Copa Holdings has announced that Copa Airlines (CM, Panamá City Tocumen International) is expected to close the year with a fleet of 112 aircraft, a reduction of three deliveries versus what was expected in the first quarter of the year.
During the company's second quarter, José Montero, Copa’s chief financial officer, told an investors call that Boeing had recently notified them of further delays to the 2024 delivery stream. “We expect to receive only two additional B737-8s during the remainder of the year to end with a total fleet size of 112 aircraft.” He further explained that Copa expects to add 15 more B737 MAX in 2025, all -8s.
Montero said Copa Holdings had reached an agreement with Boeing to receive compensation for the delivery delays and for the grounding of B737-9s earlier in 2024, after the Alaska Airlines incident in January in which a mid-cabin plugged exit door separated mid-flight, resulting in an explosive decompression and the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) enforcing immediate inspections.
Copa Airlines will close 2024 with a fleet composed of thirty-two B737-9s, three B737-8s (the first was recently inducted into commercial service), sixty-seven B737-800s, nine B737-700s, and one B737-800(BCF). The plan for next year is to add fifteen MAX 8s and retire two B737-700s for a total of 125 planes.
Pedro Heilbron, chief executive, said the company was growing according to the needs within its network. Going into 2025, management is confident in its flexibility to adjust if needed, and “we can park the 700s and harvest the engines, or we can keep them flying, depending also on the Boeing deliveries,” he said.
The ch-aviation fleets module shows that Copa Airlines' fleet currently comprises 110 planes. It has 21 aircraft on order - twenty B737-8s and one B737-10. Copa's low-cost subsidiary Wingo (Colombia) operates nine in-house B737-800s.
