Copa Airlines suffered the greatest loss in its history due to the covid-19  pandemic $607 million, only in the year 2020 said  Executive President Pedro Heilbron on Wednesday, August 10, at an event hosted by La Prensa". Since then, the airline has obtained several quarters of continuous growth, but he calculated that the airline will take between three and four years to recover from the loss. In the year 2019, the net income was $247 million and in 2021, $2.7 million.

At this juncture, the airline undertook a plan to renew its fleet. In the midst of the crisis, it began the purchase of 737 Max aircraft. Now it has 21 and for the next year, it calculates that it will be 34. Right now, the company operates 88 planes, all of the B737 model. The other year, the fleet would be 99 aircraft.

The human team will also grow: Copa had 7,277 workers before the pandemic. The figure fell by half in the first year of the crisis

 Now there are 6,822 workers. They expect to grow the payroll by 3% for next year. Heilbron said that they are looking for 600 cabin crew, 319 pilots, and 125 aviation mechanics, among others.

Of the 80 routes that operated before the pandemic, 71 have been reactivated.

Company goals
Heilbron commented that three goals were set once the operation was paralyzed due to the respiratory virus. The first was to rescue the company by requesting lines of credit before the markets closed, the second was to establish voluntary retirement plans and monthly voucher packages for workers, and the third was to implement a plan to make reservations more flexible so as not to affect passengers.

He pointed out that in the first half of this year they reached 88% of the operations they had in the first half of 2019 and they project that in the second half of this year they will exceed 90%.

In June 2019, Copa had operations in 80 destinations in 33 countries with 331 daily flights. By December 2020, after having its fleet of 92 aircraft paralyzed for 6 months the airline was already flying to 50 destinations in 26 countries with 117 daily connections.

"The road is challenging, but the important thing is that there is no fear of flying," said Heilbron, pointing out that the company came into the pandemic with a responsible structure in its finances, allowing the airline not to need subsidies or resort to bankruptcy like some of its competitors.