Copa Holdings, S.A.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to COPPA 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 will have to press star 1-1 on your touchtone phone. As a reminder, this call is being webcast and recorded on August 6, 2026. Now, I will turn the conference call over to Daniel Tapia, Director of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.

Thank you, Alia, and welcome everyone to our second quarter earnings call. Joining me today are Mr. Pedro Heilbron, Executive Chairman and CEO of Copa Holdings, Mr. Robert Carey, Executive Vice President, and Mr. Peter Donkersloot, our CFO. Pedro will begin with an overview of the core of the quarter. Robert will then discuss commercial performance and operational highlights. Peter will conclude with a review of our financial results and outlook. Immediately after, we will open the call for questions from analysts. As a reminder, COPPA 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 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 would like to turn the call over to our chairman and CEO, Mr. Pedro Heilbron.

Thank you, Daniel. Good morning, and thank you all for joining us for our second quarter earnings call. Before we begin, I would like to recognize and thank our more than 9,000 coworkers. Thanks to their commitment, professionalism, and disciplined execution, our team continues to deliver strong financial results for maintaining exceptional operational reliability and outstanding service to our passengers. They are the foundation of Copa's success and have my admiration and appreciation. Our second quarter results demonstrate the resilience of our business model in a significantly heavier fuel price environment and reinforce our ability to continue generating profitable growth through different market cycles. During the quarter, we delivered an operating profit of $91.7 million and an operating margin of 8.7%. These results were affected by an increase of 85% in the all-in fuel cost compared to Q2 2025, with approximately 40% of our bookings sold before the fuel cost increase. In the quarter, We grew capacity 16.5% measured in ASMs while maintaining solid load factors. Our capacity additions in 2026, after years in which aircraft delivery delays slowed our growth, allow us to further consolidate our Hop of the Americas advantage, especially in an environment of strong passenger demand across our network. Looking ahead, Booking trends remain strong, which support our expectations for another year of high load factors and solid financial performance. As part of our continuous efforts to strengthen the hub of the Americas, we recently set in place our transition from six to eight connecting banks beginning in March, 2027. This decision will improve connectivity throughout our network provide greater travel options for our passengers, increase aircraft utilization, optimize the use of airport infrastructure, and further strengthen Panama's position as the leading hub for intra-America's travel. Combined with our structurally low unit cost, best-in-class operational reliability, strong balance sheet, and the unique advantages of our Hub of the Americas, We remain confident in our ability to successfully execute our growth plans and continue delivering value to our shareholders. With that, I'll turn the call over to Robert, who will discuss the quarter's commercial and operational highlights.

Thank you, Pedro, and good morning, everyone. Before I start, I would also like to thank our coworkers across the organization for their continued dedication and outstanding execution throughout the quarter. I have now been here two years, and COPA's culture is clearly one of our strengths. Let me begin by reviewing some of the quarter's key commercial and operational highlights. Operating revenues increased 25.7% year-over-year to $1.1 billion. Passenger yields increased 8.7% compared to Q2 2025. Unit revenue, or RASM, increased 7.9%, to 11.6 cents, while capacity measured in ASMs increased 16.5% year over year. Load factor was 86.7% compared to 87.3% in Q2 2025. Revenue performance for the quarter was partially impacted by the World Cup, which temporarily affected travel patterns during June. As a result, June load factors were 2.3 percentage points lower year over year, putting modest pressure on unit revenues. We estimate that the World Cup reduced second quarter RASM by approximately 0.1 cents. Despite this headwind, we delivered another quarter of solid revenue performance and continue to see strong demand trends throughout our network going forward. Demonstrating this strong demand, we published our July traffic numbers this week. reporting a load factor of nearly 90% on a year-over-year capacity increase of 16%. Furthermore, this load factor, one of our highest ever, came in a higher yield environment. As you can see from our full-year guidance, we are expecting these strong load factors to continue. On the operational side, we delivered industry-leading results. During the quarter, Copa Airlines delivered an on-time performance of 90.6% and a flight completion factor of 99.8%. These results position Copa Airlines among the very best airlines globally for operational reliability and represent a key differentiator of our passenger value proposition. Turning to the network, recently we announced the addition of Por La Mar in Isla Margarita, Venezuela. a popular leisure destination which will start in November. With this addition, COPA will serve 88 destinations in 32 countries throughout the Americas, further strengthening the breadth and convenience of our network and reinforcing the leadership position of our hub of the Americas. We also recently achieved an important milestone in enhancing our passenger experience with the launch of Starlink onboard internet. In July, COPA operated its first Starlink-equipped flight, becoming the first airline in Latin America to offer high-speed Starlink connectivity. We expect the rollout of Starlink Wi-Fi across our fleet to be completed in the first half of 2027. Finally, on the fleet side, we took delivery of four Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft during the quarter, ending the period with a fleet of 131 aircraft. For the remainder of the year, we expect to receive one additional 737 MAX 8. As always, we maintain significant flexibility in our fleet plan through delivery options, flight lengths, lease expirations, and a substantial base of unencumbered aircraft, which allows us to adjust the pace of growth if market conditions warrant. To conclude, demand trends and booking patterns remain strong. With that, I will turn the call over to Peter, who will review our financial results and outlook in more detail.

Thank you, Robert, and good morning. I'd also like to start by recognizing our team's continued dedication to delivering industry-leading results. Their commitment remains essential to our strong operational and financial performance. In the second quarter, we reported an operating profit of $91.7 million, resulting in an operating margin of 8.7%, compared to 21.7% in the second quarter of 2025. Net profit totaled $68.2 million, or $1.67 per share, and a net margin of 6.4%. Unit cost excluding fuel or ex-fuel chasm remained flat year-over-year to 5.7 cents, reflecting our continuous focus on cost discipline. Including fuel, chasm increased 26% to 10.6 cents, a result of significantly higher fuel prices. During the quarter, average all-in jet fuel prices increased 85% year-over-year, from $2.32 to $4.28 per gallon. Despite having approximately 40% of our second quarter bookings already sold before the increase in fuel prices, strong demand and higher yields enable us to recover approximately 40% of the year-over-year increase in fuel expenses during the quarter. Our fuel recovery calculation compares the year-over-year increase in revenues attributable to higher revenue with the year-over-year increase in fuel expenses resulting from higher all-in fuel prices, both calculated using 2026 capacity levels. Turning to our balance sheet and liquidity, we ended the quarter with approximately $1.5 billion in cash, short-term, and long-term investments. representing 39% of last 12 months revenue. Our balance sheet remains among the strongest in the airline industry and continues to be a key competitive advantage. Total debt, including lease liabilities, stood at approximately 2.7 billion at quarter end, all of it related to aircraft financing. Our average cost of debt is currently 3.7% and we ended the quarter with a net debt to EBITDA ratio of 0.9x. Our financial strength continues to provide substantial flexibility as we continue to execute our long-term strategy. Turning now to shareholder returns, I'm pleased to announce that our Board of Directors ratified the company's third quarterly dividend payment of $1.71 per share. The dividend will be paid on September 15 to all shareholders of record as of August 31st. Looking ahead, while fuel prices remain elevated and volatile relative to prior year levels, underlining demand trends across our network continue to be strong. Based on these demand strengths and current fuel cost projections, we are updating our full year outlook and now expect an operating margin for 2026 to be in the range of $17 to 19%, with a capacity growth of between 14% to 15%. This outlook assumes approximately a load factor of 87%, a RASM of 12 cents, ex-fuel chasm of 5.7 cents, and an all-in fuel price per gallon of $3.60. To summarize, demand and revenue trends remain strong across our network. We are maintaining industry-leading cost discipline. Our balance sheet remains among the strongest in the industry, and our proven business model continues to position as well to navigate the current fuel environment while delivering profitable growth and long-term shareholder value. Thank you, and we'll now open the call for questions from the panelists.

Thank you. At this time, we will conduct the question and answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Savi Sip from Raymond James. Your line is now open. Hey, good morning.

I was kind of curious, Pedro, I think you mentioned that the second quarter was 40% booked prior to all the fair increases. I was curious how much of the third quarter was booked prior to the fair increases and as you kind of look out, how much of the third and the fourth quarter are in the books today?

Okay, so in Q3, pre-war of course, we had about 20%, a little bit below 20% booked for Q3, and of course much less for Q4, almost nothing for Q4.

And today, Pedro, how much is different?

Yeah, and then, Sava, your question was what is the outlook right now for Q3, or what is the booking level for Q3 and Q4, correct?

That's correct.

Yeah, right now we're about 75% booked for Q3 and about 25% sold for Q4. Perfect. And if I might, just

I'm curious, I saw the slight changes in the delivery schedule here for 26-27. Any early thoughts on how you're thinking about deliveries in 2028 as I'm guessing some of those discussions are happening now?

Yeah, we published up to 2027, if I'm not mistaken, and we're getting 12 aircraft in 2027. As always, we have some flexibility. We're going to let go two 700s that come up for their 20-year checks. So we won't do those 20-year checks. We'll let two 700s go. So net, it will be 10 aircraft joining Copa Holdings in 2027. We still have another five 700s, which we can let go. We can park at any time. We can harvest the engine. So we also have that flexibility. But we are... expecting a strong 2027. Of course, we're not guiding to 2027 yet, but we are very comfortable with the aircraft we're having delivered next year, and we think we need them all. For 2028, the number, again, we haven't shared that yet. It will be higher because it's like almost the end of the road for all the Boeing delays, delivery delays, that we had in the last four years. However, we also have a number of lease expirations. We have six lease expirations, plus the 5700, so we have like 11 aircraft that we could let go easily in 2028, depending on demand, and plus we have our unencumbered aircraft, which is over 40. So we have lots of flexibility. Again, we think we're gonna need most of our 2028 deliveries will share that information towards the end of the year, but we have lots of flexibility.

I appreciate that, Philemon and Carla. Thanks, Fred. Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Dwayne Finnegworth of Evercore ISI. Your line is now open.

Hey, thank you. So as you think about the full-year unit revenue guidance up 7-ish percent, on 15% capacity growth, so low 20s revenue growth. Just wondering if you can give some color on the balance of the back half. Do you expect a big variation between third quarter unit revenue growth and the fourth quarter, or is your expectation that they would look pretty similar at this point?

I'll let Robert answer that question. But I'll say that I think the number one thing that's very important is that we're seeing strong demand right now. And so that makes us very comfortable with our projections, of course, as of today. But I'll let Robert share some of the specifics.

Yeah. Morning, Duane. At this point, we're seeing, you know, plus 10%. on RASM and H2. I would say it's fairly consistent across Q3, Q4. In terms of year-over-year variation, it's broadly similar between the two. So I think nothing really of note in either quarter that varies.

Great. Thank you. That's very clear. And then just on the trajectory of A non-op, net interest expense, anything to call out in that trajectory into the back half of the year? And thanks for taking the questions.

Hello, Dwayne. How are you? This is Peter. I would say that it's pretty stable, the net interest expense that we're going to see across the year. Nothing to highlight. As we receive more aircraft, we have a little bit more financing costs, but It's embedded in our state plan and pretty much straightforward on how to calculate it.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Guillerme Mendez of J.P. Morgan. Your line is now open.

Yes, thank you. Good morning, all. Pedro, Peter, Robert, and Daniel. Thanks for taking my question. I have two. The first, it's on the capacity guidance. So the upward revision that we saw this quarter, if you can share some details on what is behind it. It's just a matter of receiving more aircraft earlier than expected or anything else in terms of utilization, maybe. And the second point is on the Starlink announcement. If you don't mind sharing some additional details on what is the expected capex or costs associated with implementing the Starlink and if you intend to charge for it, will be somehow a loyalty lever. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Guilherme. In terms of the increased ASM guidance, if I heard correctly, I would say a few things. One, that we were conservative or careful with our original guidance, not being 100% sure on the Boeing delivery dates. As the year has gone through, not only is Boeing delivering on time, but actually at least one aircraft we got ahead. One aircraft we got ahead by a month, another, a few other aircraft came in a few weeks before. So we've been able to deploy those aircraft much faster during the year. Plus, we have increased utilization. So we're also getting additional aircraft hours and ASM through utilization. So the combination of those factors allow us to increase our capacity guidance. And of course, the demand is there. We have strong demand. So we're really happy to be able to Guide to Higher ASM Capacity. In terms of Starlink, I'll let Robert complement the answer. But the CAPEX was done many months ago. It's already in the books and in the guidance. It's there. And I don't know if you want to share something else, Robert.

Yes. On the business model, first, we're excited to be the first airline in Latin America to be offering this. The business model complementary access is going to be there for business class passengers, all of our preferred member gold, platinum, and presidential members, as well as Starlink subscribers. And then other passengers are going to pay for the service. That's the business model we set up.

And on the CapEx, I'll just add that it was prepaid, as Pedro said, and it will just start depreciating, going through depreciation once the service is installed with for the cash purposes, which are already sitting on our PP&E.

Amazing. Super clear. Thank you all. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Felipe Nielsen of Citi. Your line is now open.

Hey. Hello, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. I have one follow-up regarding the delivery schedule, and this is related to CAPEX. Just wondering how this changes your view on CAPEX for the year. How are you expecting CAPEX to behave, considering that you're receiving aircraft earlier? And my second question is related to the fuel and competitive behavior. wanted to hear a little bit about how is competition behaving to the fuel drops. You're guiding to lower fuel in the back half of the year, and everybody else is also guiding for that. Just wondering how is pricing and competition behaving in this environment. Thank you.

Hello, Felipe. How are you? This is Peter. I'll address your first question regarding CapEx. And yeah, we're seeing CapEx right now between $700 and $750. So basically $50 million less than what we guided at the beginning of the year. And this is basically most of it is because we're expecting that one less delivery that moved a couple of weeks from December to January. So basically that's what's guiding that difference. and then I'll let Robert talk about and Pedro talk about the competition part.

Yeah, so I don't want to, of course, talk much about pricing and competition. It's a delicate subject, but so far what we see is a lot of discipline triggered by the fuel prices, of course. As fuel prices come down, We'll see what happens. We are comfortable with our guidance. And I must say, I think it's important to mention that pre-war, pre the high fuel prices, average fares, at least in our region and network, were actually below, average yields were below 2019. And that's without taking into consideration inflation. So We're comfortable that the yields can be sustained as oil comes down, if not at 100%, but enough for a positive effect going forward. I don't know, Robert.

No, I think you covered it.

Great. This is very clear. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Rogelio Araujo. of Bank of America. Your line is now open.

Guys, thank you very much. I have one question on the second Q Guidance. You set the margin guidance at 8% to 12%. My question is, what were the main uncertainties embedded in that range, and how did those factors ultimately play out such that results landed within the guidance but toward the lower end. If you could explore what was the drivers behind the guidance and what has happened during the quarter. Thank you so much. You're talking about the RASM guidance, right? Actually, the EBIT margin guidance for the second queue. Okay, EBIT. Yeah, so we ended up, we had guided for an 8 to 12 range of giving, even though the uncertainty related to the war, to fuel prices, and even to how demand was going to respond to higher prices. So we gave a wider range than what we usually give. We ended up within that range on the lower side of it. mostly due to RASM, because our unit costs were within, actually were at target, 100% in target, so was mostly coming from RASM. Fuel was also pretty much were in the range we said, which was between 80% and 90% year over year. So the difference was RASM. I'll let Robert add to it, but I'll say that it was kind of very early, maybe mid-quarter when we spoke, and that's where it ended up. I mean, I don't think there's a lot of magic to it. It's just what happened. Robert, I don't know if you want to add to that.

Yeah, I think you covered most of it, Pedro. I mean, I think, the only thing I would say, as we highlighted, The World Cup did impact us a bit more than expected in June and that's the most notable factor we need to call out rather than being a bit on the lower side than we expected. Everything else was kind of small factors and I think the only other thing is, as Pedro highlighted, we had a wide range. It was still pretty early on in how we were trying to understand everything going on with the new fuel environment and so nothing else of note to call out.

And I would also mention that of course we are guiding to very high margins for the year, which means that we're guiding for very strong margins in the second half of the year, and especially as fuel eases. I mean, fuel is still quite high because of crack. even more so than WTI and Brent. The crack spread is very high and we're still guiding to very strong emergence for the second half of the year and for the whole year.

That's very clear. Thank you so much.

Hi operator, we're ready for our next question. I think we lost the operator.

Yeah, I think the next call is coming, the next question is coming from Jens. Jens, can you hear us?

Oh, can you hear me now?

Yeah, we can hear you now, yeah.

Sorry, my microphone was on mute. Our next question comes from Michael Linenberg of Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open.

Oh, hey. Hey, good morning, everyone. I guess two here. Just the step up in the growth rate for the year, the capacity growth rate. I know, Pedro, you talked, you and Robert have both pointed to the stronger, better than The Healthy Demand. As we think about what's driving that, or sort of the elements of the increased ASMs, how much of that is just an annualization of your growth from over the last six to 12 months, as well as maybe increased utilization or stage length? And should we anticipate any additional new markets to be announced beyond Borla Mark?

Okay, so let's get that information. So about 50%, half of the growth is full-year effect from what was implemented last year. And then maybe a small percent, 10% will be new destinations. And the rest is new frequencies, additional frequencies. and yes, we expect to announce at least one more destination for year end. That should come probably before the end of the month, before the end of August I think we'll be announcing what would be our 89th destination to be implemented in December.

Okay, great. And then just My second question, just regarding the hub for next year, going from six to eight connecting banks. Pedro, I can recall a time when I think it was either one to two or two to three. So you've some huge advances here with respect to the Panama City hub. The question is, where are you from an infrastructure perspective? Going from six to eight, will you have tapped out all of the gates? Will you have to hard stand airplanes? How should we think about just the facility and its ability to accommodate those eight connecting banks? How much more runway does that give you before you would have to maybe sink shovels into the ground and build out the concourses? Thanks for taking my questions.

Thank you, Mike. I'll let Robert answer.

Hey, Mike. Good morning. So I think, look, we're excited to Take it from six to eight banks, quite the growth story. Look, I think in terms of facilities, obviously this helps us in freeing up capacity. We're not at the limit yet in the six-bank structure, but we were starting to near the limits of it. This obviously creates more capacity for growth over the coming years and eases need for additional infrastructure. Plus, we have the internal benefits. We get better utilization on the aircraft as well as a lot more options for our customers, which is what's most exciting. I think in terms of the airport infrastructure, then when it changes, there's still a number of investment plans here at the airport over the coming five-year horizon, which will help with Gates, which will help with runway capacity, etc., as well as just some other projects that are ongoing here. So the combination of those two, you know, pretty similar to, I think, what we talked about back in the investor day, give us pretty good runway going forward into the next, you know, call it five, ten years to keep growing comfortably.

Robert, to go from 6 to 8, does that at all change your connection rates, and or does it make it less likely that you would want to take on the MAX 10, which I know is going to be certified soon, and I know that you have the ability to exchange orders for MAX 8s and 9s into the 10s. Does that at all change that calculus?

No. I mean, I think connectivity, it actually gives more options and roughly the connectivity for the passenger in terms of time of connection. I think, you know, there's some that go down a little, some that go up a little, so the on-hold, the average stays broadly the same. In aircraft decisions, no. I think, you know, no change and we're evaluating the different fleet types that exist for our new order.

What the bank will do and... Robert mentioned most of it. I don't know if he mentioned that utilization is going to improve, and then there are going to be better schedules for passengers. Also, the airport assets are going to be better utilized. So it's also great for the airport, which is great for all. So we see it as a very, very positive development.

Absolutely. Great Brother Rasm, Improver, and a Chasm Detractor is kind of how I should think about it.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Jen Spice of Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open. We will move to our next question from Alberto Valerio of UDS. Oh, are you here, Jim?

Yeah, yeah, sorry. Hi, everybody. So I only have two basically small modeling questions. One is on the buyback program, the $200 million. I think you mentioned before that you had executed half of it. I think back on the envelope we are getting to you executing around 35 million this quarter. So how much more or less do you have left? Is it around 65? Is it correct? And secondly, on the two 2027 deliveries, I think you were expecting to get 12 deliveries. You mentioned that one will be shifting from this year to next year. Are you now expecting to receive 13 aircraft? And more or less throughout the year, how will you be receiving them? Is it more front or back loaded? Thank you.

Hello, Dennis. How are you? This is Peter. On the buyback program, we've executed $45 million year to date, and we have around $60 million left. for the program to be executed. And of course, as we always said, whenever we finish, we'll request the authorization to have an additional program. We always like to have the program open. And then on the delivery schedule, I'll tell you that we have small movements. As we get closer to deliveries and deliveries are updated, we have movements. And most of the movements we clarify about a week where deliveries are expected in December and then they move to January. It doesn't change the ASN counts for at least this year it doesn't change at all because we didn't have that plane flying this year so it doesn't change and then the next year we also have some deliveries moving from 27 to 28 but also it was December deliveries that are moving to January 28 so again nothing material it's just the regular update that we get as we get closer to the delivery dates. I don't know if you want to add something.

The 12 next year are pretty evenly spaced throughout the year.

Perfect.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Alberto Valerio of UBS. Your line is now open.

Thank you. Good morning, gentlemen. Thanks for taking my questions. I have one on our side. oil price come up, your costs come up like 85% per gallon. You could pass through a part of it and look like you keep it, this pass through to the remainder of the year. If you could detail or give some explanation where this demand is coming from, if it's strong around your network, South American or America Central, or if there is any specific point. And the other point is about where were these used before? Looked like airlines was leaving some profitability on the table. If you can tell us how resilient this is. Thank you very much. Thank you. I'll start and then I'll compliment my answer and maybe add some color. but we see strength throughout our network. There isn't really one region that is doing much better or that is weak compared to the rest. Of course, we're always going to have certain markets that are going to be on the top end and then some that are going to be in between and maybe lower but actually every market is very healthy. and we're getting demand from our whole network so that's I would say a very positive development which is not always the case and the diversity of our network is always an asset and I guess it's a greater asset now that everything is doing well. Robert, I'm going to ask you that.

Yeah, I think the only thing, as Pedro said, across the board it's pretty consistent that all the markets are reacting, are showing positive demand signs and pretty evenly kind of the yield increases coming through. So I think that's a very positive sign to where things stand. There's some... Brazil, North America are slightly stronger, but it's kind of on the margin. Everything is doing very well.

And Albert, we answer your other question. We're pretty much positive on how sustainable the price increases are going to be because something I mentioned before, that before the oil crisis, our Our average yields in the region were below 2019, and that's not even taking into account inflation. So as fuel comes down, even if there are some adjustments and some pricing comes down, we believe there will remain a positive impact. I should also say that we had a record quarter in the first quarter of this year. So going back to that, it's perfectly fine. And that was with the kind of lower than 2019 yields. We still had a record quarter. So if something is left, which we are pretty sure there will be something left from the price increases, even if the yield comes down, it's just going to be net positive over an already strong base. So we're very positive about this.

It's very clear. I look forward to it.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

This concludes the question and answer session. I would now like to turn it back to Pedro Heilbron, Chairman and CEO, for closing remarks.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, operator. And thank you all for participating in our earnings call and our Q2 earnings call. Also, thank you for your continued support. As you know, you have a Committed COPA team on this side, always working hard to make the results better and with a very, very positive attitude over how this year we think it's going to turn out. So again, thank you and have a great day.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.