In the wake of the continued coronavirus-induced suppressed air-travel demand, Copa Holdings’ CPA traffic, measured in revenue passenger miles (RPMs), for the month of February declined 69.1% year over year to 506.8 million.
To tackle this depressed demand scenario, Copa Holdings (NYSE:CPA) is trimming capacity. Capacity (measured in available seat miles) plunged 62.8% to 728.1 million from February 2020 levels. The company currently expects its capacity to reach 2.6 billion or around 40% of the same achieved in first-quarter 2019.
With traffic decreasing more than capacity reduction, consolidated load factor (% of seats filled with passengers) contracted 14.4 percentage points to 69.6%. Apart from the year-over-year numbers, traffic fell 18.4% in February 2021 from January levels, highlighting the deteriorating air-travel demand scenario for Copa Holdings.
Notably, due to coronavirus-induced air-travel demand softness, the carrier incurred a loss in the last three quarters of 2020. This downbeat scenario is unlikely to be any different in the first-quarter of 2021 as the pandemic still persists.
Zacks Rank & Stocks to Consider
Copa Holdings currently carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).
Some better-ranked stocks in the broader Zacks Transportationsector are Kansas City Southern (NYSE:KSU) KSU, GATX (NYSE:GATX) Corporation GATX and Herc Holdings (NYSE:HRI) HRI. Both Kansas City Southern and GATX carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) while Herc Holdings sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
Shares of Kansas City Southern, GATX and Herc Holdings have appreciated 68.4%, 53% and 310.3%, respectively, in the past year.
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