Copa Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
August 8, 2024

There are 14 speakers on the call.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Copa Holdings Second Quarter Earnings Call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question and answer session. As a reminder, this call is being webcast and recorded on August 8, 2024.

Operator

Now I will turn the conference call over to Daniel Tapia, Director of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Gee, and welcome everyone to our 2nd quarter earnings call. Joining us today are Pedro Heilbron, CEO of Copa Holdings and Jose Montero, our CFO. First, Pedro will start by going over our Q2 highlights, followed by Jose, who will discuss our financial results. Immediately after, we will open the call for questions from analysts. Copa Holdings' financial reports have been prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards.

Speaker 1

In today's call, we will discuss non IFRS financial measures. A reconciliation of the non IFRS to IFRS financial measures can be found in our earnings release, which has been posted on the company's website, copaair.com. Our discussion today will also contain forward looking statements not limited to historical facts that reflect the company's current beliefs, expectations and or intentions regarding future events and results. These forward looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially and are based on assumptions subject to change. Many of these are discussed in our annual report filed with the SEC.

Speaker 1

Now, I'd like to turn the call over to our CEO, Mr. Pedro Herbo.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Daniel. Good morning to all and thanks for participating in our 2nd quarter earnings call. Before we begin, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to all our co workers for their commitment to the company. Their continuous efforts and dedication have kept Copa at the forefront of Latin American Aviation. To them, as always, my highest regards and admiration.

Speaker 2

Once again, we're pleased to report industry leading financial results for the quarter. As stated in our earnings release yesterday, our 19.5% Q2 operating margin represents the 2nd best Q2 results in the company's history. Among the main highlights for the quarter, passenger traffic grew 10.6% compared to the same period in 2023, while capacity increased by 9.7 resulting in a 0.7 percentage point increase in load factor to 86.8%. Unit cost excluding fuel or CASM ex came in at 0 point 5 percent decrease compared to Q2 2023, mainly driven by lower aircraft maintenance costs and sales and distribution costs. Passenger yield came in at $0.121 8.7 percent lower year over year.

Speaker 2

As a result, unit revenues or RASM came in at $0.11 or 7.7% lower compared to Q2 2023. On the operational front, Copa Airlines delivered an on time performance of 87.6% and a completion factor of 99.7% for the quarter, once again positioning ourselves amongst the best in the industry. Furthermore, Copa was recently recognized by SkyTrax for the 9th consecutive year as the best airline in Central America and the Caribbean. I would like to take this opportunity to recognize our more than 8 1,000 co workers who day in and day out deliver a world class travel experience for our customers. Their contributions are key to our success.

Speaker 2

Turning now to our network. In the month of June, we started 3 new destinations, Raleigh Durham in the U. S, Florianopolis in Brazil and Tulum in Mexico. With these additions, we're now serving 85 destinations in 2 countries, solidifying our leadership position as the hub with the most international destinations in Latin America. With regards to our expectations for the rest of the year, as we notified the market last week on July 29, the Venezuelan government temporarily suspended commercial flight between Venezuela and several countries in the region, including Panama, forcing us to cancel our flight effective July 31.

Speaker 2

Although the official notice mandates the suspension of flights until August 31, at this time we cannot determine if this suspension will be extended. With regards to cost, we continue to focus on our cost efficiency initiatives and expect to deliver lower year over year unit costs for 2024, leading us once again to deliver industry leading margins for the year. Jose will provide more details regarding our outlook. To summarize, we delivered industry leading financial results for the Q2. We continue to deliver on our cost execution strategy.

Speaker 2

We keep expanding our network now serving 85 destinations across 32 countries, reinforcing Panama's position as the leading hub for international travel in Latin America. And we expect to deliver industry leading operating margins for the year. As always, our team continues to deliver world leading operational results while providing world class service to our passengers. Finally, we firmly believe that our business model remains as robust and relevant as ever and that our hub of the Americas in Panama is the best connecting hub in Latin America, making us the best positioned airline in our region to consistently deliver industry leading results. Now I'll turn over the call to Jose, who will go over financial results in more detail.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Pedro. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for being with us today. I'd like to join Pedro in acknowledging our great team for all their efforts to deliver a world class service to our passengers. I will start by going over our 2nd quarter results. We reported a net profit for the quarter of $120,300,000 or $2.88 per share.

Speaker 3

We reported a quarterly operating profit of $159,500,000 and operating margin of 19.5 percent in what is our seasonally lowest quarter of the year. Capacity came in at 7,400,000,000 available seat miles or 9.7% higher than in Q2 2023. Load factor came in at 86.8% for the quarter, a 0.7 percentage point increase compared to the same period in 2023. Passenger yields decreased by 8.7% to $0.121 mostly due to a revision of the unredeemed ticket revenue provision for tickets sold during the year 2024. As a result, unit revenues came in at $0.11 or 7.7% lower than in the Q2 of 2023.

Speaker 3

Excluding the revision related to the unredeemed ticket revenues, RASM would have decreased by 3.8% to $0.11 5 Unit costs or CASM decreased to $0.89 or 2.1% lower year over year. And finally, our CASM excluding fuel came in at $0.056 a 5.8% decrease versus Q2 2023, mainly driven by lower aircraft maintenance costs due to an adjustment in leased aircraft return provisions of 9 aircraft leases, which we extended during the quarter, as well as lower sales and distribution costs due to the higher penetration of both direct channels and the lower cost NDC travel agency channel. Excluding the adjustment in leased aircraft return provisions, the company would have reported an ex fuel CASM of $0.58 for the quarter, a 1.7% decrease year over year. Now I'm going to spend some time discussing our balance sheet and liquidity. As of the end of the Q2, we had assets of close to $5,400,000,000 As to cash short and long term investments, we ended the quarter with over $1,200,000,000 which represents 35% of our last 12 months revenues.

Speaker 3

And in terms of debt, we ended the quarter with $1,800,000,000 in debt and lease liabilities and came in with an adjusted net debt to EBITDA ratio of 0.6 times. I'm pleased to report that our average cost of debt, which continues to be comprised solely of aircraft related debt, is currently in the range of 3.6%, with around 70% of our debt being fixed. Turning now to our fleet during the quarter, we received 3 Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft, ending the 2nd quarter with a total fleet of 109 aircraft, comprised of 68 730seven-800s, 32 730seven MAX-9s and 9730seven-700s. These figures include 1 730seven-eight 100 freighter and the 9 730seven-eight 100s operated by Wingo. Also in the month of July, we received our first Boeing 737 MAX 8, increasing our total fleet size to 110 aircraft.

Speaker 3

Regarding the deliveries for the remainder of the year, recently, Boeing notified us of further delays to the 2024 delivery stream. And now we expect to receive only 2 additional MAX 8s during the remainder of the year to end the year with a total fleet size of 112 aircraft instead of the 115 mentioned during last quarter's call. In terms of financing, we have already secured Jokko financing for these deliveries as well as for the first three deliveries of 2025. As for our 2025 fleet plan, we currently expect to receive 15 aircraft for the year, all Boeing 737MAX 8s. And as mentioned before, we extended all of our 9 operating leases expiring next year.

Speaker 3

Additionally, as contemplated in an updated fleet plan, we expect to retire 2 of our Boeing 737-700s to end the year with a fleet of 125 aircraft. Turning now to the return of value to our shareholders. I'm pleased to announce that the company will make its 3rd dividend payment of the year of $1.61 per share on September 13 to all shareholders of record as of August 30. As to our guidance, we can provide the following update for the full year 2024. Due to the temporary suspension of our Panama to Venezuela flights, we now expect to increase our capacity in ASMs to approximately 9% year over year instead of our previous expectation of approximately 10%.

Speaker 3

And we reaffirm our operating margin guidance to be within the range of 21% to 23%. We're basing our outlook on the following assumptions: load factor of approximately 86.5 percent unit revenues in the range of $0.115 which account for the unexpected Venezuela capacity reductions, weaker currencies in the region and a lower fuel cost environment. CASM ex fuel in the range of $0.059 and we are now expecting an all in fuel price of $2.70 per gallon. Lastly, as you already know, last month, after a career spanning over 30 years at Copa, I announced my decision to retire from the company by the end of 2024. Being part of the Copa team here has been one of the joys of my life.

Speaker 3

Our company is in great form, consistently delivering strong financial results with unit costs at the lowest level they have ever been, while continuing to build our very strong balance sheet and returning value to the shareholders. We're currently engaged in an internal and an external search for my replacement, and I will remain with the company in an advisory role after my successful my successor's name to assist with a smooth transition. Thank you. And with that, we will open the call to some questions.

Operator

Thank Our first question comes from the line of Savi Syth from Raymond James.

Speaker 4

Hey, good morning, everyone. And I guess congratulations on getting some time off from the airline world, Jose. And maybe can I ask on the Venezuela flight suspension impacts, like how you're thinking about the impact given the uncertainty that you alluded to, just what's in the guidance in terms of kind of how long this impacts and what kind of pressure it puts on unit revenue in the Q3?

Speaker 3

Sure, Savi. And thank you for your good wishes there. So let me start by saying that the Venezuela impact is included in the guidance and we have taken a conservative assumption in terms of the capacity and the recent guidance here. And we assume that there will be a buildup of the capacity related to Venezuela either in Venezuela after August or on alternative markets. And the reason why the buildup of the capacities over a period of time, it will be a ramp up of that capacity, is because the flights need time to sell.

Speaker 3

So but we expect basically to be back at the full capacity by December, let's say, and a ramp up to occur between September December. So that's and it's all again, just to reiterate, it's all included in the guidance, both in the capacity guidance and in the RASM guidance.

Speaker 4

Got it. So the impact is across second half is what you have here?

Speaker 5

Yes.

Speaker 4

And not just 3Q? Makes sense. Absolutely. Can I

Speaker 3

Year over year, yes? Got it.

Speaker 4

Just if I might, on the demand side, you've seen some meaningful local currency devaluation against the U. S. Dollar over the last several months. Are you seeing any perhaps either because of that or weakening of economies, any impact on demand or any change in point of sale direction?

Speaker 2

Hi, Savi, it's Pedro.

Speaker 3

Hey, Pedro.

Speaker 2

So the of course, the Venezuela impact is immediate. We are a network airline. So it affects beyond just the O and D Panama, Venezuela and having to cancel from one day to the other, that has an impact in our whole network. So it's in the guidance already for Q3 and the rest of the year, as Jose will mention. And then that also is combined with the weaker currency that you alluded to, which is affecting mostly Brazil, which is the most important market for anyone in South America and actually in Latin America.

Speaker 2

So that's the main impact we're dealing with. It also has a network impact in our case. Otherwise, demand, it's okay. In spite of a lot of capacity growth from the industry in general.

Speaker 4

That's helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question.

Speaker 6

Our next question comes from

Operator

the line of Duane Pfennigwerth from Evercore ISI.

Speaker 5

Hey, guys. Good morning. And Jose, I don't know why you'd ever want to leave this industry. I think you're crazy.

Speaker 2

We agree.

Speaker 5

Just to follow-up on Savi's question,

Speaker 7

is this

Speaker 5

a utilization hit or do you actually have aircraft parked at this time? And just maybe I don't want to split hairs on your words, but you're assuming that by December this capacity is reallocated to Venezuela or to somewhere else in the network. Is that the right way to think about

Speaker 3

it? Sure. Yes, absolutely. That's the way to think about it. And there will be a ramp up.

Speaker 3

So it's not like we will have the ability to redeploy everything immediately, but we're assuming that there is a ramp up of that capacity, but that essentially will be either in Venezuela or somewhere else by the final part of the year. So yes, and it's I think conservative in nature in the way that we've done it.

Speaker 5

Okay. And then just on the one of the things you called out in the release, this change to an unredeemed ticket revenue provision. Can you just explain what that is and what changed and if that impact kind of continues?

Speaker 3

Yes, Duane. So it's indeed, it's a revision to the unredeemed ticket revenue provision that we have for tickets that we sell or we are selling in the year 2024. So following IFRS 15 standards, we apply for every dollar of sales we apply on the redeem ticket factor. And then that gets reconciled after a year once the ticket expire. So what we did this year just based upon observed behavior, we reduced somewhat the factory that we use.

Speaker 3

And so there is an assumption that there is a lesser percentage of tickets that will expire next year. And so and we therefore took the factor somewhat down and included that here. That's something that happens every year, but in this particular year we just saw a difference in the behavior of expired coupons. And that's all included in the guidance. It's contemplated in the guidance and the RASM guidance as well.

Speaker 3

So it's something that we've included in there.

Speaker 5

Okay. So maybe a way to think about it is less breakage or lower assumed breakage going forward. And so that's a 2Q through the next 12 months impact. So that would impact that's in this back half as well.

Speaker 3

You got it. And it's included in the RASM guidance for the full year that we included there.

Speaker 5

Yes. Okay.

Speaker 8

Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you.

Speaker 6

Our next question comes from

Operator

the line of Guilherme Mendez from JPMorgan.

Speaker 9

Hey, good morning, good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking the question and best wishes, Jose, on your new endeavors as well. I have just a follow-up on the first question. I guess, Pedro, you mentioned about demand still resilient despite all the capacity increase in the region. My question is if you see any kind of oversupply in any of the markets that you guys operate or how comfortable are you with the yield assumptions you have for the upcoming quarters?

Speaker 9

Thank you.

Speaker 2

Okay. So I mean, it's what you're saying cannot be ignored. So there's always going to be more pressure on yields when demand is growing at the pace that it has grown in Latin America. But the seats are being filled. Load factors are not hurting in general terms, at least not in our case.

Speaker 2

But when you add that up to other factors like the weaker currencies, which by the way, the weaker currencies are it's right now in a month could be different. It could strengthen again. So we're not saying this is like a we're forecasting the year, but things could change. But if we had a growing capacity to the other factors I mentioned, yes, there's going to there's always going to be some impact on yields. But that's all factoring in our guidance.

Speaker 9

Super clear. Thank you. And maybe a follow-up on this. You mentioned about ending in 2025 with nearly 10% fleet addition. Does it imply that we can assume a lower yield in 2025 when compared to 2024 given this additional capacity?

Speaker 2

We're growing capacity in a measured way. And we're actually growing probably half what others are growing in our part of the world. And we're growing according to the needs we have, the opportunities we see within our network. We're not trying to take land from anyone else. And again, it's measured to our opportunities and to our network path, what the industry in general is growing.

Speaker 2

So we're very, very comfortable with that. Plus we have a lot of flexibility to adjust along the way. We can park the 700s and harvest the engines or we can keep them flying depending also on Boeing deliveries. So we have a lot of flexibility we feel.

Speaker 3

And we are a profitability driven company. So we'll make the best decisions we can to make sure that to maximize our profitability. And by the way, we haven't issued guidance for 2025 yet, so stay tuned for that one. Praline guidance in November and then the full guidance in the February call.

Speaker 2

Very clear. Thank you both. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Stephen Trent from Citi.

Speaker 7

Yes. Good morning, gentlemen, and thanks for the time. And Jose, thanks to best wishes to you and thanks for all those times on the road and what have you. Really appreciate that. Thank you.

Speaker 7

And I was curious, just thinking about to some extent a follow-up on Guilherme's question in a different way. When you look at your opportunities to any high level view on, let's say, servicing new destinations versus increasing frequencies to existing destinations or maybe upgrading equipment or something along those lines?

Speaker 2

I don't think it's hi, Steven Pedro here. I don't think it's going to change much from what we've done in the past. Usually, plus or minus 80% of our ASM growth comes from existing destinations, but additional frequencies. And then the difference or new frequencies or new destinations, both during the year. That ratio won't change much.

Speaker 2

This year, we've added 3 destinations so far, maybe we'll add a 4th one by the end of the year. And we expect something similar in the coming years, somewhere between 35 new destinations each year. And as the region grows and our hub develops, we feel we have plenty of opportunities, including increasing our daily frequencies where we also have opportunities valuable opportunities.

Speaker 7

Okay. That's super helpful, Pedro. Thank you very much. And just the one quick follow-up here. I appreciate what you guys mentioned on Venezuela.

Speaker 7

Recently, there's been a bit of chop in Ecuador and what have you. At high level, do the other sort of broad markets you guys serve, are we talking about relatively commerce situations where it's more business as usual?

Speaker 3

Yes, in reality, there isn't really any other country that has any sort of non or political type of situation right now that is of concern.

Speaker 2

And there will always be something, there will always be something in our part of the world. We are born and raised in this part of the world and we're used to all of this and we've been successful in the highs and in the lows And we're comfortable knowing that we're dealing with today's crisis. There will be a new one tomorrow. And we'll strive always to run a company that can succeed beyond that.

Speaker 7

Great color Pedro and they're developed market carriers that would love to do half of what you guys do. So thanks very much.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Joao Frizzo from Goldman Sachs.

Speaker 10

Hey, good morning guys. Thanks for taking my questions. I had two quick follow ups. The first one relates to Venezuela. So you put out on the release that capacity amounts of roughly 2% of your total capacity.

Speaker 10

I just wanted to double check if this is the same case for revenues or if it's higher or lower amount. And then on the second point relating to the unredeemed ticket provisions, You guys did this revision in the recovery rate, right, of the non user tickets. But you have already sold a portion of the tickets for this year. This revision in the second quarter is only related to the Q2 itself or it already accounts for some of the tickets you guys sold for the second half, meaning the impact could be lower in the second half of the year on the revenue side? Thank you very much.

Speaker 3

Yes. Joe, I'll do the second part first. It is actually a catch up of the first half of the year. The second so the 3rd quarter won't really have that much of a significant impact because and again, as I mentioned before, it's included in the guidance. But that's a good call out.

Speaker 3

And indeed, the figure was also a little bit higher because in the Q2 of 2024, we included the assumption for both the 1st and the second quarter of the year.

Speaker 2

In terms of your first question, what's always going to happen in a network carrier like Copa is that we when we talk about ASMs, we're talking Panama, Venezuela ASMs, and those are relatively short hauls. When we talk about revenues, we're talking about network revenues, passengers originating in Venezuela or with destination Venezuela that go to or come from all over our network. So those are going to be much longer hauls. So revenues are going to always be much higher than ASMs in any similar situation. So we can say that revenues are going to be a little bit over double the ASMs just because it's short haul connecting to long haul.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

Speaker 2

And again, it's all in the guidance. The impact is all in the guidance.

Speaker 8

Yes. Super clear. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you.

Speaker 6

Our next question comes from the

Operator

line of Michael Linenberg from Deutsche Bank.

Speaker 11

Hey, good morning, everyone. And Jose, I echo what's been previously. You're going to be missed by the investment community. So congratulations on your new move.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Mike. My new move is basically going and do a lot of yard work in my house and give a hug and then lie on it.

Speaker 11

Sounds very nice. Anyway, back to the on the Q and A, I have a couple here. I didn't see anything in the release just around Boeing compensation on the MAX 9 grounding. I think last quarter, I think you had said that you had yet to reach an agreement. We're now looking at a year's loss of capacity.

Speaker 11

I think coming into this year, we thought your fleet was going to be 121 airplanes and now it looks like we're not going to get there until the end of 2025. How should we think about that compensation? Does it even ever show up in the numbers? Maybe it shows up in the cash flow. So I guess the question is, have you reached an agreement on that or is that still in the works?

Speaker 3

Yes, Mike, that's a very important question. Yes, we have reached agreement. I think it's a fair agreement. The agreement is of a confidential nature, but it is a fair agreement. And the way that accounting works, unfortunately, you can't claim like the benefit in one particular quarter.

Speaker 3

You have to so we'll see I think in summarized terms, we'll see the impact on the DNA line on a smaller impact on the DNA line over the next, call it, 4 years. So that's how it works because you basically book any benefit that you got from the agreement with them against the aircraft, let's say, on the property, plant and equipment line that may use that flows through a P and L through a D and A line and we're expecting that to flow through the P and L over the next 4 years.

Speaker 11

Jose, is it fair to say that it may be a smaller impact on the P and L, but maybe a larger on the cash flow because things like PDPs get pushed back? I mean, the fact that you're not getting airplanes?

Speaker 3

Yes. There's a portion of it there as well, of course. Okay. So yes, we are totally correct.

Speaker 11

Okay, great. And then just my second question, when we look at kind of the competitive back drop, I know there were a few questions asked about oversupply. I look at the Copa network and with the exception, I guess, of Port Alegre, because of the floods and the airport closure, I don't see any route cancellations. But then when I look at Wingo based in Colombia and I kind of look at this year, there are a lot of routes that look like they're either being canceled and there is a bit of churn there. And I presume that that's in response to just the competitive backdrop in Colombia, which may be a little bit more intense than say what you're seeing.

Speaker 11

Can you talk about that, maybe what you're seeing in that market? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yes. Hi, Mike. Pedro here. And you're right, you kind of answered the question. The Colombia market, it's very, very competitive, very intense and lower yield.

Speaker 2

So Wing was constantly adjusting to market trends and to competition and where the opportunities are. So a year ago, they shifted a lot of capacity from international to domestic. And lately, they have readjusted that a little, put a little bit more international, reduced domestic somewhat. So they're always adjusting to the market opportunity to remain profitable and successful and also conservative. They again, in a market that's been so volatile, they've tried to just be conservative and keep things under control.

Speaker 2

And that's been their formula to do well and fill a niche in that very competitive market.

Speaker 11

Okay. That's helpful, Pedro. If I could just squeeze one last one in on the share repurchase program. It did look like the shares were down a little bit. Was there any activity in this quarter, Jose?

Speaker 11

And with your cash or liquidity at 35% of LTM revenue, should we be primed for maybe a follow on? Or is that maybe a bit aggressive on my thinking? Thank you again. Thanks for everything.

Speaker 3

Yes, during the quarter there was the program was active. We bought I think there were $10,000,000 worth of shares

Speaker 2

and in

Speaker 3

the Q1 we had bought some more. So yes, and we're of course we have a lot of means by which we return value to our shareholders including our dividend. But we also are a growing company. So we have a lot of aircraft coming over the next couple of years. And we also have to make sure that we fund the PDPs and etcetera for our growth.

Speaker 3

So and we're also being actively buying leases. We've been actively buying aircrafts. So we've deployed capital in different ways over the year 2024.

Speaker 11

Great. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Mike.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Alberto Valerio from UBS.

Speaker 12

Hi. Good morning, gentlemen, Pedro and Jose. Jose, good luck for the new cycle. I hope to see you around in some sports events, maybe as one. My question is regarding the redeemed tickets, if there is any specific event that caused this change in the behavior of the consumer?

Speaker 12

And my second question is whether your guidance is considering further deterioration in the American market and some shift of the aircraft to Latin market? Thank you very much.

Speaker 3

Yes. No particular consideration of a shift in the network in general terms. I think we expect the network to remain fundamental in the same way. And in terms of the first question, it wasn't really an event. I mean, this happens every year and but in particular, I think that the call was that we decided to make this sort of almost, I don't want to say retroactive because it's still part of 2024, but we just decided to actually be conservative in our approach in terms of the unredeemed ticket revenue factor that we use.

Speaker 12

Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you.

Speaker 6

Our next question comes from

Operator

the line of Danielle McKenzie from C4 Global.

Speaker 13

Hey, hi. Jose, congrats on going out on a great run. It's been great working with you over the years. So, enjoy. Appreciate it.

Speaker 13

Yes. A couple of questions here. The plan to use the balance sheet and liquidity position to strengthen your competitive position, reinforce the network and product, going back to the press release. My first question is, if this might mean an investment in another airline that might be in distress right now, first question. And then what or what opportunities are you seeing?

Speaker 13

And then how would you be how are you valuing that these potential opportunities? It would be great if you just elaborate a little bit more here.

Speaker 2

I'll answer that one, Dan. We usually don't play in that market, but we wouldn't comment either if we were doing something. So but if you look at our track record, we've always been very conservative and grown organically. So I don't see that changing much in the future. But of course, we always be alert for any opportunity.

Speaker 2

And we did purchase an airline in Colombia 19 years ago, which is now Wingo. So we've done it before and we will always be alert, but we're a conservative operator when we look to our past.

Speaker 13

Yes, understood. Okay. Second question here is, I'm wondering if you can elaborate a little bit more on NDC. It seems to be driving revenue and cost savings. So I'm curious what percent of the tickets you're upselling today, what percent of the revenue it is and what the growth rate is in this particular segment at this point?

Speaker 2

Right. So our direct connect strategy has been a huge success and it has driven some of our CASM competitiveness and our lower CASM. So it's been very successful. Talking about the specific numbers, in general terms, GDS, so traditional the traditional GDS channel was over 2 thirds of our bookings when we started towards the end of 2022. And today is much less than a quarter of our business.

Speaker 2

So talking like in general terms, we are over 80% either direct or NDC channels today, over 80% travel agency connecting through NDC or coho.com bookings And the traditional high cost GDS channel is really a small percentage of our business, relatively speaking.

Speaker 13

Okay. So able to upsell on 80% of the bookings now versus maybe a third in the past is the way to kind of think about that?

Speaker 2

Not sure if I get exactly what you're asking. But Copa dotcomplusnbcconnections, so directnbcconnections are 80% of our business. And 2 years ago, it would have been only copa.com and other direct channels, which would have been in the 30%

Speaker 13

range. Understood. Okay. Thanks for the time you guys.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Anthony. Thank

Operator

you. Our last question comes from the line of Tom Fitzgerald from TD Cowen.

Speaker 8

Hi, everyone. Thanks very much for the time and I just want to echo everyone's congrats to Jose. Would you mind updating us on just putting some numbers on bookings and traffic for corporate revenues and just kind of where things stand versus pre COVID? And maybe any color you'd add on just sectors, sector demand across the different sectors that you service out of Panama?

Speaker 3

Yes. So I would say that in general terms, business travel is probably a quarter of our total revenue base. It is these are people who travel for business purposes, not necessarily people traveling business class. And then the remainder is in leisure and in BFR. I would say leisure represents about 40% and VFR is about call it 35%.

Speaker 3

So there is a bit of a shift because before the pandemic it was kind of a third, a third, a third. And so it's still business travel is still a little bit less than where it was back in 2019.

Speaker 8

Okay. That's really helpful. And then would

Speaker 3

you mind just kind of

Speaker 8

running through some of the tailwinds and levers you'll have next year to drive CASM ex lower? Thanks again for the time, everyone.

Speaker 3

Yes. There's still several items out there. The first one is densification of the fleet. We still have 73,900 fleet that is undergoing densification of the Y Class cabin. There's some of the headwinds that we had seen over the last couple of years in maintenance are still being worked on as the engines mature.

Speaker 3

Additionally, of course, there's growth. If we have growth in the low double digit range that would also aid in terms of our CASM. And there's maybe a tad more that can be done in the sales and distribution line with Copa Connect as well. So those are, I would say, 3 buckets of tailwinds in terms of CasimEx that we have on the table.

Speaker 2

Right. Plus, of course, keeping overhead under check and growing ASMs. That formula usually works.

Operator

Yes. Thank you. At this time, I would now like to turn the conference back over to Pedro Hale Boron for closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Okay. Thank you. Thank you all for participating in our Q2 earnings call. Thank you also for your continued support. Have a great day and you know where to find us.

Speaker 2

So thanks for your support.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. That concludes the presentation. You may disconnect and have a wonderful day.

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Key Takeaways

  • Q2 results delivered an industry-leading 19.5% operating margin (2nd best in company history) with net profit of $120.3 M, passenger traffic up 10.6%, CASM ex-fuel down 2.1% and RASM down 7.7% year-over-year.
  • Network continued to expand with three new destinations (Raleigh-Durham, Florianópolis and Tulum), now serving 85 destinations in 32 countries, while maintaining an on-time performance of 87.6% and SkyTrax recognition for the 9th consecutive year.
  • A temporary suspension of Panama–Venezuela flights (≈2% of capacity) through at least August 31 is fully factored into guidance, with flights expected to ramp back up by year-end.
  • Balance sheet remains strong with $1.2 B in cash (≈35% of LTM revenues), an adjusted net debt/EBITDA ratio of 0.6x, average debt cost of 3.6% (70% fixed), and a $1.61 per share dividend declared for September.
  • 2024 outlook unchanged for ≈9% ASM growth, operating margin of 21–23%, RASM ~$0.115, CASM ex-fuel ~$0.059 and fuel at $2.70/gal; fleet stands at 109 aircraft with 112 expected by year-end and 125 by end 2025.
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Earnings Conference Call
Copa Q2 2024
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