Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I'm Constantinos, your conference call operator. Welcome, thank you for joining the Aegean Airlines conference call to present and discuss the full year 2022 financial results. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Eftichios Vassilakis, Chairman. Mr. Vassilakis, you may now proceed. Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to our annual call. First of all, let me say that today, besides me, there's also our CEO, Dimitris Gerogiannis, and Michalis Kouveliotis, our CFO here. Dimitris and I will share the initial comments to you, and then, of course, you're welcome to ask any questions. Indeed, as we've talked about in the nine-month results, this ended up being a very successful year for us. A year where we've seen our financial figures either getting back or being above the full rate figures of 2019. Our revenues, in fact, for the full year exceeded by 2% the 2019 numbers. Of course, were effectively double the 2021 numbers. More importantly, our profitability during 2022 ended up not only reversing the losses of 2021 and 2020, but also exceeding significantly by 36% the profitability of 2019 and reaching EUR 107 million net income in total. The result is extremely satisfactory for us. The margin in terms of pretax or EBIT or operating measurements stands very strongly among our European peers, we're very happy for it. What is definitely the case is that we went through a year that had multiple phases. It started, of course, with the still the aftereffect, the beginning of a low level activity for us, round about 75%, 73%, 74% of ASKs relative to 2019 in the first quarter, going up to 84% in the second quarter, to 97% in the third quarter, which of course is the one that typically produces the most of the profitability. Effectively reaching the 2019 numbers in 2000 in terms of ASKs in the last quarter of 2022, where it was 99%. On the other hand, vis-a-vis that, in every quarter except the first quarter, the recovery of revenue was stronger than the ASK. In other words, the only quarter of the year where the revenue recovery relative to 2019. Sorry, y eah, relative to 2019 was lower than the ASK recovery was, the first one, then basically, what was 84% in ASK yielded 94% in terms of revenues in Q2, what was 97% yielded 111% of revenue relative to 2019 in Q3. The last quarter had the biggest overperformance. With 99% of ASKs of 2019, we generated 115% of revenue. Indeed, that is the reason that the fourth quarter of the year was the first fourth quarter in the history of the company where we actually had a positive result. Typically, Aegean has two positive quarters, the second and the third one. The fourth one is usually mildly negative, and the first one is significantly negative. This year we managed to only have one negative quarter, with the last one, as I said, having a significantly profitable result. That's very important for us because that brings us over to the dynamic going into 2023, obviously. What I also need to state very, very importantly, I think for the discussion is that the capacity of our competition towards Greece while the overall activity of most European carriers was below 2019, all three major European network groups, IAG, Lufthansa Group and Air France-KLM, were significantly higher in capacity towards Greece than they were in 2019. Indeed were the three major low-cost carrier groups Ryanair, easyJet and Wizz. Despite this significant capacity recovery delta between what was happening to the European carriers to Greece, relative to what they were doing overall, Aegean produced a very positive result, which indeed was improving in quality as the year progressed, and which in the winter, as I said, reached its most successful level on a relative basis, of course, judging each quarter by what it's supposed to potentially produce. The year was a very successful one. We also generated round about EUR 225 million of cash flow that allowed us to effect CapEx of around EUR 80 million-EUR 85 million concerning mostly engines, spare engines, which we bought, and three ATRs. At the same time, repay another EUR 75 million of loans, and still managed to increase our end of year cash to EUR 530 million. Up by about EUR 30 million from the year before. In total, a EUR 225 million cash flow generation during the year, coming of course, at higher figures than the EUR 140 million of pre-tax or the EUR 106 profit after tax. On the cash flow generation, also a very positive outcome. Equally importantly perhaps, and I think even more rare for a European airline, we have managed to repair our balance sheet, not only in terms of outstanding debt, from the point of view of bank loans relative to the past, but also in terms of equity. At the end of 2022, our equity was a little bit higher by EUR 20 million rather than what it was in the end of 2019, and that's very important also going forward. During the year, many important things happened that Dimitris Gerogiannis will give you a sense of in the next section of our discussion. Then I'll come back and talk a little bit about the outlook going forward. Please, Dimitris, if you can give us some input on the important areas that we have touched upon during the year. Yep. We can start with our fleet developments. As you know, we have continued our investment in upgrading our fleet and services throughout the pandemic. In fact, 2022 was an important year in terms of arrivals. We took delivery of nine brand new neos from Airbus. The original plan was to take delivery of 12 aircraft. However, due to supply chain problems, Airbus managed to deliver to us nine aircraft. In 2022, the benefit from the new fleet, we can see the benefit, the contribution of the new activity to our total activity keeps increasing. For example, for in terms of flight hours, in 2022, 29% of our jet flight hours were performed with neo aircraft. This percentage will become 48% in 2023 with the addition of the new neos. In terms of flight numbers, 22% of our flights were performed with NEO aircraft in 2022, and this will become 33% in 2023. In 2023, we expect we take delivery of nine additional neos. At the same time, we in 2022, we completed the destruction of our turboprop fleet, a process that started in late 2021. We completed the redelivery in 2022 of all our Q400 turboprop aircraft and replaced them with ATR 72-600. There are three reasons why this refitting is very important for Aegean. The operation of the ATR fleet is more efficient, and we had already operated ATR 42-600 since 2016. The aircraft are definitely really significantly more fuel efficient than Q400. We have managed to get significantly better and more competitive terms with the lessors than with the Q400 agreement. The fact that the rate disadvantage the ATR 42, 72 has a rate disadvantage relative to Q400 is not relevant for our operation since our international network where the speed of the aircraft matters, all our international network is performed with the jet aircraft. Aegean as we stand now, we operate a more a less complex and more efficient fleet, and we have a more uniform operation which facilitates also the day-to-day operation. Moving from the fleet to the maintenance and training activities. In 2022, we announced the creation of the first aviation ecosystem for technical support services and training services in Greece. It's an investment which has it on one hand it facilitates our operation and improves the our efficiency, but at the same time is an investment which has a strong a strong touch of extroversion and competitiveness. Since we will be able to over time to offer through this investment also third party services both in maintenance and training services. It is important to note here that the effort, this effort started during the pandemic. During the pandemic, during the time that the aircraft was not flying and they were grounded due to the restrictions, we shifted technical staff. This started in 2020. We shifted technical staff from doing line maintenance, or we shifted more technical staff from doing line maintenance to base maintenance. We trained them, and we identified an opportunity in this, in this field. We exploited the availability of a major building, the old Olympic Air's technical base in Athens Airport, which has been sitting there idle for about a decade. We agreed a long-term lease with the Athens International Airport. The main objectives of this investment relates to first of all, improving the cost effectiveness of our own operation, being on one hand on the maintenance side, plus the flexibility and ease in serving our maintenance needs since we will not be restricted by the tight slots imposed to us by foreign maintenance centers in a very tight maintenance market. We deepen and enhance the technical capabilities of our company and we expand the development options and the know-how of our people. As I said earlier, through this facility we will be able over time to offer third party services and respond to third party demand. Over three, four years a significant revenue stream will be added to our revenues. On the simulation and training center for pilots and cabin crew members, this will also allow us to offer third party services, plus it will increase the efficiency and utilization of our crews, since our crews and our trainers will not need to fly around in different training centers in Europe to cover our training needs. Will also allow us to better utilize our people and our pilots because the training will be performed here at time slots that are convenient to us. Since again, we will not be restricted by the time slot restrictions imposed by the different training centers in Europe. This is the second element that is concerning the creation of our ecosystem around technical services and training services. Going into the third pillar which concerns our people, our colleagues. During the pandemic we made the conscious decision to retain the overwhelming majority of our, of our permanent staff people. A fact that helped to establish a better trust level among our people and facilitate our restart during the beginning of the post pandemic period, meaning last summer. We had already started a process of offering scholarships for pilots. That was back in 2018. During this period 100 scholarships were given to candidates that went through a very tight selection process. This process has matured and pretty much all of these 100 scholarships will be by the end of May, will be in our cockpits, flying our aircraft. This scholarship program was renewed in November 2022. We announced another 120 scholarships over the next three years. 40 scholarships each year for young men and women that they want to develop their career in the professional civil service and start their career as pilots. In 2022, we complemented our pilot scholarship program with a similar program, scholarship program, going for new aircraft mechanics. We started in June 2022 with the first group of 20 scholarships. The first group started in September 2022 in our maintenance training organization. Already they started their education. The second group of another 20 scholarships will start in March 2023. The goal here is also to create our own pool of mechanics the same way as we do with pilots which enter the company ab initio. They will be the result of our own training and our own culture in flight ops and maintenance ops, which enhances our capacity to address the staffing needs of our operations in the coming years in a market which is as you know, it's very tight in Europe. This obviously the investment also on the aircraft mechanics scholarship program is very strongly related to the decision to develop MRO maintenance, third party maintenance activities over the next years, which will help us to address all the staffing needs that this expansion will need. Closing the pillar of our related to our people, it is extremely important to say that we really appreciated very much the persistence and the commitment and sacrifice of our people during the crisis. We are very happy to not only to recognize the commitment and the support for the company and their persistence, but also to reward them. As a part of the profitability bonus of 2022, about 700 colleagues of ours, we gave a profitability bonus which totals EUR 12 million. On the fourth pillar related to our customer service and our passenger service. During the pandemic, we continued our efforts to improve our customers experience, invest in every stage of the travel journey, invest in digital technologies and services to our customers. As a couple of examples, during 2022, we launched three new lounges, extra Schengen lounge in Athens business class lounge, new business class lounge in Thessaloniki Airport and a renovated and enhanced intra Schengen lounge at Athens International Airport. We further enhanced passenger experience by offering high speed in-flight broadband powered by the European Aviation Network in all our 320, 321 neo fleet. We worked and we deepened our product in our business class product. A product segment that in the past had very low contribution, but since the pandemic period has almost doubled. A fact that is a product segment which is very important not only for revenue but also for the perception of the company. We remain one of the few carriers in Europe that we still offer a food service for free in economy. We believe that all our efforts that we have done also during the pandemic in upgrading our product and offering more quality product to our passengers goes hand in hand with an overall upgrade in the Greek tourism and the target of a more qualitative segment, which is the higher segment also of the market. Closing and going to the last, but obviously not least, the last pillar regarding sustainability. Aegean in 2022, we launched the first Sustainable Aviation Fuel program, and we became the first and only carrier in Greece, one of the few in Europe that has that is operating part of the domestic international network with SAF. We remain committed as the whole airline industry in the targets to achieve net zero by 2050. Obviously, part of our sustainability strategy, in fact the most significant part, towards the reduction of the CO₂ emissions is the investment in our brand, in our new A320 and neo renewal fleet. The launch of the SAF program assists and helps in that direction. Overall, on the sustainability front and on the environmental front, the combination of the brand A320, A321 neo fleet, the replacement of the turboprop fleet with a more fuel efficient ATR 72-600 and the use of SAF contributed to more or less a reduction of 10% in CO₂ emissions per ASK in 2022 versus 2019. This completes the five pillars. Thank you very much, Dimitris. I think it's important for you to see areas we're working in and just try to give you a taste beyond the pure financials. Going back to reviewing the financials and the way forward, you will have noticed in our press release we mentioned we would not be paying dividends for the fourth year in a row. Obviously, that's not something we aim to continue in the future, but it's something we felt we had to mention at the onset of our presentation this year because there is an element of further capital building, equity building that needs to take place because we have still an outstanding obligation to the state with regard to their warrants. Our current intention is when they decide to exercise the warrants to actually buy them out. We believe this intention will still be there when and if they exercise the warrants. They've got three years between the 1st of July of this year and July 26th. We have taken a provision of EUR 30 million against our equity when we accepted the compensation for our losses back in 2021. However, today, the price of the stock, which determines to a certain extent, not to a certain extent, determines the value of the warrants, is at a level that requires a higher provision. Other word, would require, I'm sorry, a higher amount if, beyond the provision, so that would take a certain amount of our equity, and therefore we need to be more conservative about that. Of course, none of us are going to be unhappy if our stock price goes even higher and the state gets a little bit more money back from what it gave. That's fine too, because that will only validate the direction of the company. However, we do need to be conservative as our balancing grows in the equity level. We've never had a problem with cash, but of course, during the pandemic, equities did get challenged to a significant degree. Now, going into the outlook, first of all, let me say that this is certainly going to be the year where even at the start we have seen that we are exceeding full total passenger numbers from the year of 2019. We managed to exceed revenues gradually and significantly, but never passengers during 2022. The first two months of this year have seen us exceed the passenger count of 2019 as well. This is led by our performance in the international segment, which is showing significant strength even in winter. It's never going to make the first quarter profitable. Please don't expect that. It shows a very good dynamic going into the summer. What we have planned in terms of activity is significantly higher than 2022. We will operate actually with 76 aircraft. We will retain a very large amount, a number of aircraft, double the usual for spare, in order to try to improve our performance against logistic issues, whether they are Airbus delays, whether they are spare engine delays, whether they are any other kind of supply issue related to effective availability of aircraft. We are doubling our spare capacity in order to deal with that. The increase in the number of the fleet is not only to grow, but also to be more robust in terms of supporting our operations. It's a similar strategy to what we're doing with trying to develop our people through scholarships, but of course, with aircraft it's a different thing. On the other hand, we will actually fly round about 2.2 million-2.3 million seats more than 2022. That will be about 18.1 billion-18.2 billion of seats displaced all together. That will mean around about 20% ASK up from 2022 and around about 10% ASK up from 2019. Of course, the bulk of the investment in terms of network, where we have a large number of new routes being launched from Athens and Thessaloniki especially, but also from other bases around Greece, is going to be on the international side again. We will be operating to 46 countries with 261 total route, different routes covered and to a total of 161 destinations. That is certainly the largest program that any Greek airline has ever flown. More importantly than the size, what we aim to do is to make sure that this year our operation, as I said earlier on, not only has the quality of what it usually does, but again, be as well-equipped as possible to be more robust. Of course, we cannot compensate for everything. We cannot compensate what happens with ATC. We cannot compensate on what happens in different airports in Europe. We try to do what we can with our own people, with our own equipment, and with our own handling main companies here in Greece to try to improve the support behind the operation, because we understand and we see customers want to travel. They're willing to pay significant amount to travel. Our sales show that. Our pre-sales for the summer show that. They're very strong, and we need to be able to support that not only in size but also to the best of our capacity in terms of retaining and expanding forwardly. The outlook for the year at this stage is very positive. Of course, it's early times. Of course, we have seen in the last years many black swans. We hope there will be none this year, but we're always, we always have shown that even when strange things happen, we are resilient, and we are able to be flexible and come back from whatever difficulty appears. Let's hope that this summer will continue as the year starts with a very good, and strong demand that our people, our aircraft, and our network will be able to benefit from and get to even higher numbers than last year. Thank you. Happy to take questions. The first question is from the line of Svyriadi Natalia with Eurobank Equities. Please go ahead. Yes, good afternoon, congratulations for the very solid performance of 2022. I have two questions. Well, one is, if you could elaborate a bit more on the investment plans of the current year, what we should be expecting in the pre-delivery and refunds and the new service center. Should we consider this as more front-loaded investments, like more in 2023 and a bit less in the years, seven years ahead? Have you identified any investments that you could carry out under the RRF funding program? That was one question in investments. I also have a question on the jet fuel spread, which is, which has been quite high, and it remains in high levels. I was trying to understand a bit if this is related to supply or production and if China restrictions had any impact of this or, you know, if you have any indications on this and, you know, trying to understand how this works mostly. Thank you very much. Well, starting from the end, I think you should relate back to ELPE or Motor Oil for what's gonna happen on the crack spread. Let's just say that on our side, we have seen it go from 50 to 450 and back to 200, but still it's quite high for us. I cannot make predictions about which way that will go. That is actually more difficult for us to understand, even than the fuel itself. But you are right to identify that this has been a source of cost for us, especially since the beginning of the war in the Ukraine. It has driven a wedge, a significant wedge that has been up to 25% additional burden on the price of fuel beyond Brent. That's beginning to calm down. Now, I will not try to get you to choose between ELPE, Motor Oil and Aegean on what we wish will happen, but obviously would like it to see revert to its normal levels. Well, I can't make predictions about that. Now, I can tell you though, that whatever hedging we do is on jet by 95%-97% as opposed to Brent because despite the fact that Brent is more liquid, because we are afraid of what might happen to that spread and therefore we don't want to take that risk. Whatever hedging we do have is on jet, not Brent, also because of the variation, the variability on the crack spread. Now, going to investment, there are several, four of them. The question is, of course, how do you finance the investment? The MRO and the simulator investment has three elements. One is a concession agreement with Athens International Airport. That's a payment of EUR 60 million, and then some, let's call them, participations in the revenue which are in the form of a minimum rent. The EUR 60 million is spread over the next five years. We've already paid EUR 10 million. So let's call that EUR 10 million a year for the next few years. That's one part. Another part that's more front-loaded than that is the equipment, both for the simulators primarily. However, the equipment for the simulators will be also supported by the loans that are related to the RRF. CapEx is significant, but out-of-pocket expense will be less than that. Nothing overly significant looking at the balance sheet and cash flow capacity of Aegean. What is significant is our choice of how to finance our fleet and whether to continue on the course that we've had in the past of primarily doing sale leasebacks with our aircraft that we acquire from Airbus or having more of them on balance sheet and in our ownership. Of course, then deciding what degree of loan to value to finance them with. Our decision and direction in the last few months has been to try to increase over the next couple of years the balance between owned assets and leased assets. As a result, last year, as I said, for instance, we bought all the engines, the spare engines. It was not an insignificant amount. It was around EUR 60 million as opposed to doing sale leasebacks as we would have done in the past. We also bought three ATR 72s. In the next couple of years, we expect to be buying roughly two or three aircraft without sale leasebacks. Let's say a third of what we expect to procure in total will be we used to say on balance sheet, but now that IFRS 16 everything is on balance sheet. I don't know, call it what you like. We do need to develop our asset base, our owned asset base, also as a hedge against inflation, because we have seen that's more important. That's gonna take, let's call that around EUR 50 million-EUR 60 million a year, that's going to be added to our CapEx. If you combine that with the portions of the concession, the part that has to do with the equipment of the MRO or the simulators, then we're talking roughly about EUR 100 million-EUR 120 million of CapEx for each of this year and the next year. I hope I've answered your question. I don't know if I missed something. No, no. That was very, very informative. Thank you very much. The next question is from the line of [audio distortion] with Beta Securities. Please go ahead. Yes. Hello. Good evening, gentlemen. I have a couple of questions, if I may. One has to do with any potential pre-delivery payments for neos that will be paid during this year, during 2023. That's the first question. The second one has to do with the period of hedging only for the jets, as you mentioned. From what level do you start of hedging? Do you start the 2023? Up to what level do you aim to reach during the course of the year? I mean, for the hedging. Third question relates to the trends that you noticed for the previous three quarters that we saw an accelerating growth rate in revenues compared to the ASKs available, if that stands the same for 2023 so far. And last but not least, for the warrants, you mentioned that you want to keep liquidity in case the government proceeds with the exercise of the warrants so as to buy them back and cancel them. Due to the recent political turmoil and developments, supposing that government does not go on with willing to exercise the warrants in this July when there is the two-year anniversary, are you willing to keep the money in the balance sheet or you are probably thinking of rewarding shareholders with something extra during H2 2023? You are not entitled to give any remuneration as long as the warrants are there? Thank you. Okay. I, you know, rewarding shareholders being that I am one, is always close to my heart, and I have, basically, as you know, 65% of the shareholder base is in our board. Therefore, you know, second to serving our passengers and, second to keeping flying as safe as we can, this is also a very important concern. Let me be very clear. I did not mention, first of all, that retaining cash is a constraint. Retaining equity levels cash in the company as we write, as we wrote already on the press release, we have actually on the 15th of March repaid the last of the remaining loans that we took from during COVID. During COVID, we raised in total EUR 270 million of loans from the four Greek, the four major Greek banks. We paid back EUR 120 million in the summer of 2021 when we did the capital increase. We paid back another EUR 80 million circa in last December, before the reporting of these results. We paid another EUR 68 million, which was the last part, as of two days ago, if memory serves, on the 15th of March. That means that EUR 270 million have been repaid. As we also wrote in the press release, our current liquidity levels are in excess of EUR 500 million, and they are building for the summer. In terms of availability of cash, there's absolutely no restriction to do anything reasonably relevant to the running of the company or indeed of paying, of executing the CapEx or of paying dividends. Nor is there a restriction in the warrants agreed with the Greek state that does not allow us to pay dividends even this year. However, we felt because we live in a world that's become more volatile and because we have a growing balance sheet because of the number of aircraft, new aircraft that we're investing in, that we need to develop our equity base at a higher level, our equity level, not our cash level. Therefore, we need more time to build it higher, and we need more good years like the one we just had. Hopefully, if things continue as they look like today, and that's always a big if in this world, then we will have a significantly stronger equity base by the end of 2023. That means that we will be able both to have a very safe balance sheet, at the same time be able to pay back the warrants at any time that the government or any government decides to exercise them. Of course, we intend, if indeed we have a good year as we expect in 2023, to start paying dividends to our shareholders in 2024, irrespective of whether the government has or any government has actually exercised these warrants or not. What we need to build is our equity base. We had two very strong loss-making years. We had the capital increase. We had the loss recovery fund amount given by the government, that EUR 120 million. We took a EUR 30 million provision against our equity for the value of the warrants already, so that's already gone from our equity. We had a first positive year with EUR 106 million after tax in 2022, rebuilding our equity at higher levels. We want to be, let's call it, over EUR 400 million of equity before we start paying dividends. That's basically it because our balance sheet has grown. Yes, if the value of the share, for instance, is what it is today and the government exercises the warrants, then we'll need about EUR 42 million to pay. That will mean another EUR 12 million hit on the equity because we've taken a provision of 30. Therefore, that's the additional potential effect, let's say if the price is like today, another EUR 12 million. If the price, let's hope to be positive, is another EUR 1 higher, that would be another EUR 10 million because it's about 10.5 million warrants. What I'm trying to say, to be clear, we're trying to be conservative to have strong equity. We don't have restrictions from what has been agreed to the government other, of course, than to fulfill our obligation when and if, they, they exercise either to allow them to become shareholders or to buy out their rights. We've always indicated we prefer to be in a position to buy out their rights, and we're trying to secure that. There is no restriction in terms of legal restriction of paying out dividends that's related to the exercise of the warrants from the Greek government. Now, I think I've covered that. PDP is a quick and very easy answer. PDP, net-net is zero this year. That means the money we're getting back from deliveries and the buy we're paying in is roughly the same. It will go up, it will go down here, but net-net beginning to end is zero. From 2024 and on, it begins to just go down. From now on, PDP is either zero for this year net-net or from 2024 and on, begins to decrease. Hedging level is around about 64%, 55%, as we, sorry, mistake. It's 62% in total for 2023. It's on jet fuel, and it's around $850 per metric ton, which is the hedging level. We've also hedged a small amount for 2024 at lower levels. That is the total that we have, and it covers all our, or it covers, as I said, 62% of our needs. Now the trends, I said earlier on, yes, the sales are higher than 2019. Yes, there is an increase of revenue related to the ASKs. We need an increase of revenue related to the ASKs because costs are higher. More or less all costs are higher. Not only do you need to be over the amount of ASKs you're producing relative to 2019, but you need significantly higher than that. For now, we seem to be going the right way. Hopefully, it will continue. I think I've answered again all questions. Yes, you've been very helpful. Thanks a lot. The next question is from the line of Caithaml Jakub with WOOD & Co. Please go ahead. Hi, Jakub from WOOD. Thanks a lot for the presentation. I wanted to ask about the capacity outlook from your competitors for the summer season, to the extent that you may have visibility already. Can you share with us how much capacity do you expect will be allocated to Greece, either compared to last summer or to summer 2019? On pricing, do you already have some visibility into late second quarter? If so, how do May or June yields compare to the levels we have seen during those months in 2022? Lastly, something which you touched on in the last answer, could you elaborate a bit more on the evolution of the ex-fuel costs, with the inflationary pressures on one hand, the efficiency achieved by the more efficient fleet on the other, what do you expect will be the key drivers of the ex-fuel cost year-on-year? Thank you. Okay. Thank you for the question. Capacity, when we look at published figures of scheduled flights, we are talking about 5% capacity all over Greece increase relative to 2022, but 15% relative to 2019. That is because already last year there was actually more capacity to Greece than the 2019. Of course, the Deltas relative to last year are primarily in the first part of the year, the first six months, and they also refer mostly to activity towards Athens and Thessaloniki. Whereas in the regions, the rest of the islands, which were really high also as of last year, there is ins and outs, but round about net net, a very small increase. Overall, again, 5%-6% relative to 2022 as market capacity, not competitors. This includes ours, which is significantly higher than that. The average for the competition is a little less. 15% relative to 2019 for the overall market, which is a little more than we're up, which means basically this year we're catching up with the capacity recovery toward Greece that some competitors have shown. Of course, we're shifting the capacity between routes and between airports in a way that we consider more productive. That was question number one. Question number two about yields. I think other than to repeat things are looking good, I shouldn't say so much because typically when we say things are looking good, it means that their pre-bookings, which are only a share of your bookings, are at somewhat higher fares than they used to be in 2019. That looks good. Until you actually see that the pattern up until the day of flight continues in the same trend, you cannot give a definitive response to your question. You know, I'd rather be a little bit more conservative about that. We feel pretty good about it. The last part I missed. Was it about non-fuel costs, I think. Non-fuel costs. I think we do need to recognize that there is a inflationary environment. That means that our employees must be compensated in a different way. Depends on what kind, what level of people and what specialization within the company. It could be a fixed increase or it could be a participation through productivity bonuses or profitability bonuses or any combination of the above, but definitely that's a part of it. Also what is more, what is clear is that airports around Europe are increasing their fees and charging levels. That refers to some of the airports of Greece as well, as well as airports we fly into in Europe. Same for handling services. Of course, we see escalation, but significantly higher than usual on all kinds of supplier agreements for maintenance, or parts, around that affects us. All that comes together to create significantly higher inflationary pressures relative to the past. On the other hand, you have improvements because either we have one type less of aircraft with the ATRs, with the removal of the two 400 s and having now the smaller props and the larger props be the same kind, 72 and 42- 600. Whether it is the higher number of new aircraft, more efficient aircraft, more fuel efficient aircraft in the fleet, but also more seats per aircraft in the fleet. Of course, because they're younger, lower maintenance costs. Do we expect an improvement on the non-fuel cost per ASK? I would say it's hard to say because by the end, it will depend on the level of utilization. One more thing that is burdening us is the retention of additional aircraft, for spare, as I mentioned earlier on. I wouldn't expect a significant improvement on that area. It will depend more on the utilization side and how all these different effects come together. If I had to bet, I would expect that non-fuel costs will go up by a couple of percentage points or three. I think that should cover it. Thank you very much. The next question is from the line of Kumar Achal with HSBC. Please go ahead. Yeah, hi. Thank you for the opportunity. Great set of number. Congratulations. I have three questions, actually. First of all, on the capacity guidance, you mentioned that you're gonna fly 18 million seats, which is broadly as same as 2019. Why the number of aircraft are significantly higher? I mean, 2019, you had about 67 aircraft, now you're saying you're flying 76 aircraft, still your number of seats are same. Where is the mismatch? That's my first question. I'll go question by question. Sorry, sorry. Just to answer that one, to get it out of the way. The number of seats is the same, not the ASKs. The ASKs are gonna be 10% higher. All the buildup is in international, seats are not the only count. The ASKs are 10% higher. That takes part of your question, the other part of your question is answered by the fact that we are doubling the number of spare aircraft in the back to cover for logistics issues. Sorry. Does that mean you are saying that you will not effectively, you will not be flying 76 aircraft? Is that what you're trying to say? We will be operating 76 aircraft, but we are retaining aircraft for spare. Every year we have aircraft for spare. Usually, it's 3-4. Now it's going to be 6-7 between all the number of aircraft. Round about six or seven aircraft instead of 3-4 aircraft will not be flying. Why? Because we wanna be ready for Airbus delays. We wanna be ready for spare engine delays. We wanna be ready for spare parts delays. Last year, we had to pay around EUR 9 million in the summer for two very expensive ACMI, meaning wet leasing of aircraft operated by others because of Airbus delays and because of spare engine delays. We want to avoid that cost, but we also want to avoid a disruption to our operation and to our passengers, because we feel as we are charging them more, as all other airlines do, and as we're trying to also say that we are having a better product, we need to support that. How can we support that other than training, other than trying to have more better support by our handlers and also having more spare capacity in the back to cover for what we've seen every year since the pandemic, a completely different logistics scene than before. I'm sure you've read and heard about that. That's the reason that there are three, four more spare aircraft than there would be. That's about a, let's call it a 4%-5% gap in the number of aircraft. Also, we will be producing 10% more ASK. 67 plus 10% is 73. The 73-76 is the spare aircraft gap. How should we look at the usage in terms of a utilization of the assets versus 2019? Obviously, that means that if you have 14%, 15% more aircraft and 10% more ASK relative to 2018, 2019, I'm sorry, you're going to be a little bit lower because this is the cost of having the spare aircraft. You had that cost in a worse way already in 2022. Why? Because when we paid the EUR 9 million for the two ACMI aircraft, that's equivalent to five aircraft of that age sitting around unused. Instead of five, we're going for three that can be flown by our crews as opposed to somebody else's. That's how you think about it. Okay. No fair enough. Second question I had around the shortage of pilots and crew. I mean, I'm listening a lot about the shortage of pilots and crew. Yesterday only Air France announced something about the pilots, I mean, paying some extra bonus if they cancel the leave. I mean, how do you see the situation in terms of pilots and crew, especially when the demand is growing so fast, so rapidly, and everybody's growing? How do you see that? Is that an issue? Can that be a risk to the capacity? Can that be a risk? I mean, you know. This is precisely the reason why we embarked on the scholarship programs that Dimitris mentioned earlier on. We identified this risk back in 2018, 2019, which is why we became the first company ever in our country, at least, to invest EUR 7 million on training people that didn't know, but they put through a lot of testing before we accepted these people in the scholarship program. We paid for two years of education in what is a broad pilot license, the initial pilot license and then of course their type rating to join our specific jet operation, Airbus A320, A321. We have seen that coming for a long time and we have tried to address the fact that paying EUR 60,000 for a young Greek to be trained as a co-captain, as a pilot is a very large amount of money, which is why we instituted the scholarship program back in 2018, and why Dimitris mentioned we also went into V2 with another 120 people over the next three years. We have secured today 80 crews more. Sorry, 80 individuals more for our organic operation that are people who owe their ability to be pilots, to become pilots to Aegean. This we hope is also not a quantitative issue only, but also we hope a trust and loyalty issue going forward, which might allow us, if we treat them right and if the company develops well, to have a different relationship with us than they would if we just hired them off the market. This is how we've been dealing with this issue in a very medium-term planned way and a very unique way, especially for our country, I think, because I don't know what other people do in other countries. Today, I cannot say that this is not an issue for all the airlines, but I think we have a pretty good situation and one where we have basically 20% more organic pilots than we had before the pandemic. I think very, very few people in Europe can say that. Right. Okay then. Another thing I want to understand about the domestic demand. You mentioned that international demand has been very strong. But now, of course, given that the Greek economy is doing so well, do you see... I mean why do you see the domestic demand is not recovering at the speed that international demand is recovering better than domestic? What kind of weakness do you see in the domestic demand? How do you see rather domestic demand versus 2019? I don't know. I would never said that domestic demand is weak. Overall domestic market is recovering pretty well and is actually a little bit higher I think already than it was in 2019. There is a domestic competitor that is now using Airbus jets as well that did not exist before the pandemic, and therefore they take away around about 10% more of the market than they did when they were flying just props. As a result, we have to compensate for that in our thinking. That's only a normal, let's say a normal matter. Now, in terms of how much that affects us, as we also wrote in our press release, we are 80% of our revenues international. Every year, international becomes more of a part of our revenue, and that's where we make most of our profit. However, it's true to say that yes, around 10% of domestic market share has been lost since before the crisis because our domestic competitor is now flying jets as well as opposed to just props. The domestic demand is not at all weaker overall than what it was before the crisis. It has a smaller capacity delta than the international because it depends, it doesn't depend so much on tourism. It's more about, it's more about people moving from one place to the other and more tourists in the summer. That's the situation there. Sorry. When you say domestic players, are you referring to the players like Ryanair and all? I mean, are you talking about the local players? No. Local one. Actually, Ryanair, there are four companies partially active in the Greek market. I mean, one of course is us. Second is Ryanair, but only a couple of routes and on typically only in the summer. Volotea is also active in domestic routes, three or four of them, but again, five of them actually, but only in the summer. There's a local competitor, SKY express, which has existed for about eight, 10 years now, initially only with props and then eventually with jets as well. It's the evolution of the jet capacity of the local competitor that I'm referring to. That capacity has grown. The capacity of Ryanair in the domestic market is less. The domestic, the capacity of a couple of other small operators that used to exist in the past over Greek has disappeared. There's ins and outs, but broadly speaking now there's less international competition in the domestic market and more local competition. Right. Sorry, I have last two questions so sorry for the long list. I, but I promise I'll shut up after that. I have last two questions, please. One, if you could just discuss a bit more about your SAF usage. You said you're using SAF and of course, along with the more advanced airplane, you have, you've been able to cut your carbon emission. But, I mean, I am just guessing, most of the carbon emission reduction must have come from because of the more- Don't trouble yourself. We should have added a word. What we're doing is SAF. Now I just want to understand, I mean, what kind of blend you're doing in SAF and how. Hold on. You're, there's no reason. We are only trialing. We have initiated the use of SAF. It's on a trial basis, a very small amount. It's very difficult to source higher and of course, it's very expensive. We're using it on a trial basis in Athens and Thessaloniki, but it's a trial basis. The bulk of the delta comes from just burning less fuel by using more fuel efficient aircraft, which is why, again, this year, going from 20 to 23, as Dimitris explained, when we go up to round about 40% of the hours flown by just 48% I think it was. Yes. By the new fleet, that's gonna bring a reduction that's again, going to be more significant. The bulk, 99% of the improvement does not come from SAF. SAF is on a trial basis with us as it is with others in Europe. Yeah, exactly. No, that, that's what my point was. Sorry, but I was actually requesting you to expand a little bit more about in terms of SAF. When you use SAF, of course I've heard from the other European airlines that they are sort of trying to build into the fare at some stage, but the takers are not very many, you know, not many passengers are ready to pay for carbon emission. Do you have any thoughts around that? If you could please share that. My last question was around the warrants. You said that if the government wants to convert or want to exercise those warrants, then of course, you will have to there'll be some additional burden. The question is that would you really want a government interference? If the government exercises the options, then of course the government will be on board and there'll be a sort of interference from the government. How do you see that situation? I think, what is, what was highlighted, and what I said earlier on is what is a warrant? A warrant is a right to participate in a capital increase. At what level? At the level of the share price that we conducted the capital increase in June 2021. What is that? That's EUR 3.2 per share. How many are the warrants? EUR 10.4 million, EUR 10.5 million. Technically, when the government exercises their right, they declare their intention to participate in a capital increase in a discounted way, a dilutive way for the shareholders that would allow them to invest EUR 34 million in the company and get round about 10% of the company. When they do that, we have the right, when they do that, if they do that, to buy out their rights by canceling these warrants by paying the Delta between their stock price and the 3.2 times the number of the warrants. Now, we today, and we have always felt, so long as we can do it, we will do it. We will buy out their warrants when and upon their intention to exercise. That's what I described earlier on. If they were to come here in July and say, "Yes, we want to do it," and the price was as it is today, that would be an amount that we would need to be able to invest EUR 40 million, EUR 42 million, EUR 43 million. I can't follow it every day with the price of the share, that we should pay out. We've already taken a provision of EUR 30 million for that. As I said, cash-wise, it might be EUR 40 million, EUR 42 million, EUR 45 million. Additional provision or additional hit to equity-wise will be the delta between the final cost and the EUR 30 million that we're taking a provision for. Yes, we have the cash of course to do that, and we have the intention to do that when and if they exercise the warrants. Okay. On SAF, one thing, if you could share your thoughts? On SAF. I think what is clear is that there are two different things. How an airline reduces what it burns in terms of CO2 and what it emits in terms of CO2, and on the other hand, how an airline relates with passengers. Those are two different things that we intend to approach in completely different ways. We have a program about how to enact different, smaller or larger actions that make us look more concerned about sustainability that goes beyond just fuel to our customers, with the materials that we use in flight, with what we use to serve food, with everything else, and of course, going into also how we fly and what we use for flying. That's different. That's about the impressions of the customer and the effort that should be consistent along different directions for sustainability. The real issue about fuel, as I said, in the short run of the next two, three, four years, can only be determined by the efficiency of the engine. The amounts of SAF are going to be very small. For the next four or five years, regardless of what kind of SAF we're talking about, the effect is going to be negligible in terms of what's going to be used. Beyond that, it will depend on how different investors in the energy field come together to bring down these costs and to increase the supply. Unless the increase of the supply takes place, it's clear that we will not we, any airline in Europe will not be able to materially use those. Then comes the issue of cost. To make a long story short, for the next three, four years, it's the efficiency of the planes that we use that's going to drive things. Beyond that, it's going to be the investment and the development in SAF. I'm not ready to tell you today because it doesn't really depend on Aegean or indeed on practically any other airline, how the cost of the supply of SAF is going to develop. That's a European-wide problem. It goes far beyond the aviation industry even, and it's an issue that needs could have a lot of solutions but do not depend on us. Okay. Thank you so much. We should be done. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Memisoglu Osman with Ambrosia Capital. Please go ahead. Hello, many thanks for your time and the presentation. Couple on my side, please. Firstly, on your international expansion plans, I was wondering if you could give a bit more color on whether how much of the ASK growth and how much is from frequency, what part is from destination increase? Then with all the aircraft coming in and rates environment growing, could you talk a bit about how you handle the interest rate impact pressures with hedging and everything? Finally, if you'd like to comment on just any color direction guidance on EBITDA margin for 2023 versus 2022? Thank you. Right. First of all, I would like to say that what is clear is that the bulk, I don't have a division between new routes and existing routes or frequency. I can tell you this, the bulk of the ASKs will always come from existing routes. This year, in addition, we have a big delta on ASKs is going to come on the first six months because of what happened last year and the years before. I would say expect 98% of the ASKs to come from increase of frequency in existing routes. Why? Because first, they will be fully flown in the first six months, and second, even the delta on peak is going to be mainly in frequency as we indulge existing routes because those are the trunk routes. The routes that we launch this year, whether they are, you know, three Baltic routes, whether there are two, three additional routes in this peninsula, in Sevilla or in Palma de Mallorca, these are seasonal, they're small. We're doing many different ones. We're doing Olbia and Sardinia. We're doing Dammam and Kuwait, in Saudi and Kuwait, respectively. We have a number of routes that expand on two things, expand on our relevance to adding to the Athens hub, and expand also on the ability to bring people directly to Athens and to other places. We are making a significant investment at Thessaloniki. We are flying even in winter six more routes than we were flying the same time last year. Those are, I would say, significant routes because they're Zürich, Berlin, Milan and Rome, and Brussels. There are significant routes that are coming online, but the bulk of ASKs is from existing routes for the two reasons I've mentioned. Now, margin on EBITDA, I wish I knew. I would, you know. If I did, then I would be a very happy person if it was going the right way. I think there's a lot of positive things about this year, but it's always good to give more definitive guidance by the end of by early June or the end of June, typically after we publish at least our first quarter, and we have a good idea of what Q3 pre-sales mean. Today, if we're doing better than 2019, that's good, but that still means that we have a lot of capacity to sell for the summer, and how we sell it will determine a lot of the of the EBITDA that you're asking for. It looks good, but it's early. On the interest rate. Interest rate, yes. It would be. We have a number of swaps for some of the aircraft deliveries that we're taking this year. I believe we've got another four or five that are in existence, and four or five of them are significantly in the money, so protecting a little bit of the cost of the interest. Broadly speaking, there is no way to get away from the fact that no matter where we enter new agreements, whether they are floating rate or fixed rate, they are significantly higher level than the past. There is some comfort to the fact that, of course, our cash, which is typically invested in very secure, either depository or, a T-bill and government bond type, or AAA, bond type, investments, will be of somewhat higher yield than in the past, but that is more compensation for the overall increase of interest rates. I think the most important thing we will be doing for that is using, as I said, more of our cash to buy aircraft as opposed to lease aircraft, because that in this, in effect, will have both a better yield and be a better inflation hedge at the same time and allow us to be more flexible in the future to where in the case we need to change the size of our fleet, without having to negotiate with the lessor, which typically in difficult situations is not an easy discussion. That's what I'm saying. Maybe one small thing on capacity of Athens Airport. With capacities growing from competition, do you have any color on how what's the capacity utilization rate? When, if at all, you think it would be full, in what time frame? The word full is a complex word in discussing an airport the size of Athens. Athens is a long way from being full in terms of runway capacity, in terms of ability of aircraft to land and take off from two runways. That it's got a lot of room to grow from that aspect. Then there is the terminal space which determines, let's call it the comfort level of passengers and how you feel when you're inside a terminal. That is getting more crowded and yes, indeed, there is a plan by Athens Airport to expand. There's also an obligation by Athens Airport to expand as it reaches certain numbers. The obligation comes from the concession agreement with the Greek state. The Athens Airport, as you know, is en route to be listed in the Athens Stock Exchange, so I'm sure they'll be eager to show that they are developing and investing, and we are eager to see them do that. Granted, had we not had COVID, perhaps some expansion would have already taken place, but you know, life is life. Short answer, runway capacity, no restriction for a long, long time. That's the main restrictive part in airport so there's no issue there. Terminal space, it is important that they do take invest. If it's delayed by a couple of years relative to what we would like, yes, that's true. It's not so intense this delay or so large this delay that would really affect our operation too much. Understood. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Vassilakis for any closing comments. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for attending our conference call. I was very happy to be reporting these great results and that we're back on track to being and looking like a healthy, developing European airline with a very good margin, with I believe an excellent product, and an improving product with the investments that we're making both on the aircraft and on our service. Of course, as always, our people and the development of our people what's going to determine our ability to compete forward. I hope that Dimitris gave you a very good idea about some of the things we do to deepen our ability to compete and to deepen our ability to offer the kind of service that will deserve the good EBITDA margin and eventually dividends that our shareholders expect. Thank you for attending, and I hope to have equally good news the next time we chat. Thanks. Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded. You may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for calling and have a good afternoon.