Jose Montero
Analyst · Raymond James
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 world-class service to our passengers. I will start by, going over our second quarter results. We reported a net profit for the quarter of $120.3 million or $2.88 per share. We reported a quarterly operating profit of $159.5 million and an operating margin of 19.5%, in what is our seasonally lowest quarter of the year. Capacity came in at $7.4 billion 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 second quarter of 2023. Excluding the revision related to the unredeemed ticket revenues, RASM would have decreased by 3.8% to $0.115. Unit costs or CASM decreased to $0.089 or 2.1% lower year-over-year. And finally, our CASM excluding fuel came in at $0.56 a 5.8% decrease versus Q2 2023 mainly driven by lower aircraft maintenance costs, due to an adjustment in leased aircraft return provisions of nine 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 $0.058 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 second quarter, we had assets of close to $5.4 billion. As to cash short- and long-term investments, we ended the quarter with over $1.2 billion, which represents 35% of our last 12 months' revenues. And in terms of debt, we ended the quarter with $1.8 billion 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 three Boeing 737 MAX nine aircraft, ending the second quarter with a total fleet of 109 aircraft, comprised of 68 737-800s, 32 797 MAX 9s and nine 737-700s. These figures include one 737-800 freighter and the nine 737-800s 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. 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 two 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 JOLCO 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 737 MAX 8s. And as mentioned before, we extended all of our nine operating leases expiring next year. Additionally, as contemplated in an updated fleet plan, we expect to retire two 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 third 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%. 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%, unit revenues in the range of $0.115, which accounts 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. 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 engaging an internal and an external search for my replacement, and I will remain with the Company in an advisory role after my successor is named to assist with a smooth transition. Thank you. And with that, we will open the call to some questions.