Pedro Heilbron
Analyst · Wolfe Research. Your line is open
Thank you, Raul. Good morning to all and thank you for participating in our first quarter earnings call. First of all, I want to congratulate all of our coworkers for their efforts during the quarter. Their ongoing dedication and commitment keeps us at the forefront of Latin American aviation. Today, we're pleased to report very strong results for the first quarter and a solid outlook for the year. Even though fuel prices were significantly higher year-over-year, which resulted in higher unit cost, thanks to higher load factors and yields, we were able to produce an operating margin for the quarter of over 20%, higher by 1.2 percentage points versus the first quarter of 2017. Among the main highlights for the quarter: passenger traffic grew a solid 10.4% year-over-year, outpacing our capacity growth of 8.4%. This resulted in a strong 83% load factor, 1.5 percentage points higher year-over-year. More importantly, yields came in at $0.133 or 5.3% higher than in the first quarter of 2017. Due to our higher load factor and yields, unit revenues, or RASM, increased almost 7.2% year-over-year to $0.114. On the cost side, ex-fuel unit cost came in at $0.063 or 1.1% higher year-over-year due to the timing of certain events, mainly one-time maintenance cost related to a lease return. Our operating margin came in at 20.1%, 1.2 percentage points higher than the first quarter of 2017. On the operational front, Copa earnings delivered an on-time performance of 91% and a completion factor of 99.8%. Again, amongst the best in the world. Turning now to more recent developments. As you may know, on April 5, the government of Venezuela announced that it was temporarily suspending economic financials and commercial relations with Panama, including certain companies for a period of 90 days. That measure forced us to immediately cancel 900 flights between Panama and Venezuela that were to be operated during the 90-day period. At that moment, the company's immediate focus was to minimize the impact of the cancellations on thousands of affected passengers. We adopted several temporary policies to provide these customers with alternate routings, refunds and penalty waivers. On April 26, the Venezuelan and Panamanian government announced the reestablishment of diplomatic and commercial relations effective immediately. As we have previously stated, we have been flying to Venezuela for 20 years, and the company has become an important gateway for the Venezuelan people to Panama and to the rest of the continent. We also have a significant Venezuelan community in Panama, and our service has proven to be essential for their well-being. That being the case, on May 1, we reinitiated service with a daily flight to Caracas and a daily flight to Valencia. Tomorrow, we will restart the second daily flight to Caracas. On May 17, we will restart Maracaibo. And finally, on May 24, we will restart the third daily frequency to Caracas, leaving us with the same capacity to Venezuela as we had in the first quarter. Like all last-minute cancellations, the resulting impact is not limited to the canceled flight but extends to the rest of the network by not having enough time to sell the freed-up capacity on connecting flights. Also, the reinstated flights are being sold with a very short lead time and lower yields. We estimate the total one-time financial impact to be in the range of $15 million, all in the second quarter. It is important to note that the magnitude of the impact is related to the fact that these were last-minute cancellations, more than anything particular to the Venezuela market. On a brighter note, demand trends for the rest of the network are solid, and we are seeing good booking patterns for the rest of the year. That being said, the second quarter will prove specially challenging as we have the Venezuela cancellation impact, spiking fuel prices in what's seasonally our lowest quarter and a tough comparison to a strong second quarter in 2017 that benefited from Easter holiday travel. As always, Jose will provide a full year guidance update. Turning to our fleet. We already received two 737-800s, one in January and 1 in April, and have returned one Embraer-190 upon its lease expiration in March. In the second half of the year, we expect to receive five Boeing 737 MAX 9s, to end the year with a consolidated fleet of 106 aircraft. We're looking forward to the arrival of our first MAX 9 in August, which will deliver both revenue opportunities and cost efficiencies. In regards to our network, in our last earnings call, we announced three new destinations starting in July, Fortaleza and Salvador, our 8th and 9th destinations in Brazil; and Bridgetown, Barbados, our 16th destination in the Caribbean. We are pleased to report that all new destinations are booking well and should be off to a good start. After these additions, Copa will provide service to 78 destinations in 32 countries in North, Central, South America and the Caribbean. Finally, Wingo, although a very small 2% of our revenues, continues to do very well, both operationally and financially. To summarize, we're off to a very good start in 2018, and expect to continue seeing a healthy demand environment throughout the year. However, the impact from the Venezuela flight cancellations, spiking fuel prices and the Easter holiday shift all make for a more challenging second quarter, which is typically our lowest quarter in the year. We continue growing and strengthening our network, the most complete and convenient hub for intra-Latin America travel. Our team continues to deliver world-class operational performance, while achieving industry-leading unit cost. And we also continue focusing on several cost and revenue initiatives that are aimed at further increasing our margins. Lastly, we are in our business model and our financial position. We have the strongest network for travel within the Americas, an extremely flexible fleet plan, the lowest unit cost, a very strong liquidity position with low leverage and a highly committed team. Now I'll turn it over to Jose, who will go over our financial results in more detail.