific business lines will be at least in sales is going to be in the same level that used to be before COVID and this is going to happen in airports as Tijuana for example.
Guilherme Mendes -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst
Very clear, gentlemen. Thank you for the answers.
Operator
We will move next with Rodolfo Ramos with Bradesco BBI. Please go ahead.
Rodolfo Ramos -- Bradesco BBI -- Analyst
Good morning. Thank you, Raul and Saul, for taking my question. I have two questions. My first one is on your perspectives for traffic in Vallarta. I know you mentioned the strong perspectives for traffic in Tijuana on the VFR market, much more dynamic Southern California and also your leisure destinations, which I also agree that they'll perform much better once the vaccination improves, but what are you seeing in Guadalajara? Were you expecting Guadalajara, considering it's a tougher airport to put in into a bucket as far as leisure or business, etc.? So what are you see the drivers there? That's my first question.
Raul Revuelta -- Chief Executive Officer
Perfect. There was, Rodolfo, we say that Guadalajara, as you say have really an important mix of leisure, VFRs and business. In some way, the VFRs for instance the routes to South California to Sacramento, Oakland, we are seeing a continued recovery on that. And for sure, it will be really related of how the economy of California is performing. In that way, we are really confident that it will recover in some way fast. The second part, I would say that Guadalajara, the second biggest airport city in Mexico, we are seeing an important recovery also of leisure on people around Guadalajara going for instance to Cancun or to Cabos, one of the things that we saw on the last month is that at the end of the day, some Mexican make -- that used to make leisure for instance in the U.S., on this year we made leisure on Mexican beaches. So, we were seeing an interesting recovery on the routes to Cancun, to Los Cabos for instance.
I will say that the pattern today are more -- I would say that we are not pretty clear on how fast could be the recovery, if the routes that are more related with business, we are talking about Guadalajara-Mexico route or Guadalajara-Monterrey route. But, in other words -- in other hand, we have some positive news in that, because as you know, Mexico City policy for the reopening of first office -- of corporate office already happened. So, we are really reviewing closely how's going to be the performance of the route after these announcements in the Mexico City that it will be allowed to the -- they come back to the office. So, I would say that this is going to be the first part of our more clear trend of going to happen -- what's going to happen with the business routes in our [Indecipherable].
Rodolfo Ramos -- Bradesco BBI -- Analyst
And just a follow-up on that. How much is Monterrey and Mexico City out of the Guadalajara traffic and do you have that number handy?
Raul Revuelta -- Chief Executive Officer
Yes, in terms -- in general terms, as I said before the pandemic, these two routes used to have between two of them less than 18%, 17% of the total domestic passengers. Though this number has changed dramatically after the COVID, we are seeing more and more seats to leisure destination -- to domestic leisure destinations for instance we used to have from the airports. So, at the end of the day, I am seeing that we're going to see our reconfiguration of the market that clearly will be in some way -- on this year at least incentivize first by the U.S. economy through the VFRs and second through the leisure destination -- domestic leisure destinations that population around Guadalajara will go to vacations on Mexican beaches mainly. But I mean that -- the big part is to understand how we're going to be in the business market.
Rodolfo Ramos -- Bradesco BBI -- Analyst
Thank you, Raul. And my second question was on the potential impacts that you can see from the outsourcing bill. I mean, you might have some of the parts of your labor that qualify as specialized. I mean, I don't know what has been your exercise or the impact that we could see from there on higher labor costs?
Saul Villareal -- Chief Financial Officer
Hi, Rodolfo. This is Saul. Well, we have done some analysis about this potential effect. Obviously, it is a new rule about the net profit sharing for the employees, the amount that could be affecting our resources around MXN60 million, MXN70 million. We are in the process of analyzing these and the effect is not very relevant. We in terms of our -- about our -- EBITDA of this year will be around -- less than 1%. So, it's important to have in mind that this could have a higher effect in our companies. But with us, according to the structure we already have one impact significantly.
Rodolfo Ramos -- Bradesco BBI -- Analyst
Thank you, Saul.
Operator
We'll take our next question from Stephen Trent with Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Brian Roberts -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Yes, hi, thank you for taking my question. It's actually Brian Roberts on for Steve. Just a quick one here on growth planning into the recovery. Aside from the airport there in Barbados, are you considering any other acquisitions? And any thoughts on specific regions perhaps that look most attractive. Thank you.
Raul Revuelta -- Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Brian. No, we don't have any opportunity right now that we are reviewing. All we have to say, we are expecting about what happened with Barbados, But for sure, I think that in the coming months or even years, we're going to have some additional clarity about the region that we will like to continue exploring is related mainly on the Caribbean and Central America mainly.
Operator
And we will move next with Andressa Varotto with UBS. Please go ahead.
Andressa Varotto -- UBS -- Analyst
Hi. Thank you for taking my question. I just have a few questions on the MVP [Phonetic] investment. So, how is the construction of the second runway of Guadalajara? When should this be ready? And how does this couple with your expectation of traffic recovery? And also if there will be [Indecipherable] investment channels to commercial spaces? And if this could be a potential trigger of a higher commercial revenue per pax ratio in the future. Thank you.
Raul Revuelta -- Chief Executive Officer
In terms of the runway, the second runway of Guadalajara, we just begin the workings of the -- to the work on that area to develop the second runway. We expect to have ready this infrastructure for 2023. I mean, it's really harder construction because it's just outside of the runway of Guadalajara airport. So, we have just more windows of operation for the construction, but we're going to be ready for opening that infrastructure in 2023. Regarding the -- regarding commercial revenues, I would say that we were still working in the new business lines that really increase our reaches [Phonetic]. It will be, for instance, the case of the hotels in the -- right now Guadalajara, but also in the future, we expect to develop a hotel in Tijuana. Also, we are working to increase our cargo facilities business. We are completing -- or in this moment, we are reviewing which is going to be the model of operations for -- but mainly what we clearly see is a great opportunity in the Guadalajara airport to get some additional revenues that will come from all the additional cargo that is happening right now at the airport, mainly imposed by the e-commerce.
So, and the last part related with the traffic for sure any forecast today is in some way difficult due to the fact that everything is in some way changing really, really fast. But if we are trusting that everything is still in the same way, there is no -- some kind of additional surprises of lockdowns or these kind of things. What we are expecting is that the traffic 2021 will grow between 27% and 30%. It means we could be something around the 35 -- between 33 million and 35 million passengers. I would say that we have the fact that we are not completely clear what's going to happen in terms of the operations from Canada to Jamaica and from Canada to Vallarta. If everything goes good and in the last quarter of the year, we could catch the winter season, we see that these numbers could be also better.
Andressa Varotto -- UBS -- Analyst
Great, thank you very much.
Raul Revuelta -- Chief Executive Officer
Sure.
Operator
[Operator Instructions] We will move next with Inaki Irurita with GBM. Please go ahead.
Inaki Irurita -- GBM -- Analyst
Hi, thank you for the call, but all my questions have been already answered.
Raul Revuelta -- Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Inaki.
Operator
We will now move to the webcast questions. Melanie, please go ahead.
Melanie Carpenter -- Investor Relations
Thank you, Nikki. We had a question for Saul. Can you just comment and clarify the number of shares that you've repurchased to date.
Saul Villareal -- Chief Financial Officer
Hi, Melanie. Yes, we have repurchased around 2.4 million shares during this -- until this report.
Melanie Carpenter -- Investor Relations
Excellent. And Saul, I believe we have a question from the webcast.
Saul Villareal -- Chief Financial Officer
Yes. Thank you, Melanie. This question is Juan Ponce from Bradesco. The first one is about the bill. I already passed the comment about outsourcing and insourcing. We already answered that question. And the second question is, what do you think the impact on GAP's operating expenses will be? It's answered already. Could you talk about your outlook on the recovery of passenger traffic in Jalisco? Raul, do you want to answer it.
Raul Revuelta -- Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, it was related about what we are seeing Guadalajara airport that we already talked about, we show a robust recovery on the VFRs and leisure, and we are expecting what will happen with the business market on Guadalajara. But in general terms, we are seeing an important recovery from beginning of the summer and for sure in the last quarter with the winter season, we're going to see much better numbers.
Operator
And there appears to be no -- there appears to be no further questions over the phone at this time. I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Revuelta for any closing remarks.
Raul Revuelta -- Chief Executive Officer
Thank you everyone again for joining us today in our first quarter results conference. We want to remind you that we are always open and available to answer any and all of your questions. On behalf of GAP, we wish you a great day. Thank you.
Duration: 42 minutes
Call participants:
Melanie Carpenter -- Investor Relations
Raul Revuelta -- Chief Executive Officer
Alejandro Zamacona -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst
Pablo Monsivais -- Barclays -- Analyst
Guilherme Mendes -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst
Saul Villareal -- Chief Financial Officer
Rodolfo Ramos -- Bradesco BBI -- Analyst
Brian Roberts -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Andressa Varotto -- UBS -- Analyst
Inaki Irurita -- GBM -- Analyst
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