Copa Holdings, S.A.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to COPA Holdings' third quarter earnings call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question and answer session. At that time, if you have a question, you will have to press star 11 on your telephone. If your question has been answered and you wish to remove yourself from the queue, simply press star 11 again. As a reminder, this call is being webcast and recorded on November 21st, 2024. Now I will turn the conference call over to Daniel Tapia, Director of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.

Thank you, Jonathan, and welcome everyone to our third quarter earnings call. Joining us today are Pedro Hebron, CEO of Copa Holdings, and Jose Montero, our CFO. First, Pedro will start by going over our third quarter 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. 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 risk and uncertainties that could cause actual results to defer materially and are based on assumptions subject to change. Many of these are discussed in our annual report file with the SEC. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to our CEO, Mr. Pedro Hebron.

Thank you, Daniel. Good morning to all, and thanks for participating in our third quarter earnings call. First, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to all our coworkers for their commitment to the company. Their dedication and hard work have been instrumental in keeping COPPA at the forefront of Latin American aviation. To them, as always, my highest regards and admiration. We're pleased to once again report solid financial results for the quarter, delivering a strong and industry-leading operating margin of 20.3%. These financial results are in part driven by our disciplined approach to executing our business strategy, including our permanent focus on cost efficiencies, which allow us to continue delivering industry-leading operating margins, even with the softer yield environment we have observed over the past 12 months. Going forward, our focus on our business strategy and commitment to reducing unit costs remain central to achieving strong financial results and are key to further strengthening COPPA's competitive position in Latin America. Among the main highlights for Q3, capacity increased by 9.5% year-over-year. Passenger traffic grew 7.6% compared to the same period in 2023. Unit cost in excluding fuel, or CASAM-X, came in at 5.7 cents, a 1.6% decrease compared to Q3 2023, mainly driven by lower sales and distribution costs. Passenger yield came in at 12.2 cents, 8.7% lower year over year, mostly due to the last minute suspension of flights between Panama and Venezuela at the end of July, weaker currencies in certain countries in Latin America, and additional industry capacity in the region. And load factor came in at 86.2%, 1.6 percentage points lower year over year. As a result, unit revenues, or RASM, came in at 11 cents, a 10.1% decrease compared to Q3 2023. As mentioned before, we delivered an operating margin of 20.3%. Excluding the impact of the Panama-Venezuela flight suspensions, we estimate that we would have reported an operating margin of 21.2% for the quarter. On the operational front, Cooper Airlines delivered an on-time performance of 87.3% and a completion factor of 99.6% for the quarter. Once again, positioning ourselves among the best in the industry. Regarding our fleet plan, due to delays in Boeing's delivery schedule, the arrival of our last two aircraft for the year was postponed by a few months. Nonetheless, we still expect to receive two 737 MAX 8s before year end, one at the end of this month and one in December. These two deliveries will bring our fleet to a total of 112 aircraft by the end of the year. Regarding 2025 deliveries, Boeing has updated its delivery schedule to account for the recent delays, and we now plan to receive 11 Boeing 737 MAX 8s next year to end the year with a fleet of 123 aircraft. This delivery schedule has production ramp-up assumptions that will need to materialize so actual aircraft deliveries could change. As you saw in our earnings release issued yesterday, we issued preliminary guidance for 2025 in which we expect to grow our capacity within a range of 7% to 9%. Jose will provide more details regarding our preliminary guidance for 2025. To summarize, we again delivered industry-leading financial results for the third quarter. We continue to deliver on our cost execution, which remains key to the company's strategy going forward. We expect to grow capacity by high single digits in 2025 and plan to continue strengthening our hub of the Americas in Panama. And, as always, our team continues to deliver world-class operational results while providing the consistent and reliable travel experience our passengers expect from us. 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 it over to Jose, who will go over our financial results in more detail.