Copa Holdings, S.A.

Copa Holdings, S.A.

108.50
EUR
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13.33EPS
10.25P/E
5.58BMarket Cap
Nov 18Next Earn

Q1 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptMay 14, 2026

Operator

As a reminder, this call is being webcast and recorded on May 14th, 2026. Now I will turn the conference over to Daniel Tapia, Director of Investor Relations.

Sir, you may begin.

Daniel Tapia

Thank you, Carmen, and welcome everyone to our first quarter earnings call. Joining me today are Mr.

Pedro Heilbron, Executive Chairman and CEO of Copa Holdings, and Peter Donkersloot, our CFO. First, Pedro will begin by going through our first quarter highlights, followed by Peter, who will discuss our financial results in more detail.

Immediately after, we will open the call for questions from analysts. As a reminder, Copa Holdings' financial reports have been prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards.

In today's call, we will discuss certain non-IFRS financial measures. A reconciliation of these measures to comparable IFRS measures can be found in our earnings release, which is available on our website.

Our discussion today will also contain forward-looking statements, not limited to historical facts, that reflect the company's current beliefs, expectations, and our intentions regarding future events and results. These forward-looking statements involve risk 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. Now I'd like to turn the call over to our Chairman and CEO, Mr.

Pedro Heilbron.

Pedro Heilbron

Thank you, Daniel. Good morning and thank you all for joining us for our first quarter earnings call.

Before we begin, I would like to recognize our more than 9,000 coworkers. Their commitment and professionalism continue to be key drivers of Copa's strong operational performance and leadership in our industry.

Especially in today's higher and volatile jet fuel price environment, their consistent focus on execution and cost discipline has allowed us to enter the current fuel environment from a position of strength. To them, as always, my sincere appreciation and respect.

We delivered another quarter of strong financial and operational results, reaffirming the strength and resilience of our business model and our ability to consistently deliver industry-leading profitability. Our first quarter results reflect a strong demand environment across the region, continued discipline in cost execution, and our relentless focus on delivering operational excellence to our passengers.

Now I'll go over our first quarter highlights. Capacity increased 14% year over year, while passenger traffic increased 15%, resulting in a 0.8 percentage point increase in load factor to 87.2%.

Passenger yield increased 1.6% year over year. RASM came in at 11.8 cents, 2.7% higher compared to Q1 '25.

Unit costs or CASM increased 1.6% to 8.9 cents, driven by higher fuel prices. CASM, excluding fuel, declined 1% to 5.8 cents, reflecting our continued cost discipline.

We delivered an industry-leading operating margin of 24.6%, 0.8 percentage points higher than Q1 of last year. On the operational side, we delivered an on-time performance for the quarter of 91.6% and a flight completion factor of 99.7%, once again positioning Copa among the very best in the industry.

Turning to our network, we have resumed service to Valencia and Barquisimeto and have scheduled the restart of Barcelona in June. Together with our existing service to Maracaibo and Caracas, this returns us to serving 5 cities in Venezuela from our Hub of the Americas in Panama.

With these additions, we will operate to 87 destinations in 32 countries, further strengthening our position as the most complete and convenient connecting hub for travel in the Americas. With regard to our fleet, during the quarter, we took delivery of 2 Boeing 737 MAX 8, ending Q1 with 127 aircraft.

We have already received 2 additional MAX 8 in the second quarter, bringing our fleet total to 121 aircraft. Additionally, in April we announced a new Boeing 737 MAX order for 40 firm aircraft and 20 options, with delivery schedules between 2030 and 2034.

This new order, which begins as we complete deliveries from our existing order book in 2029, reinforces our long-term growth strategy and ensures Copa Hub of the Americas continues to lead well into the next decade. As always, we maintain significant flexibility in our fleet plan thanks to options, slide rights, lease expirations, and unencumbered aircraft, which provide us the ability to adjust our growth plan if needed.

Turning now to the current environment of higher and volatile jet fuel prices, throughout our history, we have successfully navigated periods of increased fuel prices and volatility, consistently delivering strong financial results, supported by the effectiveness of our business model, low costs, and disciplined execution. I feel confident that we will demonstrate this once again.

To summarize, we delivered strong industry-leading profitability in the quarter. We continue to improve our already competitive cost structure.

We keep delivering best-in-class on-time performance and reliability. We continue expanding and strengthening our network, the most complete and convenient hub for intra-Americas travel.

The current demand environment remains strong, supporting yield increases. Our proven business model, built on having the best geographic positions, structurally low unit costs, a strong balance sheet and liquidity position, and a superior passenger-friendly product, positions us well to navigate the higher jet fuel price environment and again in 2026 deliver strong and industry-leading financial results.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Peter, who will walk us through the financials in more detail.

Peter Donkersloot

Thank you, Pedro. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call today.

I'd like to start by reinforcing Pedro's recognition of our team's continued dedication to delivering industry-leading results. Their commitment remains essential to our strong operational and financial performance.

Let me begin by going over our first quarter highlights. We reported a record net profit of $212 million or $5.16 per share, representing a 20.5% year-over-year increase in earnings per share.

Net margin came in at 20.2%, 0.5 percentage points higher year over year. Operating profit came in at $258 million, resulting in an operating margin of 24.6%, 0.8 percentage points higher than the first quarter 2025.

Unit costs excluding fuel or ex-fuel CASM declined 1% to 5.8 cents, reflecting the company's continued focus on cost discipline. Including fuel, CASM increased 1.6% year over year to 8.9 cents, driven by the increase in the average price of jet fuel.

During the quarter, all-in jet fuel prices increased 7.5% year over year from $2.54 to $2.73 per gallon. While the average increase for the quarter was moderate, higher prices in the second half of March had a more pronounced impact on our results, driving an approximately $20 million year-over-year impact on the first quarter performance.

Moving on to our balance sheet and liquidity, we ended the quarter with approximately $1.5 billion in cash, short-term and long-term investments, representing 40% of last 12-month revenues. This number excludes approximately $700 million in pre-delivery deposits for new aircraft, as well as 45 unencumbered aircraft and 15 unencumbered spare engines, worth an estimated additional value of over $1 billion.

Total debt including lease liabilities stood at $2.4 billion, and we ended the quarter with an adjusted net debt to EBITDA ratio of 0.7 times, reflecting our strong financial position. I'd like to highlight that our average cost of debt, compromised solely of aircraft-related financing, remains highly competitive at 3.6%.

Turning now to the return of value to our shareholders, the Board of Directors has ratified the company's second quarterly dividend for the year of $1.71 per share, to be paid June 15th to all shareholders of record as of May 29th. Additionally, during the quarter, we repurchased $45 million worth of shares, representing approximately 1% of the total outstanding shares.

Finally, turning to our outlook, we continue to see a robust demand environment across the region. Our effective business model, combined with continued cost discipline, positions us to continue sustaining strong financial performance.

For the second quarter, we expect to deliver an operating margin in the range of 8% to 12%, with a capacity growth in ASMs of approximately 16% year over year. These results are impacted by a projected year-over-year increase in the all-in jet fuel price per gallon in the range of 80% to 90%, for which we expect to recover approximately 50% via higher revenues.

This partial pass-through is a result of the already advanced booking curves. For the full year, we continue to expect our capacity growth to be in the range of 11% to 13%, a load factor of approximately 87%, and unit costs excluding fuel of approximately 5.7 cents.

Based on the current fuel curve, and assuming recent yield improvements are sustained, we expect to recover a substantial portion of the increased fuel cost expense for the year, reaching up to 100% by the end of the year. We will review our full-year operating margin and RASM expectations as conditions stabilizes and visibility for the second half of the year becomes clearer.

In summary, despite the current fuel environment, we remain confident in our ability to deliver strong results, supported by robust demand, disciplined cost management, and our proven and resilient business model. Thank you, and we'll now open the call for questions from the analysts.

Operator

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, simply press *11 to get in the queue and wait for your name to be announced.

To withdraw your question, press *11 again. One moment for our first question.

It comes from Savi Syth with Raymond James. Please proceed.

Savi Syth

Hey, good morning, everyone. You're growing capacity 16% into a seasonally weak quarter here in the second quarter, and the guidance seems to imply a high single-digit, low double-digit unit revenue.

I was wondering if you could provide a little bit more color on kind of how much of the quarter was booked prior to the fare increases and if there was any particular region that stands out as being stronger.

Pedro Heilbron

Hi, Savi. I would say that we see strength across the network and not necessarily one region is stronger than the other.

We haven't maybe seen this in a while. There's always weakness somewhere, but right now, every region we serve is performing very well and is showing strength.

Savi Syth

That's helpful, Pedro. Maybe just following up on that, some of the local currencies are much stronger lately.

As I know you've priced your tickets in US dollar, but just wondering what the purchasing power strength, what kind of a tailwind that had in 1Q and what you're thinking it is in 2Q.

Pedro Heilbron

I think that will always play a positive role when currencies are stronger in Latin America. We've been asked that question before, and the answer has always been that we tend to benefit more from stronger Latin American currencies than the opposite because we do generate a little bit higher percent of our traffic down south than in the other direction.

If we look at the main currencies of Latin America compared to 1 year ago, most of the important ones of the larger markets are up double digits. That, of course, plays a positive role in what we're seeing.

Savi Syth

That's helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Duane Pfennigwerth.

Duane Pfennigwerth from Evercore ISI.

Duane Pfennigwerth

Hey, good morning. Maybe just to continue right there, can you quantify maybe the FX tailwind sequentially, what you would consider that to be in the second quarter versus what you realized in the first quarter?

Pedro Heilbron

I'm not sure if we can be very specific about that, but the currencies have remained strong. They've actually gained a little bit in the last month and 2 months.

Some are stable, others have gained a little. We are not seeing weakness in the currencies.

I think it's a good environment for what we're seeing overall in terms of demand. Even demand being resilient over yield increases that we've also seen from the whole industry in the last few months.

Duane Pfennigwerth

Thanks. Then just for my follow-up, I think your CASM-ex was down about 1% in the first quarter.

You're guiding to down 1 for the year. Is that the right way to think about the trend consistently across the quarters, or do you see easier comps, for example, in the 2Q?

Do you see an easier comp there, or is it pretty much spread across the year? Thank you.

Peter Donkersloot

Hello, Duane. This is Peter, and thank you for the question.

I would say that we're guiding for full-year CASM of 5.7, and we always talk about CASM not being pretty much in the range of, for us, a year pretty stable. I think that's what we should be expecting for the year, a relatively stable CASM, and that's backed on all the initiatives we took, but it should be stable across the year.

Duane Pfennigwerth

Thanks. No quarter sticks out in terms of an massively easier comp versus the others.

Peter Donkersloot

No. Not particularly.

Duane Pfennigwerth

Thank you very much.

Peter Donkersloot

Thank you, Duane.

Pedro Heilbron

Have a good day.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Julia Orsi with JPMorgan.

Please proceed.

Julia Orsi

Yes. Hello, everyone.

Good morning. Thanks for taking the time.

We have 2 questions in our site. The first one, can you provide more details on this whole demand environment?

I understand that demand has been trending well, but is there a specific segment where it has been more sensitive to the higher tariff prices? The second one, it's a follow-up on the cost structure.

You're implementing several initiatives to cost-cutting. Can you provide more details on how these initiatives are trending?

Thank you.

Pedro Heilbron

Okay. Thank you, Julia.

I'll start with the first question, then I'll ask Peter to help me with the cost question. As I mentioned before, we're seeing strong demand across our network.

All regions are carrying their own weight. The way we are reflecting this is that we just shown our April numbers with ASM growth around 16%, and RPMs were flat with 16% growth.

There's been yield adjustments done by the whole industry to compensate for fuel. That combination of strong double-digit growth in spite of a yield adjustments in the industry is, I think, a good testament of how strong is demand in our region right now.

Peter Donkersloot

Hello, Julia. This is Peter.

I'll talk about the cost structure. Mainly what we're seeing that is driving the costs down and some of the initiatives are backed on and how will it remain.

One is our ASM growth, backed on the capacity and the densification part that we've been talking about, and, of course, that helps us continue dilute part of our fixed costs. We can see, let's say, 30% of our ex-fuel expenses are not exactly directly related to capacity.

We can make sure those grow less than ASMs and benefit from that growth. Then I would say the other is we continue seeing some benefits on our sales and distribution strategy and other initiatives that we have in that bucket.

Those are, I would say, what would give you color, those are the 2 main buckets that I would call out in the cost structure going forward.

Julia Orsi

Got it. Super clear.

Thank you.

Peter Donkersloot

Thank you.

Pedro Heilbron

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Michael Linenberg with Deutsche Bank.

Please proceed. Oh,

Michael Linenberg

yeah. Hey.

Thanks for taking my questions. Just I saw that you did unveil your formalized, I guess, your 2027 fleet plan.

We obviously are looking at very meaningful fleet growth this year and next year. Can you just remind us what's the CapEx number for this year?

What's that number for next year, since obviously I know you're going to start incurring some of that CapEx this year as well for '27? Yes.

Peter Donkersloot

Hello, Mike. How are you?

Thank you for the questions. I would say our CASM for the year our cash our cash CapEx for the year, sorry, is in the neighborhood of $300 to $300 million.

That's our cash CapEx. That will be mainly maintenance.

Then that if I put up together the fleet CapEx, it will put us somewhere around the $750 to $800 million for the year. Don't necessarily have for next year a a CapEx bid.

The cash CapEx would be in the neighborhood, and then the fleet the fleet, or the aircraft CapEx, would be related to that fleet growth that that you're seeing for next year.

Michael Linenberg

Okay. Great.

Pedro Heilbron

Mike, hi. Let me add to that.

Last year, we took delivery of 13 aircraft. This year is 7 aircraft, 8 8 aircraft we're taking delivery of this year.

A little bit less than last year. Going forward, we have a lot of flexibility like we've done in the past when we've needed to adjust deliveries and adjust capacity.

We're very comfortable that we can adjust to the business environment as needed as we've done before. We never roll the dice without a parachute.

I know those two things don't go together, but you know what I mean.

Michael Linenberg

Yes. Yeah.

No. No.

No. I like the context because now it seems like that you've sort of been at this level for the last couple years.

This isn't really all that extraordinary now that you're getting airplanes.

Pedro Heilbron

Exactly. Just Mike That's right, Mike.

Then

Michael Linenberg

my second question is, look, we're in a really high fuel price environment, and you're still able to put up double-digit operating margins, even what will be your seasonally weakest quarter. You're at least the potential to hit that.

You can grow in this environment, and I suspect that many of your competitors cannot. I'm just curious, from a competitive capacity perspective, what you're starting to see in the market that you're sort of full steam ahead maintaining your full-year ASM growth.

I suspect that we're going to see others scale back. Any color on what you're seeing in the region?

Obviously Spirit going away, there will be some benefit there, because there was some competitive, at least on one-stop flights. Anything else?

Thanks for taking my question.

Pedro Heilbron

Yeah. Thank you, Mike.

Besides the obvious of Spirit going away, as you've just mentioned, we haven't really seen any particular movement from the rest of the airlines serving the region. We haven't seen any capacity pull-back in response to the current fuel crisis.

That is not to say that it might not happen in the future, but we haven't really seen anything up to now.

Michael Linenberg

Okay. Yeah.

In our core markets. Okay.

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question, please.

It's from Alberto Valerio with UBS. Please proceed.

Alberto Valerio

Hi, gentlemen. Thanks for taking my question.

Congrats for the results. My question mainly two.

The first one on the crack spread. We noticed that this quarter's crack spread below historical levels.

If we can consider that for going forward or if it's just for this quarter, if you have any benefits in Panama. The second one, it's about the guidance for the year.

Can you consider it as a nominal pass-through on the fuel price, or can we consider it as a recovering the margins of 22%, 23% for the full year? Thank you very much.

Alberto,

Peter Donkersloot

I'll take the first one. On the fuel and the crack, well, we're obviously seeing similar as everybody else in the fuel environment.

We do have a 15-day lag on how they pass through the increase, and probably that's one of the reasons we're seeing an average in the first quarter lower than the expectation. Going forward, we are using US Gulf Coast jet fuel future curves, and that's what we're basing on.

Similar to everybody, we're seeing similar trends like everybody else. Then with that, we add our into-plane costs, that should be in the neighborhood of 30 cents per gallon, and that's what gives us our guidance on the fuel for the rest of the year.

Then I'll let Pedro talk about the recovery.

Pedro Heilbron

The the I think I think when we talk about guidance for the year or the rest of the year, for that matter, there's still many, many unknowns and many variables that come into play, starting with fuel, which is what's having the greatest impact right now. We don't really know in which direction fuel is going to go the rest of the year.

We're following the the guidance, the fuel curve. We're fighting following the fuel curve.

If we go by the fuel curve that we have right now, the the yield yield increases that are already in place and the fact that for the second half of the years of the year, bookings are much lower because that's just how the booking curve works, means that those yield increases that are already in place are going to have a a more significant impact in the second half of the year than what they were able to have in the second quarter. We were already sold or booked around 40% in the second quarter when when this conflict and fuel prices hit us.

We could not do anything about that 40%. For the second half of the year, it's much different, bookings were much lower.

Our guidance is based on that: current yield adjustments that are already in place, a fuel curve which no one controls and is very volatile, and the bookings that were already in place before the yield adjustments. Those the those are all variables.

The booking is not a variable that's going to change, because I mean it's going to that's going to improve at the new yields. The yields depend on competition and demand, which right now demand looks very strong, and competition is being rational.

Then the fuel curve might be the one variable that no one really can predict.

Alberto Valerio

Fantastic. Thank you very much.

Pedro Heilbron

Thank you.

Peter Donkersloot

Thank you. For

Operator

our next question, please, is from Daniel McKenzie of Seaport Global. Please proceed.

Daniel McKenzie

Oh, hey, good morning. A couple questions here.

Just going back right to Mike's question, just given the high-priced fuel environment, is it your sense there could be some strategic opportunities that come from this, let's say if fuel prices continue to rise? Then related to that, if we just kind of think about the supply chain of Latin America, are there refineries in some countries that are disproportionately reliant on Iran that sort of are catching your radar?

Pedro Heilbron

From what we can see, and from speaking to our fuel suppliers, we think we're in a good position in terms of supply. The oil that gets refined and turned into jet fuel comes mostly from the US, from Mexico, and other countries: Venezuela, Colombia, etc.

It all comes from this part of the world, is not affected by the Strait of Hormuz. Of course, fuel prices are international, and so regional supply don't change the WTI or Brent prices.

In terms of having the availability of the jet fuel, we're in a good position. In the times we're living, that's actually great.

Daniel McKenzie

Yeah. Then this second question came directly from an investor.

It's actually something I've wondered about in the past, but have you guys ever looked at your RASM results in constant currency? Does that even make sense?

I guess the reason I'm wondering is just given how many countries you serve and just given how sensitive demand seems to be to foreign currencies, I'm just curious what that would look like if it were done on a constant currency basis.

Pedro Heilbron

I'm not sure if I understand the question, because the reality is what we dealt with always. We price in dollars, as you know.

Strong currencies tend to favor us, even though we do well also when currencies are not so strong. Currencies usually move in the same direction like it's happening now, but sometimes there are particular issues in countries that make them stand out in a maybe negative way.

I'm not sure exactly what are you looking for in the question, Dan.

Daniel McKenzie

It's not the convention in the airline industry to report on a constant currency basis, I get that it's kind of an odd question. In other industries, they'll look at their revenue sort of based on a constant currency.

Just putting in last year's foreign exchange rate and kind of looking at the revenue, sort of from a demand perspective. I get, it makes perfect sense that when currencies are strengthening, you add capacity and capacity moves around, I guess pretty complicated for airlines.

I just thought I would throw it out there and I appreciate the response.

Pedro Heilbron

Thank you, Dan. We love your easy questions.

Daniel McKenzie

Sorry. You guys have a great day.

Operator

Thank you so much. Our last question comes from Filipe Nielsen with Citi.

Please proceed.

Filipe Nielsen

Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking my question, and congrats on the results.

Just wondering, back on the capacity subject, trying to understand here how are you allocating this capacity between the multiple regions, and trying to understand if, within this strong growth of capacity in the first half of the year, second half a little bit lower as per your guidance, are you seeing any, maybe, shifts from one region to another in order to accommodate for higher pricing? To my second question, and related to that, how is your Venezuelan operations developing, and is this having an important matter in this whole pricing environment?

Thank you.

Pedro Heilbron

Yeah. Okay.

Thank you, Filipe. A few things.

If we look if we go back and we look back a few years, we have been growing capacity much less than our competitors, just for lack of enough deliveries. We would have liked to have grown capacity faster in 2024 and 2025.

We just didn't have enough planes coming in. This year this year is different, and we needed that capacity from before, and it coincided with strong demand on top of it.

We have so many options in terms of where to fly our planes. Given the current crisis, we we are shifting capacity a little bit, not in a significant way, but shifting it towards more profitable Our whole network is very profitable, of course, as but we're trying to shift towards where it's needed most or where it can be even more profitable.

That helps us also compensate for the for the higher fuel. Not nothing is very significant, because we have demand strong demand in most in most of our network.

Peter Donkersloot

Venezuela. Oh,

Pedro Heilbron

Venezuela, you mentioned Venezuela. Thank you.

Yeah. I should say that we are I must say the very only international airline that never stopped flying to Venezuela, except for a 10-day window that had to do with the whole military operation that was going on, and it was not safe to operate during that window.

We've had a constant presence in that market, and I'm glad to say that by June of this year, in a few weeks, we're going to be back to the same capacity we had a little bit over a year ago. We will go back to 5 cities and over 40 weekly flights in Venezuela.

In terms of impact in unit revenues or yields, nothing significant, because Venezuela is going to be in the average.

Filipe Nielsen

This is all very clear. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you so much. This concludes our Q&A session for today.

I will pass it back to Pedro Heilbron for his final comments.

Pedro Heilbron

Okay. Thank you all.

This concludes our earnings call. Before we leave, I want to mention that Copa operates the strongest network.

We have a strong and diversified set of cities and regions we serve, the lowest unit cost for a full-service airline, and a superior product to most of our narrowbody competitors. We feel we're in a really good position to deal with the current crisis and come out ahead as we've been able to do in the past.

Thank you for your continuous support, thank you for participating in our call, and hope you have a great day. Thank you.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen,

Peter Donkersloot

thank you

Operator

for participating. You may now disconnect.