Central North Airport Group (OMAB) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Greetings, and welcome to OMA's third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I would now turn the conference over to your host, Vanessa Velasco. Please go ahead.

Hello, everyone. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to my third quarter, 2026 earnings conference call. Thank you for joining us today as we discuss our company's performance and financial results for the past quarter. Joining us today are our CEO, Ricardo Duenas, and CFO, Rufo Pérez-Lego. Please be reminded that certain statements made during the course of our discussion today may constitute forward-looking statements, which are based on current management expectations and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, including factors that may be beyond our control. And now, I'll turn the call over to Ricardo Lueñez for his opening remarks.

Thank you, Vanessa. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. This morning, Rufo and I will review our quarterly operational and financial results, and then we will be pleased to answer the questions. During the third quarter of 2026, OMA served 7.7 million passengers, reflecting a 1.3% increase year-over-year, while available seat capacity increased by 1.3%. Domestic passenger traffic grew by 0.6% as compared to the third quarter of 2025, driven primarily by the San Luis Potosí Airport, which saw increases on the routes to the Felipe Ángeles and Monterrey airports. These routes collectively added over 35,000 passengers during the quarter, representing 91% of the total domestic passenger growth. International passenger traffic increased by 6%, mainly driven by our Monterey Airport with higher traffic on the New York, Madrid, and Paris routes. In terms of growth by airline, Volaris, which accounted for 27% of our total passenger traffic in the quarter, recorded a 14% growth versus the third quarter of last year, while Viva, which accounted for 49% of our total passenger traffic, recorded a 2% decline. Turning to our financial performance, aeronautical revenues increased 6.7% during the quarter, reflecting the tariff adjustment that became effective in April, partially offset by the peso appreciation. Commercial revenues increased 11% compared to the third quarter of last year, and commercial revenues per passenger reached 66 pesos. Commercial revenue growth was mainly driven by VIP lounges, restaurants, and parking, mainly as a result of higher penetration, opening of new units, and the increase in passenger traffic. Occupancy of commercial space remained at 96% at the end of the quarter. Diversification revenues increased by 20% year-over-year, mainly driven by our OMA cargo business, where revenues increased 42%, reflecting new client operations, additional high-value cargo handling in Monterey, and higher average stay of merchandise in our warehouses. Industrial service revenues reached 53 million pesos and increased of 13%. Mainly attributable to a greater number of square meters. OMA's third quarter adjusted EBITDA increased 9% to 2.9 billion pesos, while the adjusted EBITDA margin expanded to 75%. On the capital expenditure side, total investment in the quarter, including MDP investment, major maintenance, and strategic investments, were 1.138 billion pesos. It is worth mentioning that next month we'll be opening an OMA Premium Lounge in the Acapulco Airport, which is expected to further contribute to the growth of this important revenue source. We're also pleased to announce that we will begin the construction of the second hotel in the Monterrey Airport, which will be operated under the Hyatt Place brand. The hotel will require an investment of approximately $17 million. We'll have 120 rooms, and it's expected to begin operations in the fourth quarter of 28. The hotel in Monterey will be developed through our existing joint venture with Grupo Telero Santa Fe, in which they have a 15% ownership stake, and we will be the operator of the new hotel as well. We believe this development will further diversify our revenue stream and enhance the airport experience for travelers. I would now like to turn the call over to Rufo Perez-Piego, who will discuss our financial highlights for the quarter.

Thank you, Ricardo, and good morning, everyone. I will go over our financial results for the quarter, and then we'll open the poll for questions. Aeromedical revenues increased 6.7% as compared to 3Q25, primarily driven by tariff adjustments implemented in April 2026. Domestic passenger charges and other aeronautical services grew in line with these new tariffs, while international passenger charges rose by 4%. This increase was offset by the peso appreciation against the U.S. dollar during the quarter. Together, these effects resulted in a 5.3% increase in aeronautical revenue per PAX. Non-aero revenues increased 13.3%. Commercial revenues grew 11%, mainly driven by higher VIP lounge revenue, restaurants, parking, and retails. VIP lounges increased by 28%, driven by higher capture rates, as well as the start-off operations of the VIP lounge in the Torreón airport. Restaurant revenues increased 13.5%, mainly as a result of higher passenger traffic and the opening of new units in the Durango and Torreón airports. Parking growth, 6.7%, driven by higher average tariffs, and retail revenues increased 18.5% due to the opening of new units and increase in passenger traffic. Diversification activities grew by 20.4% in the quarter, mainly attributable to an increase in OMA Carga revenues. Total aeronautical and non-aeronautical revenues grew 8.3% to 3.8 billion pesos in the quarter. Construction revenues amounted to 1.02 billion pesos in the third quarter of 26. The cost of services and G&A expense increased 8.6% versus 3Q25. The increase mainly reflected higher payroll and contracted services costs. Payroll increased 8.7% as a result of annual salary increases, as well as higher headcounts as compared to restrictive 25, while contracted services increased 19%, primarily due to higher security and cleaning expenses, resulting from contract renewals and minimum wage increases. Concession tax increased 7.9% to 312 million pesos. Major maintenance provision was 39 million pesos, as compared to 28 million in the 3Q25, reflecting the MPP provisioning requirements. As a result, adjusted EBTA increased 8.7 percent to 2.9 billion pesos, and EBTA margin was 75.0 percent. Overfinancing expense increased by 16.5%, to 348 million pesos in the quarter, mainly driven by higher interest expense as a result of higher average debt levels. Consolidated net income was 1.6 billion pesos in the quarter, an increase of 2.9% versus the third quarter of 25. Turning to our cash position. Cash generated from operating activities in the third quarter amounted to $2.3 billion, investing activities used $1.2 billion, and financing activities generated $318 million over the quarter. As a result, our cash position at the end of September was $4 billion. At the end of September, total debt amounted to 14.9 billion pesos, and leverage, measured as net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio, stood at 1.0 times.

This concludes our prepared remarks.

Carrie, please open the call for questions.

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. And our first question will come from Jen Spice with Morgan Stanley.

Yes, hello, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. So, the first I have is on the technical assistance via internalization. Just to get a sense of all else equal is that when you face your regulator, the regulator, the next MDP cycle, all else equal, will it have an impact on the reference value because it will be a lower cost or not?

Hi, this is Rufo. So technical assistance is expected to continue to be incurred. As you know, we have a specific barrier of Vinci airports. Under the tariff-based regulations currently in place, it is a recognized expense to a certain percentage of that amount. Okay.

And one follow-up. On the max tariff completion, are you at around 92%? Is that correct? And what's your expectation to get closer to 100%? What's the timeline there? Thank you.

All right, Jen. So, we anticipate to end this year somewhere around 93% compliance with maximum tariff. For next year, we're looking to be somewhere around 95%, and we're planning to reach 100% by the third year of the five-year plan.

Okay, perfect. And is it by year-end, or is it average of the year?

The average of the year.

Okay, perfect. All right.

Thank you.

And again, that is star one, if you'd like to ask a question. We'll go next to Pablo Recalde with Itao.

Hi, good morning, Oma. Maybe my question is a follow-up on Jen's questions on the maximum tariff.

I don't know if you have already discussed with airlines the hike that you want to implement as of January the 1st, and if you can share how much is this hike? Yes. Yes, we have already shared that information with the airlines. There's a process that we need to follow, and it will be something slightly above 4% increased nominal terms.

Perfect. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Alan Macias with Bank of America.

Hi, good morning, and thank you for the call. Just a question, I know my Cargas business, if you can just give us more color on the type of clients, the new clients that this business had and what type of cargo was involved.

Yeah, so during this quarter, the growth was attributable to new client operations in Monterrey, as well as the handling of additional high-value cargo operations and higher average stay of merchandise in our warehouses. We expect for the rest of the year to be in the high teens of growth, and some were similar for next year.

We'll go next to Enrique Cantu with Jem.

Hi, thank you for taking my question.

It's about commercial revenue per passenger. This quarter was strong for this metric. Is Monterey's commercial expansion still on track for late 2027, and how much further commercial growth per passenger do you expect until then?

Sure. The full commercial area for Monterey, it's expected to open by the fourth quarter of next year. We will have partial openings. There will be a partial opening by the end of this year, which is mostly baggage claim, the baggage claim area. But the real big commercial area will be by the end of the year.

And regarding impact of the new commercial area in Monterey, we would expect that on a per-pax basis for Monterey Airport, that will result in about a 15% increase in income per-pax in real terms once it's open. But as Ricardo mentioned, that will be reflected until 2028 results.

Okay, thank you.

And we have a follow-up question from Jen Spice with Morgan Stanley. Jens, your line is open.

Oh, sorry, I was on mute. Thank you. I just want to rephrase my first question I made earlier. So in terms of the technical assistance, are you having any plans or discussions to internalize it similar to what your competition has done or not?

No, not at the moment. We believe that the technical assistance fee is very well-rounded, as Benji, our strategic partner, is providing most of good value in that technical assistance.

Okay, perfect. And if you could provide, do you have any expectations for traffic into next year, especially towards the second half of the year?

Yes, we anticipate traffic to be in the low single digits for 27, and we expect to start to see their recovery in traffic by mid-year.

Okay, perfect. Thank you.

We'll go next to Guillerme Mendes with J.P.

Morgan.

Yes, thank you guys so much for taking the time. Hi, Ricardo and Rufo. I have a follow-up on the traffic performance. How much do you think that the potential merger between Viva and Volaris might impact your traffic performance, and if that is included on this low single digit that you mentioned for 2027? And on the capital allocation front, you already mentioned some investments on the commercial part of the business, the hotels, etc. But is there anything else that OMA is currently considering maybe outside Mexico? Thank you.

Sure. In terms of the merger, we are waiting for the final outcome from the National Antitrust Commission. Up to this day, we don't have an indication from the airlines of how the operation would work if the merger is approved. Therefore, we can't assess the full potential impact. In terms of commercial capital expenditures, we mentioned the hotel in Monterey. There will be investment also in VIP lounges, some in parking. We're evaluating a potential new hotel as well. And at this point, there's no tangible opportunity that we see in the pipeline for international expansion. However, we are always on the lookout for potential opportunities.

Very clear. Thank you.

And this now concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the floor back over to Ricardo Duenas for closing comments.

Thank you. We would like to thank everyone for participating in today's call. We appreciate your insightful questions, engagement, and continued support. Rufo, Vanessa, and I are available to answer your questions. Thank you once again, And have a great day.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines and have a wonderful day.