Corporacion America Airports SA

Good morning and welcome to the Corporación América Airport's first quarter 2024 conference call. A slide presentation accompanies today's webcast and is available in the investor section of the Corporación América Airport's website. As a reminder, all participants are 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 call over to Patricio Iñaki-Esnola, Head of Investor Relations. Patricio, please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Speaking during today's call will be Martín Ornequian, our Chief Executive Officer, and Jorge Arruda, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we proceed, I would like to make the following safe 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 recent filings with the SCC. We assume no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements 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, Martín Ornequiano.

Thank you, Iñaki. Hello, everyone, and welcome to our first quarter 2024 earnings call. I will start today's presentation with some overall highlights on our first quarter's performance. I will then hand it off to Jorge, who will provide additional details in his financial review before we open the call for questions. I am pleased with the good start to the new year. We delivered a positive quarter with revenues up in the low double digits against the same quarter last year and beating passenger traffic growth. Our continued focus on commercial execution is posting good results with revenues per passenger continuing to expand, reaching $20.6 this quarter, an all-time high since our IPO in 2018 in a normalized environment. There were a few quarters in 2020 where passenger figures were significantly reduced due to the pandemic, resulting in artificial revenues per passenger figures. Reflecting our consistent focus on execution and healthy travel demand, adjusted EBITDA increased further, up 16% year-on-year, reaching $163 million. while the margin expanded 1.5 percentage points as we continued to gain operational leverage. This new performance was supported by all geographies, with the exception of Ecuador, which incurred a mandatory one-time contribution to the security of the country. Moreover, our robust balance sheet with a leverage ratio at an all-time low underscores our commitment to ensuring financial strength while providing flexibility to support growth initiatives. Noteworthy, we recently signed an amendment to our punta electric concession agreement that includes, among other things, the extension of the term concession agreement for a 10-year period from 2033 to 2043. Please turn to page 4 for a review of passenger traffic trends. Our airports benefited from a sustained recovery in travel demand, underpinned by higher load factors and the gradual return of flight routes and frequencies across our operations. On a comparable basis, and excluding Natal Airport, in which we exited the concession this February, as previously disclosed, passenger traffic increased 4.3% year-on-year. Growth was mainly driven by international passengers, which increased in the low teens, while domestic traffic remained flat. Moving on to some color by country, starting with Argentina, our main market, which delivered a 5.3% year-on-year increase in passenger traffic. Growth was underpinned by international traffic, up nearly 16%, reflecting increased weekly frequencies from ETA Airways, Aeromexico, and Emirates, while JetSmart and Paranaer announced the launch of new routes. Domestic passenger traffic remained flat in the context of the challenging macro backdrop. Recall that while domestic traffic comprises of 65% 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. The positive trend continued into April when international passenger traffic grew by 9.3% against the same month last year. Next, Italy, where passenger traffic was up nearly 14% year-on-year. This good performance was mainly driven by a 17% increase in international traffic and mid-single-digit growth in domestic traffic. Both Florence and Pisa Airport delivered solid traffic growth, while some domestic destinations have yet to resume at Pisa Airport. This positive trend continued into April, when passenger traffic grew by 12% year-on-year. Uruguay also posted strong traffic growth, up 29%, benefiting from the addition of new routes and frequencies. This positive trend continued into April, while JetSmart and Sky have both announced new routes starting in May. By contrast, traffic was weaker in Armenia, Ecuador, and Brazil. Armenia posted relatively flat traffic. following the significantly strong performance over the past couple of years. In April, total traffic was down 4% versus the same month of last year. In Ecuador, traffic declined near 3%, driven by weaker domestic traffic following the exit of a local airline in October last year, while international traffic was up 1%, Traffic in April was down 6% year-on-year, as weaker domestic traffic more than offset a 2% increase in international traffic. Lastly, in Brazil, traffic dynamics remained heavily impacted by financial and aircraft constraints at some local airlines, which together with the rising ticket prices affected travel demand, resulting in a comparable year-on-year decline of nearly 2% when excluding natal airports. This challenging industry environment continued into April. Moving on to slide five. Cargo volumes continued to recover and were up in the low single digits year on year. Armenia, Ecuador, and Argentina were the main drivers behind cargo volume growth this quarter, while the other geographies posted slight declines. Cargo revenues, in turn, increased 6% in the quarter with year-on-year improvements in all countries of operations. I will now hand off the call to Jorge, who will review our financial results. Please, go ahead.