SPAIN. Airports company Aena today outlined the scale of losses incurred across its business from COVID-19, and the proposals it has made to commercial tenants to offset the impact.
Rental discounts offered in January by Aena’s commercial department to business partners amount to around €800 million across 2020 and 2021.
The company said: “The aim is to adjust contracts in an even-handed way to cater for the situation of the two sides, both of which have been hard hit by the pandemic.”
It added: “With its travel retail and food service operators, Aena has put in place a general framework of agreements anchored in the Royal Decree Act on support for the tourism, hospitality and retail industries. However, the company has also gone further by including discounts of 100% of the MAG (Minimum Annual Guarantee) during the first state of emergency [last year] and 50% between the two states of emergency.
“The proposal is on a period-by-period basis and envisages a 100% reduction in the MAG for the period from 15 March to 20 June 2020 and a 50% discount from 21 June 2020 to 8 September 2021. This means that in 2020, the discount comes to around 60%. In addition, if facilities are closed due to an operational decision by Aena, the discount is up to 100%.”
To date, the proposal has been accepted by 56.2% of partners, or 72 in all. If accepted by all commercial operators, the amount of outstanding MAG invoiced in the relevant activities would go from the current total of €620.3 million to €179.5 million.
Overall, group revenue fell by -50.2% to €2,242.8 million. Commercial revenue showed a decrease of only -16.4%, but this included uncollected (but booked) Minimum Annual Rent of €635.5 million. The airport company showed a net loss (€126.8 million) for the first time since 2012. Passenger traffic in the Spanish airport network fell by -72.4% year-on-year to 76.1 million.
