Corporacion America Airports SA

Good morning and welcome to the Corporation America Airports second quarter 2024 conference call. A slide presentation accompanies today's webcast and is available in the investor section of the company's website. As a reminder, all participants in a listen-only mode. There will be an opportunity to ask questions at the end of the presentation. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Patricio Inaki Esnaola, Head of Investor Relations, please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Speaking during today's call will be Martina Marquian, our Chief Executive Officer, and Jorge Cura, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we proceed, I would like to make the following Fed Harbor statement. Today's call will contain four looking statements, and I refer you to the four looking statements section of our earnings release and weekend filings with the SEC. We assume no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking payments to reflect new or changed events or circumstances. Please note that throughout this call, all references to revenues, costs, adjusted EBITDA, and margin will refer to figures excluding IFRIC 12. I will now turn the call over to our CEO, Martin Ormequian.

Thank you, Iñaki. Hello, everyone, and welcome to our second quarter 2024 earnings call. I will begin today's presentation with some key highlights from our second quarter performance. After that, I will turn it over to Jorge for a more detailed financial review, and then we will open the floor for questions. Our business is supported by having a diversified geographic portfolio, by operating in a variety of countries globally, we were able to mitigate weaker domestic traffic in Argentina impacted by the challenging macro backdrop in the country, as well as aircraft constraints in Brazil, which resulted in less number of flights. As a result, revenues remain resilient despite the mid-single-digit year-on-year decline in traffic when adjusting for the discontinuation of the Natal Airport concession earlier in the year. Revenues per passenger ex IFRIC 12 expanded 9% year over year, outpacing revenue growth, underscoring our ability to adapt to challenging market dynamics. And Jorge will discuss this more in detail shortly. EBITDA ex IFRIC 12 declined 9% year over year, largely due to the macroeconomic challenges that Argentina is facing, which affected our domestic traffic and operational costs. Moreover, duty-free sales were lower this year, as last year's figures were artificially high due to the gap between the official FX rate and the parallel one. By contrast, our robust results in Italy and Uruguay emphasize the strength and resilience of our operations in those markets. Furthermore, our strong cash flow generation and solid balance sheet with a record low leverage ratio demonstrate our commitment to sustaining financial stability while maintaining the flexibility needed to support growth initiatives. Now moving on to page four for a review of passenger traffic trends. Total passenger traffic in the quarter was negatively impacted by weak demand from domestic travel in Argentina as the market was challenging for reasons I just mentioned. By contrast, international traffic in Argentina continued to perform well, further supported by continued expansion in traffic in Italy and in Uruguay. On a comparable basis and excluding Natal Airport, a concession we exited in February as previously disclosed, passenger traffic declined 5% year-on-year, driven by a 15% contraction in domestic traffic, mainly driven by Argentina, while international traffic increased 8% in the period. Now discussing year-on-year trends by country of operations. In Italy, we saw steady passenger traffic growth, up 14% year-on-year. This positive performance was mainly due to a 17% rise in international traffic and mid single digit growth in domestic traffic. This positive trend continued into July, benefiting from the summer season with traffic growing 5.5% versus the same month of last year. In Uruguay, the opening of new routes and frequencies by JetSmart and Sky Airlines in May contributed to the 11% increase in traffic in the quarter. This positive trend extended into July, with traffic growing 15% year on year. In Argentina, international traffic was up 9% in the quarter, driven by the resumption of more routes and frequencies. This very good performance, however, was more than upset by a contraction of 19% in domestic traffic. In addition to facing difficult problems as last year's travel benefited from the Previaje government incentives to boost local tourism, domestic traffic was also impacted by the temporary suspension of several roads and trade cancellations as the recissionary environment damped demand for travel. As a reminder, while domestic traffic comprises around two-thirds of total traffic in the country, over 90% of passenger use fees are generated by international traffic and are fully linked to U.S. dollars. In July, we saw improved performance with international traffic growing 14% and domestic traffic declining 12%. Traffic in Armenia remained largely flat, declining in the low single digits as the market continues to face very strong comps versus last year. In July, total traffic decreased by 2% year-on-year. In Ecuador, total traffic declined by mid-single digits. International traffic growth of 4% was more than upset by a decline of 13% in domestic travel following the exit of a local airline in October last year. This trend continued into July, with the total traffic declining 5% year-on-year. In Brazil, as mentioned, traffic flow continues to be significantly impacted by financial and aircraft limitation in one of the local airlines, causing a lack of supply. This dynamic resulted in a 3% decline in passenger traffic when excluding Natal Airport. In July, we saw an improved performance, with transit passenger traffic growing 15% and domestic traffic decreasing 5%, excluding Natal. Turning to slide five, cargo volumes continued recovery trend increasing in the mid-single-digit year-on-year. Argentina, Ecuador, and Armenia, which accounted for over 70 percent of cargo volume, remained the main driver behind this good performance, while Italy and Uruguay posted slight declines. However, despite the volume growth, cargo revenues declined 13 percent year-on-year, primarily due to lower revenues in Argentina. This decline was caused by a reduction in the number of days that cargo remained stored. I will now hand over the call to Jorge, who will review our financial results. Please, go ahead.