Copa Holdings SA (CPA), a leading provider of passenger and cargo services in Latin America, posted impressive air traffic results for the month of Oct 2014.
Consolidated revenue passenger miles or RPMs for the month grew 12% from the prior-year quarter to 1,775.1 million. Consolidated capacity or available seat miles (ASMs) were 1775.1 million, up 11.1% year over year. On a consolidated basis, load factor (a measure of capacity utilization of the carrier) improved 60 basis points (bps) to 75% from the year-ago period.
For the first ten months of 2014, on a consolidated basis, Copa generated RPMs of 13,208.2 million (up 10.1% year over year) and ASMs of 17,154.7 million (up 9.4% year over year), while load factor was 77%, reflecting an improvement of 50 basis points.
Though the October traffic data is impressive, we believe that investors are more interested in how the company performs in the third quarter of 2014, results of which will be released on Nov 19, 2014 after the closing bell. The passenger and cargo services provider had performed well in the second quarter of 2014 beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate on both lines. The carrier exited the second quarter with a consolidated fleet of 93 planes following the addition of The Boeing Company’s (BA) 737-800 aircraft to its fleet.
We remind investors that another Latin American carrier GOL Linhas Aereas Inteligentes S.A. (GOL) also reported third-quarter results earlier this month. The company performed disappointingly in the quarter reporting a wider than expected loss (read more: GOL Q3 Loss Wider than Expected Despite Revenue Growth).
Zacks Rank
Copa Holdings presently carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell). A better-ranked stock in the airline space is SkyWest Inc. (SKYW) with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).
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