Copa Holdings - Earnings Call - Q3 2021

Transcript

Speaker 0

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. As a reminder, this call is being webcast and recorded on 11/18/2021.

Now I will turn the conference call over to Daniel Tapia, Director of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Lori, and welcome everyone to our third quarter earnings call. Joining us today are Pedro Hezron, 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 Hebron.

Speaker 2

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 COPPA 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 twenty twenty, we have increased flights from almost zero to nearly 70% of our pre pandemic capacity in Q3 twenty twenty one. 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 twenty twenty two. But of course, COVID has not gone away. And we've seen in other parts of the world, additional waste of the virus could affect demand in the future.

So 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 twenty nineteen ASMs compared to 48% of 2019 capacity in the second quarter. Load factor came in at 79%, an improvement of two 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 $445,000,000 Our ex fuel CASM decreased from $0.76 in Q2 to $0.62 in Q3, reaching twenty nineteen unit cost levels at 70% of '20 19 capacity.

We reported an operating profit of $59,000,000 and an operating margin of 13.3% in the quarter. Excluding a $10,400,000 passenger revenue adjustment, the company would have reported an operating profit of $48,600,000 and an operating margin of 11.2%. We had a cash buildup of $54,000,000 and ended the quarter with a cash balance of $1,300,000,000 and a total liquidity of over $1,600,000,000 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. And 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 twelve seven thirty seven MAX 9s that were originally intended to be delivered starting in 2025.

We'll receive two of these aircraft in 2022 for a total of seven Mach nine 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 seven thirty seven-eight 100. 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 top 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.

Speaker 3

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 4,400,000,000 available seat miles, which amounts to 69% of the capacity operated during the 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 $8,200,000 or zero one nine dollars per share. Excluding special items, we would have reported a net profit of $29,900,000 or $0.70 per share.

Special items for the quarter are comprised mainly of an unrealized mark to market loss of $32,100,000 related to the company's convertible notes issued in 2020 and $10,400,000 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 $59,000,000 Excluding the $10,400,000 in unredeemed ticket revenues, we had an adjusted operating profit of $48,600,000 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 $0.62 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 costs below $06 once we reach above 90% of our pre COVID-nineteen 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 $54,000,000 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 want 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 $4,200,000,000 and our cash short- and long term investments ended at $1,300,000,000 We also ended the quarter with an aggregate amount of $345,000,000 in unutilized committed credit facilities, which added to our cash, brought our total liquidity to more than $1,600,000,000 In terms of debt, we ended the quarter with $1,600,000,000 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 seven thirty seven-700s to their new owner. We ended the third quarter with 87 aircraft: sixty eight seven thirty seven-800s, thirteen seven thirty seven MAX 9s and six seven thirty seven-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 seven thirty seven 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, can provide the following outlook for the 2021. We expect capacity to be approximately 83% of Q4 twenty nineteen levels at about 5,100,000,000 ASMs, and we expect our operating margin to be approximately 12%. Our Q4 twenty twenty one outlook is based on the following assumptions: revenues of approximately 80% of Q4 twenty nineteen levels at about $545,000,000 CASM ex fuel of approximately $0.61 and an oil price of $2.5 per gallon, an increment of approximately 17% quarter over quarter.

Given the uncertainty, it is still premature to give a 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 2019. Thank you. And with that, we'll open the call to some questions.

Speaker 0

And our first question is from Hunter Keay of Wolfe Research. Your line is open.

Speaker 4

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?

Speaker 2

Yes, definitely. We are a relatively small team, and we're all very involved in those kind of decisions.

Speaker 4

Okay. And what about spending money, Pedro? What's your level of involvement in the budget process, not only setting it, but also monitoring spend? And I don't 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?

Speaker 2

I think if you ask the team, and they'll tell you that I'm too involved. And I 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 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.

But Hunter,

Speaker 3

during the pandemic, the focus has even been stronger on these items. And so we have been even more strict and careful in the way that we spend our money and how we track that. And so there's quite a bit of involvement from all involved, as Pedro mentioned, his own personal time on this.

Speaker 4

Can you give me an example of maybe a lesson learned from a cost perspective that you're going to keep in place going forward even when things get better?

Speaker 3

Well, I would say I think a good example Think some of the great movements that we've made in fleet over the last several months in terms of just going to an all grown fleet has been a very, very good move. That creates a lot of besides the gauge benefit that you get, you also get a lot of simplicity in terms of execution of costs throughout many areas with flight operations, airports, maintenance, etcetera. So that's one that I think has been very positive for us.

Speaker 4

Thank you very much.

Speaker 0

Thank you. And our next question is from Savi Syth of Raymond James. Your line is open.

Speaker 5

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Just the cost execution has been pretty remarkable here. And Jose, I

Speaker 6

missed if you said you would get to

Speaker 5

$06 or sub $06 when you got to 90% of 2019 capacity. If you can clarify that. And then just along those lines, I was wondering if we can start thinking about maybe sub $0.58 as you get to 2019 capacity and what some of the tailwinds and headwinds that you might see over the next two years? For example, I'm guessing performance bonuses will start up again next year if the current trends hold. So just kind of curious if you can give a little bit more color on how you're thinking about unit costs.

Speaker 3

Yes, Savi. Yes, our expectation as of now is that when we reach that 90% of 2019 capacity, that we will be below the $06 mark. So yes. And 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 in terms of the uniformity in the fleet.

And as we put in additional MAX, it will be a good improvement. I think that there's always contract renegotiations and savings that we've performed that I think will I think we shed a lot quite a bit over the last several months in terms of our overall costs. And so yes, we'll there's more there. There are certainly we're working on this every day. And there's an opportunity, I think, for as we grow to bring it probably even further down.

But at this stage, we'll reserve that to 2022 when we get closer to the figure. But I think we're in good track to bring it down below $06 and below there, as you mentioned.

Speaker 2

And Savi, 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 much better performance and results. So they pay for themselves.

Speaker 5

Is there a level that you think is too low that you can't reach? Like what's the promised land, I guess, in terms of what you can hit?

Speaker 3

Yes. I would say for now, we'll keep it at sub-six, somewhere in the $05 range is something where that is very doable.

Speaker 0

All right. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Savi.

Speaker 0

Thank you. And our next question is from Mike Linenberg of Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Speaker 7

Yes. Hey, good morning, everyone. Maybe we could just start on the cost side. 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? And are these timing benefits that maybe dissipate 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?

Speaker 3

Absolutely, Mike. Yes. And I have to start by saying that we've been in this company wide effort to keep our costs down. That was has always been part of the Copa DNA, but we improved on that over the past one years. Point 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 going to be somewhat higher than what we thought initially. And looking forward, we gave a guide now for Q4 of $0.61 So I think that we'll be sort of in that level, at least for Q4.

Speaker 7

Okay, great. And then just my second question and this is probably Jose or Pedro. Now that

Speaker 3

you have

Speaker 7

thirteen seven thirty seven MAX 9s and the fact that like you're going to get two more and then another seven, so it's going to 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. And I'm getting at the fact that you have the lie flat seat, which 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 Sao 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. But when we think about the uptake in the premium cabin, what are you seeing?

Are you getting better pricing? Are you at or levels similar to maybe some of The U. S. Competitors? Is the pricing 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.

Speaker 2

Yes. Thank you, Michael. A few comments. So we need to have enough shelves, as you well said, to guarantee the service on a given market. So for example, a San Francisco and a Sao Paulo will have a guaranteed DREAMS, as we call our product, guaranteed DREAMS service.

So once it's guaranteed, we can price it better consistently. And so far, we've been getting a premium for the DREAM's product. And also I should say that our costs are better than options through other hubs or nonstop options when they are they're usually not that many. So we can do well even pricing it below what was available before for a similar product.

Speaker 7

Great. Thanks, everyone. Great quarter.

Speaker 2

Thank you. Thank you.

Speaker 0

You. And our next question is from Alejandro Zamacona of Credit Suisse. Your line is open.

Speaker 8

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. So any thoughts or color around this may be useful. Yes,

Speaker 3

Alejandro. So it's too early. We haven't provided full year guidance for 2022. But I would say that system wide, the yield environment has been improving. And as we put in capacity, there's but I would say that at least initially for the first part of the year, could be offers in the 2019 base in the kind of mid single digit range.

So that's kind of the first kind of look into the early part of 2022 in terms of the yield compared to 2019. So it will still be up, but at a lower rate than where we were during throughout most of 2021.

Speaker 8

Okay. Thank you.

Speaker 0

Thank you. And our next question is from Duane Pfennigwerth of Evercore ISI. Your line is open.

Speaker 9

Hey, good morning. It's nice to see that sandbaggers don't die. They just take a little break.

Speaker 3

Thanks

Speaker 2

for your question, Duane.

Speaker 9

Okay, sure. So just on restart, right, can you give us some examples of like what's ahead of you, kind of what you're considering? Are there any pockets where labor availability is more strained or and maybe you could just kind of qualitatively talk about pilots, for example.

Speaker 2

Yes. Okay. So your first comment, had to like pause and think about it. And I should say that we're not trying to stand back. Honestly, this pandemic has been very difficult to predict.

And even three months ahead, it's like two years in normal times. So demand came back at least in this quarter and what we're seeing in the next few quarters, faster and stronger than what we would have expected some months ago. So 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 was demand how demand was going to react.

Back in November 2020, which seems like ten years ago, we grew capacity quite a bit from Q4 twenty twenty to Q1 twenty twenty one, and demand did not show up, not materialize. So we had to pull back. So that's kind of the things we're dealing with in this pandemic. So 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.

Are about in the next maybe one months point 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 lead programs. And after that, we will start hiring new flight attendants. So 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. And we're also strengthening our own in house pilot academy. So we're growing that also. So right now, we feel we're fine in that respect. But again, we're always cautious and always alert because this pandemic is always full of surprises.

Right. Flexibility is key in all aspects, that's the way

Speaker 3

that we've been managing it for the last several months.

Speaker 9

That's all very fair. And if I could just ask maybe a little follow-up on the folks that are coming back from voluntary leave. When you reach out, when you call them, when you email them and say, hey, let's get back, demand is recovering, is the rate at which they are productive consistent with your expectations?

Speaker 2

Well, yes, totally. And we have a very, very strong training center and we have very good instructors and they're dedicated and committed. And if someone is not up to par, then that person won't pass the filters. So the people that join the company are always at the highest levels.

Speaker 9

Okay. Thanks very much for the thoughts.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Brian.

Speaker 0

Thank you. And our next question is from Bruno Amaram of Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Speaker 10

Thanks very much and congratulations on the performance this quarter. So I just have a very quick follow-up on the cost performance. We saw wages, salaries down by 40% versus the 2019, which implies that on a per ASM basis, this number here is around 13% below pre crisis level. So considering everything that was discussed, the potential increase in bonuses and everything going forward, do you still expect for this cost line on a per ASM basis to be below pre credit levels on a sustainable basis or not? Thank you very much.

Speaker 2

Yes. Our expectation is that it would remain below pre pandemic levels. It mostly 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. And again, even if it changes somewhat, and 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.

Yes.

Speaker 10

Thank you. And if I may,

Speaker 5

just a

Speaker 10

follow-up on the competitive environment. What can you comment on 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 what are you seeing from a competitive landscape perspective, that would be great. Thank you very much.

Speaker 2

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 from either entrants or not new entrants, but new entrants to the region, to some of the markets, ULCC. So there's quite a bit of activity. That's it's a reason why we've always been so focused on our unit cost.

And 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. And 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.

Speaker 10

Thank you and congratulations again.

Speaker 2

You, Bruno. Thank you.

Speaker 0

And our next question is from Pablo Montevada of Barclays. Your line is open.

Speaker 11

Hi, Pedro, Pepe, and Daniel. Thanks 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 back in tourism or corporate is coming back quicker than expected.

What is driving these results? And 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 in the first half of next year? Thank you.

Speaker 3

Yes. Pablo, Jose here. The I would say that the big drivers are leisure and VFR traffic more so than business. Before the pandemic, you could argue that our breakdown traffic for us was about a third for each segment. And as of now, there's probably more of a 40% leisure, 40% VFR and about 20% business.

So their business is off versus where it was before. But it isn't vaccine tourism anymore. Vaccine tourism, at least in our region, occurred, I want to 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. So that's kind of what we're seeing in terms of the patterns.

Speaker 11

And 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?

Speaker 2

It is what we're seeing right now. We are seeing no signs of demand slowing down, and we think we're going to stay on this path. At least that's how we're seeing it right now when we look at future bookings.

Speaker 11

Perfect. Super clear. Thank you very much, guys.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Pablo.

Speaker 0

Thank you. And our next question is from Josh Milberg of Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Speaker 12

Great. Good day, everyone, and thanks for

Speaker 10

the call. I had a follow-up on

Speaker 12

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? And then 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 point strategy and just wanted to hear your views on the relevance of that announcement for Copa.

Speaker 2

Yes. So they have announced I mean, S. Carriers have brought up have brought back capacity at a to a higher level than pre pandemic. So 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. But then everyone else is above 2019. So it's a mixture there.

Yes, Avianca, as you all mentioned, made declarations and I think they even kind of published their Capital eleven exit plan or something. And it's going to be more of a low cost strategy with densified planes, point to point service and lower yields. So 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.

Speaker 12

Thank you very much, Pedro.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Josh.

Speaker 0

Thank you. And our next question is from Stephen Trent of Citi. Your line is open.

Speaker 6

Thanks very much guys and I appreciate you taking my question. The first one is actually kind of a follow-up to Pablo's question. When we think about the stickiness on the fare side, especially let's say on some of your low density routes, Is there is it fair to say that there's still so much pent up demand that you are seeing very good fare pass through even on nonbusiness travelers?

Speaker 2

What we're seeing right now, I'm not sure I would call it pent up demand. What we're seeing is that people want to fly and travel like they did before the pandemic. And 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. And 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 or so I will not call it pent up demand right now.

Speaker 6

Okay. Very helpful, Pedro. And 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 document?

Or it's still too early to say?

Speaker 2

Well, run six flight banks, and I don't think that's going to 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. So 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.

So that's kind of what we'll be doing most of the year.

Speaker 3

Always looking for new opportunities from the hub as well. As we mentioned in this quarter as well, we're adding cities into the network that are interesting and unique.

Speaker 6

Okay. Let me leave it there. Thanks very much guys.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Stephen.

Speaker 0

Thank you. And our last question is from Dan McKenzie of Seaport Global. Your line is open.

Speaker 13

Hey, thanks for squeezing me in here. Just following up on that last question on pent up demand. I think the rule of thumb historically in Latin America has been 2x GDP. And 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?

Speaker 3

Well, it's I think, Hajan, it's early to say where it will wind up. But I think if you look at the macroeconomic factors, the economies are at 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. And so yes, in the longer term, I think that I believe that that's going to be the case. But again, it's still COVID is not over.

Yes, 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.

Speaker 13

Yes. And 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 operations over the pandemic. And with respect to the current quarter, I'm just wondering how the network plans have evolved. So I'm looking at Brazil. I'm seeing some cuts to Brazil, for example.

So it looks like you're managing flights based on demand, trimming when you need to adding where you can. And so again, it doesn't look like it's new to the quarter, but where I'm going with this is, do the changes weigh on profitability? Or do they actually help with profitability?

Speaker 3

I would say that, yes, we're looking at it very carefully, almost constantly. But 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 the key factor here is ensuring that we build the network as quickly and as effectively as we can. And that's 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.

Speaker 2

And then what you're saying is 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. So we've had to make more changes and adjustments along the way that 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.

Speaker 13

Yes, understood. If I could just squeeze one last one in here. Mike and I actually had the same question on Dream Seats here. And so I guess if I could just elaborate on that question. I'm just wondering if today you're selling it as an actual live flat first class seat or just simply as a generic business class seat at this point?

And I guess if you're not really selling it as a flagship product, what is the time frame for when you might feel like you're ready to go live with that?

Speaker 2

No. We do sell it for a premium when we can guarantee it in every flight in a given market. So there's a few markets where we can already do that. It all depends on the number of shells we're operating. So as we get more MAX nine, 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 DREAM's product. And in those cases, there is a premium we charge for the product.

Speaker 13

I see. Okay. Thanks for the time you guys.

Speaker 2

Thank you. Thank you, Dan.

Speaker 7

Operator? Yes,

Speaker 0

there are no further questions. Do you have any closing remarks?

Speaker 2

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.

Speaker 0

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you

Speaker 8

for

Speaker 0

participation. That concludes the presentation. You may now disconnect and have a wonderful day.