Copa Holdings, S.A. (CPA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

February 13, 2025

New York Stock Exchange US Industrials Passenger Airlines earnings 47 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Operator

operator
#1

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Copa Holdings Fourth Quarter Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this call is being webcast and recorded on February 13, 2025. Now I will turn the conference call over to Daniel Tapia, Director of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.

Daniel Tapia

executive
#2

Thank you, Carmen, and welcome, everyone, to our fourth quarter and full year earnings call. Joining me today are Pedro Heilbron, CEO of Copa Holdings; and Peter Donkersloot, who was recently appointed as the company's CFO. First, Pedro will start by going over our fourth quarter and full year highlights. Afterwards, I will go over our financial highlights. 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 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 Heilbron.

Pedro Heilbron

executive
#3

Thank you, Daniel. Good morning to all, and thanks for participating in our fourth quarter and full year earnings call. Before I start, I want to welcome Peter Donkersloot to his new role as CFO. Peter has a strong record of leadership and strategic vision, having held key positions with full P&L responsibility in multiple countries across the continent for a large publicly traded company, and for the last 5 years, as Copa, Head of HR, where he has been an integral part of our success coming out of the pandemic. His understanding of our operations and company culture, combined with his strong financial acumen, makes him uniquely qualified to lead our financial strategy as we continue to grow and evolve in a rapidly changing industry. We're excited to have him step into this new role and look forward to the positive impact he will undoubtedly bring. Peter will officially join the finance team on March 10 following his transition from his current role in HR. Peter, I'll turn it over to you.

Peter Donkersloot Ponce

executive
#4

Thank you, Pedro, and thanks, everybody, for joining our call today. It has been a great honor to lead Copa's HR team for the last 5 years, and I'm truly excited to take on the role of CFO. As Pedro mentioned, in addition to my most recent experience leading the HR team, I've worked in many countries to the continent as General Manager as well as overseeing commercial operations, logistics, risk assessment and financial planning. As you can imagine, as a Panamanian, I'm very proud to be part of Copa's management team, especially given our track record of delivering product and connectivity, our customers value, combined with strong financial results and industry-leading unit cost. I'm eager to lead our finance team in building on the strong foundations and continue to delivering value to our shareholders. Back to you, Pedro.

Pedro Heilbron

executive
#5

Thank you, Peter. I want to start by expressing my sincere appreciation to all our coworkers. Their dedication and hard work have been essential to Copa's leadership in Latin American aviation and strong financial results. To them, as always, my highest regards and admiration. As detailed in our earnings release, we delivered another quarter and full year of solid financial performance, including strong operating margins. Despite facing several challenges throughout the year, such as the partial grounding of our 737 MAX 9 fleet in January, and the sudden cancellation of flights between Panama and Venezuela at the end of July, we were able to deliver an operating margin of 21.9% for the year. Our 2024 financial results are a testament to the disciplined execution of our business model, our focus on low unit cost, continued expansion of our leading hub of the Americas and a passenger-friendly product, including best on-time performance. The combination of these factors has allowed us to deliver strong financial results on a consistent basis. Now I'll go over the main highlights for the fourth quarter. We increased capacity by 7.2% year-over-year. Unit revenues or RASM came in at $0.113, a 10.4% decrease compared to Q4 '23, mainly driven by 10.8% year-over-year decrease in passenger yields. The yield reduction was mainly driven by weaker currencies in Latin America as well as increased industry capacity in the region. Unit revenues were also impacted by the ongoing effect of the rescheduling of flights due to the cancellation of the Panama and Venezuela operations at the end of July. Unit costs, excluding fuel, or CASM-ex came in at $0.059, a 2.6% improvement compared to Q4 '23, mainly driven by the increase of direct sales in both copa.com and our lower cost NDC travel agency channel. Our operating margin for the quarter came in at 23.3%. As for the full year 2024, capacity increased by 8.6% year-over-year, in line with our last guidance. Unit revenues or RASM decreased by 8.2% compared to 2023 to $0.115. CASM ex-fuel came in at $0.058, 3% below 2023. This is a milestone achievement for us as we delivered our full year CASM-ex target 1 year earlier than stated in our 2023 Investor Day. And as I mentioned in my opening remarks, we achieved a 21.9% operating margin for the year. On the operational front, Copa was recently recognized by Cirium for 10th time as the most on-time airline in Latin America for 2024. Copa's on-time performance of 88.2% was once again the highest of any carrier in the Americas and the third best in the world. Additionally, for 2024, Copa was recognized by Skytrax for the ninth consecutive year as the best airline in Central America and the Caribbean. These awards belong to our more than 8,000 coworkers whose day in and day out consistently deliver a world-class travel experience for our customers. Turning over to our expectations for 2025. In terms of demand, we're projecting a continuation of the current demand environment in the region. On the cost front, we expect to deliver consistent unit costs year-over-year maintaining our cost discipline. These 2 factors together lead us to once again expect to deliver strong margins for the year as well as continued growth as we anticipate growing our year-over-year capacity within a range of 7% to 8%. Daniel will provide more details regarding our full year guidance. To summarize, we delivered strong fourth quarter and full year 2024 financial results. We continue to execute on our cost efficiencies, which remain key to our strategy going forward. We will keep growing our network, the most complete and convenient hub for travel in the Americas. We expect to deliver strong financial results in 2025, and as always, our team continues to deliver world-leading operational results and a passenger-friendly product. Now I'll pass it over to Daniel, who will go over our financial highlights.

Daniel Tapia

executive
#6

Thank you, Pedro. We reported a net profit for Q4 of $166.2 million or $3.99 per share. For the full year, our net profit came in at $608.5 million, or $14.56 per share. In terms of operating income, we reported an operating profit for the quarter of $204.2 million and an operating margin of 23.3%. Our operating profit for the full year came in at $753.4 million and 21.9% of operating margins. Turning now to our balance sheet. As of the end of the year, we had over $1.4 billion in cash, short- and long-term investments, which represents 42% of the company's last 12 months revenues. In terms of debt, we ended the year with $2 billion in debt and lease liabilities and adjusted net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 0.5x. Our average cost of debt entirely related to aircraft financing remains highly competitive at an average rate of 3.5%. Approximately 65% of this debt is fixed rate. Regarding our fleet, we received 2 additional centers at MAX 8 in the fourth quarter to end the year with a total fleet of 112 aircraft. Looking ahead to 2025, we expect to receive 13 additional 737 MAX 8, starting with 2 in June and 1 additional Boeing 737-800 freighter. With these additions, we expect the year-end fleet to reach 126 aircraft. As of now, we have secured an operating lease agreement for the additional freighter in financing for 3 of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 deliveries via JOLCO financing. Turning now to the return of value to our shareholders. I'm pleased to announce that for 2025, the Board of Directors has approved a quarterly dividend payment of $1.61 per share to be paid in the month of March, June, September and December, subject to the Board ratification each quarter. I'd like to highlight that this maintains last year's dividend payout. The first quarterly payment will be made on March 14 to all shareholders of record as of February 28. Furthermore, during 2024, the company has repurchased $87 million of its ongoing $200 million share repurchase program, which represented approximately 2% of the total outstanding shares as of the end of 2024. $37 million of the $87 million were executed in the fourth quarter. Finally, turning to our outlook. Consistent with what Pedro shared we can provide the following guidance for the full year 2025. We expect to increase our capacity in ASMs within a range of 7% to 8% year-over-year, and we expect to deliver an operating margin within a range of 20% to 22%. We are basing our outlook on the following assumptions: load factor of approximately 86.5%, unit revenues of around $0.113, CASM ex-fuel of approximately $0.058, and we're expecting an all-in fuel price of $2.60 per gallon. Thank you. And now we'll open the call for questions from analysts.

Operator

operator
#7

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Savi Syth with Raymond James.

Savanthi Syth

analyst
#8

And congratulations, Peter. We look forward to kind of working with you. Just if I might, on the fleet details that you shared, it looks like the MAX still a little bit lower than you thought in August, but a little bit more. Is that kind of the color that Boeing is giving you? And then as you look to 2026, it looks like only 6. So curious why that the slower delivery expectation? And just general thoughts on how you're thinking about this capacity growth?

Pedro Heilbron

executive
#9

Right. So without making you call Boeing, so they explained the delivery schedule. We're actually okay with the schedule we're getting. So it's 13 aircraft this year most in the second half of the year. So we'll get 2 in June and the other 11 in the second half of the year, but many will be in the fourth quarter. And at least 2 of the aircraft are going to fly early in 2026. So we could think it's 11 this year and 8 in 2026 in terms of -- when we're going to activate them. And we feel that's okay in terms of the opportunities we see for additional frequencies and new destinations, we're perfectly fine with that delivery schedule.

Savanthi Syth

analyst
#10

That's helpful. And just maybe really a follow-up related to that. On the CapEx side, is the thinking then still for this year mostly unchanged? Or does that move up? I think the last time it was, I think, the gross CapEx may be closer to $900 million in cash CapEx of $350 million? And is that like a good way to think about next year as well?

Daniel Tapia

executive
#11

Savi, Daniel here. Yes, CapEx for this year, it's [indiscernible] could be a little bit lower between the $850 million range. Cash CapEx, probably around $200 million. For next year, it's going to be lower given we have only 6 deliveries. So that's going to be approximately $450 million next year.

Operator

operator
#12

Our next question comes from the line of Duane Pfennigwerth with Evercore ISI.

Duane Pfennigwerth

analyst
#13

I wonder if you could speak to sequential trend in RASM relative to the fourth quarter decline and the prospects for an inflection in the back half of this year?

Pedro Heilbron

executive
#14

Okay. So as you know, we give yearly RASM guidance, not quarterly guidance. But in general terms, our guidance and what we've seen, especially in the second half of 2024 was the impact of currency weakness in our region in Brazil and a few other countries, but also additional capacity, industry capacity in general, that includes our own growth and other earnings in the markets that are relevant to Copa, which are the ones we focus on. And we're assuming kind of the same trend to continue this year, maybe a slightly improvement in the first quarter, but overall, pretty much the same trend. So you could say, rightly so that there could be a positive inflection point in the second half of the year if everything goes the right way. So we are guiding for kind of more of the same and not for a significant recuperation on currencies or strength of demand or capacity slowing down. So -- but if those things change, yes, the second half could be better.

Operator

operator
#15

Next question is from the line of Guilherme Mendes with JPMorgan.

Guilherme Mendes

analyst
#16

And best wishes to Peter on this new role. Pedro, you mentioned some -- several times about the, let's say, excessive capacity in some of the regions that you compete potential impact yields in RASM into this year. Can you please provide more color on which regions or which routes exactly? Are you seeing more, let's say, overcapacity or a tougher competitive environment?

Pedro Heilbron

executive
#17

Right. So well, usually, when we talk about our region, it's, of course, the Americas where we operate and it includes North America, Central, South and the Caribbean. And it changes, obviously, there might be a country in particular, I guess, more capacity at a given time, but it usually comes from the whole region, and it's hard to separate by specific countries. But what we've seen is that even though overall industry capacity has been growing somewhere between 5% and 10% maybe in the 6% to 7% rate, which is similar to what our growth -- what was our growth in 2024. In some markets in particular, like, for example, Brazil, Colombia -- maybe a little bit in -- yes, Brazil and Colombia, mostly, I would say, maybe Central America also. We have seen capacity growth more close to the 20% range. And that, in some cases, include some of our own capacity, I must say.

Operator

operator
#18

Our next question comes from the line of Tom Fitzgerald with TD Cowen.

Thomas Fitzgerald

analyst
#19

Would you just mind updating us how you think about managing your inventory and revenue management broadly just given the FX volatility that we've seen in some of your major markets like Brazil or Mexico?

Pedro Heilbron

executive
#20

Well, it's the FX volatility we were exposed to last year was higher and the impact to the bottom line greater than what we had seen in a while. I believe the year before '23 was almost nothing. And this year, we're actually off to a better start. We have made up for some of the losses in '24. It's mostly translational. And so it depends on our net asset value and our average net asset value, so some of the currencies have strengthened this first month of the year. So some we've made up. But it's very hard to predict. We don't really -- and we -- I must say we price in dollars. We definitely -- we price in dollars, but it's sold in the local currency at the dollar exchange rate for that day, but our net asset get impacted in that translation. So we don't really plan for that. And I don't think there's much we can do except for example, in Brazil, where we sell in installments, we do hedge half of our Brazilian sales. So of the loss that you see in our P&L, close to $5 million is -- shows up in a different line because that's our hedge gains from our Brazilian currency hedge. So the net impact is really closer to [ $28 million ] for the year than [ $33 million ].

Thomas Fitzgerald

analyst
#21

Okay. That's really helpful. And just as a follow-up, what are you hearing from some of your corporate clients in the multinationals in the region? Just -- how they are thinking about business travel and demand just given all the noise around tariffs and geopolitics?

Pedro Heilbron

executive
#22

Yes. We're very much in intra-Latin America, U.S. to Latin America and what we're seeing, I would say is in terms of percent of business traffic and our corporate accounts is flat pretty much right now year-over-year. And we're expecting -- we're not expecting growth there, we think it's going to remain flat. I mean, there will be growth tied to our capacity, but not in share of revenue. So what we're hearing, it doesn't really change the picture in intra-Latin America and U.S. to Latin America traffic.

Operator

operator
#23

Our next question is from Alberto Valerio with UBS.

Alberto Valerio

analyst
#24

I had one on traffic the guidance that you guys provide. You just released the traffic for January and some really strong -- remember that you have some issues on grounding last year. But looking forward in a seasonality basis -- looking at the guidance was a little bit conservative. Am I wrong on this assumption for the traffic for the year as January or January was one-off stronger than the usual for the month?

Pedro Heilbron

executive
#25

Yes. January, it's impacted by the MAX grounding in January '24. So -- and it's a footnote in our traffic release because, of course, a 20-something percent ASM growth, it's only because of that. They grew grounding in January. But for the year, when we average out that for the whole year, we're guiding to 7% to 8% growth. That's based on the deliveries of -- the aircraft deliveries that we have scheduled for this year. We are not expecting that to change much. And since most of the deliveries are at the end of the year, even if there were additional delays, the impact would be small in our ASM guidance for this year.

Alberto Valerio

analyst
#26

Perfect. And my second one, if I may. It's about the yields. You guys have been performed better than the peers lately? And I'm wondering why lately, I say, like in the past 3 years after that, and you mentioned that the mix did not change between the U.S. travelers and the LatAm travelers. But the change in this more long space, we had for Copa more U.S. travelers that you used to have before pandemic at this moment?

Pedro Heilbron

executive
#27

Yes. my answer, I meant to say or to refer to the mix between business and leisure and VFR year-over-year from 2024 to 2025. We're not seeing a change there. From pre-pandemic, there have been changes and there is more U.S. traffic. You're right in that. And we did have a bump up in yields, which was significant right after the pandemic when there was limited capacity and strong demand. Capacity has caught up with demand pretty much. So right now, we are kind of back -- right now, we're back to 2019 yields in a way. But of course, our unit costs are much better. So we're delivering much better margins. And since the third quarter in 2022, we've been delivering margins over 20%, which is what we're guiding to for 2025 again.

Operator

operator
#28

Our next question is from the line of Michael Linenberg with Deutsche Bank.

Michael Linenberg

analyst
#29

And welcome aboard, Peter. I got to tell you, Pedro, you're probably one of the few airlines on this planet that you're seeing 2019 yields but lower costs. So it's almost as if you're from another place. But with that said, I guess 2 questions here. When I look at the schedule for Wingo in 2025, it seems like supply is actually running down a bit. And I'm not sure is Wingo is one airplane? Is one airplane going into maintenance or something? Are you shrinking that fleet? Or are you just lowering the utilization given the fact that Colombia overall has been an oversupplied market?

Pedro Heilbron

executive
#30

Well, 2 things that have -- that are going on with Wingo. One is that they might be flying more -- they are actually flying a little bit more domestic capacity which is shorter hauls, so overall less ASMs. And they do have some maintenance. So they will have some aircraft in maintenance, which they do during the low season and reduce their schedules. They adjust their schedules to compensate for maintenance aircraft. So that's probably going on also, but they're getting -- they're operating 9, 737-800s, and they're getting tenth 10th 737-800 in the second half of the year. And the ASMs overall should be up for that tenth aircraft and the utilization is coming up is not coming down, excuse me, utilization should be highly -- I mean, slightly up. And -- but anyway, we -- of course, we don't -- we do not disclose specific Wingo information. And so you're probably looking at their published schedules, the changes should just be that. So maybe low season costs to cover for maintenance. But overall, in the year, they will fly more, especially with the tenth aircraft they're getting in the second half of the year.

Michael Linenberg

analyst
#31

Okay. And then just, I guess, it drives a follow-up. Low season Colombia, what are those months, we're close to the equator. I always get a little confused. What would be the low season?

Pedro Heilbron

executive
#32

Like right now...

Michael Linenberg

analyst
#33

Okay.

Pedro Heilbron

executive
#34

You have Easter that shift is April, good month. And then the second half of the year is usually better than the first half of the year. So there's less low season in the second half of the year.

Michael Linenberg

analyst
#35

Okay. And then Wingo, I know you said you don't really provide results, but we know that, again, it's an oversupplied situation in that market, but we also know Wingo is a lower-cost platform. So there may be an incentive even with additional -- the capacity in the region, there's other markets you can serve with Wingo that it may be -- there may be a natural incentive to grow Wingo given that it has maybe a better cost structure than Copa mainline. Is that accurate?

Pedro Heilbron

executive
#36

Well, it is accurate, not by a bunch, by the way, Copa at 5.8% is pretty competitive. So not by a bunch. We haven't grown Wingo in 2 years, because there is that overcapacity. It's growing by 1 plane, which is not significant, it's about 10% in the second half of the year. And just because of all the dynamics in the Colombian market, lower yields, overcapacity or new capacity and the fact that at Copa Holdings, we love bottom line profits, we -- we just don't look crazy things.

Michael Linenberg

analyst
#37

Okay. Okay. And now my real follow-up because I know we got down that Wingo rabbit hole. Just on cargo, to see that you're adding another airplane, you know the tariff situation and global trade and all that notwithstanding, the fact is you must be very pleased with the 1 airplane willing to double the capacity. How should we think about cargo revenue? Is that doubling over the next couple of years with the second airplane? And can you give us a sense of just like the margins or the profitability on cargo versus pure freighter, I guess, I should say, versus your passenger business?

Pedro Heilbron

executive
#38

Okay. Yes, Mike. Well, a few things with cargo. We operate a single 737 Boeing converted freighter. So it's a single plane. Still, most of our cargo revenue comes from the bellies of the passenger fleet -- of the passenger flights. So most of the revenue comes from that. The cargo plane has been very successful. The margins are very high for the cargo planes and much better than our last few planes flying the less profitable routes. But just 1 aircraft going to 2. So it won't be a significant impact. Our current single freighter is flying over 300 hours per month on average, which is -- it's a ton. It's a lot for a single plane. So once we have the 2 planes, the average hours per plane will not be nearly as high, and we'll have more back up. So it will be profitable. The margins are good, but it's not going to be necessarily a significant impact because overall in the scheme of things, is 1 aircraft out of 120 plus.

Michael Linenberg

analyst
#39

Okay. And is that one of your airplanes that's being converted? Or is that coming from the outside?

Pedro Heilbron

executive
#40

Actually, that's a good catch. It's coming from the outside. So because of what you said, there's a lot of availability. A lot of things were converted, and there's not that much market right now. There is in our niche because our freighter is a niche operation which produces cargo that we also distribute in our passenger flights. So we do have the demand, but there was availability, so we're doing an operating lease of a freighter. And that way, we can keep our passenger aircraft, which we need because of the Boeing delays we all know about.

Operator

operator
#41

Our next question is from the line of Jens Spiess with Morgan Stanley.

Jens Spiess

analyst
#42

Congrats on the appointment, Peter, looking forward to working with you too and meeting you in-person. Pedro, I have a question on the VFR in the U.S. We had a Mexican airline mentioning that they saw a bit of weakness since the U.S. -- the new administration came into office, something related to immigration concerns. And I was wondering, obviously, you have a very different network but if you're seeing anything along those lines along your booking curve? And also, yes, let me first start with that.

Pedro Heilbron

executive
#43

No, we're not. We're not our U.S. traffic. It has VFR in the VFR seasons, vacations, et cetera, it also has year-round leisure traffic. And actually, our U.S. network is doing better than before.

Jens Spiess

analyst
#44

Okay. Perfect. And just one follow-up. In terms of buybacks, I mean, considering where your leverage is and the cash you're generating, do you see any chance of accelerating a bit your buyback program? The pace?

Pedro Heilbron

executive
#45

So we have 2 ways we return value. We have a dividend policy, which it's usually 40% of the previous year's net income. This year, as we announced in the earnings release yesterday, we're keeping dividends at the same level as last year, which means that it won't be 40% of last year's net income, it will be 44%, and then we have a buyback program, of which we also communicated that we have executed $87 million out of the $200 million that is approved. So we have another $113 million available. So what we do in terms of your question is that we look at our dividend policy. We look at our available liquidity, taking into account our CapEx needs, given that we've had delays in Boeing deliveries. We have more liquidity than that what -- we had that one we had projected -- what we have projected maybe a year or 2 years ago. So that's a reason for our buyback program, which is in place. And I expect that buyback program to be finalized or executed throughout this year.

Jens Spiess

analyst
#46

Okay. Perfect. So the $200 million would be completed this year. Does it have a limit, a time limit?

Pedro Heilbron

executive
#47

There's no time limit. No. There's no such a time limit.

Operator

operator
#48

Our next question comes from the line of Daniel Mackenzie with Seaport Global.

Daniel McKenzie

analyst
#49

A couple of questions. First off, with respect to growth this year, can you share any perspective on the percent of growth tied to frequencies versus newer markets or just some of the thought process behind where that growth is going, perhaps maybe the stronger economies in the region?

Daniel Tapia

executive
#50

Dan, Daniel here. So yes, so the 7% to 8% growth is around 2/3. It's going to be a full year effect, as Pedro alluded to -- and around another 20% is going to be frequencies in markets we fly today. And then the rest is some gauge because we have a higher seat count for aircraft and some new destinations, of course.

Daniel McKenzie

analyst
#51

Okay. And second question here, I guess, Pedro. Going back to the earnings overhangs that have been called out over the past year and today, I know you have been through a lot of cycles. Just sticking to what's public and the local news there with respect to the Panamanian and Venezuelan governments. First off, is the Panamanian government working with Venezuela for normalized relations at this point? And again, whatever is publicly available. And then just on FX. Is it as simple as just letting it annualize or are there economic -- is there an economic growth dynamic that could offset some of that weakness faster than perhaps you would think?

Pedro Heilbron

executive
#52

Well, in terms of Venezuela, I'm not aware that there are any conversations to normalize relations. We would like to see that, of course, but that's kind of like above our paycheck. And so no, I don't think there's anything going on right now. Hopefully, before the year is over, they will be able to return to that very important market where we had serviced to 5 cities, 42 flights per week before the sudden cancellation at the end of July. So I'm hopeful that at some point, but there's like no light at the end of the tunnel right now. The FX question?

Daniel McKenzie

analyst
#53

Yes, I just was asked -- I was just asking if it's as simple as just letting it annualize before we see an improvement or whether there was economic growth dynamic that could offset some of that FX weakness?

Pedro Heilbron

executive
#54

Right. I mean, it could -- it's something that's going to happen at the end of every quarter. So there could be a good guy at the end of this quarter depending on the currencies. But then at the end of the year, we'll have the final number.

Operator

operator
#55

And our last question is from Stephen Trent with Citi.

Stephen Trent

analyst
#56

Thank you very much for the time, and Peter as well, welcome and looking forward to working with you.

Peter Donkersloot Ponce

executive
#57

Thank you.

Stephen Trent

analyst
#58

One or 2 for me. First, I was curious, when you guys think about your jet fuel kerosene expense, I know you don't service like Brazil domestic where jet fuel kerosene is super high. But do you have any sort of outlier markets where your jet fuel kerosene is sort of measurably more expensive than sort of the general level?

Pedro Heilbron

executive
#59

I think what's important, Stephen, is that we're not at a disadvantage anywhere. And there isn't like a market, I mean, the one market that will be critical for us is our home, our hub market here in Panama, but Panama is a competitive market due to geographic location, the logistics of Panama, we are a transhipment in a point, and there's a lot of storage capacity and oil companies. So we are not at a disadvantage when where it's most important. We're actually in a competitive market. So we're okay in that sense.

Stephen Trent

analyst
#60

Great. Pedro, I appreciate that. And maybe another kind of a follow-up to what Dan was asking. When we think about sort of the geopolitical changes or political changes in the Americas and one thing people are kind of looking at our M&A and alliances and what have you. And I know you and United Airlines have a very good one. Do you see any possibility to make any pivots here in terms of how much you could collaborate with them or maybe there are additional layers you could add to that today versus what you could have done over the previous 4 years perhaps?

Pedro Heilbron

executive
#61

Yes. We have -- as you mentioned, we have a very strong relationship with United that goes back 25 years from the continental days. And I think it's pretty complete in that we co-share. We have total reciprocity in our frequent flyer programs. We even, at times, can plan capacity additions like the San Francisco PTY service that United is going to start in May and it's going to connect their strong Asian network with Panama and from here we're connected with South America. So it's pretty -- it's not a JVA or anything like that, but we're very happy with the relationship. So I think that's really fine and in a good place. In terms of some of the other stuff that's going on, we're always happy with where we are. We cooperate with European carriers. We cooperate with the Brazilian carriers. In that sense, we tend to do what's best for the business and in a very open-minded way knowing that to cooperate is a 2-way street, and we try to make others better and same for ourselves, especially with airlines, we do not compete against and that we can be complementary. I don't know if I'm answering your question, I'm going against -- around circles, but we can be more specific, if you want, Stephen.

Stephen Trent

analyst
#62

No, no, that was great, Pedro. Just sort of wanted to get a high-level view on that. That was perfect.

Pedro Heilbron

executive
#63

Thank you.

Operator

operator
#64

And this concludes our Q&A session, and I will turn it back to Pedro Heilbron for his final comments.

Pedro Heilbron

executive
#65

Okay. Thank you all. As always, thanks for participating in our quarterly call for your continued support. Peter will start March 10, and he'll be very available, of course, and he knows Copa very well. He's been with us 5 years, and I know you will enjoy working with him. And of course, Daniel, which did an excellent backup to Jose today. Thank you, Daniel. You know Daniel very well. So he's also available as I am myself. And maybe just to emphasize, as I've mentioned in previous calls, we've been preparing for years to be a more competitive carrier, to be able to compete with success under any manageable condition, of course, and that's why we've been able to lower our unit cost. We had total focus on lowering our unit cost and strengthening our network and having a product that is today a great advantage for Copa airlines in this whole region. And that's why we've been able to deliver strong results. It's something that we're confident we can continue doing in 2025 and beyond. So thank you all, and we're here and see you in the next call.

Operator

operator
#66

And ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. That concludes the presentation. You may now disconnect, and have a wonderful day.

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