Copa Holdings, S.A.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Copa Holdings first quarter earnings call. During the presentation, all participants will be in listen-only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question and answer session. At that time, if you have a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. As a reminder, this call is being webcast and recorded on May 6, 2021. Now, I will turn the conference over to Raul Pascal, Director of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.

Thank you, Tamika, and welcome everyone to our first 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 first quarter highlights and the actions the company has taken to mitigate the impact from the COVID-19 pandemic. Followed by Jose, who will discuss our first quarter financial results in detail. 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. 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, copa.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. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to our CEO, Mr. Pedro Hebron.

Thank you, Raúl. Good morning to all. and thanks for participating in our first quarter earnings call. Before we begin, I'd like to thank all our coworkers for their commitment to the company and recognize their continuous efforts and dedication to keep COPA at the forefront of Latin American aviation. To them, as always, my utmost respect and admiration. In our last earnings call in February, we advised of deteriorating demand patterns and expressed concerns over what appeared to be new infection waves across many countries in our region. Since then, we've faced two diverging themes in our network. On the one hand, in the US, Panama, and a few other countries, we're seeing a downward trend in infection rates, which has led to fewer travel restrictions and an uptick in demand. On the other hand, several countries in Latin America continue to struggle with the virus, leading many to reimpose their travel restrictions and or new health requirements, affecting demand for international travel, and in many cases, leading to a reduction in our planned capacity. However, we're hopeful that as countries in our region continue taking the necessary actions to control this health crisis, we should start seeing a more robust recovery, fewer restrictions, and improving traffic patterns. Now, I'll highlight some of our first quarter results. In terms of capacity, we reached 39% of first quarter 2019 ASMs. Load factor improved from 63% in January to 75% in March, leading to an average load factor of 69% for the quarter. Our revenues increased by 17% over the previous quarter to $185 million as a result of additional capacity. This additional capacity also allowed us to bring down our ex-fuel chasm from 13.4 cents in Q4 to 8.5 cents. We reported an operating loss of $77 million in the quarter, 16% better than the adjusted operating loss of $95 million reported in the fourth quarter of 2020. In terms of our liquidity position, we increased our cash balance to $1.2 billion and our total liquidity to over $1.5 billion. This was driven by extraordinary net proceeds from aircraft financing and asset sales. And our cash consumption, excluding the previously mentioned proceeds, but including CAPEX and the payment of all financial obligations, was $23 million per month. That was better than expected due to higher sales, mostly for travel in the second quarter. In terms of our operations, And despite the incremental complexity imposed by the biosafety protocols, we're pleased to report an on-time performance of 95% for the quarter and a flight completion factor of 99.3%, which is a true testament to our employees' laser-focused commitment to providing a world-class product to our passengers. So we're proud to be back connecting the Americas with the industry-leading operational standards our passengers expect from us. Subject to demand and air travel restrictions in the region, in June we plan to return our flight network to a six connecting bank hub structure, which will enable us to operate more efficiently and to continue adding frequencies and destinations. If our current plan holds, We should be operating more than 60 destinations by the end of the second quarter, compared to 80 before the pandemic. Jose will provide a more detailed outlook for the second quarter, which will include specific capacity figures, our latest revenue assumptions, and an update on our cash consumption projections. Regarding our fleet, it was a very busy quarter. we received six previously built and stored 737 Mach 9s and delivered four Embraer 190s to their new owner. As per our fleet plan, we expect to deliver the last four Embraer aircraft in the second quarter and receive two more 737 Mach 9s in the fourth quarter, which would have us ending the year with a fleet of 83 aircraft. I'd like to reaffirm that we have a proven and strong business model, which is based on operating the best and most convenient network for intra-Latin America travel from our hub of the Americas, leveraging Panama's advantageous geographic position with the region's lowest unit cost for a full service carrier, best on time performance, and strongest balance sheet. Going forward, the company expects that its Hop of the Americas will be an even more valuable source of strategic advantage. It's likely that fewer intra-Latin America markets will be able to sustain direct point-to-point service, so we believe the Hop of the Americas will be the best position to serve this market. Now, I will turn it over to Jose, who will go over our financial results in more detail.