Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Copa Holdings third quarter earnings call. During the presentation, all participants will be on a listen-only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. At that time, if you have a question, you will need to press star then one on your touchtone phone. As a reminder, this call is being webcast and recorded on November 18, 2021. Now, I will turn the conference call over to Daniel Tapia, Director of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.
Thank you, Lori, and welcome everyone to our third 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 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, 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 Heilbron.
Thank you, Daniel. Good morning to all, and thanks for participating in our third 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.
As you may have seen in our earnings release published yesterday, we're glad to report improved financial results for the third quarter. The increase in vaccination rates and reduced travel restrictions in Latin America are positively affecting air travel demand in the region, enabling us to grow capacity quarter over quarter while improving load factors. Since restarting operations in Q3 2020, we have increased flights from almost zero to nearly 70% of our pre-pandemic capacity in Q3 2021.
Going forward, we expect further relaxation of travel restrictions and a continued demand recovery, which should allow us to deploy additional capacity in the fourth quarter and 2022. Of course, COVID has not gone away, and as we've seen in other parts of the world, additional waves of the virus could affect demand in the future.
We will remain focused and flexible in terms of capacity, adjusting our plans as needed. Now, I'll highlight some of our third quarter results. In terms of capacity, we reached almost 70% of third quarter 2019 ASMs compared to 48% of 2019 capacity in the second quarter. Load factor came in at 79%, an improvement of 2 percentage points compared to the second quarter on an almost 50% quarter-over-quarter ASM growth.
Revenues increased by 46% over the previous quarter to $445 million. Our ex-fuel CASM decreased from $0.076 In Q2 to $0.062 In Q3, reaching 2019 unit cost levels at 70% of 2019 capacity. We reported an operating profit of $59 million and an operating margin of 13.3% in the quarter. Excluding a $10.4 million passenger revenue adjustment, the company would have reported an operating profit of $48.6 million and an operating margin of 11.2%. We had a cash build-up of $54 million and ended the quarter with a cash balance of $1.3 billion and a total liquidity of over $1.6 billion.
On the operational front, the company delivered an on-time performance of 89.4% and a completion factor of 99.8%. Once again, among the best in the industry. These results are a true testament to our employees' continuous commitment to delivering a world-class product to our passengers. With regards to our network, we're excited to start our first new destination since the beginning of the pandemic.
Beginning in December, we will offer service to three new cities: Armenia and Cucuta in Colombia and Atlanta in the U.S. By the end of the year, Copa will provide service to 72 destinations in North, Central, South America, and the Caribbean. We expect to recover service to the rest of our pre-pandemic network during 2022, strengthening our position as the most complete and convenient hub in Latin America.
During the quarter, we agreed with Boeing to accelerate the delivery of 12 737 MAX 9 that were originally intended to be delivered starting in 2025. We will receive two of these aircraft in 2022 for a total of seven MAX 9 deliveries next year, and the other 10 aircraft will be added to Copa's deliveries from 2023 through 2025. As to Wingo, during the fourth quarter, it expects to receive two aircraft from the Copa fleet to end the year with a total of eight 737-800.
In closing, 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 Hub of the Americas will be an even more valuable source of strategic advantage. Now I'll turn it over to Jose, who will go over our financial results in more detail.
Thank you, Pedro. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for being with us today. Hope you're doing well. I'd like to join Pedro in acknowledging our great Copa team for all their efforts and great spirit during these many months of the pandemic. I will start by going over our third quarter results.
Our capacity came in at 4.4 billion available seat miles, which amounts to 69% of the capacity operated with the third quarter of 2019. Load factor came in at an average of 79% for the quarter, an increase compared to Q2, while operating 49% more ASMs. We reported a net profit of $8.2 million or $0.19 per share. Excluding special items, we would have reported a net profit of $29.9 million or $0.70 per share.
Special items for the quarter are comprised mainly of an unrealized mark-to-market loss of $32.1 million related to the company's convertible note issued in 2020 and $10.4 million in revenues related to unredeemed tickets, which we are not including in our underlying results as they correspond to sales made during 2019 and early in 2020.
We reported a quarterly operating profit, which came in at $59 million. Excluding the $10.4 million in unredeemed ticket revenues, we had an adjusted operating profit of $48.6 million for the quarter. Our operating margin was 13.3%. Excluding the passenger revenue adjustment, we would have reported an operating margin of 11.2%.
Unit costs, excluding fuel, were better than in the second quarter at $0.062 Per ASM, driven by a quarter-over-quarter capacity growth of 49%. We continue with our cost savings initiatives, and we are now targeting to achieve unit cost below $0.06 Once we reach about 90% of our pre-COVID-19 capacity. Our yields for the quarter came in at $0.12 , a decrease of 3.4% compared to the second quarter while operating more ASMs.
During the third quarter, we had a cash buildup of approximately $54 million, driven mainly by increased sales during the period. As a reminder, for our cash buildup measure, we exclude all extraordinary proceeds from asset sales, but include CapEx and the payment of our leases and other financial obligations. We're going to spend some time now discussing our balance sheet and liquidity.
As of the end of the third quarter, we had assets of close to $4.2 billion, and our cash, short-, and long-term investments ended at $1.3 billion. We also ended the quarter with an aggregate amount of $345 million in unutilized committed credit facilities, which added to our cash, brought our total liquidity to more than $1.6 billion. In terms of debt, we ended the quarter with $1.6 billion in debt and lease liabilities at similar levels to the ones reported for the end of the second quarter. Turning now to our fleet. In July, we finalized the sale and delivery of our last Embraer 190, and during the quarter, we delivered two Boeing 737-700s to their new owner.
We ended the third quarter with 87 aircraft, 68 737-800s, 13 737 MAX 9s, and six 737-700s. These figures will include aircraft currently in temporary storage that we plan to reactivate in the upcoming months. During the fourth quarter, we expect to receive two more 737 MAX 9s to end the year with a total of 89 aircraft.
As to the remainder of the year, based on the current state of the demand environment and air travel restrictions, we can provide the following outlook for the fourth quarter of 2021. We expect capacity to be approximately 83% of Q4 2019 levels at about 5.1 billion ASMs, and we expect our operating margin to be approximately 12%.
Our Q4 2021 outlook is based on the following assumptions: revenues of approximately 80% of Q4 2019 levels at about $545 million, CASM ex-fuel of approximately $0.061, and an all-in price of $2.50 per gallon, an increment of approximately 17% quarter-over-quarter. Given the uncertainty, it is still premature to give the full year 2022 guidance. However, for the first half of the year, we preliminarily expect our capacity measuring ASMs to be approximately 92% of the capacity operated during the first half of 2019. Thank you. With that, we'll open the call to some questions.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one on your telephone. To withdraw your question, press the pound key. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question is from Hunter Keay of Wolfe Research. Your line is open.
Good morning, everybody. Pedro, what is your level of involvement around capacity and growth decisions? Does every new market that you add, or remove or add to need your approval?
Yes, definitely. We are a relatively small team, and we're all very involved in those kind of decisions.
Okay. What about spending money, Pedro? What's your level of involvement in the budget process, not only setting it, but also monitoring spend? That's not a COVID question. It was really how have you done things before COVID? How are you planning on doing things after COVID?
I think if you ask the team, and they'll tell you that I'm too involved, and I've always been very involved, maybe to the point of obsession, and that really hasn't changed. We haven't had to adjust because we've always had that culture of being very involved, looking after the details, looking after, you know, every item in the budget. Same with route planning and the whole thing. Again, we're a small team, and we're all very involved in everything.
Hunter, during the pandemic, the focus has even been stronger on these items. We have been even more, let's say, you know, strict and careful in the way that we spend our money and how we track that. There's quite a bit of involvement from all involved and as Pedro mentions, his own personal time on this.
Hey, can you give me an example of maybe a lesson learned from a cost perspective that you're gonna keep in place going forward, even when things get better?
Well, I would say I think a good example is the fleet. You know, I think some of the great movements that we made in fleet over the last several months in terms of just going to an all-Boeing fleet has been a very, very good move. That creates a lot of benefits besides the huge benefit that you get. You also get a lot of simplicity in terms of execution and costs throughout many areas with flight operations, airports, maintenance, et cetera. That's one that I think has been very, very positive for us.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from Savanthi Syth of Raymond James. Your line is open.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Just, you know, the cost execution has been pretty remarkable here. Jose, I missed if you said you would get to $0.06 or sub-$0.06 when you got to 90% of 2019 capacity. If you can clarify that. Just along those lines, I was wondering, you know, if we can start thinking about maybe sub-$0.058 as you get to 2019 capacity and you know, what some of the tailwinds and headwinds that you might see over the next two years.
You know, for example, I'm guessing performance bonuses will start up again next year if, you know, if the current trends hold. Just kinda curious if you can give a little bit more color on how you're thinking about unit cost.
Savanthi, yeah, our expectation as of now is that when we reach that 90% of 2019 capacity, that we will be below the $0.06 mark. Yeah. You know, in terms of what are some of the tailwinds that we have, I mean, we have a lot of projects ongoing. I'll go back to the fleet itself, you know, in terms of the uniformity in the fleet, and as we put in additional MAX aircraft, it will be a good improvement.
I think that there's, you know, always contract renegotiations and savings that we've performed that I think we shed a lot, quite a bit over the last several months in terms of our overall costs. Yeah, you know, we're working on this every day, and you know, there's an opportunity, I think, for as we grow to bring it probably even further down. At this stage we'll reserve that to 2022 when we get closer to the figure and we'll. You know, I think we're on good track to bring it down below $0.06 and even below there, as you mentioned.
Savanthi, you're right. There will be expenses that maybe we haven't had to the same level during the pandemic, like performance bonuses, but those are always based on surpassing our targets and on a much better performance and results. They pay for themselves.
Is there a level that you think is too low that you can't reach? Like, what's the, you know, promised land, I guess, in terms of what you can hit?
Yeah, I would say for now we'll keep it at sub-6, somewhere in the high 5-cent range is something where that is very doable.
All right. I appreciate it. Thank you.
Thank you, Savanthi.
Thank you. As a reminder, we would like you to limit your questions to one and one follow-up at a time. Our next question is from Michael Linenberg of Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.
Hey, good morning, everyone. Maybe we could just start on the cost side. You know, Jose, you were guiding to 6.6, you came in at 6.2. Congratulations on being flat to 2019 on slightly less than 70% capacity, which obviously underscores the operating leverage tailwind of your story. Where did you make up?
Like, what were the positive surprises on the cost side? Are these timing benefits that maybe dissipate, you know, over the next couple of quarters, or are these things more permanent? Can you just run through because it was a pretty sizable cost beat.
Absolutely, Mike. I have to start by saying that, you know, we've been in this company-wide effort to keep our costs down. It's always been part of the Copa DNA, but we improved on that over the past year and a half. I would say specifically for Q3, there were a set of restart-related expenses that actually came in lower than what we thought.
So it was. You could argue it was a little bit of timing, and we thought that there were some expenses that were gonna be somewhat higher than what we thought initially. Looking forward, you know, we gave guidance now for Q4 of $0.061. I think that we'll be sort of in that level, at least for Q4.
Okay, great. Just my second question, and this is probably José or Pedro. You know, now that you have 13 737 MAX 9s, and you know the fact that like you're gonna get two more and then another seven, so it's gonna become a much bigger part of your fleet. It does have a product that historically, that is very unique to Copa from a historical perspective.
I'm getting at the fact that you have the lie-flat seat, which, you know, when you think about all the service that has been withdrawn in the region, even connecting over Panama, if you can, say, fly from San Fran to São Paulo and lie flat to a lie flat. I haven't asked this question in previous quarters because I didn't think you had enough shells to really give a good answer.
When we think about the uptake in the premium cabin, what are you seeing? You know, are you getting better pricing? Are you at or, you know, levels similar to maybe some of the U.S. competitors? Is the pricing, you know, on par with some of the nonstop service? Because this is your flagship product, and I feel like you can really roll this out and take advantage of those who are willing to pay up for it. So, any color that you can provide on that product, because I think it's a fantastic product. Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you, Michael. A few comments. We need to have enough seats, as you well said, to guarantee the service on a given market. For example, San Francisco and São Paulo will have guaranteed Dreams, as we call our product, guaranteed Dreams service. Once it's guaranteed, we can price it better consistently.
So far we've been getting a premium for the Dreams product. Also I should say that our costs are better than options through other hubs or nonstop options when they're usually not that many. We can do well even pricing it below what was available before for a similar product.
Great. Thanks, everyone. Great quarter.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from Alejandro Zamacona of Credit Suisse. Your line is open.
Thank you. Hi, Pedro. Hi, Jose, Daniel. Thank you for taking my questions. Just a question on yields. What can we expect for 2022? I mean, considering that on one side you are expecting a further significant progress on capacity, and this could push yields lower, but also the business traffic hasn't recovered, and this could help to have a better yields environment. Any thoughts or color around this may be useful. Thank you.
Alejandro, you know, it's still early. We haven't provided full year guidance for 2022. I would say that system-wide, the yield environment has been improving. You know, as we put in capacity, you know, there's. I would say that, you know, at least initially for the first part of the year, it could be off as a 2019 base in the, you know, kind of mid-single digit range. You know, so it. That's kind of the first kind of look into the early part of 2022 in terms of the yield compared to 2019. It'll still be off, but at a lower rate than where we were throughout most of 2021.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from Duane Pfennigwerth of Evercore ISI. Your line is open.
Hey, good morning. It's nice to see that sandbaggers don't die. They just take a little break.
Thanks for your question, Duane.
Okay. Sure. So just on restart, right? Can you give us some examples of like what's ahead of you? You know, kind of what you're considering. Are there any pockets where you know, labor availability is you know, more strained or you know, and maybe you could just kind of qualitatively talk about you know, pilots, for example.
Yeah. Okay. You know, your first comment had, you know, I had to like pause and think about it. I should say that we're not trying to sandbag. Honestly, this pandemic has been very difficult to predict. Even three months ahead, it's like, you know, two years in normal times.
Demand came back, at least in this quarter and what we're seeing in the next few quarters, much faster and stronger than what we would have expected, you know, some months ago. I think that's important to keep in mind that times are very different. In the old days, we could predict things, but we grew capacity quarter-over-quarter 50%, and it was hard to tell then how demand was gonna react.
Back in November of 2020, which seems like ten years ago, we grew capacity quite a bit from Q4 2020 to Q1 2021, and demand did not show up, not materialize, so we had to pull back. That's kind of the things we're dealing with in this pandemic. You know, it's always good for demand to remain strong, and that's kind of what we're hoping or what we're seeing right now.
In terms of labor, we think we're okay. We are about, you know, in the next maybe month and a half or two months, we would have brought back from furlough all of our pilots. We have already brought back all of our flight attendants, and we're even rehiring a flight attendant that took voluntary leave programs.
After that group, we'll start hiring new flight attendants. In pilots, we will soon bring back everyone that was in furlough. We have pilots that took voluntary leave. We've contacted them and a high percent of them is willing to come back.
We're also strengthening our own in-house pilot academy, so we're growing that also. Right now, we feel we're fine in that respect. Again, you know, we're always cautious and always alert because this pandemic is always full of surprises.
Yeah. Duane, flexibility is key in all aspects, and that's the way that we've been managing it for the last several months.
That's all very fair. If I could just ask maybe a little follow-up on the folks that are coming back from voluntary leave. You know, when you reach out, when you call them, when you email them and say, "Hey, you know, let's get back, demand is recovering," you know, is the rate at which they are productive consistent with your expectations?
Oh, yes, totally. We have a very, very strong training center and we have very good instructors, and they're dedicated and committed. If someone is not up to par, then that person won't pass the filters. The people that join the company are always at the highest levels.
Okay, thanks very much for the thoughts.
Yeah. Duane.
Duane.
Thank you. Our next question is from Bruno Amorim of Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.
Thank you very much, and congratulations on the performance this quarter. You know, I just have a very quick follow-up on the cost performance. We saw wages, salaries down by 40% versus the third quarter of 2019, which implies that on a per ASM basis, this number here is around, you know, 13% below pre-crisis levels.
Considering everything that was discussed, the potential increase in bonuses and everything going forward, do you still expect for, you know, for this cost line on a per ASM basis to be below pre-crisis levels on a sustainable basis, or not? Thank you very much.
Yeah, our expectation is that it would remain below pre-pandemic levels. It will mostly come from overhead adjustments and operational efficiencies. As we grow ASMs and flights, we will increase overhead but we hope that we will increase capacity by a higher percentage, so we can keep that relation we have right now. Again, even if it changes somewhat, it will probably change with the performance bonuses and some of the people we need to bring back, it will still be below pre-pandemic levels.
Yep. Thank you. If I may just a follow-up on the competitive environment. What can you comment on, you know, what are you seeing from your competitors? Maybe new initiatives from players who were maybe not direct competitors in the past. I know you don't comment on a specific case, but if you can comment broadly, you know. What are you seeing from a competitive landscape perspective? That would be great. Thank you very much.
Okay. There's quite a bit of action, I would say. We try not to advertise our competitors, but there is action in the region from especially new entrants to the region, to some of the markets you also see. There's quite a bit of activity. That's, you know, it's a reason why we've always been so focused on our unit cost. We always bet that having our unit cost as low as possible and below any full service carrier and very close to low-cost carriers is the key to future success.
That combined with our strong network, which we're keeping strong and growing, and everything else we do in terms of having world-leading on-time performance and a strong product. We think that's the key to our success.
We have a very strong hub in the best geographic position, and if we do all the other things, or if we continue to do everything else correctly, we should be able to succeed in the future, even under new competition, which is something that we've always had to deal with.
Thank you, and congratulations again.
Thank you, Bruno.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from Pablo Monsivais of Barclays. Your line is open.
Hi, Pedro, Tapia, and t hanks for taking my question. I have kind of a follow-up question on the revenue side. I am very curious to learn what type of passengers or the demand segment is driving such strong performance. It is still leisure-driven, it's perhaps vaccine tourism or corporate is coming back quicker than expected. What is driving this result? Also going forward, do you think that, for example, if you're thinking about leisure, how leisure would look like when we return to normalcy, perhaps the first half of next year? Thank you.
Yeah. Pablo, Jose here. I would say that the big drivers are our leisure and VFR traffic, more so than business. Before the pandemic, you could argue that our breakdown of traffic for us was about a third each segment.
As of now, there's probably more of a 40% leisure, 40% VFR, and about 20% business. Business is off versus where it was before. It isn't a vaccine tourism anymore. Vaccine tourism, at least in our region, occurred. I wanna say back in the second quarter. Today, it's more just real leisure of people wanting to go on a vacation after being locked up for a long period of time. That's kind of what we're seeing in terms of the patterns.
For example, thinking about that leisure market, driving demand. If we take into consideration a higher inflation in the region and weaker currencies, should we expect that this demand from leisure market is sustainable for 2022?
It is what we're seeing right now. We are seeing no signs of demand slowing down, and we think we're gonna stay on this path. At least that's how we're seeing it right now when we look at future bookings.
Perfect. Super clear. Thank you very much, guys.
Thank you, Pablo.
Thank you. Our next question is from Josh Milberg of Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.
Great. Good day, everyone, and thanks for the call. I had a follow-up on the issue of competition and wanted to ask if you could comment on how much your yields have been helped by either U.S. carriers or regional ones bringing capacity back at a slower pace than you guys on overlapping routes. A related one is also, I believe that Avianca's new CEO made comments in the press recently that airline is shifting to a point-to-point strategy, and just wanted to hear your views on the relevance of that announcement for Copa.
I mean, U.S. carriers have brought back capacity to a higher level than pre-pandemic. Most, if not all, U.S. carriers are offering more ASMs now than what they offered in 2019. I'm talking in Latin America. Some of the major hub-and-spoke carriers that went or are going through Chapter 11 procedures, so they are below.
Everyone else is above 2019. It's a mixture there. Yes, Avianca, as you well mentioned, made declarations, and I think they even kind of published their Chapter 11 exit plan or something, and it's gonna be more of a low-cost strategy with densified planes, point-to-point service and lower yields.
Yes, we've heard that, and we're confident that we will be able to maintain our cost advantage and be able to compete under any scenario, and we are prepared for that, and we're preparing further for that kind of competitive environment.
Thank you very much, Pedro.
Thank you, Josh.
Thank you. Our next question is from Stephen Trent of Citi. Your line is open.
Thanks very much, guys, and I appreciate you taking my question. You know, the first one is actually kind of a follow-up to Pablo's question. When we think about the stickiness on the fare side, you know, especially let's say on some of your low density routes, you know, is it fair to say that there's, you know, still so much pent-up demand that, you know, you are seeing a very good fare pass through, you know, even on, you know, non-business travelers?
What we're seeing right now, I'm not sure I would call it pent-up demand. What we're seeing is that people wanna fly and travel like they did before the pandemic. In a way, it's been surprising to the degree that is going on, because we are not seeing the fear of traveling that we expected maybe a year ago or nine months ago.
I think it's just regular demand. It's just people going about their business, going about their lives and just getting out and traveling as much as they can afford or they want to. I would not call it pent-up demand right now.
Okay. Very helpful, Pedro. As my follow-up, just very quickly, I appreciate the color on 2022. Any high-level view for next year, how many flight banks you guys might be running out of Tocumen or it's still too early to say?
Well, we run six flight banks, and I don't think that's gonna change. We've been doing it for a while. We're still not all the way back to the number of flights we had pre-pandemic. We still have to restart a number of destinations, and that will happen throughout the year 2022. I think 2022 is a year where we need to get back to what we were in 2019 in terms of the size of the hub, the connectivity, the number of flights. That kind of what we'll be doing most of the year.
Always looking for new opportunities from the hub as well. As we mentioned in this quarter as well, we're adding frequencies or cities into the network that are interesting and unique.
Okay, let me leave it there. Thanks very much, guys.
Thanks, Stephen.
Thank you. Our last question is from Daniel McKenzie of Seaport Global. Your line is open.
Oh, hey, thanks for squeezing me in here. You know, just following up on that last question on pent-up demand. I think the rule of thumb historically in Latin America has been, you know, 2x GDP. You know, are you thinking that once things normalize, it might still be 2x, or could pent-up demand drive it something higher to, like, say, 3x or even higher than 3x?
Well, I think again, it's early to say where it will wind up. What I think if you look at the macroeconomic factors, the economies are in a particular level where, yes, I think air travel demand will grow eventually at two to three times GDP growth. I think that level of where the Latin American economies are still maintains itself after COVID. Yes, in the longer term, I think that I believe that that's gonna be the case.
Yes.
Again, it's still. COVID is not over yet. That's the other thing, right? You have to be mindful that it's still an environment that might have some movement or volatility over the next several months.
Yeah. That actually gets to my next question here, and it just sort of ties to operations for the current quarter and how you've been managing, you know, operations over the pandemic. You know, with respect to the current quarter, I'm just wondering how the network plans have evolved. You know, I'm looking at Brazil.
I'm seeing some cuts to Brazil, for example. It looks like you're managing flights based on demand, trimming, you know, when you need to, adding, you know, where you can. Again, it doesn't look like it's new to the quarter. Where I'm going with this is, you know, do the changes weigh on profitability, or do they actually help with profitability?
I would say that, yeah, we're looking at it very carefully, almost constantly. I think that we are always looking for the opportunities to improve on our profitability. Also, it's all about building back the network. I think that the key factor here is ensuring that we build the network as quickly and as effectively as we can. That's, you know, to get to a point where the sort of capacity of the network is as close to where it was prior to the pandemic. That's, I think, the driving factor that we're looking at.
What you're saying, which is true, is also a result of what I was saying earlier about the difficulty in predicting what's ahead, during this time. We've had to make more changes and adjustments along the way than we're used to. Hopefully in the next few quarters, we'll be able to have a more predictable and stable operation and just stick to it.
Understood. If I could just squeeze one last one in here, Mike and I actually had the same question on Dreams seats here. I guess if I could just elaborate on that question. I'm just wondering if today you're selling it as an actual lie-flat first class seat or just simply as a generic business class seat at this point. I guess, you know, if you're not really selling it as a flagship product, you know, what is the timeframe for when you might feel like you're ready to go live with that?
No, we do sell it. We do sell it for a premium, when we can guarantee it, in every flight in a given market. There's a few markets where we can already do that. It all depends on the number of 737s we're operating.
As we get more MAX 9, we add the number of markets. Right now, it's probably somewhere around five markets, I think. Yes, like four or five markets where we guarantee the Dreams product. In those cases, there's a premium we charge for the product.
I see. Okay. Thanks for the time, you guys.
Thank you.
Thank you, Dan.
Operator.
There are-
Go ahead.
Yes, there are no further questions. Do you have any closing remarks?
Okay. Thank you, operator, and thank you all. This concludes our earnings call. Thank you for being with us. Thank you for your continued support. Have a great day, and we'll see you in the next one. Thank you all.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. That concludes the presentation. You may now disconnect and have a wonderful day.