Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste, S. A. B. de C. V. (NYSE:ASR) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Bruno Amorim: Yeah, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two. The first one, I just wanted to reconcile the big picture here. Directionally, the government is increasing the concession fee. They have stated that they want to lower tariffs. So, if you want to keep the contract balanced, meaning allowing for the private operators to earn, the allowed return on invested capital, I guess, you could extend the life of the concession or eventually postpone CapEx. So, the question is, are those the two levers still on the table? And are you in talks with the government to eventually postpone CapEx or to extend the life of the concession? So that’s the first question. And the follow-up on that is, if we get to a situation where it’s not possible to square all those variables, if the contract is not balance, if the concession is not earnings the allowed return, is it still an option to go to the court or not?

How do you think about this trade-off going to the courts or not? What could trigger this decision? Thank you.

Adolfo Castro: Well, in the case of your first question, extending the concession or diminishing CapEx, well, first of all, I have to say that CapEx is not because we want, the CapEx is the mathematical relation in terms of the demand. So, if demand increases, of course CapEx increases. So, we will have to construct whatever is necessary to support the level of service for the demand that is coming. We are not in talks about extending the concession contract. In terms of the balance, I do agree with your question about how to reduce rates if you’re increasing fees. It’s something that we will have to see once we apply this new regulation document in our numbers or in our MDP towards the end of the year.

Bruno Amorim: Thank you, Adolfo. And so, if at the end of the day there is no offset for the higher concession fees for the lower tariffs, is it fair to say the returns would likely be lower than what they should be? And in that case, could the company go to the court?

Adolfo Castro: Well, Bruno, in the case of the document, you already have the full text of the document. So, in terms of the discount rate, I do believe that you all have all the information — the necessary information to calculate what is that number today. So, it’s now more than ever completely transparency for you to calculate this number.

Bruno Amorim: Thank you, Adolfo. We can follow up offline if necessary. Thank you.

Adolfo Castro: You’re welcome.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Alberto Valerio with UBS. Please go ahead.

Alberto Valerio: Hi. Thank you, Adolfo, for taking my question. My first one, I would like to — if you could provide some details on Mexican traffic? We see a resilient domestic demand and a soften international. This is a trend. It’s something that we should see recovering next quarter and next year? And my second one, if you could give it some color as well on Mexicana de Aviación? How should we treat it? Should we see, firstly, some increase in supply and then we might see some — company is struggling to follow the price? What is your color on it? Thank you.

Adolfo Castro: You’re welcome. In the case of the Mexican traffic, as I have said, yes, we do expect some negative effects next year due to the fact of these Pratt & Whitney engines in the case of Volaris. Of course, on the other side, as we have mentioned, the government has announced that they will initiate operations with Mexicana Airlines. This Mexicana — well, what we have heard from them is that they will initiate with 10 aircrafts. Just to give you an idea, today, the Mexican fleet is around 356 aircrafts. So, if we add 10, it is not an important effect on the whole scenario. In the case of Pratt & Whitney engines for Volaris, that means more or less 60 aircraft that could be stopped for 200 or 250 days. So, the negative effect is offsetting these new additional airlines of Mexicana de Aviación.