Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the 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 have to press star then one on your touch-tone phone. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. This call is being webcast and recorded on November 16th, 2022. Now I will turn the conference call over to Daniel Tapia, Director of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.
Thank you, Victor, and welcome everyone to our third quarter earnings call. Joining us today are Pedro Heilbron, CEO of Copa Holdings, and José Montero, our CFO. First, Pedro will start by going over our third quarter highlights, followed by José, who will discuss our financial results. Immediately after, we will open the call for questions from analysts. Copa Holdings financial reports have been prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards. In today's call, we will discuss non-IFRS financial measures. A reconciliation of the non-IFRS to IFRS financial measures can be found in our earnings release, which has been posted on the company's website, copaair.com. Our discussion today will also contain forward-looking statements not limited to historical facts that reflect the company's current beliefs, expectations, and/or intentions regarding future events and results.
These forward-looking statements involve 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. Despite the pressure that higher jet fuel prices continue to add to operating costs, in the third quarter, we were able to cover this increase thanks to strong demand and unit revenue performance and lower ex-fuel unit costs. During Q3, our effective fuel price per gallon increased by 77% compared to the same period in 2019, which drove a unit cost increase of 16%.
However, both our load factors and yields also increased, improving unit revenues by 15% compared to Q3 2019, driven by a currently stronger travel demand environment in the region. The combination of these factors, plus our ability to control our non-fuel related costs, enabled us to deliver a 17.8% operating margin, which compares to an operating margin of 18.8% in Q3 2019. Now I would like to mention the main highlights for the quarter. Our capacity measured in ASMs reached 99% of third quarter 2019, bringing us essentially back to our pre-pandemic levels. RPMs increased slightly by 1% compared to Q3 2019, which led to an 86.8% load factor, a 1.2 percentage point improvement. Passenger yields came in at $0.141 or 12% higher than in the third quarter of 2019.
While cargo revenue was 80% higher, resulting in unit revenues or RASM of $0.128, a 15% increase compared to the third quarter of 2019. Ex-fuel CASM decreased 5% compared to Q3 2019 from $0.062 to $0.059. On the operational front, Copa Airlines delivered an on-time performance of 86.6% and a completion factor of 99.7%. Finally, in October, Copa Airlines was recognized by Skytrax for the seventh consecutive year as the best airline and best airline staff in Central America and the Caribbean. I would like to remind you that earlier in the year, Copa was also recognized by Cirium as the most on-time airline in Latin America during 2021 for the eighth consecutive year.
I'd like to take this opportunity to recognize and thank our more than 7,000 employees for everything they do day in and day out to offer a world-class travel experience to our passengers. These awards prove that their continued efforts and commitment are especially valuable to our passengers and do not go unnoticed. Turning now to our fleet. During the quarter, we took delivery of one Boeing 737 MAX 9 to end the quarter with a total of 95 aircraft, compared to the 102 aircraft in our fleet pre-pandemic.
In terms of our network, in September, Copa Airlines started service to the Felipe Ángeles International Airport, which complements our existing service to Mexico City. With the addition of this route, we continue strengthening and solidifying our position as the most complete and convenient hub in Latin America, ending the quarter with service to 77 cities in 32 countries. Turning now to Wingo. Wingo continues its regional expansion, and by year-end, it expects to create 31 routes with service to 20 cities in 10 countries. Furthermore, in the fourth quarter, Wingo will receive one additional 737-800 from Copa's fleet to end 2022 with a total of nine aircraft. To summarize, despite the current fuel price environment affecting the airline industry, we have reestablished our capacity and network back to pre-pandemic levels and are consistently delivering improved financial results.
Looking ahead, we observe a strong demand environment in the region and a healthy booking trend, which lead us to anticipate an increase in our unit revenues for Q4 and higher operating margins quarter-over-quarter. Nonetheless, considering the uncertainty of the current economic environment, we continue to closely monitor demand patterns in the region, so we will remain focused and flexible in terms of cost and capacity, adjusting our plans as needed. I'd like to conclude by reiterating 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 low unit costs, best on-time performance, and a strong balance sheet. We expect that our Hub of the Americas will continue to be a valuable source of strategic advantage.
Now, I'll turn it over to José, who will go over our financial results in more detail.
Thank you, Pedro. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for being with us today. I'd like to join Pedro in acknowledging our great team for all their efforts to deliver world-class service to our passengers. I will start by going over our third quarter results. Net Profit for the quarter came in at $115.9 million or $2.93 per share. Excluding special items, profit came in at $115.1 million or $2.91 per share. Third quarter special items total approximately $900,000 , comprised of an unrealized mark-to-market gain of $1.6 million to the company's convertible notes, and a $700,000 unrealized mark-to-market loss related to changes in the value of financial investments.
We reported a quarterly operating profit of $143.7 million and an operating margin of 17.8% . Capacity came in at 6.3 billion available seat miles, which represents almost 100% of our Q3, 2019 capacity. Load factor came in at an average of 86. 8% for the quarter, at 1.2 percentage point increase compared to the same period in 2019 . While passenger yields increased 12.1% . As a result, unit revenues came in at twelve point or 15% higher than in the third quarter of 2019. Driven by higher jet fuel prices, unit costs or CASM increased 16.4% compared to Q3, 2019 to $0.105 .
Finally, our CASM, excluding fuel, came in at $0.059, a 5.3% decrease compared to Q3 2019. Although we face certain inflationary pressures as well as higher sales and distribution unit costs related to higher sales levels, our continued initiatives to reduce our costs have produced a sustained level of lower ex-fuel CASM. I'm 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 $4.6 billion. In terms of cash, short and long-term investments, we ended the quarter with $1.1 billion, which represents 42% of last 12 months revenues.
As to our debt, we ended the quarter with $1.7 billion in debt and lease liabilities, and our adjusted net debt to EBITDA ratio came in at 0.8x. Turning now to our fleet, during the third quarter, we received one Boeing 737 MAX 9 to end the quarter with a total of 95 aircraft. In October, our total fleet increased to 96 aircraft since we received an additional 737 MAX 9. With this addition, our total fleet is now comprised of 68 737-800s, 19 737 MAX 9s, and nine 737-700s. These figures include one 737-800 freighter. Of our total fleet, 2/3 of our aircraft are owned and 1/3 is under operating leases.
For the remainder of the year, we expect to receive one additional 737 MAX 9, and so we expect to end the year with a fleet of 97 aircraft, compared to 102 aircraft in our fleet at year-end 2019. In 2023, we expect to receive 13 additional MAX aircraft, 12 Boeing 737 MAX 9s and one Boeing 737 MAX 8. We've already secured financing for seven of these aircraft, one aircraft through a sale leaseback transaction, and six through Japanese operating leases with call options. As to our outlook, based on the current strong demand environment, we can provide the following guidance for the fourth quarter of 2022.
We expect to operate approximately 6.5 billion ASMs, which implies a capacity increase of 6% compared to Q4 2019. We expect an operating margin of approximately 22%. We're basing our Q4 2022 outlook on the following assumptions, load factor of approximately 88%, unit revenues of approximately $0.137, CASM ex fuel of approximately $0.06, and an all-in fuel price of $3.75 per gallon. Regarding next year, preliminarily, based on our current fleet plan, we expect our capacity measured in ASMs to increase approximately 15% versus that of 2022. Thank you. With that, we'll open the call to some questions.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you need to press star one one on your telephone. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Duane Pfennigwerth from Evercore ISI. Your line is open.
Hey, thank you. I wanted to ask you about competitive capacity. You know, this analysis gets a little noisy with everything comp year-over-three-year and versus 2019. If we actually look year-over-year, it looks like Central America to the U.S. is one of a few regions in the world where capacity is actually down year-over-year. I wonder if you could just comment broadly on what you're seeing from a competitive capacity perspective in your markets, you know, in the fourth quarter versus the third quarter.
Hi, Duane. Pedro here. Central America to the U.S. could be down, but it was higher right after the pandemic. It's coming back to a more normal level, in a way we could say that. The main airlines in our region, the main international airlines, will be back to nearly the pre-pandemic capacity by the end of this year, so by the end of Q4 2022. The new entrants and the LCCs are above pre-pandemic.
Okay. On dividend policy, apologize if you mentioned this, but how are you and the board thinking about, you know, restoration of the dividend and kind of the historical payout, and how do you think about, you know, buybacks versus dividends here? Obviously, you've done a substantial amount of buyback already and an incredible amount of buyback for an airline.
Right. The dividend policy, it's still there. It was suspended when the pandemic started. To be reactivated, it's a decision the Board must take. I am assuming that that's gonna be discussed in the next Board meeting after Q4 closes.
Yeah, Duane, and in terms of the buyback, as you mentioned, yeah, we've been active. We have an active program of $200 million that is not yet completed. The rationale for the program is, A, as you know, as we've always had, to maximize shareholder value, but also as a tool to have some management of the liability related to the convert. That's kind of the rationale of the buyback program that we've been executing.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Duane.
One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Alejandro Zamacona from Credit Suisse. Your line is open.
Hi. Thank you, Pedro, José, Daniel. Thank you for taking my question. My first question is on the expectations for 2023. Besides the capacity growth of 15% that you disclosed, do you have any early expectations in terms of yield, fuel costs, profitability, especially for yields, assuming that oil prices have started to normalize, and for costs amid all the high inflationary environment? Thank you.
Yeah, Alejandro, you know, we issued our preliminary guidance just in terms of capacity at this time. I think that in February we'll probably have more visibility into 2023. We'll hold on until then for a, you know, clearer, more comprehensive guidance for the full year.
Yeah. We'll have more visibility on the specific factors you have mentioned for sure.
Okay, thank you. My second question, if I may, regarding the labor union negotiations. Could you share any thoughts on the current negotiations and expected outcome?
Yeah. We have four main unions. Earlier in the year, we closed negotiations with the airport workers and the mechanics, and we're currently in negotiations with the pilots and in the final stage with the cabin crews. I would not like to speculate on results.
Okay. Thank you, Pedro.
One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Linenberg from Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.
Oh, yeah. Hey, good morning, everyone. Good results by the way. Great outlook too. Couple here. José, just back on the share repurchase. It looks like this last quarter maybe was a little over $20 million. The previous quarter maybe was $120, $125. If I think about what, $200 million in total, what do we have? About $50 million left, $60 million? Can you just give us what's left in the program?
No, it's a little bit more because there is a portion of what we purchased in the second quarter that was associated with a prior program that we had. There's a little bit north, I think about $100 million left in our current program. Yeah.
Oh, great. Thanks for pointing that out. Just my second question to either you and/or Pedro. This 88% load factor in the fourth quarter, not only is it very high, but of course you're bringing back capacity now. It's up versus the third quarter. We have sequential improvement. I think pre-COVID, you know, normally seasonally, you would see loads maybe dip down half a point, a point, two points. We could go back and do a 10-year average. You'd probably see a few points less. I'm just trying to get behind why the load is higher. It's sort of a counter-seasonal move on one hand. On the other hand, your network will now be fully back to normalcy.
Maybe you're getting the full benefit of connecting across all your various banks, and that's helping drive that additional load factor despite the fact that capacity is up. Can you just kind of, you know, walk us through maybe what's driving that? Because that does seem very unique and interesting.
Yeah. Hi, Michael.
Hey, Pedro.
Th-things have changed, of course, since the pandemic, and the patterns are slightly different. Demand is strong right now. Uh, it doesn't mean that it's gonna be strong forever. Uh, yields are strong, uh, driven by higher fuel price, but we don't know for how long either. And then, uh, competition, as I mentioned before, has been gradually, uh, adding back capacity. Uh, some will come back some time in this quarter, uh, others are already above pre-pandemic. So there's so many moving parts that are so different to pre-pandemic that we're really having a hard time, uh, predicting exactly how demand is gonna behave a quarter over quarter. So this is like the best of what we can see right now. And that's kind of like, uh, that's like a, you know, the most we can say because it's, again, it's all, it's all changed.
It sounds like it's just a period where all the planets are in alignment and you're just getting good numbers.
Yep.
It could be. Exactly.
I think that's a good assessment.
Great. Well, thanks everyone.
Thanks, Mike.
One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Savi Syth from Raymond James. Your line is open.
Hey. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Just on the 2023 capacity, could you talk a little bit about the mix in terms of stage and upgauging and new departures in that 15%? As well as I wonder if you can talk about how you're thinking about the, you know, new markets versus kind of building back frequencies.
Yeah. I would say, Savi, that about a little bit more than half of that capacity is just full year effect of some of the capacity that we built in during 2022. The remainder is probably gonna be between gauge and frequency into markets that we already serve. I think the focus more anything is gonna be on initially sort of full year effect and then frequency into markets that we serve with kind of the additional gauge. That's kind of at this stage, kind of where we have.
Kind of lower risk growth there then.
I would say so, yeah. I mean, I think, I mean, you know, we have right now 77 markets or 77 cities. We had 80 prior to the pandemic, and so I think that there's still certainly opportunities in terms of cities and new markets that we would serve. I think there's gonna be some of that, but the majority of the growth is gonna come from the latter or the other two areas that I mentioned.
That's helpful. If I might on the kind of revenue strength that you're seeing, is there any kind of color that you can provide on business, you know, kind of corporate? It seems like most of the commentary we're hearing across the kind of various geographies is it's really coming from leisure and VFR. Are you seeing kind of a more return to corporate? I know some of the premium capacity in your markets have maybe come off, and wondering if that's helping you gain any corporate share.
Yeah. Pedro here, Savi. It's still mostly leisure where the strength is coming from, but business is up. Our corporate accounts, for example, are at 75% of pre-pandemic. Overall, business is now around 25% of total revenues. Before in the previous quarters, it was about 20%. We are seeing a little bit of an uptick in the business travel.
Are you seeing any improvement? Is kinda our valuation right? Is the premium seats, you know, the competitive premium seats in the market lower now, or is that not very noticeable?
I don't think there's that much of a switch. Are you talking about competitors, right?
E-exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah. I don't think there's a clear picture there.
Okay. Appreciate the comment. Thank you.
Thank you, Savi.
Thank you. Once again, that's star one one for questions. One moment for our next question. Our next question will come from the line of Stephen Trent from Citi. Your line is open.
Good morning, gentlemen, and thanks very much for taking my question. I was wondering if I could just dig in a little bit on the capacity growth for 2023. I mean, it seems in terms of, you know, your seat mile cost cadence, you know, you're outperforming, you know, most of the U.S. airlines per se. When we think about moving into 2023, how should we think about, you know, sort of the split between fixed and variable costs, for example, you know, as we think about, you know, for instance, the upgauging that you've done from Embraers to Boeings and some seat densification. You know, just sort of wanted to dig in, you know, your success in what seems to be limiting seat mile cost, you know, versus some of your North American competitors.
Thank you.
Yeah. Steve, I'll start with, you know, relating a little bit of how we got here. You know, we have reduced our CASM ex-fuel between 2019-2022 by around 5%. That's come, as you mentioned, with the fleet moves that we made, with the fleet simplification. You know, we streamlined overhead across the board and, you know, perform other tweaks, including some tweaks in our onboard offerings, et cetera. Going forward, we will continue doing more of that. I think that, you know, we still are trying to put everything together in terms of our 2023 CASM guide. I think in February we'll be more ready to give a full year unit cost guide for the year.
As you well mentioned, you know, all the items that you mentioned, the continued growth of the 737 fleet, the densification, et cetera, will come into play as well in moving forward and keeping our costs in a very competitive position.
Okay, super. Really appreciate that, Jose. Just one other quick question. If my memory serves me correctly, which it might not, I recall in the past, maybe a couple of years ago, when I think about your fleet mix of leased versus owned, that it was kind of somewhat more 80/20 as opposed to the, I believe, the two-thirds, one-thirds you mentioned. You know, is my understanding accurate? When you think about leased versus owned, is it a matter of, you know, where you see the most attractive financing opportunities or, you know, with Wingo's growth, maybe you're reluctant to take some of the asset risk on the, you know, the NGs. Just love to hear your thoughts on that. Thank you.
Yeah, absolutely. No, it's actually not shifted too much. It's been kind of in that, you know, two-third, one-third for a while. It depends on the moment. It has been because of, at points in time in the past, because of aircraft availability at a particular moment. Ultimately, we make our decisions for financing based on what the better options are there from a purely economic perspective. That's kind of the driving factor. Having aircraft on the operating leases also gives us some flexibility in terms of the fleet plan, which is a key portion of it. You know, they all have staggered expiration dates, and that allows us to plan ahead in terms of capacity.
That's kind of the rationale that we followed over the last several years.
Okay, very helpful. Thanks very much, José.
One moment for our next question. Our last question will come from the line of Helane Becker from Cowen. Your line is open. Helane, your line is open.
Yeah, sorry, I missed that somehow. Thanks for the time, gentlemen. Just two questions. Can you talk about the improvement in fuel efficiency with replacing the older aircraft with the MAX? The other part of the question is, could you maybe talk about the loyalty program, the uptake, the increase, what you've experienced in the past maybe year and a half on the acceptance of that program? Thank you.
Hi, Helane. Uh, yeah, in terms of fuel, there's a couple of items I think of note. Yeah, the MAX is, in terms of fuel, pure fuel efficiency, is, uh, delivering, uh, as it has been advertised, uh, vis-a-vis the NG. And, and so I remember in our case, we also replaced, uh, ultimately some of the Embraer 190s with MAX. So the benefit in terms of fuel consumption was, uh, also, uh, very good. So it's in the low, uh, double-digit range in terms of fuel efficiency, uh, on a like basis. So it's again, performing as advertised. The-- on a, on a fuel basis. The, um, the other item that is important is that we as a company, pursued quite a bit our fuel conservation efforts over, uh, the last several years.
Besides just purely the operational fuel efficiency of the aircraft, we also have embarked in a multitude of initiatives from the operational side, from the maintenance side, and even from the finance side, to reduce our fuel consumption as well. Those are, you know, maybe there's a set of about 12 or 15 metrics that we follow on a specific manner on an ongoing basis related to fuel conservation that has also aided in our overall fuel efficiency over the last several years.
Oh, go ahead.
Sorry, items, I'll give you an example of something that, you know, would be anything like, you know, centers of gravity of aircraft. You know, just minding the aircraft center of gravity on every specific flight is something that adds a lot of value in terms of fuel conservation. It's items like that that we measure and pursue in every single flight. I think it's a good development there. Sorry, Pedro.
Yeah. No, it's okay. Helane, in terms of our loyalty program, we haven't shared much information in the past. You know, just took the note because maybe we can make a special presentation during our Investor Day next year. Maybe we can share more information. It's doing well. I mean, of course, it's not a huge program. It goes right out to our size and the size of our home market, but it's a very successful program. It's growing nicely. Again, maybe we can share more information during our Investor Day.
In terms of going back to Stephen's questions and your question in terms of fuel efficiency and upgauging or densification, I think it's interesting to notice that in Q3, our ASMs are only slightly below our 2019 level. If you look at our block hours are about 7% below 2019. We're delivering a much higher ASMs per flight, and that has a direct impact in our ex-fuel CASM and even in our fuel proceed performance.
Right. Actually, that's what prompted my question, the fact that you're within a percentage point but your fuel consumption is lower.
Yep.
By a lot.
Yeah.
It's not explained entirely by Savi's question about length of haul and stage.
Yeah.
That's what prompted that.
Right.
Just one last thing. Right before the pandemic started, you guys had started the Panama layover, and I'm just wondering if the uptake on that has started to increase again.
It has. This year is gonna end pretty much in the same numbers we had in 2019, pre-pandemic, in the range of 100,000 passengers, give and take a few thousand. It's doing very well, and we're gonna keep on pushing it next year in 2023.
Great. Thanks very much, gentlemen.
Thank you, Helane.
Thank you. Now I'd like to turn the conference back to Mr. Pedro Heilbron for closing remarks.
Okay. Thank you, Operator Victor. Thank you all. This concludes our earnings call for Q3 2022. Thank you for being with us, and thanks for your continued support. Have a great day, and we'll see you in the next one. Thank you.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.