Controladora Vuela Compania de Aviacion SAB de CV ADR Class A Aktie

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Volaris' Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note that today's event is being recorded and webcast live on the Volaris' website.

I'd like to turn the call over to Liliana Juarez, Investor Relations Manager. Please go ahead, Liliana.

Welcome to our second quarter 2026 earnings call. Joining us today are our President and CEO, Enrique Beltranena; our Airline Executive Vice President, Holger Blankenstein; and our CFO, Jaime Pous. They will be discussing the company's results followed by a Q&A session. This call is for investors and analysts only.

Please note that this call may include forward-looking statements under applicable securities laws. These are subject to several factors that could cause the company's results to differ materially as described in our filings with the U.S. SEC and Mexico CNBV. These statements speak only as of the date they are made, and Volaris undertakes no obligation to update or modify them. All figures are in U.S. dollars compared to the second quarter of 2025, unless otherwise noted.

And with that, I'll turn the call over to Enrique.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our second quarter 2026 earnings call. In the second quarter, we responded immediately and decisively, taking the actions needed to preserve liquidity, protect our value proposition and maximize performance across our network despite facing the most challenging fuel environment in our history. Through disciplined capacity management, commercial execution and operational efficiency, we deployed aircraft where economic returns were strongest. We proactively adjusted our network, align capacity with demand and economic contribution and calibrated fares to market conditions.

We ensured that every route was operating cash positive during the quarter, a powerful proof point of our disciplined network strategy and our ability to protect liquidity and balance sheet flexibility despite the elevated fuel costs. As a result of our efforts, we ended the second quarter with $824 million in cash, an increase of $58 million from the end of the first quarter. Multiple actions within the network and revenue generated strong operating cash with our network strategy playing a central role to this performance.

In the second quarter, TRASM was 22% above last year, yes, 22%, well above the growth reported by publicly traded legacy carriers in the U.S. and Latin America. That is a significant accomplish for an ultra-low-cost carrier operating in an emerging market where customers are highly price sensitive and pricing actions must be carefully balanced with preserving demand. It reflects the strength of our commercial execution and the resilience and ever-growing attractiveness of the Volaris value proposition.

A key part of that strategy has been the deliberate expansion of our international network. International capacity reached 43% of total ASMs during the quarter, up from roughly 30% 3 years ago. This deliberate expansion has strengthened our network diversification and established an unmatched U.S. footprint among Mexican carriers. That strategic vision is bearing fruit. In the U.S.-Mexico transborder market, we dynamically redeployed capacity to our markets with robust demand and strong fare absorption. The market absorbed both the additional capacity and higher base fares, driving revenue growth of more than 30% year-over-year and bringing load factor back to our historical average levels.

In the emerging Mexican domestic market, we kept capacity broadly flat, aligning it with prevailing demand, protecting the accessibility of our product and the strength of our core network while selectively adjusting fares to market conditions. This approach supported domestic load factor of 89%, while preserving the competitiveness of air travel relative to ground transportation, alternatives that benefit from subsidized gasoline and diesel prices. Maintaining this balance is particularly important in Mexico, where air travel penetration remains low and much of the population still does not fly. We remain committed to stimulating demand across this large underserved market while preserving the low fare value proposition that supports its long-term growth potential.

Beyond our network actions, we continue to optimize fuel consumption through tactical efficiency initiatives, disciplined fleet assignment and greater utilization of our available new aircraft, consistent with the recovery of our GTF engines. As a result, we achieved the highest fuel efficiency in Volaris' history. Fuel efficiency, measured as ASMs per gallon, improved 3.3% year-over-year from 105.8 in the second quarter of 2025 to 109.2 in the second quarter of 2026. This improvement allowed us to avoid approximately 2 million gallons of fuel consumption and generated an estimated $7 million in savings during the quarter.

Moving to our key financial metrics. As noted earlier, TRASM came in at $0.095, consistent with our guidance, while CASM ex-fuel of $0.0675 was slightly better than expected. We delivered an EBITDAR margin of 16.3%, above our guidance of approximately 13%. This result reflected strong execution across our network, revenue cost levers, together with jet fuel prices that averaged approximately 8% below the assumption embedded in our guidance. The third quarter encompasses our peak summer season and is typically one of the most profitable periods of the year.

Accordingly, we strategically planned ASM growth of approximately 10% year-over-year, concentrated in July and August. While this represents a meaningful step-up from our year-to-date growth rate, it is designed to capture strong summer demand at attractive fares and maximize cash and economic contribution. As we move into September and the lower demand season, we will meaningfully trim ASM growth. Consistent with this pace, we expect full year ASM growth of approximately 5% with continued emphasis on the U.S. transborder market, adjusting fleet utilization to maintain the right balance among unit revenues, margins and cash generation.

Supporting this capacity plan, our fleet recovery remains on track. Aircraft on ground or AOGs, declined from 41 at the beginning of the year to 24 at the end of the second quarter, in line with our expectations. We expect AOGs to remain broadly around this level in the near term as individual aircraft rotate in and out of service through scheduled engine inductions, returns to service and major maintenance events. Importantly, the overall recovery trajectory remains consistent with our plan. This increases our flexibility to deploy aircraft during periods of stronger demand and supports greater fleet efficiency, stronger earnings potential and improved cash generation without requiring incremental aircraft investment.

Looking further ahead, fleet recovery remains one of the most important structural value creation levers. Aircraft availability is expected to progressively improve with normalization anticipated by the end of the year of 2027. At the same time, scheduled lease returns are expected to reduce our contractual fleet to approximately 137 aircraft. This combination will expand our revenue-generating capacity on a smaller contractual fleet base. Once fully realized, it is expected to generate approximately $50 million in annual lease savings and reduce lease liabilities by around $360 million, supporting higher utilization and stronger margins while creating a meaningful structural tailwind to earnings and free cash flow generation.

Importantly, this recovery does not change our approach to growth. Capacity will continue to be deployed with discipline, aligned with demand and focused on sustained profitability and cash generation.

As we move through the second half of 2026, geopolitical developments continue to influence fuel prices. Against this backdrop, we have consistently demonstrated our ability to respond quickly, adapt our network and protect performance. The actions taken during the first half are already producing tangible results. Based on the progress achieved to date and our conviction in our strategy and execution, we are reinstating our full year EBITDAR margin guidance. We now expect a full year EBITDAR margin of approximately 23%, which Jaime will discuss in greater detail.

With that, I will turn the call over to Holger to discuss our commercial and operational performance and our outlook for the rest of the year.

Thank you, Enrique. As previewed on our first quarter call, we took targeted network actions to mitigate higher jet fuel prices. We optimized selected frequencies, suspended low-margin off-peak and weekend flights while preserving route service and deployed capacity only where it supported positive margin contribution, cash generation and route level profitability.

For the second quarter, total ASMs grew 2%, reflecting 8% growth internationally and a 2% reduction in the domestic market. We moderated capacity and fleet utilization deliberately, concentrating flying where economic returns were strongest. We implemented phased fare actions during the quarter to partially offset higher fuel costs while preserving load factors with targeted increases on high-performing routes. The impact was initially limited in April due to strong existing bookings for Semana Santa and spring break. As those bookings rolled off, pricing absorption strengthened in May and June. Overall, our average base fare increased by 25% year-over-year in the second quarter, driven primarily by the U.S.-Mexico cross-border market. These results underscore the strength and adaptability of our commercial approach.

At the network level, load factor was 84.8%, with international performance standing out. In the U.S.-Mexico transborder market, growth came with strong pricing power. ASMs increased by 12%. Average base fares rose by 25% and TRASM grew by 21%, well above the industry average. This drove revenue growth of more than 30%, while international load factors reached 79.6%. This is the quality of growth we are targeting, deploying additional capacity at higher fares and translating it into stronger unit revenue and cash generation. This strong fare absorption enabled us to recapture approximately 86% of year-over-year increases in fuel costs in the international market during the second quarter, approaching the levels achieved by U.S. legacy carriers.

The domestic market follows a different dynamic. As a ULCC serving a more price-sensitive customer base in Mexico's emerging aviation market, we must calibrate fare actions carefully to preserve accessibility and demand. As our pricing actions become fully reflected in the revenue base, we expect to fully recapture the year-over-year increase in fuel costs in the international market by the fourth quarter, assuming current market conditions. In the domestic market, recapture should continue to improve progressively, consistent with our low fare value proposition. Against this backdrop, domestic load factor remained strong at 88.6% despite our selective fare actions.

In June, we also adjusted pricing tactically to capture additional close-in demand during the FIFA World Cup period. Looking ahead, we will continue to preserve the accessibility of our product and the strength of our core network while selectively adjusting base fares where demand supports them.

Overall, we delivered record second quarter TRASM of $0.095, in line with our guidance. This represented a 22% increase year-over-year and a sequential 10% increase from the first quarter. This performance was supported by continued strength in the cross-border market and resilient domestic demand, reflecting disciplined commercial execution with strong ancillary performance and targeted capacity deployment across the network. As we move into the second half, we will continue to manage fares and capacity with discipline, optimizing for TRASM, load factor and economic contribution. We have a clear playbook to respond to changes in fuel prices. We will calibrate these levers by market to protect margins and cash generation while preserving demand.

We continue to see resilient demand across the network even against a softer domestic consumer backdrop. Our segmentation and brand initiatives are enabling us to maintain pricing discipline and capture demand more effectively as competitive dynamics evolve. On the ancillary front, ancillary revenues per passenger increased to $59, up 9% year-over-year, reflecting sustained adoption. Ancillary sales represented 56% of total quarterly revenues, underscoring the structural strength of our platform and its contribution to revenue resilience.

Ancillary growth has been driven by ongoing customer segmentation initiatives. Our loyalty program, Altitude, now has more than 2.1 million active members, and we have officially integrated it with our co-branded INVEX credit card, which has more than 1 million credit card holders who can now earn and redeem Altitude points. We are also pleased to announce that we will roll out Starlink high-speed Internet across our fleet with onboard availability starting next year. This represents an upgrade to the customer experience that remains aligned with our ultra-low-cost model, and we believe it will support ancillary monetization over time.

Our commercial efforts have also been reinforced by network initiatives. The 33 domestic and international routes that began operating in June have performed especially well and are cash positive even against the fuel and economic backdrop. Within this broader strategy, our segmentation approach in Guadalajara remains a standout, and we continue to successfully cater to higher-yielding leisure, small- and medium-sized business and multi-use passenger segments. The performance of these new routes reflects a more targeted approach to inaugurating capacity compared with our typical demand stimulation strategy. On these higher-yielding diversified sectors, we can ramp profitability and cash generation more quickly while remaining committed to our core base of the pyramid passengers.

Turning now to our third quarter outlook. Regarding capacity, as Enrique explained, we are planning ASM growth of approximately 10% for the third quarter. This growth is intentionally front-loaded into July and August with capacity deployed into the markets and travel windows where fare dynamics and economic contribution are strongest. As the lower demand season begins in September, we will meaningfully reduce the pace of ASM growth to protect TRASM, margins and cash generation.

Looking ahead to the peak summer period, booking trends remain healthy across the network with particular strength in the U.S. cross-border market. Current booking curves support continued pricing strength and healthy demand in July and August, reinforcing our confidence in the capacity deployment planned for the quarter. The actions implemented in the first half provide a foundation for the second half of this year, and we will continue to use this playbook as we move into the third quarter.

Supported by higher yields, continued cross-border strength and the momentum from our segmentation initiatives, we expect third quarter TRASM of approximately $0.099, up 4% sequentially and 14% increase year-over-year. Our disciplined framework allows us to keep calibrating deployment as demand, network trends and geopolitical conditions evolve. For the full year of 2026, we now expect ASM growth of approximately 5%, reflecting the capacity adjustments made to date. We will continue to retain flexibility to calibrate deployment as fuel prices, demand trends and aircraft availability evolve.

Now I will turn the call over to Jaime to cover our second quarter financial results and latest guidance.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. As Enrique and Holger outlined, the actions implemented during the quarter are delivering tangible results. We strengthened our cash position and made continued progress in aircraft availability despite significant fuel pressure. This execution reinforces the resilience of our business, supports Volaris' long-term earnings power and positions us for sequential improvement in the second half.

Turning to our results. Total operating revenues reached $859 million, increasing 24% year-over-year on a 2% capacity growth. This performance was driven by healthy demand across our markets, disciplined capacity deployment and a 16% increase in total revenue per passenger. The Mexican peso appreciated 11% on average against the U.S. dollar compared with the same period of last year, supporting a more favorable translation of domestic revenues. This benefit was partially offset on the cost side by a higher dollar translation of our peso-denominated expenses.

Moving to costs. CASM was $0.1058, increasing 31% year-over-year. This was primarily driven by a 70% year-over-year increase in economic fuel cost per gallon. CASM ex-fuel of $0.0675 came in below guidance. As anticipated, the 19% year-over-year increase primarily reflected temporary and nonrecurring items, which represented $0.61 of unit cost in the quarter. This included maintenance and redelivery expenses, merger-related costs and the impact of capacity reductions implemented during the period. The fleet-related expenses were primarily associated with 4 aircraft redeliveries and a significant increase in maintenance events as we accelerated Pratt & Whitney engine inductions to support our AOG reduction plan. These are deliberate investments to remove operational constraints and restore the earnings capacity of aircraft already within our fleet.

Based on our current outlook, the second quarter marked the peak CASM ex-fuel level for this year, while redeliveries and major maintenance events will continue during the second half, bringing grounded aircraft back into operation should support a lower unit cost trajectory and a stronger operating leverage over time.

Second quarter EBITDAR reached $141 million, translating into a 16.3% margin, above our 13% quarterly guidance. This variance was primarily driven by lower-than-forecasted U.S. Gulf Coast jet fuel prices, which averaged $3.7 per gallon versus the $4 per gallon assumed in our guidance. EBIT was negative $99 million with a negative 11.5% margin, while net loss for the quarter was $127 million, reflecting a $137 million impact from the year-over-year increase in fuel expense. As grounded NEO aircraft return to service, improved aircraft availability should support stronger margins and sequential profitability improvement across the income statement.

Moving briefly to our results in the first half of 2026. Total operating revenues reached $1.6 billion, increasing 19% compared with the first half of 2025 on a 2.1% capacity growth. EBITDAR totaled $318 million, representing a 19.5% margin. Fuel remained the dominant headwind with economic fuel cost per gallon increasing 42% year-over-year. Net loss for the period was $199 million, reflecting $175 million impact from the year-over-year increase in the fuel bill.

Turning to cash flow and balance sheet data. Cash flow from operating activities reached $272 million during the quarter. The cash outflows used in investing and financing activities were $63 million and $156 million, respectively. CapEx, excluding fleet predelivery payments, was $148 million, primarily reflecting planned heavy maintenance events to prepare our grounded fleet for the return of Pratt & Whitney engines together with the strategic engine purchases. These investments enhance fleet flexibility, lower future redelivery costs and reduce potential cash outflows during a period of elevated maintenance activity. Volaris closed the quarter with a liquidity position of $824 million, increasing $58 million sequentially despite elevated fuel cost pressure and representing 25% of last 12 months' total operating revenues.

Net debt-to-EBITDAR ratio stood at 3.3x compared with 3.2x at the end of the first quarter. Our ability to strengthen our cash position while maintaining broadly stable leverage in this environment demonstrates the effectiveness of the commercial, operational and financial actions implemented. During the quarter, we executed an engine financing facility that generated $78 million in the net proceeds and further diversified our funding sources. Additionally, the rescheduling of Airbus deliveries, originally planned for 2027 and certain deliveries in 2028, have reduced our pre-delivery payment requirements and related financing needs for 2026 and 2027. Together with the full amortization of our 2021 Mexican bond, these actions support a more balanced debt profile and preserve meaningful financial flexibility.

Now turning to our fleet plan and engine availability. As of June 30, our fleet consisted of 155 aircraft with an average age of 6.8 years. fuel-efficient NEO aircraft represented 68% of the fleet. We are also deliberately prioritizing the deployment of our most fuel-efficient aircraft in the current environment. As a result, NEOs represented an average of 66.5% of our productive fleet during the quarter, up from an average of 56.6% in 2025. This focus on fleet efficiency is being reinforced by continued progress in engine availability.

As Enrique mentioned, AOGs declined from 41 at the beginning of the year to 24 at the end of June, while average AOGs decreased from 36 in the first quarter to 28 aircraft in the second quarter. This progress was consistent with our plan and reinforces our confidence in the execution of our engine recovery strategy. Throughout the second half, we expect aircraft on ground to remain in the low to mid-20s with individual aircraft rotating in and out of AOG status as engine center and return for maintenance shops. At the same time, we are actively rightsizing our contractual fleet by rescheduling our 2027 and certain 2028 Airbus deliveries, together with the scheduled lease returns, we are aligning fleet commitments with demand and the pace of our AOG recovery. This gives us greater flexibility to return productive capacity to service while maintaining disciplined control over our growth and capital deployment.

The objective is to maximize the economic output of the fleet while reducing capital intensity and strengthening cash generation. To put this in context, by year-end 2027, scheduled lease returns are expected to reduce our contractual fleet to approximately 137 aircraft and lower lease liabilities from about $3.2 billion today to approximately $2.8 billion. This will allow us to unlock more revenue-generating capacity from a smaller contractual fleet base, further strengthening our balance sheet and supporting free cash flow generation.

Looking to the second half of the year, our priority is to convert this progress into stronger earnings. We will continue actively managing fuel exposure, deploying capacity according to route-level economics and maintaining a strong balance sheet. A key component of this strategy is aircraft deployment. High asset productivity is fundamental pillar of the ultra-low-cost carrier model and a key driver of our low unit cost structure. However, productivity must be balanced with demand, pricing and economic contribution.

In the second quarter, we deliberately moderated capacity in response to the elevated fuel environment. This brought utilization, measuring as ASMs per productive aircraft per day, to approximately 10% below both last year's level and our budget. It was the right call. This was a deliberate economic decision that allowed us to concentrate capacity where flying generating positive margin and cash contribution. Consistent with this approach, utilization is expected to increase in the months of July and August as we concentrate flying during the peak summer period before declining in September as we enter the lower demand season. Greater aircraft availability give us the flexibility to calibrate deployment by market and season, maximizing the economic output of the fleet rather than pursuing capacity growth as an objective in itself.

Supported by this disciplined deployment strategy and healthy peak summer demand, for the third quarter of 2026, we expect ASM growth of approximately 10% year-over-year, TRASM of around $0.0990, CASM ex-fuel of approximately $0.0635 and an EBITDAR margin of around 22%. Our third quarter outlook assumes an average foreign exchange rate of around MXN 17.6 per USD 1 and an average U.S. Gulf Coast jet fuel price of approximately $3.5 per gallon. For full year 2026, this translates into ASM growth of approximately 5% year-over-year, an EBITDAR margin of around 23% and CapEx of around $350 million.

Our full year outlook assumes an average foreign exchange rate of around MXN 17.6 per USD 1 and an average U.S. Gulf Coast jet fuel price of approximately $3.2 per gallon. Taken together, these factors position us for clear sequential earnings improvement through the second half while preserving the flexibility to adapt as market conditions evolve.

Now I will turn the call back to Enrique for closing remarks.

Thank you, Jaime. Our team has worked together for decades and has successfully navigated multiple industry cycles and unexpected disruptions. At Volaris, we have built a resilient culture and a proven ability to act decisively. That strength supported our solid operating performance in the second quarter and positions us to continue managing through the elevated fuel environment.

Before we start Q&A, I'd like to highlight the latest developments in our proposed transaction with Viva. The regulatory process continues to move forward as expected. We have reached significant milestones. In late April, we received final regulatory approval from the government of Colombia. We are closely working with the United States Department of Justice to comply with their request for information. In Mexico, we have fully complied with and closed at least 2/3 of the requests of information from the National Antitrust Commission. We continue to hope to receive the remaining regulatory approvals to complete the transaction by the end of this year. We remain confident that the transaction will create meaningful value for customers, communities, the Mexican aviation industry, our ambassadors and the investors.

The second quarter, now to finish, demonstrates that the resilience of our model and the strength of our execution. Our priorities remain clear: maintain a strong liquidity position, expand margins and translate the recovery of our fleet into sustainable earnings and free cash flow. We entered the second half with stronger commercial momentum, improving fleet productivity and confidence in our ability to continue delivering against these priorities.

I'll now turn the call over for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Duane Pfennigwerth with Evercore ISI.

I wanted to ask you about the factors influencing your CASM ex outlook, which you touched on for the second quarter, but I wonder if you can maybe quantify the impact of these in the third quarter outlook. If we think about currency, if we think about lease return expense and potential changes in the GTF reimbursement, how should we think about like the underlying core trend excluding those factors?

Duane, this is Jaime. For the third Q and the rest of the year, Duane, I think the CASM is going to be in the level as we guided for the third Q, which is the $0.0635. And the factors influencing it obviously continue to be the foreign exchange. Remember that a stronger peso has an impact on the cost. It has some impact on the increase of capacity to the U.S. U.S. operations cost a little bit more than the domestic operation, which is strategic because of the benefit of the revenue. We will continue to have maintenance events related to the engines and redelivery of 6 more aircrafts during the second half of the year and in addition, onetime transactional fees related to the merger regulatory process and closing.

In addition, you will note that since we are lowering the number of AOGs, we closed the quarter from 41 to 24 at the end of the quarter, we are receiving lower compensation by Pratt that you will see it in the other operating income line at the expense lines.

Okay. That's helpful. And then I just wanted to check with the -- with where your fleet is headed. I think you said what was a year-end 2027 number of 135 or 137. I just want to check that, that compares with where you sit, at 155 today. Maybe you could just clarify where the total fleet sits today and just reiterate where you think that will be kind of exiting next year.

Sorry, I turned off the mic. Total fleet today is 155 aircraft. By the end of 2027, we expect to be at 137 aircraft. This year, for the remaining of the year, the AOGs will be in the mid-20s to low 20s. It moves every day. Engines are going to the shops. We are receiving engines. You're going to see different planes. But think about the year as planned, as we executed, to close the year in the low-20s number. And then the rest of the year 2027, we expect to be back to normality, to only a few AOGs by the end of 2027. As you can see, that's an important reduction in lease liabilities. As mentioned in the call, we expect to reduce this liability from $3.2 billion to $2.8 billion. And the annual savings in rents on 2027 compared to 2026 should be around the $50 million.

Our next question comes from Michael Linenberg with Deutsche Bank.

One of your primary competitors highlighted the fact that in the June quarter, they were able to achieve a 75% recapture rate of the higher fuel expense, and the forecast was to get to at least 50%. We've seen other airlines at 50%. Where were -- maybe what were you expecting? And where did you come out in the June quarter? And can you just sort of give us a sense of that trajectory in that recapture rate as we move through the year?

Michael, this is Holger. So in terms of our fuel recapture calculation, it is based on the TRASM and jet fuel assumptions embedded in our February guidance rather than on the 2025 levels, as many other airlines calculate fuel recapture. So in the second quarter, we achieved a 28% recapture based on that calculation, and that was on the high end of what we guided in the previous call. If you look at the fuel recapture broken down by geography, the cross-border U.S.-Mexico market remains the highest contributor to the fuel recapture, representing -- it currently represents about 40% of our total capacity, and it continues to deliver strong pricing and revenue quality.

If you look at the second quarter, the fuel recapture from the U.S.-Mexico transborder market was about 86%. And in the domestic market, it was lower because the domestic market follows a different dynamic. As a ULCC carrier, we are serving more price-sensitive customers in Mexico. As you know, Mexico is an emerging aviation market, and we stimulate demand looking at the price-sensitive customer base. We calibrated fares carefully in the domestic market and improved our revenues while also preserving accessibility and volumes and demand in the Mexican domestic market.

If we look at the second half of the year, we expect that our commercial actions will continue to offset in a meaningful way, the fuel price pressures. Our focus will remain on improving TRASM through disciplined pricing and capacity allocation, and that obviously will support earnings in the second quarter. Also remember, Michael, that in the Mexican market, there is fuel and diesel subsidies in the domestic market for other means of transportation, and we compete, obviously, against other means of transportation more than in the transborder market, and that's why the fuel recapture rate is lower.

And then one final point, in terms of the recent unit revenue improvements that you saw in the second quarter and that we project for the second half, it reflects more than just fuel pass-through. It reflects a stronger network mix, better segmentation, growing customer affinity and a more developed ancillary platform.

Okay. Okay. That's helpful. Super helpful, Holger. And just one quick follow-up here. I saw the headlines out that you are going to be introducing the Starlink product on your airplanes. As -- based on what we know about that, there is obviously a CapEx impact. There is a cost of installing on every single airplane. And then there's also an ongoing, call it, a service fee. As well as the fact that we've seen carriers that have signed up for Starlink, that they have to offer it for free. And I sort of think about your bundling or unbundling model, are you in a position where you will be able to charge for Starlink? And can you also talk about the potential CapEx impact of installing that? Or maybe that's going to be borne by -- or shared with Starlink?

Thanks, Michael. This is Holger again. So the Starlink contract was negotiated as part of Indigo Partners deal. So we negotiated together with the other Indigo aircrafts, and we achieved a very good deal with Starlink. And we believe that the rollout is going to be in 2027 on our entire fleet. And we believe that this is going to meaningfully enhance our ancillary platform. The commercials of how much we're going to charge exactly is not defined yet, but we're working on that. But we do believe it will meaningfully improve our ancillary revenues.

And on the CapEx side, what we are seeing is that the benefit that we are going to get in the cost from data that we are going to get for operation will fully amortize the investment in CapEx that we will need to make in order to install the equipment on the planes.

Our next question comes from Gabriel Frazao with Bank of America.

Regarding the third quarter TRASM guidance, could you provide some color on how much of the booking curve has already been sold for this quarter? And also if -- based on what you are seeing today, if fares are tracking in line with your expectations? And if -- do you believe there could still be some room for upside in relation to this TRASM guidance?

Thank you. This is Holger again. So in terms of the third quarter, what we are seeing right now is that demand remains resilient. We are proactively managing capacity and the fares in both the international and domestic markets based on what the booking trends are and what we are seeing and obviously, the volumes and load factors as well. If we look at the capacity, we have allocated capacity based on the highest economic opportunities across our network. So for summer specifically, that means that we are adding capacity both in the domestic and international markets, obviously, where demand and pricing supports attractive returns.

However, if you look into the September month, which is low season, we will trim capacity in line with seasonality and demand patterns. And as I mentioned earlier, the international fare absorption, the pass-through that we are achieving in the international market, is particularly strong. And we continue to have an important gap in terms of fares versus our international competitors and the legacy carriers. So we have allocated more capacity into the international markets as we are seeing stronger demand and fare absorption there.

In Mexico, where we serve that price-sensitive customer base that I was mentioning, we are carefully calibrating fares to improve TRASM while preserving volumes and affordability, and we are seeing strong demand in the domestic market. We are looking at load factors of 89% in the second quarter. And as July and August are high season, we are optimistic about what we're seeing in the high season. As a note, we are already 3 weeks into July. We have 3 weeks under our belt in July, and the load factors and TRASM performance has been strong. In August, we have also good visibility on our booking curves, and the trend for August continues. And obviously, those 2 months have the highest execution risk for the third quarter, and we are optimistic of achieving the TRASM guidance of $0.099 for the third quarter.

Our next question comes from Filipe Nielsen with Citi.

So I have a follow-up on the ex-fuel cost. I just wanted to understand, you explained a little bit the dynamics behind the guidance and how are you expecting the multiple effects into the second half. Just wondering how fleet utilization factors in. So you're deploying a lot of capacity in the summer but pulling back after September and at the same time, you're receiving AOGs and changing the fleet. So just wondering how the fleet utilization is evolving in the second half? And how should we understand this to be factored in your expectations for the CASM ex-fuel in the second half?

This is Jaime. As we explained, you are going to see utilization lower in the months of September and October, then improving in November and going to the standard, above 13 hours, 14 hours for the month of December. Obviously, it has an impact on the cost, but considering current fuel environment, is an investment decision to do that. If you look at the $0.0635 guidance, you can think that around 20% of that additional cost is coming from the lower utilization versus historical level of above 13%, but it's contributing in liquidity and cash for the company.

Great. This is clear. And just if I may, one follow-up on the fleet plans. Just wondering how the redeliveries and the deliveries pace are evolving in the second half. So have you received all or most of the new NEOs for the year? Or is there any remaining deliveries in the second half? Just wondering how the fleet mix and the delivery space is evolving.

Of course, we are going to be redelivering 6 aircraft in the second half of the year. At the same period of time, we are going to getting deliveries of a similar number of aircraft. The total deliveries were around 8, but we already sold 4 of them. So in terms of total aircraft, we are going to be lowering the number from the start of the year to the end of the year even in 2026.

Our next question comes from Jens Spiess with Morgan Stanley.

Yes. So I have a question on the fuel recapture guide of 100% by the end of the year. What's implied in terms of TRASM there and jet fuel because you're guiding for a lower jet fuel for the year versus third quarter. Is it around $3 per gallon, and is TRASM around the level we will see for the third quarter? Is that about right?

This is Jaime. The guidance that we have provided assumes a third Q Gulf Coast jet fuel price of $3.50 and a 4Q of 2026 of $3.08.

$3.08. Okay. Okay. And more or less TRASM, could we assume that you will keep it at the $0.099 level? Or are further increases expected or even some declines? Like, how should we think about it?

Seasonality, you know the 4Q is stronger than the third Q. So TRASM for the 4Q is going to be higher, we expect, than the guidance that we provided on the $0.0990 for the third Q.

Nice. Okay. And if I may, just one additional question on the redelivery. So for the full year, assuming you redeliver 6 in the second half, to what number will you get for the full year? Is it around 14? And then also, how does this translate into the redelivery provisions? Like, I want to understand how it will change in 2027 versus 2026, because I think you will have a similar amount of redeliveries in 2027, right?

Correct. For the full year, we are redelivering, in 2026, 11 aircraft. 3 redeliveries, instead of redelivering the plane, because it was financially more attractive, we bought the planes. We already sold the frames and kept the engines to do the staggering program in order to reduce maintenance on redelivery on the engines. Next year is a similar number. Currently, we have 12 aircraft that we are going to be redelivering in 2027.

Our next question comes from Julia Orsi with JPMorgan.

So we have 2 questions on our side. The first one, can you comment more details on the 2027 capacity outlook? I know it's still early, but considering this fleet optimization plan that you just mentioned and the Pratt & Whitney normalization, what is, let's say, the base case so far for next year? And the second, can you provide the breakdown for the CapEx in 2026 based on the guidance?

As you know, normally, the way that we plan in our 5-year plan, we have a base capacity growth of around 5% in terms of ASMs with the ability to increase 3 or to reduce 3 points depending on how we see demand and market demand. So that's the standard. That's the way we built in the flexibility on the fleet, with that base increase of 5% year-over-year.

And turning out in the CapEx, I will say that most of the CapEx is related to the number of maintenance events related to the engines, the number of inductions and heavy maintenance events, which some of those expenses, we are accelerating the depreciation because they were going to happen later on, but we want to get the durability on the engine once we get the engine back. The other part of the CapEx is also related to maintenance, but to the redelivery of the planes. I will say that, that's more than 90% of the CapEx involved in the $350 million guidance.

Our next question comes from Alberto Valerio with UBS.

I have one about the results. If you could provide more details on the split on revenues? We see ancillary revenues with a lower share from the total revenues. And also on the cost side, if you could provide some details on the expansion cost for the air traffic, whether it is a pass-through from the airports or whether it's a mix of international and domestic airports? If you could provide details on these 2 lines from the results of the second quarter, we would appreciate.

Yes. So our ancillary platform is maturing. We achieved $59 per passenger in the second quarter in ancillary revenues per passenger, about 56% of total operating revenues. Most improvements come from dynamic pricing of the ancillaries, especially the fare combos that we offer to our customers. We are approaching 1-year anniversary of our loyalty program, Altitude, which is picking up nicely. And then obviously, we have our vacation package business as well, which is ramping as expected. So we continue on a positive trajectory for ancillaries also going into the second half of the year.

And just adding up on Holger's comment, the landing and navigations are increasing because of 2 factors: greater flying to the U.S. cross-border market and the second, we are having the increase in operations in terms of volume.

Excuse me, that is all the time we have for questions. This concludes today's question-and-answer session. I would like to invite management to proceed with his closing remarks. Please go ahead, sir.

Just thank you to our ambassadors as well as our Board of Directors, investors, bankers, lessors and suppliers for all their support in this very difficult quarter, okay? I think we have stated good numbers, and we keep on working very hard in the middle of the fuel crisis.

We look forward to entering the third quarter with continued momentum and continuous discipline and look forward to speaking to you on our next call. Thank you very much to everybody again.

Thank you. This concludes the Volaris' conference call for today. Thank you very much for your participation, and have a nice day.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Volaris's First Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note that today's event is being recorded and webcast live on Volaris website.

At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Liliana Juarez, Investor Relations Manager. Please go ahead, Liliana.

Welcome to our first quarter 2026 earnings call. Joining us today are our President and CEO, Enrique Beltranena; our Airline Executive Vice President, Holger Blankenstein; and our CFO, Jaime Pous. They will be discussing the company's results followed by a Q&A session. This call is for investors and analysts only.

Please note that this call may include forward-looking statements under applicable securities laws. These are subject to several factors that could cause the company's results to differ materially as described in our filings with the U.S. SEC and Mexico CNBV. These statements speak only as of the date they are made, and Volaris undertakes no obligation to update or modify them. All figures are in U.S. dollars and compared to the first quarter of 2025, unless otherwise noted.

And with that, I'll turn the call over to Enrique.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our first quarter 2026 earnings call. We entered 2026 with a clear set of priorities, disciplined growth, continued enhancement of revenue quality through segmentation across pricing, ancillaries and network and active fleet management through peak GTF engine repairs, all while preserving our low complexity, low-cost model.

Against the backdrop of global geopolitical events and higher fuel prices, these priorities remain unchanged, but we are adapting our execution. We're responding with agility and discipline, aligning capacity with demand, focusing on profitable flying and preserving cash.

On the commercial side, we're executing targeted fare and ancillary adjustments, carefully calibrated to demand conditions to maintain a balanced approach between pricing and volumes. We're actively accelerating pricing actions, resulting in fare improvement of about 10%, with several steps across our network, alongside with about 20% increases in selected ancillary products. We'll continue to progressively optimize these actions as we assess demand elasticity across different markets during the quarter. We expect TRASM to increase by about 22% year-over-year in the second quarter.

Importantly, demand remains resilient to these actions across the network, and we are seeing a faster than historical ability to recapture fuel through pricing supported by a more disciplined industry environment. As pricing actions are reflected in an improvement in our revenue performance and given Volaris booking curves, we expect to recapture on average approximately 20% to 30% of incremental fuel costs in the second quarter.

From a capacity management perspective, we are prioritizing cash preservation by ensuring that our network covers variable costs. We're maintaining full flexibility to adjust capacity as conditions evolve, with actions primarily focused on the domestic market as international markets continue to demonstrate stronger pricing absorption. We are adjusting schedules on an ongoing basis in response to fuel conditions and demand. More specifically, we are managing schedules dynamically through a rolling 6 to 8-week planning horizon, while maintaining a strong focus on customer experience and network integrity.

At the same time, we're improving fuel efficiency through fleet mix, in line with our plan to return GTF engines to service. We're seeing a higher proportion of new aircraft in operation, and we estimate that for every 10 aircraft shifted from CEOs to NEOs, we generate roughly $2 million in monthly fuel savings at current fuel price levels.

For the full year 2026, we now expect ASM growth of approximately 4%, down from our original guidance of around 7%, reflecting the capacity adjustments made to date and our approach to cash preservation in the current environment. Importantly, this remains dynamic, and we retain flexibility to adjust further as conditions evolve, with actions primarily concentrated in the domestic market, while international markets continue to demonstrate stronger pricing absorption.

Now turning to our first quarter top line results. They reflect strong execution. We delivered resilient performance, supported by disciplined capacity deployment, improving yields and mix and cost control in line with our guidance. In the quarter, demand remained robust across our network with continued sequential improvement in the Cross-Border segment and stable trends in the domestic market. Combined with a solid ancillary performance, this drove results that reinforce the strength of our model and the relevance of our offering even in a more challenging environment marked by steeply higher fuel prices and increased global uncertainty beginning in late February.

During the quarter, we focused on recovering volumes across our segments while improving revenue quality. As a result, we delivered TRASM of $0.0862, up 11% year-over-year. This performance was supported by a 10% increase in base fare and continued improvement in revenue mix with ancillaries reaching 57% of total operating revenues, reinforcing our ability to drive sustained revenue performance while maintaining flexibility.

At the same time, we kept CASM ex fuel in line with plan at $0.0604 and closed the quarter with an EBITDAR margin of 22.9%. This result came 2 percentage points below our first quarter guidance, driven by a more challenging fuel environment with Gulf Coast jet fuel averaging $2.56 per gallon compared to $2.20 assumed in our February guidance, an increase of around 16%.

Our balance sheet remains strong with a healthy cash position of $766 million, representing 24% of the last 12 months revenues and only $8 million below the prior quarter. Net leverage stood at 3.2x, providing flexibility to navigate the current environment while continuing to execute our priorities. Our experience over the past 2.5 years navigating the GTF engine uncertainty has given us the capability to quickly flex capacity to align with demand and support profitability.

Today, our diversified network and stronger dollarized revenue profile with over 40% exposure to higher-yielding transborder markets, support greater resilience. While we are focused on navigating the current environment, we are also positioning the business for medium-term value creation, supported by a fleet strategy anchored on 3 principles: disciplined growth; prudent capital allocation; clear value creation.

Starting with growth, we are confident we have the right model in the right markets to grow sustainably and profitably in line with demand, not ahead of it. Our capacity outlook remains intentionally disciplined with growth primarily driven by improving fleet productivity rather than by adding incremental aircraft.

As a result, our contractual fleet will decline from 155 aircraft in December 2025 to roughly 137 by the year end of '27 and our productive revenue-generating fleet increases to approximately 125 aircraft, up from 112 at the end of 2025. This transition unlocks meaningful efficiency gains, including around $50 million in annual lease savings and a reduction of roughly $360 million in lease liabilities by 2027, while at the same time, increasing our revenue-generating capacity.

On capital allocation, we are prioritizing investments that deliver long-term returns, while maintaining flexibility around future fleet commitments. To that end, most 2027 and 2028 deliveries have been rescheduled and no incremental aircraft investment will be made until the GTF advantage engines enter into service.

Ultimately, the most powerful value creation lever over the next several years is restoring fleet productivity, reducing aircraft ownership costs and improving our conversion from EBITDAR to EBIT, translating directly into stronger free cash flow generation and return on investment capital.

In short, we're executing with discipline in the near term, while positioning the business for meaningful long-term value creation. We remain confident in our ability to navigate this environment, and we'll continue to prioritize profitability over growth. While today's demand trends remain solid, our model is designed for flexibility that the current geopolitical environment requires.

With that, I will turn the call over to Holger to discuss our commercial and operational performance.

Thank you, Enrique. Our first quarter results reflected disciplined execution, especially as we continue to prioritize higher-quality demand and deploy capacity into our strongest markets, while reinforcing our network position in the current industry environment.

For the first quarter, we grew ASMs by 2.3%, reflecting disciplined capacity deployment and a continued shift towards the higher-yielding transborder market. International performance was encouraging, with load factor reaching 80.1%, trending closer to historical levels, despite a temporary softness at the beginning of March related to security events in the state of Jalisco. These results exceeded expectations and highlight the continued momentum in the cross-border recovery.

In the domestic market, we delivered a load factor of 89%, reflecting steady demand in a balanced supply environment. Our network-wide load factor for the quarter was 85%, in line with last year's results. Overall, we delivered first quarter TRASM of $0.0862, an 11% increase and in line with our guidance, supported by a responsive approach to evolving demand trends across our network. This performance reflects our continued focus on improving yields and TRASM, solid underlying demand and the sustained strength of our high-value ancillary revenues.

Our top line resilience continues to be supported by outstanding ancillary performance. Ancillary revenue per passenger increased by 8% versus 2025 and now accounts for 57% of total revenues. Ancillary strength was driven by a finer segmentation of our customers and their product needs as well as a solid credit card revenue and a growing vacation package business under the Ya Vas platform.

We continue to see a meaningful growth opportunity for ancillaries for the remainder of 2026 and 2027 as we enhance our product suite, capture a more diverse customer base and refine our pricing strategy. The key to our success remains the low-cost and low complexity development of ancillaries that generate high returns on investment. Our loyalty program, Altitude, now has more than 1 million active members. We remain on track to integrate Altitude with our co-branded credit card by the end of the current quarter, allowing all card transactions to earn loyalty points.

Turning now to our approach to the current jet fuel environment. While this remains an evolving story, as Enrique highlighted, Volaris is structurally better positioned today than in prior fuel cycles. We are a more diversified and resilient business than in 2022 with a broader commercial toolkit, stronger discipline across our network and growth, and solid underlying demand for our products. Against this backdrop, we are executing a set of targeted actions to mitigate higher fuel prices, combining price adjustments and targeted flight consolidations to preserve cash.

On capacity, we have made tactical reductions primarily through frequency optimizations in off-peak periods without canceling routes, allowing us to maintain customer connectivity during key travel periods. We are also reallocating capacity for Volaris' strongest markets, reinforcing our competitive position. To-date, we have reduced schedules for April and May, implementing targeted reductions of approximately 2 percentage points in April and 9 percentage points in May. We will continue to monitor the geopolitical situation, and we are prepared to implement further reductions accordingly for June and the second half.

As a reminder, should we see a shift in demand trends, Volaris can adjust close-in capacity more quickly than a typical U.S. carrier as we do not face their crew rostering constraints. On pricing, we have implemented double-digit fare adjustments in both domestic and international markets, with especially strong absorption in the Transborder segment.

Our international exposure continues to be a strategic asset for our business. And in this environment, it has demonstrated lower elasticity. In the domestic market, demand has remained resilient to incremental fare adjustments, and we continue to take a measured approach to pricing, while closely monitoring changes in customer demand. Ancillary products continue to be an important lever to help offset fuel pressures as they are typically less elastic than the base fare.

Looking ahead, we expect second quarter revenue performance to benefit from a combination of disciplined capacity, higher yields and strong seasonal demand with TRASM expected to reach approximately $0.095. For full year 2026, we now expect ASM growth of around 4%, which reflects the adjustments made to capacity to-date, while maintaining flexibility to adjust further as conditions evolve based on jet fuel price developments and engine returns.

Finally, as the FIFA World Cup approaches, we expect a moderate increase in traffic, though we continue to maintain a conservative view of the overall benefit. Fares to World Cup markets have converged industry-wide to levels consistent with our expectations. After a period of tighter inventory management, we are now gradually releasing June seats with fares in host city markets tracking broadly in line with historical trends, leaving potential upside for close-in bookings.

In summary, we are managing the current environment with discipline, leveraging the flexibility of our model and continuing to strengthen the quality of our revenue and network.

Now I will turn the call over to Jaime to cover our first quarter financial results and latest 2026 guidance.

Thank you, Holger. In the first quarter, we continued to act with agility, leaning to our variable cost structure to manage the impact of higher fuel prices on our flying. Elsewhere in our operations, we took on higher costs related to upcoming redeliveries and the pull forward of other maintenance activities as planned, to prepare for the return of GTF-related AOGs to our productive fleet.

Turning now to our results, starting with top line strength. For the first quarter of 2026, total operating revenues were $770 million, a 14% increase versus the period of last year. This was accomplished just with 2.3% capacity growth versus our guided 3% growth. This performance underscores our continued progress in driving yields and the resilience of our underlying demand.

On the top line also benefited from a strengthened peso, which appreciated 14% and contributed to a more favorable translation of domestic revenues into dollars, although provided an incremental cost headwind on peso-denominated expenses.

On the cost side, CASM was $0.0885, an increase of 12%, driven by average economic fuel cost that rose 16% during the quarter to $3.06 per gallon. Our cost structure is particularly important during this period of uncertainty and higher fuel prices. With almost 70% of our costs being variable or semi-fixed, coupled with our ability to adjust crew schedules closer into flights. We have the ability to nimbly adjust capacity and take related cost out of our operations faster than many of our peers. This flexibility in our cost structure is particularly important during this complex geopolitical environment.

In the context of higher fuel prices, it is important to highlight the timing of fuel impact and fare recapture across our financials. Fuel is reflected on our P&L on a current basis. Our reported cash flows and balance benefits from about a 30-day lag. At the same time, our booking curve of approximately 45 days marks a lag in the translation of fare adjustments into results. Ancillaries by contrast are more linear and closer in, allowing for faster response.

CASM ex fuel was $0.0604, aligned with our guidance. The 12% year-over-year increase is primarily driven by higher maintenance activity associated with return of aircraft and the pull forward of work to support accelerated engine inductions into Pratt & Whitney shops reflected mainly in the line of depreciation of right-of-use assets as well as professional fees associated with the merger and a higher international scheduled mix. For context, landing, takeoff and navigation expenses for U.S. operations are far higher than for domestic operations.

Looking down our P&L, the impact of our grounded fleet and engine maintenance, along with actions taken to manage the interim capacity deficit, is reflected across several [ lines ].

In particular, our depreciation and amortization, right-of-use and maintenance items continue to reflect cost of our total fleet of 155 aircraft, including 36 average grounded aircraft during the quarter. Elsewhere in our P&L, I have already addressed the increase in landing, takeoff and navigation expenses.

Another line worth highlighting is salaries and benefits, where the increase primarily reflects the appreciation of the Mexican peso, given that this cost line is mostly peso-denominated and reflects the higher headcount associated with the incorporation of 10 additional aircraft year-over-year and the annual salary adjustment in line with Mexican inflation.

Meanwhile, in other operating income line, we did not recognize any sale and leaseback gains as we had no aircraft delivered by Airbus during the quarter. This line also includes our aircraft grounding compensation from Pratt & Whitney.

For the first quarter, we generated EBITDAR of $177 million with a net margin of 22.9%. This compares with our guidance of 25% with the variance solely driven by higher jet fuel prices as the realized Gulf Coast jet fuel price averaged $2.56 per gallon for the quarter, that is $0.36 above the $2.20 per gallon assumption embedded in our guidance.

EBIT was negative $21 million with a minus 2.8% margin. As the AOG trend reverses, we expect to narrow the EBITDAR to EBIT conversion to support the stronger underlying profitability. Net loss for the quarter was $71 million, translated into a loss per ADS of $0.62.

Turning now to cash flow and balance sheet data. For the first quarter, cash flow generated by operating activities was $251 million. The cash outflows provided by and used in investing and financing activities were $34 million and $222 million, respectively. CapEx, excluding fleet predelivery payment was $87 million, in line with our plan for this year.

At the same time, we are actively evaluating initiatives to optimize investment, including selectively reducing noncritical CapEx while preserving all critical fleet-related spending to preserve cash for the full year. Volaris ended the quarter with a total liquidity position of $767 million, representing 24.5% of the last 12 months' total operating revenues. This level remains broadly in line with the end of last year and reflects a solid position.

Looking ahead, we remain focused on preserving cash, supported by disciplined actions and a proactive approach to managing the current environment. At first quarter end, our net debt-to-EBITDAR ratio stood at 3.2x. We continue to have no material near term debt maturities and have already financed all predelivery payments for aircraft scheduled for delivery through mid-2028. We continue to prioritize cost control, profitability and conservative cash management in all environments.

Now turning to our fleet plan and engine availability. As of March 31, our fleet consisted of 155 aircraft with an average age of 6.8 years, with 66% of the fleet being fuel-efficient new models. During the first quarter, we averaged 36 aircraft on ground due to engine-related issues with continued improvement to achieve our plan for the year.

During the quarter, we reduced the number of AOGs by 9 aircrafts, peaking at 41 and closing at 32. This represents an important step toward restoring fleet productivity, driving structural improvements in earnings power and long-term performance. At the same time, as we receive additional GTF engines and bring new aircraft back into operation, we [ enhance ] fuel efficiency relative to the CEO fleet. We expect the new mix of the operating fleet to increase to an average of approximately 70% for the year compared to 52% in 2025, reflecting our deliberate focus on maximizing fuel efficiency in the current environment.

As Enrique mentioned, we estimate that every 10 aircraft shifted from CEOs to NEOs generates roughly $2 million in monthly fuel savings at current fuel prices. Restoring fleet productivity continues to be a priority. We have a strong conviction that this will drive structural improvements in the fleet efficiency, earnings power and long-term performance, supporting sustained value creation.

As we have highlighted, as grounded aircraft return to service, we generate growth on essentially the same asset base, resulting in a natural earnings tailwind without the need for incremental fleet-related debt over the remainder of the decade. Lease liabilities are expected to decrease by around $340 million in 2027 as our contractual fleet declines, unlocking roughly $50 million in annual lease savings.

Turning to our outlook. Given the volatility in jet fuel prices and limited visibility due to the ongoing geopolitical situation, we are suspending our full year 2026 guidance. While we remain confident in the underlying strength of the business, the demand of our network and our ability to execute our strategic initiatives, we believe it is prudent to provide an update once conditions stabilize.

In this context, I would like to provide directional color on 2 key variables within our control, ASM growth and CapEx. On capacity, considering the actions we have taken to-date, we now expect 4% annual growth compared to our prior expectation of 7%. Importantly, this remains dynamic as conditions evolve, particularly as capacity reduction have been concentrated in the second quarter, and we will make further adjustment on a rolling basis as conditions require. On CapEx, we're in the process of implementing deferrals of noncritical investments to preserve cash.

Turning now to our guidance for the second quarter of 2026. We expect an ASM growth in the range of 0% to 2% year-over-year, TRASM of around $0.095, CASM ex fuel of approximately $0.068 and an EBITDAR margin of around 13%. The increase in CASM ex fuel in the second quarter primarily reflects nonrecurring items and the capacity reduction implemented to-date. This impact represents roughly $0.007 in unit cost in the quarter, driven by merger-related costs and fleet expenses, including incremental expenses associated with aircraft returns, including major maintenance events on 4 aircraft and an increase in engine shop visits to 43 events in the second quarter compared to 15 last year as we accelerate engine inductions into Pratt & Whitney shops to support our targeted reduction in AOGs, resulting in higher maintenance expense in the near term. Coupled with the deliberate actions to align capacity with the current fuel environment, we expect the second quarter to represent the peak in CASM ex fuel for the year.

Wrapping up, for our second quarter guidance, we are assuming an average foreign exchange rate of around MXN 17.85 per U.S. dollar and an average U.S. Gulf Coast jet fuel price of approximately $4 per gallon. For April, we hedged 20% of our fuel consumption for peak travel periods, including Semana Santa and Spring Break at a strike price of $2.05 per gallon with a breakeven price of $2.12 per gallon. This represents approximately 7% of second quarter consumption and an estimated $11 million benefit for the quarter.

In summary, while the current environment presents near term pressures, we are responding with agility and taking proactive actions across the business. We are entering this period from a position of strength and remain confident in our ability to navigate the environment supported by a flexible model, a solid liquidity position and multiple levers to drive performance as conditions evolve.

Now I will turn the call back over to Enrique for closing remarks.

Thank you, Jaime. Overall, we are confident that Volaris's prudent strategy planning, world-leading and highly variable cost structure and nimble execution in 2 structurally growing markets in the Mexican and the U.S. market, cross-border sectors, position us well for the long-term.

Before we start Q&A, I'd like to also quickly cover the latest developments in our transaction with Viva. The regulatory process continues to move forward as expected, and we remain in active dialogue with the relevant authorities. We have filed with Mexico's National Antitrust Commission and have already responded and closed the first round of information requests.

As you may have seen in the extraordinary shareholders meeting held on March 25, we received strong support for the transaction with 94% quorum and 92% approval of total outstanding shares. Last week, we received a second request of information. All teams in Mexico and U.S. are working hard to provide the requested information to the relevant authorities in the different countries.

At this stage, we continue to expect the overall regulatory review process to take up to 12 months from the transaction announcement date. We'll continue to provide public disclosures and updates on our earnings calls as we advance throughout the process and reach new milestones.

I'll now turn the call over for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Michael Linenberg with Deutsche Bank.

A couple of questions here just on fare increases or fuel surcharges that have been implemented and how domestic markets maybe compared to international markets. So I'm trying to get a sense of maybe how many fare increases have we seen? And are you seeing a better uptick in international or domestic on your ability to recapture the higher fuel expense?

Michael, this is Holger. So on fuel recapture, the first thing I'd like to say is that demand has remained strong in both domestic and international markets despite a $4 fuel per gallon and price adjustments that we've done. We've made fare adjustments step-by-step and ancillary price adjustments to help precisely manage the impact of higher fuel prices. And we are encouraged to see stability and a healthy demand in both markets, as I said. And we believe that our ULCC value proposition is attractive and remains attractive in the domestic and international market.

But it's also important to mention that recapture improves not only from pricing actions, but especially in the international markets also from a trade-down effect that we are seeing from higher fare carriers that service the U.S. transborder markets towards our lower fare, base fare model and unbundled model. So that's what I can tell you about how we're passing through fuel prices. It's a little bit better in the international market, as I mentioned.

Okay. And then just my second question on the capacity front, we've already seen Aeromexico report and they're scaling back their capacity several points, as are you. What about the rest of the competition, whether with -- from -- in this case, it will be mainly non-Mexican carriers. What are you seeing in competitive markets? Are you seeing supply come out at what you expect or maybe it's even faster than expected?

So we've seen capacity prudence by all competitors in the market. We've seen adjustments, especially for the second quarter of all domestic carriers and in the international market as well for the second quarter. As we move into the high season, July and August capacity cuts have not come through yet, and we are still holding off as well. But we are ready to make further cuts if the fuel price environment remains where it is right now. And as a reminder, our second quarter ASM guidance is now 0% to 2%, which is at this point less than we had originally planned for the second quarter of 2026.

Just a follow-on here, if you'd like the breakdown between domestic and international for the second quarter...

Yes. Yes, that would be great.

We [ review ] domestic market by around 3% negative and international is going to be mid to high single-digit growth because international has been more robust in 2026.

Our next question comes from the line of Rogerio Araujo with Bank of America.

Congratulations on the capacity and yield management delivered. I have a couple here. First of all, there is a [ $0.0070 ] of CASM ex fuel impact on the recurring and capacity reductions. Will all this go away as of the third Q '26? Or should we continue to see part of that impact? That's the first one.

And the second is, how is the company managing to keep capacity growth under mid-single-digit rates while flying back the grounded aircraft from Pratt & Whitney? And are these going to generate extra redelivery costs besides the one-offs expected in the second Q?

Thank you for your question. This is Jaime. Starting with CASM ex, as I mentioned, the second Q will be the highest peak of the year. And as trends continue, it will normalize. As mentioned, we have an impact of around [ $0.0070 ] just by nonrecurring items in the second Q. If you add the FX effect plus the capacity cut, it's also like around $0.0022 to $0.003. So CASM is aligned with the CASM that we have last year. I think CASM for full year should -- will be at the level of $0.062, which is aligned with the recovery on productive fleet that we budgeted for the year, which is aligned with the plan that we have been working together with Pratt. And so we are strong believers that we have a strong CASM position. We have a lot of CASM which is non-fixed or semi-variable, 70%, which -- that will continue. And we are going to get the price on the investment on the returning to normality of the fleet in the future with a lower CASM than the CASM that we are going to be posting this year.

Perfect. What about the -- how the company managing to keep the capacity growth below mid-single-digit rates while you receive all these aircraft back that are currently grounded?

Roger, this is Enrique Beltranena. I just want to remind you, and I have been very, very persistent in the saying that our fleet management is a combination of 4 very important pieces: First, the return of Pratt & Whitney engines and the incremental fleet that that creates; second, the redelivery of the aircrafts that we have in the pipeline; third, the arrivals of the Airbus aircrafts that are new aircrafts coming into the fleet; and finally, we manage the whole equation in a way that it creates a balance of the ASM growth that we are presenting.

I want to be very persistent on that and very clear. It's not that we're incrementing fleet in a nonsense way. The addition of all these 4 pieces make a total equation which controls the capacity based on demand from the customers.

Some data on the general comment made by Enrique. This year, actions that we have already implemented, 4 deliveries that were targeted for Volaris this year, we sold those aircrafts to a lessor. In addition, we postponed 7 deliveries of 2027 and 3 deliveries of 2028 until [ 2023 ]. So that helps manage capacity, but also helps the cash because we are avoiding PDP payments towards that. And that -- those -- that's examples that we have structurally in our fleet strategy embedded in the business that allow us to cut capacity in the really short-term. We did it last year. Originally, we were going to grow 15%. We ended up growing only 6%. This year, we initially thought that we were going to grow 7%. Our expectation is 4%, and that's embedded in the fleet flexibility that we have worked over the years.

Our next question comes from the line of Duane Pfennigwerth with Evercore ISI.

My first one is just about your merger agreement. I'm not sure if you can talk about it. But given how dynamic the backdrop has been since this agreement was first announced, are the economics fixed in your agreement? Or are there adjustment mechanisms based on your relative profitability?

So let me start saying that -- I think even before the higher fuel prices delivers clear benefits across stakeholders, okay? It creates greater connectivity and sustained lower fares for customers and a stronger and more resilient platform with enhanced long-term value creation for shareholders. I think in a higher fuel environment, scale becomes even more relevant. And this combination strengthens our ability to manage controllable costs through procurement efficiencies, better asset utilization and operating leverage at the group level.

Importantly, the structure allows both airlines to maintain independent operations, limiting execution risk while capturing scale benefits, positioning us to accelerate growth and deepen penetration of the ultra-low-cost carrier model across Mexico and the transborder markets.

Having said that, the authorities do not take in consideration these kind of comments. So we need to accelerate and continue working very hard with the authorities to get the approvals that we need as soon as possible.

Maybe just a follow-up from the perspective of Volaris equity holders, assuming that you do ultimately get regulatory approval, is the ratio fixed? Or is there -- are there adjustment mechanisms based on how the relative profitability plays out?

No. There are no that kind of mechanisms in transaction. But there are many conditions precedent for the transaction to close. So I'm pretty sure the Board of Directors will make the right decisions for the transaction to be generating value for all of the shareholders of Volaris.

And then just for my follow-up, you mentioned in the prepared remarks, greater flexibility to make capacity changes closer in. Can you just expand on that a little bit? What are the drivers of that flexibility from a crew perspective?

In our model -- yes, sorry, Duane, this is Holger. We believe that we have a model that is more flexible inherently than U.S. legacy carriers or any U.S. carriers as a matter of fact. And that is driven by lower restrictions on the crew rostering side, and we're focusing on scheduled capacity reductions that are focused, for example, on off-peak frequencies. We can quickly adjust underperforming routes with the new fuel price environment, lower-yield markets. And we're really focused on optimizing the profitability of our network while maintaining network connectivity for our customers. So we're not canceling any routes. We are nimbly adjusting frequencies as the fuel price environment evolves.

Our next question comes from the line of Filipe Nielsen with Citi.

So I just wanted to understand a little better the -- how the booking curve is evolving for you guys in different markets and trying to reconcile that with, okay, we now know what are you expecting for second quarter, but trying to understand how this should roll into third quarter and fourth quarter? Other carriers mentioned a little bit about the expectations on fuel cost recapture in -- later in the year. You mentioned around 20% to 30% in second quarter. Just wanted to understand how you expect pricing CASM ex and margins to evolve as the booking curve evolves?

Thank you. This is Holger again. And I'll start out with giving you a general sense of where we see the booking curves and then talk a little bit more about fuel price recapture and then pass it over to Jaime for the cost section.

So in terms of booking curves and trends, we are seeing quite solid booking trends into the summer high season, both in the domestic and international market. The cross-border segment has improved steadily since, basically mid-2025 after the relatively weak second quarter of 2025. The macro indicators in Mexico, including consumption and wage developments, remain stable, and that translates into stable demand for our air services.

In the cross-border segment, the demand trend that we've seen late in 2025 continues in the first quarter and the second quarter of 2026, with an international load factor increasing from 79% in the last quarter of last year to 80% in the first quarter and with improvements in the second quarter.

In terms of fuel recapture, what I can tell you is that in the first quarter, a significant portion of our revenues was already booked, and that's also true for April, before the fuel prices spiked. So as a result, in the second quarter, we expect a fuel recapture in the range of 20% to 30%, given our price adjustments to base fare and ancillary revenues that are slowly trickling through the bookings. But as we move into the back half of the year and assuming the current fuel price forward curve, we expect a more progressive improvement of the fuel recapture just because our pricing actions and capacity adjustments are going to be fully reflected in the revenue base. So you'll see higher fuel recapture rates towards the end of the year.

Comment. Based on the current jet fuel forward curve, we see a constructive trajectory in the second half supporting improved earnings. Saying that, that's supporting sequential improvement in operating margin, EBITDAR margin and net profit, trending back to our original expectation by the fourth quarter of the year.

Great. And just a little follow-up. You're seeing this positive oil curve going forward. Are you planning on rolling any hedges, like doing at least a little bit to protect from potential further spikes or anything in that sense?

Continue to overlay it on a constant basis. If there's a good window to do some hedges, we will do it. We have not seen in the recent last weeks.

Our next question comes from the line of Julia Orsi with JPMorgan. [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Jens Spiess with Morgan Stanley.

So just assuming that jet fuel remains at spot levels and does not come down according to the forward curve, at what level should we then expect TRASM to be in the third quarter, just to get a sense of how much more price increases you would need and could make further down the road?

So we're going to continuously evaluate the situation on the fare adjustments and ancillary side. We are planning to sequentially improve the fuel pass-through towards the customers as we get more and more new bookings into our reservation system. We are currently showing a good trajectory in the second quarter, double-digit TRASM growth in the second quarter, and we plan to sustain that into the third quarter as well.

Okay. Perfect. Maybe ask a different way. You mentioned 20% to 30% fuel recapture in the second quarter. So what's like the marginal TRASM excluding the effect of tickets already sold, the tickets that you sold after the fuel spike, what level are they more or less just to get a sense?

Holger here again. So the fuel recapture, as you said, for the second quarter, we're expecting 20% to 30%. As we see the forward curve materialize, that fuel recapture should increase, and we are planning to sustain the fare adjustment and the ancillary adjustments that we've already put through the system. But I can't give you a specific number right now, [ as to ] in the third quarter.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Perfect. And if I may, just one last question. You mentioned $2 million in fuel savings from switching to new generation aircraft. That's -- so first of all, is that at current jet fuel prices or pre the spike? And also, more or less, what's the delta in the lease cost of switching, just to get a sense of the net impact?

This is Jaime. As mentioned in the call, that $2 million corresponds to adding 10 aircraft switching from CEO to NEO at current fuel prices. In addition, there's no effect on rent because I'm paying for the rents for the 155 aircraft, even though I have 32 aircraft grounded today. So there's no effect on the lease payments.

Yes. Yes. But conceptually, like -- so what's like the delta in the lease of a new generation aircraft versus older generation aircraft?

Obviously, NEOs are more expensive than the CEOs, but I'm paying for both today and the deliveries that we are doing this year, which are 14 deliveries, are all CEOs, which is part of the strategic plan to reduce the gap between productive and nonproductive.

This concludes today's question-and-answer session. I would like to invite management to proceed with his closing remarks. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you very much, operator. This is Enrique Beltranena again. I just want to finish the call saying that we remain confident on the actions that we are taking. And I want to thank you, our family of ambassadors as well as our Board of Directors, investors, bankers, lessors and suppliers.

As I said in my opening comments, looking ahead, remaining confident is really important in our ability to navigate this environment. We think we have a very well-prepared company, a team management that is -- has been successful through very -- many of the crisis that we had in the past, and we'll continue to prioritize profitability over growth.

I look forward to speaking to you on our second quarter call in July, and thank you very much to everybody for being here today.

This concludes the Volaris conference call for today. Thank you very much for your participation and have a nice day.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining Volaris' Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note that today's event is being recorded and webcast live on Volaris website.

At this time, I'll turn the call over to Liliana Juarez, Investor Relations Manager. Please go ahead.

Welcome to our fourth quarter 2025 earnings call. Joining us today are our President and CEO, Enrique Beltranena; our Airline Executive Vice President, Holger Blankenstein; and our CFO, Jaime Pous. They will be discussing the company's results followed by a Q&A session.

This call is for investors and analysts only. Please note that this call may include forward-looking statements under applicable securities laws. These are subject to several factors that could cause the company's results to differ materially as described in our filings with the U.S. SEC and Mexico CNBV. These statements speak only as of the date they are made, and Volaris undertakes no obligation to update or modify them. All figures are in U.S. dollars compared to the fourth quarter of 2024, unless otherwise noted.

And with that, I'll turn the call over to Enrique.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our fourth quarter 2025 earnings call. As ever, I'm proud of the disciplined execution, operational agility and commitment demonstrated across our organization throughout the past year. I especially want to thank our ambassadors for their hard work and resilience in what was a demanding environment.

2025 was both busy and historic for Volaris. We executed with precision across our network and operations, delivering measurable progress despite a complex industry and macroeconomic backdrop, including engine constraints, FX volatility and geopolitical developments that temporarily influenced cross-border travel sentiment. Through disciplined network management, focused pricing strategy and operational flexibility, we continued strengthening the foundation of our business.

In the fourth quarter, we delivered 5.6% capacity growth and drove TRASM towards the levels recorded in the same period of 2024. At the same time, we strengthened revenue quality with ancillary revenues comprising 56% of total operating revenues, reinforcing the structural advantages of our ultra-low-cost carrier model. We also initiated targeted capacity growth in the U.S. with routes maturing as planned, all while maintaining a healthy level of cash as a percentage of revenues of 25.5% and strong cost discipline.

During 2025, we kept CASM ex fuel in line with plan at $0.0558 while proactively adjusting ASM growth from an originally planned mid-teens increase down to 6.3%. These actions ensured our seat offering remained aligned with demand while prioritizing profitability.

Equally importantly, we delivered on our guidance, finishing 2025 with a full year EBITDAR margin of 32.5%. Performance strengthened as the year progressed, reinforcing the improving trajectory of the business as we move into 2026 and demonstrating that our strategic and operational initiatives are gaining traction.

More specifically, in the cross-border market, travel sentiment continued to improve sequentially, in line with our expectations. We matched demand with disciplined capacity deployment and the Mexico-U.S. capacity added in the second half of the year generated positive results as routes continued to mature.

Fourth quarter international load factor reached 79%, up from 77.5% recorded in the first 9 months of the year. In the domestic market, load factor reached 89.8%, reflecting disciplined supply adjustments to align with demand across the network. As the best-in-class carrier operating in a structurally growing and underpenetrating emerging market, we remain focused on stimulating demand through our low fare model, supporting profitable growth, capital efficiency and long-term value creation by continuing to connect families, communities and business across Mexico and beyond.

As we enter 2026, the Mexican economy is showing earlier signs of improvement, supported by recovering consumption trends and better-than-expected inflation performance. The economy-wide wage bill has recovered part of the ground lost during most of 2025, supporting improving consumer confidence and household expectations around purchasing durable goods and making travel plans in the coming months.

For the year, we are expecting ASM growth of approximately 7%, fully aligned with our disciplined deployment strategy. Most of the incremental capacity will be allocated to international markets where we have seen sequential improvement in TRASM since last August, supported by encouraging first quarter booking trends. Domestically, we continue to support a balanced supply-demand environment, scaling capacity in line with improving demand indicators.

Our 2026 growth will be managed through 3 levers: the first one scheduled Airbus deliveries, the second one, AOG reduction and the third one, aircraft lease returns. Together, they enable a balanced and controlled fleet profile that supports disciplined growth with flexibility and enhanced asset productivity.

Importantly, we are now at an inflection point in aircraft on ground or AOGs, and we expect this trend to improve progressively toward year-end. We expect more meaningful acceleration in grounded aircraft returning to service as we move into the summer and the second half, and Jaime will discuss this in greater detail. To support this recovery, we are proactively advancing certain maintenance events and inducting roughly twice as many engines as in 2025 with a significant improvement in turnaround times.

While this implies higher temporary near-term costs and a little bit more CapEx, we view it as a disciplined investment that accelerates inspections, shortens downtime and allow us to restore fleet availability sooner. We're focused on increasing the share of productive aircraft in our total fleet as doing so allows us to generate greater productivity from our existing asset base without adding leverage. This, in turn, strengthens our earnings profile and improves free cash flow conversion.

Many of you have asked about our strategy to return capacity to service without creating excess supply in the market. I want to be very clear that our capacity decisions have been and will remain firmly anchored in customer demand and sustained profitability. Our flexible fleet and engine management framework allows us to dynamically adjust deployment as conditions evolve. We are fully in control of our growth trajectory, not only for 2026, but also for 2027 and 2028 when we expect to have the engine availability constraints normalized and fully behind us. Against this backdrop, the setup as we move into the back half of the decade presents a compelling opportunity for Volaris to drive long-term shareholder value.

Our ultra-low-cost customer remains the main source for our growth. As you know, in December, we entered into an agreement with Viva to create an airline group to accelerate our carriers' expansion of air travel penetration in Mexico and beyond. Strategically, the proposed airline group represents a natural next step to broaden access to low-fare travel in the domestic and cross-border markets while preserving our unique brands and passenger choice. As both carriers share a common ultra-low-cost carrier foundation and compatible fleets, the formation of the airline group is consistent with Volaris' commitment to low-cost, low-complexity growth for all stakeholders.

The regulatory process is moving forward as expected, and we remain in active dialogue with the relevant authorities. We have filed with Mexico's National Antitrust Commission and have already responded to the first round of information requests.

In parallel, on March 5, alongside the call for the extraordinary shareholders' meeting to be held on March 25, we will publish the transaction's prospectus or [Foreign Language]. At this stage, we continue to expect the overall regulatory review processes to take up to 12 months from the merger announcement date. We will provide updates on our earning calls as we advance throughout the process and reach new milestones.

Now -- I will now turn the call over to Holger to continue to discuss our fourth quarter commercial and operational performance as well as our commercial plans and outlook for 2026.

Thank you, Enrique. Our fourth quarter operations reflected disciplined planning and strong execution across the network, supporting solid operational and revenue performance. As Enrique highlighted, our cross-border market continued to demonstrate stable recovery even as northbound flows moderated year-over-year during the holiday period.

We were particularly encouraged by the 79% load factor on international routes in the fourth quarter, a solid outcome given the more challenging backdrop earlier in the year, particularly in the second quarter. This marks a clear improvement versus the first 9 months of the year that exceeded our expectations and brings us closer to our historical low 80s median load factor for this market.

In the domestic market, our 89.8% load factor reflected steady demand in a balanced supply environment. Weather-related disruptions, including persistent severe fog in Tijuana and other stations during December led to temporary cancellations and resulted in lower quarterly capacity growth of 5.6% versus our guidance of approximately 8%. We estimate the P&L impact of this extraordinary weather-related operational disruption was approximately $7 million.

At the same time, rebookings deep into the holiday season affected the take-up of higher-yielding close-in demand. Nevertheless, we delivered fourth quarter TRASM of $0.0935, in line with our guidance and consistent with the strong results from the fourth quarter of 2024. By actively managing our capacity and remaining responsive to demand trends across our network, we drove TRASM to converge year-over-year toward the level of a strong fourth quarter of 2024.

Our top line resilience continues to be supported by outstanding ancillary performance with ancillary revenues per passenger increasing 6% versus 2024, along with emerging benefits from our segmentation initiatives. As we enhance our product suite, capture more diverse customer base and customize our pricing strategy, we are seeing structural tailwinds emerge from fare mix, yields and margins as our revenue grows. A clear example of this is Premium+. Introduced in October last year, our blocked middle seat product in the first 2 rows of the cabin is designed to better address needs of more diverse customer segments.

By the fourth quarter, despite still being in its ramp-up phase, performance has exceeded our expectations, supported by strong uptake and positive customer feedback. The key to our success remains low-cost, low-complexity development of ancillaries that generate high returns on investment.

In 2026, we anticipate a compounding effect across our affinity portfolio as we drive enrollments and channel our customers into our loyalty program, altitude, where we have already achieved an encouraging base of approximately 800,000 enrollments in just 7 months. We are on track to integrate altitude with our co-branded credit card by the end of the second quarter, allowing all card transactions to earn loyalty points. Demand for our higher-value products remains strong. In the domestic market, approximately 60% of our traffic already consists of leisure, business and multi-reason travelers who choose Volaris for our strong value proposition. At the same time, our VFR customers are increasingly adopting our broader product suite, supporting more stable yields across cycles.

With this diversified demand profile, we continue to differentiate our network and selectively expand where fundamentals are attractive. Earlier this month, we announced 33 new routes that will start this summer, offering a balanced mix of domestic and international services from Guadalajara, including the U.S. destinations of Detroit and Salt Lake City as well as new operations from 3 strategically attractive secondary cities, Puebla, Queretaro and San Luis Potosi. These markets have demonstrated solid demand growth in recent years, supported by rising income levels and meaningful state-level investment, making them compelling opportunities for disciplined network expansion and sustainable profitability. These launches build upon the success we have achieved in Guadalajara and Tijuana.

As we explained on our October call, Guadalajara has become a strong market for multi-reason customers, representing roughly 20% of traffic in that market, and we are extending this proven playbook to new regions to support profitable growth. In parallel, we continue to optimize our slots and schedules, shifting certain flights to earlier times to better serve business and leisure travelers, improving customer experience and potential yields. The financial benefits of these adjustments are already beginning to materialize in our TRASM results.

We are also expanding connectivity beyond our network. In recent months, we activated our codeshares with Copa and Hainan, complementing our existing agreements with Frontier and Iberia and providing customers with broader global connectivity while enhancing revenue opportunities across our network.

Revenues from codeshare partners increased more than 30% in 2025 and many are still in the ramp-up stage. For our international market, we observed an inflection point in the third quarter of 2025, which continued to materialize in the fourth quarter and as we start 2026. Our U.S. routes are recovering nicely. We are planning to deploy roughly 2/3 of our total capacity growth this year to the cross-border market, consistent with our broader international strategy, which now represents approximately 42% of our total capacity and supports a more diversified and resilient network. As we broaden our competitive positioning with new destinations, we are well positioned to capture cross-border demand as recovery continues.

Booking trends so far in 2026 have been very healthy with momentum building into Semana Santa and the spring season. As we lap favorable comparisons in the first quarter of this year, the demand environment gives us confidence in sustained strong performance.

Now I will turn the call over to Jaime to cover our financial results and 2026 guidance.

Thank you, Holger. In the fourth quarter, we continued to act nimbly, leaning into our variable cost structure to manage short-term headwinds. We also remain prudent and proactive with managing our capacity to support demand and fleet availability trends. This diligence is reflected in our financial results for the quarter and the full year.

For the fourth quarter of 2025, total operating revenues were $882 million, a 5.6% increase versus the comparable prior year quarter. This increase was driven by a substantial TRASM recovery in the back half of the year, as Holger explained, pointing to continued diversification of our revenues and early strength of segmentation efforts. Our top line also benefited from a strengthened peso, which appreciated 8.7% versus the U.S. dollar despite providing an incremental cost headwind. We continue to diminish the impact of FX volatility on our business through increased cross-border flying and U.S. dollar-denominated sales.

On the cost side, CASM was $0.0829, an increase of 3.2% despite average economic fuel costs rising 5.5% to $2.65 per gallon. CASM ex fuel was $5.76, aligned with our guidance and up just 1.4% year-over-year. For the fourth quarter and full year, we achieved CASM ex fuel results in line with our planning despite flying materially fewer than originally planned ASMs in both periods.

Looking down our P&L, the impact from our grounded fleet and engine maintenance and our actions to manage the related interim capacity deficit is reflected in several lines. Our depreciation and amortization, right of use and maintenance items continued to reflect cost of our total fleet, including the grounded aircraft. Additionally, as we approach elevated aircraft lease returns scheduled for 2026, our aircraft and engine variable lease expense line continued to reflect redelivery accruals, including reserves for aircraft maintenance on returns.

Meanwhile, in the other operating income line, we booked sale and leaseback gains of $10.4 million related to the Airbus deliveries of 5 new aircraft. This line also includes our aircraft grounding compensation from Pratt & Whitney.

For the fourth quarter, we generated EBITDAR of $328 million with a margin of 37.2%, aligned with the guidance provided for the quarter. EBIT was $100 million for a margin of 11.3%. Finally, we generated a net profit of $4 million, translating into an earnings per ADS of $0.04.

Moving briefly to our P&L for the full year 2025 compared to full year 2024. Total operating revenues were $3 billion, a 3% decrease. CASM was $0.0804, a 0.1% increase with an average economic fuel cost of $2.59 per gallon, 6% lower. CASM ex fuel was $0558, 3.5% higher than last year. EBITDAR totaled $988 million, a 13% decrease with an EBITDAR margin of 32.5%. EBIT was $135 million, representing an EBIT margin of 4.4%. Over the next several years, we expect to meaningfully reduce the spread between EBITDAR and EBIT margins as we reverse the impact of capacity reductions related to engine-related AOGs.

Prior to these issues and the resulting groundings, the spread between EBITDAR and EBIT margin hovered between 18% and 19% of revenues, but reached 28% in 2025. In 2026, we expect this EBITDAR to EBIT spread to tighten to 24% and to return to historical levels in 2028. Net loss was $104 million or a loss of $0.91 per ADS.

Turning now to cash flow and balance sheet data. For the fourth quarter, cash flow generated by operating activities was $252 million. The cash outflows provided by and used in investing and financing activities were $2 million and $280 million, respectively. CapEx, excluding fleet predelivery payments, was $56 million for the fourth quarter and $251 million for the full year of 2025, in line with guidance.

Volaris ended the quarter with a total liquidity position of $774 million, representing 25.5% of the last 12 months' total operating revenues. We continue to target liquidity of at least 20% of the last 12 months' revenues as part of a disciplined and conservative approach to cash management.

At fourth quarter end, our net debt-to-EBITDAR ratio stood at 3.1x, unchanged from the third quarter. We expect deleveraging in the second half of the year, supported by improving earnings and fleet productivity as AOG levels decline, finishing 2026 with a ratio of approximately 2.6x. We continue to have no material near-term debt maturities and have already financed all predelivery payments for the aircraft scheduled for delivery through mid-2028. We remain focused on our core financial priorities of cost control, profitability and conservative cash management to preserve the strength and value of our business.

Now turning to our fleet plan and engine availability. As of December 31, our fleet consisted of 155 aircraft with an average age of 6.6 years with 66% of the fleet being fuel-efficient new models. During the fourth quarter, we averaged 36 aircraft on ground due to engine-related issues. As Enrique discussed, we are at an inflection point in aircraft on ground, which peaked at 41 aircraft in January. We expect a steady reduction from here on with more meaningful improvement in the second half and towards year-end. We anticipate closing 2026 with approximately 25 AOGs. This trajectory implies a full-year average of approximately 33 AOGs, representing 3 additional aircraft returning to service versus 2025.

The reduction in AOGs is supported by concrete manufacturer actions, including durability upgrades to the hot section of the engine, expanded MRO throughput across the global network and the rollout of enhancements and certifications. Together, these initiatives are extending time on wing and reducing shop turnaround times such that the number of engines being induced into MROs and returning to service are expected to be consistently larger than those being removed. As we gradually narrow the gap between our total and productive fleet while remaining disciplined in aligning capacity growth with demand, we expect to unlock meaningful financial benefits, particularly from the second half of the year onward.

As grounded aircraft return to service, we will be able to generate ASM growth and earnings from essentially the same asset base. Our fleet in absolute numbers of aircraft will somewhat decline in the next couple of years, but the available of productive fleet will increase and close the gap between our total and available productive aircraft, providing adequate ASM growth to meet our guidance without the need for incremental fleet-related debt for the remainder of the decade. This will improve the EBITDAR to EBIT conversion and translate directly into a stronger free cash flow and return on invested capital.

We have aligned our fleet plan to prioritize disciplined growth in productive capacity rather than total fleet size. Looking ahead, our base case assumes a roughly stable total fleet until 2030 with growth driven by the increasing share of productive aircraft. To preserve flexibility, we continue to actively manage the multiple levers we have, including managing lease approaching expiration and adjusting our order book.

Given these moving parts, rather than viewing them in isolation, we recommend focusing on our guided ASM growth, which already incorporates aircraft deliveries, engine returns and aircraft redeliveries. Despite engine availability headwinds over the past 30 months, Volaris has consistently demonstrated a strong operational resilience. As fleet productivity improves, we are excited about the next phase of our growth as we evolve our network and products, maintain operational focus and continue strengthening our already world-class cost structure and margin profile in the years ahead.

Turning now to guidance. For full year 2026, we are expecting ASM growth of around 7% year-over-year, EBITDAR margin of around 33% and CapEx, net of finance fleet predelivery payments, of approximately $350 million. Double clicking on this CapEx, we expect higher major maintenance activity due to the number of aircraft scheduled for delivery and a pull-forward of major maintenance activities to support accelerated engine inductions into Pratt shops. It is important to note, we expect this strategy to also support a more stable maintenance profile in the years ahead.

Our full year 2026 outlook assumes an average foreign exchange rate to be approximately MXN 17.7 per U.S. dollar. We also assume an average U.S. Gulf Coast jet fuel price to be in the range of $2.1 to $2.2 per gallon. For the first quarter of 2026, we are targeting an ASM growth of approximately 3% year-over-year, TRASM of around $0.085, CASM ex fuel of approximately $0.06 and an EBITDAR margin of around 25%.

As the AOG trend reverses, as I previously mentioned, we expect improved EBITDAR to EBIT conversion to support a stronger underlying profitability. We, therefore, expect first quarter EBIT margin to remain broadly flat, in line with our historical margin seasonality and implying a year-over-year improvement over the minus 1.5% margin reported in the first quarter of 2025.

Our first quarter 2026 outlook assumes an average foreign exchange rate of around MXN 17.5 per U.S. dollar and an average U.S. Gulf Coast jet fuel price of approximately $2.2 per gallon, consistent with the realized prices for January and February and the forward curve for March.

Separately, the recent appreciation of the Mexican peso has created near-term translation effect as approximately 40% of our cost base is peso-denominated. For reference, at the MXN 17.5 per dollar rate embedded in our guidance, FX translation alone will represent approximately a $0.004 impact on first quarter CASM ex. On top of the expected peso appreciation, the CASM ex fuel increase in our guidance is explained by nonrecurring factors.

First, as I just mentioned, to achieve our target reduction in AOGs throughout the year, we accelerated engine inductions to Pratt & Whitney shops, which increases maintenance expenses in the near term. Second, we are projecting secure onetime expenses related to the proposed merger with Viva. Taken together, these nonrecurring items account for approximately $0.22 in unit costs in the quarter. These fleet actions strengthen our operational trajectory and support margin expansions, not only this year, but over the medium term.

We have clear visibility on our fleet normalization and remain firmly in control of our growth and execution plans through 2026 and beyond. As the engine situation progressively moves behind us, we believe Volaris is entering a period where improved productivity, disciplined growth and structural cost advantages position the company to generate meaningful long-term shareholder value.

Now I will turn the call back over to Enrique for closing remarks.

Thank you, Jaime. I'd like to conclude our remarks with a few takeaways. First and foremost, Volaris continues to demonstrate the strength and adaptability of our ultra-low-cost model and our command over our markets and cost structure. A highly flexible, low-cost operating framework is especially well suited to an emerging market like Mexico, allowing us to manage unit costs effectively across any level of capacity growth. This operating discipline has enabled us to adapt quickly to changing macroeconomic and industry conditions, preserve affordability for our customers and continue operating profitably through periods of disruption. Our experience demonstrates that in this market, a disciplined ultra-low-cost carrier model is not only resilient, but a key driver of long-term value creation.

Second, travel sentiment in the cross-border market continues to improve, and we are well positioned as the recovery progresses. Our evolving segmentation strategy gives us greater ability to capture profitable demand while remaining disciplined in how we deploy capacity.

Third, we remain committed to delivering low-cost, high-value service across our customer base, including our core VFR segment. Our expanding product suite and network allow us to address diverse customer preferences while maximizing TRASM among higher-yielding segments.

Fourth, we are not changing our DNA. Our proven low-cost, low-complexity development of ancillary and affinity offerings is enabling higher revenue per passenger and improved fare mix while preserving our cost efficiency and long-term profitability.

Finally, Volaris is advancing from a position of strength. As we narrow the gap between our available and total fleet, we expect meaningful financial tailwinds, including further improvement in our already world-leading cost structure.

Before opening the call to Q&A, I would like to briefly reiterate the strategic rationale behind the proposed transaction with Viva. As outlined in our announcement, we believe this transaction has the potential to create value for all stakeholders. In the case of the passengers through affordable access to an expanded network, in the case of communities through increased service and local economic development, in the case of our employees or ambassadors through enhanced stability and job opportunities across new markets and in the case of Mexico, through improved regional connectivity. Together, these benefits support a stronger and more inclusive future for ultra-low-cost air travel in Mexico.

At this stage, there is nothing further we can share beyond what has already been disclosed. We will continue to provide updates as we progress through the process. As we move into the Q&A session, I kindly ask that questions focused on Volaris' operating and financial results.

In sum, we believe Volaris is exceptionally well positioned to generate strong sustainable value for our shareholders in 2026 and beyond.

I'll now turn the call over for questions and answers.

Our first question comes from Michael Linenberg with Deutsche Bank.

This is [ Angela Adal ] on for Mike. You reported a tax rate of 89% in the quarter. Could you help us understand the key drivers behind that?

This is Jaime. When you talk about the tax rate, remember that during the first 3 quarters of the year, we used the legal tax rate of 30%. Then normally, in the fourth quarter, we adjust to apply the actual tax rate of the year considering the numbers. So the full year effective tax rate for Volaris was 11.8%.

Normally, we will include the 30% over the first 3 quarters of the year. And in the last one, we will apply the actual number of taxes that we are going to pay.

For Modeling, we strongly recommend everyone to continue to use a 30% effective tax rate.

Got it. Another question on the 7% capacity growth for 2026. How should we think about it in terms of the domestic versus international mix?

This is Holger. As we mentioned in our prepared remarks, first of all, I'd like to mention that our capacity decisions are firmly anchored on customer demand and on profitability. If we look at the breakdown that you're referring to, we plan an overall capacity growth of 7%, and that is consistent with an emerging market and an emerging customer base that we are observing in our customers.

We are going to be more skewed towards the international market, and we're expecting domestic growth to be in the low to mid-single digits for 2026. And then if you look at it on a quarterly basis, in the first half, ASM growth will be relatively lower to the lower base in 2025, where we made tactical adjustments to capacity in 2025 given the cross-border environment at that time in 2025.

The overall growth rate of 7%, we do have flexibility to move up and down within the range of a few percentage points as we move forward in the year and observe demand trends.

Our next question comes from Duane Pfennigwerth with Evercore ISI.

This is Jacob Gunning on for Duane. First question, just as you talk about the flat fleet count through 2030, could you perhaps talk about what that means for the multiyear capacity growth outlook and potential CapEx?

This is Jaime, Jake. In terms of capacity, I think that we are going to be growing in that 7% even in the midterm of our 5-year program, but with the availability to increasing capacity or lower capacity by 2, 3 percentage points. So if you look at total number of aircraft, the number that we finished in 2025 should be at the same level in 2030. And all of that growth is going to be coming from the unproductive fleet, putting them into production.

We have the leverage that we mentioned in the call, which is aircraft redeliveries during the period. We have a high number, which provides flexibility, Airbus deliveries. And that's why we will be managing capacity, matching the capacity to the demand we observe in the market.

Great. And then can you just remind us on how many planes are being returned this year and what the associated redelivery expense is?

We are returning 14 aircraft this year, Jake. And the increase in the CapEx of the year is in connection to redelivery of the planes. And in addition to that, in the investment that we are doing in major maintenance events to reduce the number of AOGs. The CapEx that we are estimated for this year is around $350 million to accomplish that.

Our next question comes from Rafael Simonetti with UBS.

My question is about leverage. So leverage went from 2.6x to 3.1 from the fourth quarter '24 to '25. And with higher CapEx ahead and only marginal margin improvement guidance, what's the path back towards deleveraging? And there is a leverage target that the Board is working towards?

Rafael, this is Jaime again. You should think that deleverages have been sequentially improving towards [ the range ]. As I mentioned during the call, we expect the 3.1 that we started in the year to go to 2.6x during the year. It's also going to be a result from the improvement in reductions of AOGs of the fleet.

This concludes today's question-and-answer session. I would like to invite management to proceed with his closing remarks. Please go ahead, sir.

[Audio Gap] as well as our Board of Directors, investors, bankers, lessors and suppliers for their support through a historic 2025. I look forward to demonstrating what Volaris can deliver in 2026 and beyond. Thank you very much for all your support.

This concludes the Volaris conference call for today. Thank you very much for your participation. Have a nice day.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining today's conference call. [Operator Instructions] After opening remarks, we'll open the call for questions from analysts. Please note that today's event is also being recorded and webcast live on Volaris Investor Relations website. The presentation and transcript for the call will also be available on the Volaris and Viva Investor Relations website.

At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Liliana Juárez, Investor Relations Manager at Volaris. Please go ahead, Liliana.

Good morning. We are hosting today's call to introduce investors and analysts to the proposed formation of a new airline group by Volaris and Viva. One that is poised to accelerate the expansion of our travel in Mexico. Before we begin, please note that today's remarks may include forward-looking statements about the proposed transaction and other matters which are subject to risks and uncertainties and may differ materially from actual results. Please refer to the full forward-looking statements led in the investor presentations for details and risk factors. We may also reference non-GAAP financial measures and illustrative or pro forma information, definitions, limitations and important qualifiers.

Additional information regarding the transaction, shareholder processes and where to find related materials is described in the investor presentation and in filed on the applicable regulatory websites noted there.

Today's call is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any securities, nor a solicitation of any vote approval or proxy in any jurisdiction. Please see the investor presentation for the full legends. Joining us today are Volaris President and Chief Executive Officer,Enrique Beltranena, and Viva Chief Executive Officer, Juan Carlos. They will discuss the announcement followed by a Q&A session. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Enrique.

Good morning, everyone. We're excited to speak to you today about our proposed creation of a new airline group. Today's announcement is a bold step to accelerate growth in air travel in Mexico and internationally, leveraging the economies of scale of a holding company structure to expand our low-cost, high-value service and connectivity. We see an opportunity for Mexico aviation sector to continue advancing the democratization of air travel and act as a catalyst for prosperity. Importantly, Volaris and Viva will remain separate carriers and brands. while benefiting from a stronger financial foundation at the group level. This structure supports employees, passengers, shareholders and local communities while simultaneously strengthening the broader aviation ecosystem.

With reinforced cost structures and enhanced scale, Volaris and Viva will be well positioned to serve more destinations, preserving choice for ultra low-cost passengers and expanding access across a broader customer base. I'm here with Juan Carlos Zuazua, and I want to congratulate him and Viva for everything they have accomplished under his leadership. I would like to express my excitement about working with you moving forward to bring the benefits of this new airline group to all our stakeholders.

Thank you, Enrique, and good morning, everyone. It's an honor to be here with you today and the Volaris team who have done so much to democratize air travel in Mexico. I fully share your enthusiasm about this transaction and what it means for our people, our customers, our stakeholders, our communities and Mexico as a country.

Under the terms of the agreement, the shareholders of Volaris and Viva will combine their respective holding companies through a merger of equals. Upon closing, the holding company will remain a publicly listed company on the New York Stock Exchange and Mexican Stock Exchange on the renewed ticker and will be renamed Grupo Más Vuelos. Once all required governmental approvals are obtained and applicable conditions are met. Viva's shareholders will receive newly issued shares of Volaris and upon closing, each shareholder group will own 50% of the new airline group.

Importantly, each airline will retain its distinct brand and air operator certificate. The Board of Directors of the group will be comprised of 6 members from Volaris and 6 members designated by Viva and chaired by current Viva Chairman, Roberto Alcántara Rojas. The existing leadership teams of both Volaris and Viva will remain in place at each air carrier, ensuring seamless continuity across both businesses. Importantly, Volaris and Viva will continue to operate as separate airlines under the new airline group, maintaining their distinct brands and independent air operator certificates. The new airline group structure with Volaris and Viva operating side-by-side is highly compelling.

Volaris and Viva are two well-established Mexican carriers that pioneered the ultra-low-cost model democratizing air travel through attractive fares, point-to-point connectivity and reliable service supported by modern, fuel-efficient A320 family fleets. Both airlines share a high degree of compatibility across fleets, technology, reservation systems and suppliers, enabling significant economies of scale at the group level. We expect these efficiencies to be reinvested in the customer experience, including new routes to underserved market, enhance connectivity, technology, infrastructure, employee training and most importantly, sustaining low fares.

Importantly, this structure preserves competition and passenger choice while enabling sustainable growth driven by consumer demand. At the same time, shareholders benefit from two financially strong carriers and experienced management teams combined in a single investment platform. The new airline group creates meaningful benefits across a much broader network. In aggregate, we currently operate more than 320 routes and serve over 85 destinations. Low pricing remains a fundamental driver of volume growth in an underpenetrated air travel markets such as Mexico.

Growth is a core pillar of our model and maintaining low fares is essential to sustainably stimulating demand, expanding customer choice and ultimately driving affordable travel in Mexico and internationally. Volaris and Viva will maintain their distinct brands, service models and customer focus. Both of our carriers recognize that our low fair value proposition is essential for continued growth and customer loyalty going forward.

We are extremely proud that both Volaris and Viva have diligently evolved and consistently improved passenger experience and Net Promoter Scores over the past decade. Nothing about that essence will change. Ultimately, the formation of the airline group and the resulting demand uptick we expect is a unique opportunity to catalyze regional mobility and economies in Mexico.

Over the past number of years, we have seen rapid development in regions such as Monterrey, Guadalajara, Cancun and Tijuana, all resulting from better connectivity and low fares for passengers. We will create jobs by establishing new bases in underserved regions, resulting in significant economic benefits for those regions. We estimate that every new airplane creates approximately 60 direct jobs, along with 4x that amount in indirect jobs in adjacent sectors like tourism, hospitality and retail across local communities. We have a combined order book of more than 200 aircraft, and we estimate it could reach as much as $14 billion over the coming years. Meanwhile, Increased ultra local service is key to social mobility across Latin America and the United States.

The cross-border air travel market between Mexico and the U.S. presents an important business opportunity in terms of passengers, comprising approximately 40 million annually, around 39 million Mexican heritage individuals reside in the United States. Mexican carriers today only transport approximately 30% of this cross-border traffic. Finally, Air travel expansion in the domestic and international markets stands to benefit the national hospitality, retail and tourism sectors, which are vital engines for national growth. Clearly, there remains an ample need and significant opportunity for the growth of ultra-low-cost air service to, from and within Mexico.

While Volaris and Viva have greatly contributed to the democratization of air travel in Mexico over the past 2 decades, air trips per capita here remain far below comparable emerging economies. As a reminder, the case for the ultra low-cost air travel in Latin America is unique, where most ultra-low-cost carriers in other geographies focused on discretionary leisure travel in heavily concentrated vacation markets, our core customer segment is highly resilient but also extremely sensitive to fares. Democratizing air travel in Mexico has always called for bold ideas. The formation of a new airline group is another step forward. We will continue to evolve travel solutions, increase connectivity and serve an even broader customer set across Mexico, North America and Latin America.

Thank you again, Enrique and great to connect with all the investor community here today. Viva and Volaris have each made significant contributions to the development of Mexico's aviation market. Under our proposed airline group structure air travel penetration in Mexico can expand even further unlocking new opportunities in a large, fast-growing and still underpenetrated markets. Our complementary platform offers unique opportunities to expand destinations and routes to new regional basis and more daily flights, delivering clear benefits for our customers, employees, communities and stakeholders.

By leveraging our existing platforms, we will continue to drive growth at our operating basis while supporting world-class infrastructure that will transform key markets such as the new Mexico City airport, AIFA as well as midsized airports across Mexico, where we see future potential. At the same time, we will expand our connectivity to additional international destinations north and south of our borders. Strengthening our route offerings and services for our passengers. Importantly, the proposed airline group will have a cumulative fleet of over 250 new generation Airbus A320 family aircraft.

Viva and Volaris capacity growth will be based on demand fundamentals, ensuring sustainable growth and ultra low-cost travel. The group's expanded fleet and operations are expected to further enhance their carriers' highly efficient cost structure and balance sheet. The combined platform will be positioned to capture scale efficiencies and procurement savings that support one of the lowest ex-fuel unit cost globally reinforcing the flexibility and resilience of Viva and Volaris ultra-local business models.

Further, Volaris and Viva operate with a high degree of compatibility across fleet airport infrastructure, technology, reservation systems, suppliers and technical capabilities, driving substantial potential for synergies. A significant opportunity lies in reducing aircraft ownership costs which represents the largest expense exceeding even fuel. Notably, major global carriers operate with ownership costs up to 60% lower than the Latin American counterparts, including Viva and Volaris highlighting a clear path for further efficiency gains and consumer savings.

Overall, this transaction provides an even stronger financial foundation that adds resilience to our leading cost structures. The airline group structure will provide financial stability from a more robust balance sheet with better capitalization, strong liquidity and a solid leverage profile with combined net debt-to-EBITDA of 2.7x. A stronger balance sheet will give the group better access to capital, which in turn will help lower fleet ownership costs.

Joint procurement will also help our airlines more effectively and efficiently navigate ongoing fleet supply and OEM disruptions. As a result, the new airline group will be better positioned for improved credit metrics and sustainable long-term growth, leveraging the rapid expansion of the Mexican aviation market. When you look at everything we have covered today, the formation of a new airline group has a clear and significant benefits. For our passengers, we will look to expand choice and route offerings while unlocking new connectivity opportunities across Mexico and international markets. This will be supported by enhanced loyalty programs and broader global culture partnerships.

For our people, we thank our more than 12,000 employees for their dedication and daily commitment to our passengers and operations. We remain committed to being a top employer in Mexico and creating greater opportunities for growth and development as we build a new airline group together. For our communities, increased connectivity will support economic development, particularly in underserved regions while expanded operations in the Mexico City metropolitan area and key regional markets will benefit tourism and other key sectors. For our industry, we see this airline group as an opportunity to redefine itself as a catalyst for national prosperity and continue advancing the democratization of air travel in Mexico.

We anticipate that investors will also see the attractive value creation of this new group with enhanced economies of scale at the group level, Viva and Volaris will benefit from lower aircraft ownership costs improved access to capital and a robust balance sheet, providing better opportunities for both airlines to pursue sustainable growth. For our stakeholders, the message is clear, the new airline group is built for improved stability and growth with a renewed vision and a clear strategy, Viva and Volaris are committed to delivering a more connected and more prosperous future for Mexico.

The airline group structure is designed to maintain and enhance two iconic brands. It will assure both Viva and Volaris can continue serving customers seamlessly while preserving and improving their ultra low-cost DNA. Viva and Volaris will also benefit from enhanced economies of scale and operating leverage to the airline group structure. This will enable both brands to reduce costs even further, which is an essential driver of accelerated growth in the Mexican airline industry.

Together, Viva and Volaris will redefine what affordable air travel means for Mexico. By combining scale efficiency, technology and innovation, we are creating a group designed to drive further demand stimulation in the Mexican aviation market and support sustainable long-term growth opportunities. Our commitment is clear: stronger connectivity, greater value and a future where flying is possible for all.

Thank you, Enrique, and thank you, everyone, listening today. We will now open the call for Q&A.

The floor is now open for questions. [Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from Duane Pfennigwerth with Evercore ISI.

I wonder if you could just speak to your expectations for the regulatory process? Are there precedents in other industries where you've gone from 3 down to 2 in Mexico ? And any early thoughts on remedies that might be proposed.

Thank you very much, Duane. This is Enrique. We're confident in the merits of this transaction, which we believe supports a thorough review. Fundamentally, we believe the transaction delivers those significant benefits for customers, employees and communities and we will keep on reinforcing that.

Of course, we feel that it's going to be a process that we need to go through and prefer right now not to speculate on the results or the potential outcomes and conditions or remedies. And there have been other processes but not under the new agency that was recently founded. And the transaction, obviously, it's not only subject to this. It's also out subject to the shareholder approval and we need to work with Mexico, with Colombia and the regulatory notifications in the U.S.

So we will remain constructive and engaged throughout the review process, and we feel tremendously positive about it.

And maybe just for my follow-up, can you speak to pro forma leverage maybe without incremental capital raising here? What is pro forma leverage for the company look like? And we're less familiar on the Viva side. Is their fleet also primarily focused on sale leasebacks?

We'll ask Juan Carlos to take that question for me.

Thank you, Duane. This is Juan Carlos. So as we presented on the presentation shared to analysts, the pro forma leverage is 2.7x EBITDAR. And in our case, we have a fleet of over 100 planes. Around 20 of those are already under finance leases or structured swap instruments. We in the last couple of years, we have been moving towards -- from operating leases towards finance leases. And I believe that's one of the huge benefits of this scale with this group that we're going to be able to access lower cost of capital and with a disciplined focus on capital allocation, we're going to -- we're going to be able to reduce aircraft ownership costs.

Our next question comes from Michael Linenberg with Deutsche Bank.

This is Shannon Doherty on for Mike. Congratulations on the deal announcement. Maybe on the aircraft ownership cost, like can you talk about how large the combined fleet plan would be and also projected route network in addition, any changes there?

This is Juan Carlos. I'm going to take this one. So aircraft ownership costs represent around 1/3 of our costs between 33% to 35% of both carriers. As you can see on the presentation we shared Viva and Volaris are among the lowest cost operators in the world meaning that we have done very extremely well in other cost lines. But when you see the biggest cost line, which is the aircraft ownership costs, we have still a significant potential to reduce those costs over time with a disciplined focus on capital allocation.

Our next question comes from Rogério Araújo with Bank of America.

Enrique, Juan Carlos, congratulations on the announcement. I have a couple here. First one is which metrics were used for the 50%, 50% stake for each company. And also the second on cost synergies, if you could go through the main cost synergies and if there was any large difference between merging the two companies or operating them separately. So for instance, the airport structure, all this can it be like once -- can it become one single structure in the main airports, what are the main synergies with the operations still separately?

Thank you so much, Rogério. I think there's two drivers for valuation. The first one on an enterprise value basis, Volaris is bringing the largest platform and asset base consistent with our relative fleet and revenue. So it's reasonable in view of Volaris has contributing 60% of enterprise value with AIFA contributing about 40% but then ownership should, however, be evaluated on equity value, not enterprise value a lot. And Volaris carries a relatively higher net debt loans about $3.1 billion versus $1.9 billion in Viva.

So when you bridge from enterprise value to equity value, the relative equity contributions become much closer making a 50-50 ownership should be an equitable and balanced outcome for Volaris shareholders, one supported by a fairness opinion from Morgan Stanley. So let me emphasize, I think the most important part Rogério, is that both shareholders will base -- both shareholders basis will share equally in the upside. And that obviously comes from the value unlocked by operating larger scale going forward. This is very important for us.

Thank you very much. Our next question comes from Filipe Nielsen with Citi.

Hi everyone and congrats on the announcement. I have two questions on my side. One is related to the potential improvements that you could see in the past and your plans to solve the -- all the AOGs and the Airbus fleet issues that we've been facing. We saw that not only Volaris, but Viva is also very exposed to NEOs in their fleets. And just wondering if the merger would like improve the path of improvement going forward in this in the sense.

And my second question would be more strategically wise, now that considering that the merger goes through and you become a combined carrier. How does that change Volaris strategy...

Pardon me. Speakers, are you still there? Can you hear me. If I can hear you I'll just inform you. It looks like Filipe have disconnected his line because he has just left the queue while he was asking his question. Do you wanted to give it a few more moments to see if he dials back in?

Yes, please.

Sure. [Operator Instructions] Filipe, your line is open again. You can continue with your questions.

Can you hear me guys?

Yes, I can hear you. Go ahead, Filipe.

Great. Great. Sorry about that. My line dropped. So my two questions a bit brief here. I'm not sure how much you got it. But first of all, on the negotiations with Airbus and all the NEOs issues with the fleet. How do you expect this to improve now considering that you combine? And how do you look at strategy going forward? How does this merger changes Volaris strategy and Viva strategy of improving costs and margins and et cetera, considering that you're combined.

So I think it's really important to say, I mean, we both have a purchase order with Airbus, which has been there before the negotiation that we did. So we will continue working on that. I think from that perspective, capacity decisions will remain anchored to customer demand size, okay? And I want to say that we have enough flexibility in those contractual fleet plans and it's not only about Airbus fleet, okay? We can play with several of the other issues or the other factors that we have in the equation like extending leases like doing different kind of agreements in terms of purchasing versus leasing, we can do several ways of balancing the fleet and the customer versus the customer demand. So that's important.

The second thing which is important here is that I think that in terms of the cost, most of the benefits will be coming from the fleet negotiations. And finally, what is really important is that to remind you guys that Volaris is just entering into the first deliveries of what we call the Indigo Group negotiation, and that new fleet is coming with certainly lower ownership, which we will be sharing together with Viva in this process, okay.

Again, I want to stress in a very important way that our focus remains on demand-driven growth, okay? And that we want to maintain a low cost, low complexity operating model and expanding access to affordable air travel. This is probably the most important thing, as aircraft come back from Pratt & Whitney, et cetera. The most important thing I want to repeat it is demand-driven growth.

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Pablo Monsivais with Barclays.

I have a simple question. I was wondering if you can provide more detail on the timing of the transaction. Where are the key important data we have to take into consideration. And also, what's the process after -- let's assume that you have the green light from the regulators. What is the evolution of this merger?

Pablo, would you mind if I ask Juan Carlos to take you through that.

No. Go ahead.

Thank you, Pablo, this is Juan Carlos speaking. So as you know, this is day 1. We just announced the transaction. We will commence with all the filings and approvals required with our regulators and also the shareholder approvals. So we expect this to close within the next 12 months, of course, customer -- subject to these customers' approvals, but we will continue communicating on updates throughout the process to all the investor community.

Okay. And if I can add one more question, and this is a little bit broad. But if you would pinpoint one of the most important challenges for this transaction to be successful is the most important challenges on the realization of the synergies on the merger of the cultures or on the approval -- on the regulatory approval side. What do you think is the most pressing challenging for you guys to make this transaction successful?

So I think the beauty of this transaction, Pablo, is that we were very similar companies, okay? And this creates a strong and efficient and investable airline platform, which is very well positioned to compete and compound value in a capital-intensive industry, okay? I think the important part when it comes to synergies is how we unlock economies of scale that support growing the customer base by offering affordable fares, and that's something that we be doing once we have the approvals. It's also very important to lower the fleet ownership cost and improve access to capital, and that's important because it strengthens the balance sheet and enhancing long-term financial flexibility.

But I think what is important is everything is about reinforcing growth, reinforcing connectivity and everything is important and it's really important that we do it with a positive social current and new value-oriented travelers, enabling stronger operator basis and contributing to long-term economic development and connectivity in Mexico. I think the beauty of this whole thing is that this transaction is a win-win for passengers, for Mexico and the industry.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining us today, and have a great day.

"

"

"

"

"

"

"

"

"

"

" Evercore ISI Institutional Equities, Research Division

"

" TD Cowen, Research Division

"

" Deutsche Bank AG, Research DivisionBofA Securities, Research Division

"

" BofA Securities, Research Division

"

" Citigroup Inc. Exchange Research

"

" Morgan Stanley, Research Division

"

" JPMorgan Chase & Co, Research Division

"

" UBS Investment Bank, Research Division

"

" Santander Investment Securities Inc., Research Division

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Volaris' Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. 

[Operator Instructions] Please note that today's event is being recorded and webcast live on Volaris website. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Lilliana  Juárez, Investor Relations Manager. Please go ahead, Liliana.

Good morning, and welcome to our third quarter 2025 earnings call. Joining us today are our President and CEO, Enrique Beltranena; our Airline Executive Vice President, Holger Blankenstein; and our CFO, Jaime Pous. They will be discussing the company's results followed by a Q&A session. 

This call is for investors and analysts only. Please note that this call may include forward-looking statements under applicable securities laws. These are subject to several factors that could cause the company's results to differ materially, as described in our filings with the U.S. SEC and Mexico CMBB. These statements speak only as of the date they are made, and Volaris undertakes no obligation to update or modify them. All figures are in U.S. dollars compared to the third quarter of 2024, unless otherwise noted. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Enrique.

Good morning, everyone. This quarter once again demonstrated that Volaris' agility and discipline continue to set us apart in a complex environment, driving tangible results. We acted nimbly and with focus, fine-tuning our network and capturing sequential improvement in demand across our core markets. Our results this quarter confirm that our commercial and operational strategies are delivering according to our flight plan. 

In our last earnings call, we noted that demand momentum was starting to build, and this quarter validated that trend. The recovery we anticipated for the second half is unfolding day by day as we projected. We observed stable domestic demand in a rational supply environment. Additionally, travel sentiment improved in the cross-border market, notwithstanding the geopolitical disruptions observed throughout the year. We executed where it mattered most, taking deliberate actions to strengthen profitability. 

The third quarter's performance in terms of unit revenue was fully in line with our expectations. The year-over-year variation in TRASM has narrowed each month, confirming that demand recovery continues to strengthen across our network. The sequential improvement is the proof statement that our strategy is delivering consistent momentum, and we believe that improved booking curves for the fourth quarter should position Volaris for a stronger 2026. 

In the domestic market, supply rationalization across all players continues to create a healthier balance between capacity and demand. Our load factor in the Mexican market reached 89.8%, consistent with last year's levels and reflecting a stable demand under a more rational supply environment, which supports healthier yields going forward. In the international market, we are seeing a steady recovery in cross-border demand with traffic improving month-over-month and holiday bookings already trending ahead of last year. 

Our 77% load factor reflects our tactical focus on optimizing yields to maximize TRASM. We remain focused on what is within our control, maintaining cost efficiency, adapting quickly, and executing with discipline. As a result, TRASM, CASM, ex-fuel, and EBITDAR margin all came slightly better than our guidance, reaffirming our ability to deliver consistent execution. Building confidence from this solid performance, we're maintaining our full-year 2025 capacity growth outlook of approximately 7% with prudent growth, unparalleled cost control, and improving demand trends towards year-end, we are reiterating an EBITDAR margin in the range of 32% to 33% for 2025. 

Looking ahead to 2026, we are embedding flexibility into our fleet plan and targeting ASM growth in the range of 6% to 8%, while retaining the ability to adjust a few percentage points in response to demand trends or OEM developments. This level of growth would bring us back to year-end 2023 capacity levels, underscoring that our growth remains prudent and aligned with market conditions. 

Our capacity decisions remain firmly anchored on customer demand and sustained profitability. I want to make it very clear to our investors. Volaris will continue to control growth with discipline fully aligned with market demand. Taking all necessary actions to efficiently reintegrate aircraft returning from engine inspections to ensure we meet this commitment. 

Having said that, as demand continues to recover, we are also seeing healthy supply dynamics, particularly in Mexico's domestic market. Volaris continues advancing from a position of strength with leadership in core domestic markets and a world-leading cost structure that will further improve as we reduce fleet ownership costs and gradually narrow the gap between our productive and nonproductive fleet. 

Sustaining differentiation requires constant evolution. We're not standing still. We're constantly adapting our ultra-low-cost carrier model to Mexico's unique dynamics, lowering barriers to traveling, enhancing service and maintaining our unwavering commitments to low costs and low fares. Leveraging Volaris' scale as Mexico's largest airline, we've built meaningful customer loyalty and driven strong repeat flying across our network. 

A strong example of this evolution is Guadalajara. A decade ago, this market handled a modest passenger base with limited international connectivity. Today, thanks to Volaris' expansion and market development, Volaris Guadalajara boosts nearly 100 daily departures, connecting travelers to 26 domestic and 22 international destinations. Over our 19 years of history, Volaris has proudly transported more than 90 million passengers to and from this market. 

Similar to what we've seen in Guadalajara, this trend is emerging across other markets that are rapidly evolving and opening new opportunities for growth, a typical emerging market phenomenon that underscores our role as a catalyst for national mobility and economic development. As our network matures, so has our customer base. We began as an airline built predominantly around VFR traffic, and we have since evolved into a more diversified customer mix. 

Today, roughly 40% of our passengers remain VFR, while the remainder represent a broader range of travel motivations from business to leisure to other niche segments. This evolution positions us to further strengthen our network through better frequencies, attractive schedules, and varied destinations, reinforcing Volaris as the airline of choice for both our VFR base and all passenger segments traveling from our core markets. Building on this momentum, the next phase of our model focuses on capitalizing on repeat travel and driving incremental TRASM growth across all revenue streams. 

As Holger will discuss, we continue launching new ancillary products and advancing network and commercial initiatives to better serve a broader customer base, all while maintaining the low-cost DNA that defines Volaris. This evolution builds on our core bus switching strategy, which remains foundational to our growth. As a result, we remain committed to serving this segment by consistently offering low fares. 

Leveraging our ultra-low-cost carrier model, Volaris is strategically positioned to continue improving TRASM by expanding our product suite and optimizing distribution channels. We're enhancing the customer experience across multiple fronts, refining our network strategy, streamlining boarding processes and offering enhanced seat selection options that continue to strengthen revenue diversification while preserving the cost efficiency that underpins our long-term profitability.

Sequential PRASM improvement and a resilient cost structure highlight our disciplined execution. We're closing 2025 and entering into 2026 stronger, more efficient and better positioned to continue delivering value to our customers, capturing opportunities and driving sustained profitability. Volaris has proven its resilience time and again and will continue to do so.

I'll now turn the call over to Holger to continue to discuss our third quarter commercial and operational performance as well as the evolution of our broader product offering in more detail. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Enrique, and good morning, everyone. Operationally, our team delivered another quarter of strong disciplined execution.

Volaris PRASM performance reflects our ability to anticipate market shifts and respond decisively, managing capacity to protect yield and maximize profitability. Volaris maintained network stability and operational flexibility throughout the quarter, effectively managing delays in aircraft deliveries and ongoing engine constraints.

As a result, ASM growth reached 4.6%, coming in slightly below our guidance of approximately 6%. Overall, total third quarter load factor stood at 84.4%. The domestic load factor reached 89.8%, supported by steady demand through the summer season in a balanced supply environment.

August performed particularly well, benefiting from an extended public school vacation period. Looking forward, current booking curves for the holiday season look solid. International load factor was at 77% as we actively prioritize yields overloads to optimize profitability.

For the fourth quarter, as we head into the holiday high season, international traffic is tracking stronger with historical seasonality, setting the stage for improved profitability as we close the year. And as Enrique mentioned, VFR cross-border demand has been recovering sequentially.

We believe we have reached an inflection point in the U.S.-Mexico transborder market with booking trends showing sustained improvement compared to last year. While we remain disciplined in our capacity deployment, this strengthening demand backdrop provides greater visibility heading into 2026.

Moreover, we continue to drive robust ancillary adoption. Our average ancillary revenue per passenger for the third quarter reached $56, marking the eighth consecutive quarter above the $50 threshold. Ancillaries now consistently account for over half of total revenue, remaining a standout driver of resilience and profitability across all market conditions.

This performance highlights the structural strength of our ULCC model in our markets and the sustainability of our revenue mix. The sequential TRASM improvement we anticipated last quarter materialized fully in line with our expectations. with third quarter TRASM reaching $0.0865, just ahead of our guidance and down 7.7% year-over-year, improving from the 17% and 12% declines recorded in the first and second quarters, respectively.

These results confirm that the actions we took earlier in the year are delivering tangible progress. We have good momentum heading into the year-end with forward bookings showing sequential improvement and providing visibility into sustained strength and healthy demand through 2026.

As these results demonstrate, Volaris has built a business model and network that allow us to flexibly and decisively capture demand where it is strongest across our markets. As our customer base becomes increasingly diversified, we continue to refine our ULCC model, lowering barriers to travel, encouraging repeat flying and broadening our customer mix while continuing to offer low base fare in our core traffic.

A key pillar of this evolution is our ancillary and affinity ecosystem, which continues to grow in both scale and contribution. Our affinity portfolio, including v.club membership, v.pass monthly subscription, the annual pass and the IVex co-branded credit card together represent an increasingly relevant share of our business.

Today, v.club represents a growing share of total revenues, while 1/3 of all sales through Volaris direct channels are made using our co-branded credit card. The index card is the largest co-branded credit card for any industry in Mexico.

In July, we seized the growing affinity for the Volaris brand by launching our in-house loyalty program, Altitude. We are encouraged by a strong early response with membership enrollments tracking above our expectations. We see significant potential for this franchise, particularly as we integrate our co-branded credit card early next year into Altitude, allowing all card transactions to earn Altitude points.

The ultimate goal is to position Volaris as the airline of choice, not only for our core VFR base, but for all customer segments traveling from our core cities across our network in Mexico's domestic market. We already serve a broad mix of travelers from small business to leisure to multipurpose passengers, alongside our loyal VFR base.

Guadalajara, which Enrique mentioned, has become a strong market for the multi-reason customers, such as those who travel for leisure on some occasions and for business on others.

The growing mix of repeat travelers on the flights we operate represents a structural tailwind to our average fare, ancillary sales and ultimately, margin. This evolution of demand is also unlocking new profitable opportunities for our network, capacity allocation exemplified by the addition of our Mexico City to New York route and increased route breadth from Guadalajara.

We are enhancing our product and service offering to better capture the full value of these segments. Simultaneously, as the AOG situation with Pratt & Whitney stabilizes and the political and economic environment improves, we have been able to refocus our efforts on strengthening our network and ensuring industry-leading breadth and depth across our core cities, particularly in Tijuana and Guadalajara.

We are also optimizing itineraries and schedules to better serve each segment, for instance, shifting certain red eye flights to more convenient time slots for business and leisure travelers. We expect the financial benefits from these adjustments to begin materializing in our TRASM results next year.

In addition to our recent launched Altitude loyalty program and code shares, we continue to introduce new products and partnerships in a cost-efficient, low-complexity way that strengthens our revenue diversification.

We are proud to announce recent initiatives that include expanding our presence in GDS through Sabre's new distribution capability or NDC standard. Volaris will expand its reach to Sabre's broad network of corporate and leisure travel agencies across North America and beyond.

We are also ramping up marketing for Premium Plus, our blocked middle seat product for the first 2 roles. We are implementing these new revenue initiatives with a focus on the latest technology and minimizing costs and complexity.

With this, we are broadening our customer base while remaining true to our ULCC DNA. Overall, we continue to prioritize low cost, operational efficiency and superior customer service. To this end, one recent innovation has been the introduction of AI agents that can immediately assist customers across multiple languages and channels, boosting our speed and efficacy and volume of interaction. Today, 79% of Volaris customer service is handled through digital channels, up from zero before the launch of our AI agent. This allows us to manage 3x more call volume while cutting service cost per interaction by nearly 70%, a clear example of how technology supports both our customer focus and cost leadership. At the same time, our NPS remains strong in the 40s, reflecting how our customers continue to recognize the total value we deliver across our flights, products and services.

Looking into next year, we will continue to manage capacity with discipline, adding growth selectively across our network and leveraging our flexibility on lease extensions, redeliveries and network development to support our 6% to 8% capacity growth outlook. At the same time, the foundation we've built this year positions Volaris to continue strengthening into 2026. Supply rationalization in the domestic market is expected to support a healthier yield environment while cross-border demand continues to recover. Our initiatives to expand the customer base and grow ancillary revenues should drive higher revenue per passenger, positioning Volaris for continued profitable growth into 2026.

Now I will turn the call over to Jaime to cover our third quarter 2025 financial results and full year 2025 guidance.

Thank you, Holger. Our third quarter financial results reflect our adjustments to prioritize profitability as cross-border traffic conditions gradually improved throughout the summer. Despite external headwinds, we succeeded in controlling what we can control, and we delivered on each line of guidance. Let me first turn to our P&L for the third quarter compared with the same period last year. Total operating revenues were $784 million, a 4% decrease. On the cost side, CASM was $0.079, virtually flat versus the third quarter of 2024 with an average economic fuel cost down 1% to $2.61 per gallon. CASM ex-fuel was $0.0548, aligned with our guidance and up just 2%.

This result reinforces the success of our variable cost model and our effective cost management as we achieve our CASM ex-fuel guidance despite flying fewer-than-expected ASMs and encountering a peso that appreciated more than planned versus the second quarter. While a stronger peso is a benefit to Volaris' overall results, it adversely impacts our cost lines.

As a reminder, fleet-related expenses such as depreciation and amortization, depreciation of right-of-use assets and maintenance continue to reflect the full fleet included grounded aircraft. In addition, as we approach a higher number of lease returns in 2026, the P&L line for aircraft and engine variable lease expenses captures the effect of the delivery accruals, which means this line item includes related maintenance for aircraft returns scheduled in the future.

Current market conditions have created opportunities to acquire aircraft coming up for redelivery on attractive terms, helping reduce future redelivery expenses and extend time on the assets. Leveraging these opportunities, during the quarter, we acquired two of our formerly leased Cos, acting selectively and only where it made strategic sense. During the quarter, this also represented a benefit to the aircraft and engine variable lease expense line as it involved the cancellation of redelivery accrual related to these aircraft.

Moreover, on the other operating income line, we booked sale and leaseback gains of $6.6 million related to the Airbus deliveries of three new aircraft. This line also includes our aircraft grounding compensation from Pratt & Whitney. EBITDA reached $264 million with a margin of 33.6%, aligned with the guidance provided for the quarter. EBIT was $68 million, resulting in a margin of 8.6%. The sequential tighter spread between our EBIT and EBITDA margins reflects our efforts to mitigate the impact on our P&L from engine-related AOGs. Finally, we generated a net profit of $6 million, translated into an earnings per ADS of $0.05.

Moving briefly to our P&L for the first nine months of 2025. Total operating revenues were $2.2 billion. EBITDAR totaled $659 million with an EBITDA margin of 30.6%. EBIT was $35 million, representing an EBIT margin of 1.6% and net loss was $108 million. Turning now to cash flow and balance sheet data. The cash flow generated by operating activities in the third quarter was $205 million. The cash outflows used in investing and financing activities were $69 million and $130 million, respectively. Third quarter CapEx, excluding fleet predelivery payments, totaled $106 million and year-to-date stood at $195 million in line with the $250 million we guided for the full year. Volaris ended the quarter with a total liquidity position of $794 million, representing 27% of the last 12 months total operating revenues, sustaining our disciplined and conservative approach to cash management. At quarter end, our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio stood at 3.1x. And going forward, our focus remains to deleverage. Importantly, we have no planned near-term need for additional debt and have already financed all predelivery payments for aircraft scheduled for delivery through mid-2028. Our strong flexible balance sheet remains a key pillar of business.

Looking ahead, we will continue to explore financing alternatives beyond traditional sale and leasebacks for a means to structurally reduce fleet ownership costs and further strengthen our capital structure, potentially switching operating for finance leases where appropriate. Looking back, the first nine months of 2025 tested our resilience amid volatility in demand. Yet we remain disciplined and focused on our core priorities. Cost control, profitability and conservative cash management, actions that preserve the strength and value of our business.

I want to highlight that we originally had an ASM growth plan for around 15% during the year as guided in October 2024. We have since adjusted our plan to nearly half that level due to external circumstances while keeping CASM ex-fuel in line with our original plan. This demonstrates not only how much control we have over our cost base, but also the strength and adaptability of our ULCC model. With approximately 70% of our costs being variable or semi-fixed, we maintain a uniquely flexible structure that allow us to efficiently navigate operational headwinds and protect profitability.

Now turning to engine availability and our fleet plan. As of the end of the quarter, our fleet consisted of 152 aircraft with an average age of 6.6 years and 2/3 being new models. On average, during the quarter, we had 36 engine-related aircraft groundings. Regarding our future fleet plan, we are in a favorable position of having an order book of 122 aircraft, 84% of which are A321neos with competitive economics from the group order. As mentioned, capacity growth is anchor on customer demand and sustained profitability. We have multiple levers to control growth and optimize the deployment.

First, we have the option to realign our delivery schedule as we did last year through our rescheduling agreement with Airbus, supporting disciplined single-digit annual growth over the next few years. Importantly, this plan already factors in the aircraft returning to operation at the engine shop visits. 

Second, we have the flexibility to either extend leases on aircraft due for redelivery or when conditions and terms are favorable, acquire aircraft approaching lease expiration, enabling us to make the decision that best balance cost efficiency and strategic value. 

Finally, more than half of our upcoming deliveries are intended for fleet replacement. Together, our order book and staggered lease returns represent a meaningful competitive advantage, allowing us to plan growth with precision, sustain structural cost leadership and preserve the agility to adapt to market conditions. We will continue to manage our fleet plan effectively, maintaining flexibility to optimize value and support a strong cash position. Our fleet strategy continues to evolve. 

To this end, last month, we phased out the last A319 from operations, an aircraft type that at the time of the IPO comprised over half of our fleet. Over the past 10 years, we have continuously adapted transition and became more efficient, and we are committed to continue doing so in the decade ahead. 

Turning now to guidance. As Enrique and Holger explained, we continue to see demand gradually improve as we head into the holiday season. For the fourth quarter of 2025, we expect ASM growth of approximately 8% year-over-year, TRASM of around $0.093, CASM ex-fuel of approximately $0.0575 with the sequential increase reflecting the timing of heavy maintenance events and a seasonally higher proportion of international operations. 

And finally, an EBITDA margin of around 36%. This outlook assumes an average foreign exchange rate of around MXN 18.6 per U.S. dollar and an average U.S. Gulf Coast jet fuel price of $2.2 per gallon in the quarter. These quarterly figures are aligned with our full year 2025 outlook, which we reaffirm as follows: ASM growth of 7% year-over-year, EBITDA margin in the range of 32% to 33% and CapEx net of predelivery payments of approximately $250 million, unchanged from our prior outlook. 

The macros in our quarterly guidance led us to a full year average foreign exchange rate of around MXN 19.3 per dollar and average U.S. Gulf Coast jet fuel price of approximately $2.15 per gallon. Now I will turn the call over to Enrique for closing remarks.

Thank you, Jaime. I'd like to conclude our remarks with several reminders. First and foremost, Volaris continues to prove the strength and adaptability of our ultra-low-cost carrier model. We have shown once again that we can respond to market dynamics with discipline. Throughout 2025, we have adjusted our capacity growth from around 15% to nearly half that level while keeping our CASM ex-fuel fully in line with our original plan. 

Currently, travel sentiment, especially in the cross-border market is improving, a clear validation that our strategy is working. These trends position Volaris well for 2026 and beyond. Regardless of external conditions, our cost leadership, flexibility and expanding product suite are enabling us to address customer needs, capture profitable growth and continue creating value. 

At the same time, Volaris remains focused on offering low-cost, high-value service that makes air travel more accessible to our broader set of customers, including our core bus switching VFR segment. We are also optimizing itineraries, strengthening distribution and expanding our commercial offerings to drive higher TRAS among a diversified passenger set. We believe our markets are evolving. 

How European low-cost air travel developed 2 decades ago with strong growth potential, expanding passenger segmentation and a clear preference for affordable high-value travel. Volaris is advancing from a position of strength, leading in our core markets with one of the most efficient cost structures in the world, one that will further improve as we reduce fleet ownership costs and close the gap between productive and nonproductive aircraft. 

Finally, let me be clear, we are not changing our DNA. Our proven low-cost, low complexity model continues to evolve with enhanced ancillary and loyalty offerings that attract a broader customer base, improve fare mix and strengthen long-term profitability. In short, we are disciplined. We're evolving, and we are well positioned to continue delivering sustainable value for our shareholders.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is going to come from the line of Duane Pfennigwerth with Evercore ISI Institutional Equities.

You mentioned a couple of interesting things in the prepared remarks. One, international is tracking stronger than normal seasonality. And then two, that you believe we're at an inflection point in U.S. transborder. Can you just elaborate on both of those?

Duane, this is Holger. So yes, let me talk a little bit more in detail about the U.S.-Mexico market. We're talking about an inflection point because since mid-August, our sales in the U.S.-Mexico transborder market are above last year's level. And that clearly demonstrates our ability to fine-tune our capacity, manage demand and capture the market momentum that we're seeing. 

If we look into the fourth quarter, the U.S.-Mexico transborder booking trends are also showing a sustained improvement compared to last year. And that's why we are quite optimistic about the fourth quarter traffic evolution, both in the domestic, but also in the transborder market.

Okay. And then maybe you probably covered this and maybe I missed it, but can you tell us the number of lease returns that you expect next year, how many aircraft will go back? How does that compare to this year? And I don't know if there's any good way to kind of net that expense relative to the reimbursement that you're getting from Pratt? Like how do we think about the net of lease return expense and reimbursement in '25 and '26?

Duane, this is Jaime. In terms of redeliveries of plan, next year, we're budgeting 17 redeliveries versus 7 that happened this year. So, it's a high number of deliveries. I would like you to focus there are many pieces related to aircraft deliveries, engine returns and redeliveries. 

So rather than focusing on just focus on our full year growth it is important that our priority, as Enrique mentioned, is to narrow the gap between productive and nonproductive fleet while ensuring that we deploy capacity to a market that is consistent with customer demand, all while maintaining the flexibility to adjust capacity up or down as well.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question will be from the line of Thomas Fitzgerald with TD Cowen.

A lot of good stuff in the deck. I was wondering if you could dig into Slide 8 a little bit more and how we should think about the potential RASM uplift over the coming years as those initiatives ramp

So, Thomas Fitzgerald, this is Holger again. So, we've quantified the potential for each of the products that we saw on Slide 8, and we expect a positive year-over-year impact on TRASM of these products in 2026. We expect that our commercial initiatives that you saw will begin contributing financially in 2026, and we will communicate the specific targets on all of those products as the adoption of those products scale. 

These initiatives that you saw there are going to be incorporated in our TRASM guidance for the next year for 2026 when we provide guidance in the next earnings call.

And then I'm just kind of curious, as your customer mix diversifies and you take on more SME traffic, is there any investment or maybe it's immaterial, but just that you have to do for your cabin crew just on the soft product and maybe people who especially as you take in volume from some of your interline partners?

So Tom, it is very important to mention that we are implementing the broadening of our customer base and target customers while maintaining a low cost, low complexity model. So you should not see any meaningful impact in our costs and in our complexity of the onboard product, for example, as we implement these products.

We are broadening our target customer base, for example, through implementing different distribution channels like the GE, for example. We're going to diversify our revenue base, but we will maintain our low-cost, low complexity model.

Our next question will come from the line of Michael Linenberg with Deutsche Bank.

This is Shannon Doherty on for Mike. Thanks for taking my question. Enrique, you alluded to some growth trends or the growth trends, I should say, that you saw out of Guadalajara emerging in other markets. Can you provide us with some more examples?

Sure. I think when you look at our bus fare customer base, I mean, that's a segment that grows by far much more rapidly and much more different than any other business traffic that we can see, for example, in the U.S., okay? You can also see how our capacity to penetrate the market has improved our number of passengers that are using the airlines, okay? In the last years, we have developed more than 10 million passengers that have become first-time flyers, and that's really important. So that makes a dramatic difference versus a mature market.

And maybe more generally, what do you guys think is driving like the improved travel sentiment in the cross-border market? Like and how is demand in other Central American markets to the U.S.?

This is Holger. So we actually did a survey of our customers, both in the U.S. and Mexico, and they target two main factors for not increasing travel more quickly in the first half of the year. We did it entering the summer season. The first was economic uncertainty, which is about 50% of the responses. And that economic uncertainty is improving significantly as macro conditions in both countries are strengthening in the second half of the year. So that's the reason for not traveling has evaporated and is improving significantly.

The second concern was related to migration policies. People were worried about traveling and leaving the U.S. or going to the U.S. And in the public discourse, we are noting that, that has evolved from a broad concern about all immigrants to a more focused conversation around individual and legal violations of immigration policies in the U.S. and that really has reduced the perceived apprehensions among our customer base.

So we're seeing more willingness to travel in the transborder market in the second half of the year and specifically in the fourth quarter, where we're seeing solid booking curves in the transborder market. And that brings us to the guided TRASM, which is basically at the levels of last year 2024. Just to maybe close this point off, travel in the transporter market was delayed in our opinion at the beginning of the year and is now catching up as people want to visit their friends and family in Mexico or in the U.S.

Our next question comes from the line of Rogério Araújo with Bank of America.

Congratulations on the results. I have a couple here on fleet. First, you said 17, one seven aircraft returned. Is that correct? And how many you expect to be delivered by '26? Also on that matter, what is the number of expected grounded aircraft throughout 2026? I understand you have 36 now. And lastly, how to think the net CapEx for '26 compared to this $250 million in '25?

This is Jaime. And Jose back into our fleet plan. And let me try to be really on a summary. Our goal next year is to reduce significantly the gap between productive and nonproductive fleet. And it has many moving pieces. I want to start with the AOGs. We see an improvement in AOGs. Remember, this year, we expect and year-to-date, we have 36 average planes. We expect that, that will improve to around 32, 33 next year with the highest point of the AOGs initially in January and significantly going down by year-end.

The second [indiscernible] is, is deliver strong Airbus, we’re expecting around 12 to 13 deliveries of new aircraft from Airbus still we need to confirm that with Airbus and we will give detailed guidance in the next earnings call. And finally, with delivery, we are budgeting 17 aircraft to be redeliver. All of those details, we are planning, you should think about ASM growth next year, as Enrique mentioned and reiterated in the range of 6% to 8%, which factors all of the above that I mentioned.

Compensation [indiscernible] multiyear agreement remains to 2028, but we are seeing an improvement and we are planning with the flexibility to adapt our demand to customer demand and market condition with the capitalization of flexibility in our market. And the last question was with respect to CapEx. This year guidance is still the same $250 million. Expect that next year is going to be higher than this year because we are investing in the maintenance related to engines returns and the delivery of aircraft.

I just want to say again, I mean, our numbers of growth for next year are all inclusive. They include the returns of the engines from Pratt, the deliveries from Airbus, replacement of aircraft from the actual fleet. They include the deliveries, they include everything, all of the above. It's included in the number. So please think about that number as a total number of growth and not the conflict with capacity into the market.

Our next question will come from the line of Filipe Nielsen with Citi.

Congrats on the results. My question is regarding CASM ex-fuel. You guided $0.0575 [ph]. You mentioned about the timing of having maintenance putting this a little bit higher than expected. I just wanted to understand how this should evolve? Is it a one-off in fourth quarter related to maintenance? Or is it something that will continue throughout 2026? How are you looking at this trend and not only at the quarter? Just trying to understand the cost impact here.

This is Jaime. I'm going to start with the 4Q. The sequential increase reflects the normal seasonality in specific cost lines that higher in the 4Q happened last year. It represents higher landing and navigation expenses due to the increased mix of international operations in the 4Q. We also have addition related to deliver maintenance events, which temporarily elevated unit cost are not structural impact aligned with our planned maintenance schedule. And as I mentioned, we will provide full guidance for 2026 in the next earnings calls. You are going to see a higher CAS than this year related to the investment in maintenance and delivery to have the fleet aligned with our growth plans.

Our next question comes from the line of Jens Spiess with Morgan Stanley.

So on the point of groundings and being the peak at the beginning of next year and then gradually improving, by year-end, how many aircraft do you expect to be grounded? And then when do you expect groundings to reach 0? Is it by mid-'27, by the end of '27? Like what's your visibility on that?

Sorry, I'm going to repeat it. We expect that by year-end of 2026, the average number of AOGs will be around 25 to 27. And we believe that we are going to be with no material impact on AOGs related to engines by the end of 2027. End of 2020.

Okay. Perfect. And if I may, just one additional one. Obviously, you already gave a lot of details on ASM growth for next year and all the variables. But clearly, you have a lot of flexibility given the redeliveries, the 17 redeliveries you have next year. So if demand is much better than expected, by how much could you potentially increase ASM growth? And conversely, if demand is weak by how much could you reduce it potentially?

By around 2 percentage points, either up or down.

Our next question will come from the line of Guilherme Mendez with JPMorgan.

Just a quick follow-up. Holger, you mentioned about an overall rational supply on the market, so meaning rational competition. Just wanted to hear your thoughts on how should we think about competition in '26. There's additional capacity coming online from you and from some of your peers, if you do expect the current rational and disciplined competitive environment to remain in 2026?

Sure. This is Holger. So we have some visibility on the domestic market. For us, in the Mexican domestic market, we are budgeting low to mid-single-digit growth for 2026. And we will provide more granularity on our growth rate in the domestic market when we provide the full year guidance in our next earnings call. If we look at the competition, we have visibility on the published schedules of our domestic competitors and industry growth is likely to remain rational from what we can see right now. And that obviously supports a higher and healthier fare environment for us. We are seeing now that competitors have been following a meaningful capacity rationalization to bring capacity in line with domestic demand. And we see that trend continuing into 2026, which will lead to a more balanced and healthy domestic supply-demand environment.

Our next question comes from the line of Alberto Valerio with UBS.

Just a follow-up about the groundings. So you expect to normalize it in the end of 2027, 2028. Am I right about this? And about cycles, how have been the cycle of engines and also the deliveries of Airbus, when we should see some normalization on this? And if I may, another one is about one line on the results that is the variable leases come a little bit below what we were expecting, what we were estimating. Should we keep that for the future? This is more related to engines. Is that correct? If you can give some color on that?

As mentioned, we expect a positive trend on engines from the shops. We rescheduled with Airbus. So this year, the deliveries are quite aligned on what we plan some minor delays or not material delays. We expect that to continue next year. We have not because we schedule year-end. And we are planning accordingly with that with a lot of flexibility with the different levers that we have in our fleet plan between the deliveries of planes coming back from the shop. We are optimistic and planning around that. If you're right, we should be out of the material impact by 2027 with some minor in terms of absolute 2028. And compensation over[Indiscernible] 2028 in contrast.

Our next question comes from the line of Abraham Fuentes Salinas with Banco Santander.

During this quarter, we see an improvement in the aircraft and engine rent expense. So I wonder if you can give us a little more color what you expect during 2026 in terms of ASM.

Can you repeat the question was too low.

Yes, of course. We saw an improvement during this quarter in aircraft and engine rent expense. So I wonder if you can give us a little more color what to expect for 2026 measure as ASM.

I think the benefit in this quarter is related to the conversion of operating leases into finance leases. So that was the viable aircraft and lease line has the benefit in this quarter. As we continue next year and make decisions in the deliveries, we may explore, as we mentioned during the call in order to lower the total ownership cost of the fleet. And next year, we think that, that number should be a little below what we had this year and more aligned to 2024.

This concludes today's question-and-answer session and I would like to invite management to proceed with his closing remarks. Please go ahead, sir.

This is Enrique. I would like to finish the call saying that we continue to demonstrate the strength and adaptability of our ultra-low-cost carrier model and our command over our markets and cost structure. I want also to say again that regardless of the external environment, our cost leadership flexibility and the capacity to expand our product suite ensures that we address customer preference.

I also want to say again that we'll continue to control growth with discipline, and that includes everything. It includes all the pieces of the question and it's fully aligned with market demand. It is also important that we will continue prioritizing low cost with high-value service to increase access to air travel for a broader set of customers, and it is important to say that we will continue with leadership in core domestic markets and a world-leading cost structure.

Having said that, I would like to thank you, everybody, for being in the call, and thank you to our family of ambassadors as well as our Board of Directors, investors, partners, lessors and suppliers for their support. I look forward to speaking to you all again next year. Thank you very much.

This concludes the Volaris conference call today. Thank you very much for your participation, and have a nice day.