JetSMART CEO Estuardo Ortiz at the Airline Leader Summit Latin & Caribbean 2025

Transcript

Estuardo Ortiz:Demand, we've seen a very good demand developing through 2024, 2025. So the post-pandemic years have been positive. When you see the whole region, it's already about 8% above what it was in 2019, ranging from Colombia, which is 25% above, to, you know, Brazil with probably 4 or 5%. And moving second place would be probably Argentina today at 11%. So demand has not only recovered pre-pandemic levels, it's actually way better in some markets. We do see a change in customer behavior for sure. Leisure markets are growing pretty fast. People seem to have you know, prioritized hospitality, travel, tourism compared to the demand structure. And probably the second thing that has changed a lot is supply. You know, the region has gone through a consolidation process in the past 5 years. You know, close to 14 operating carriers have ceased operation in that time. And in the case of JetSMART, that allowed us to move into Colombia and Peru domestic operations. And that's why we have grown in the past 3 years almost threefold. It's been, again, a challenging situation, especially in 2023. But by now I think it's now part of the planning process, part of the fleet delivery schedule. So we're managing well. And again, I'm happy with the growth. Profile that we're getting and the fleet liveries that we're getting. For the end of the year, we're expecting to receive our 50th aircraft. That's a milestone that we've been preparing for the last 3 years, and it's going to be done in November. Coincidentally, in November, we're also going to be boarding our 50 millionth passenger since inception. And another interesting fact for JetSMART is that about 22% minimum of those 50 million passengers have been first-time flyers. So we're talking about already more than 10, 11 million passengers that have flown for the first time with us. We didn't know, none of us knew at the end of the pandemic era, which was really mid-2022, by the time the restrictions were lifted in many of our countries, how are the markets going to recover? Is it going to be symmetrical? Is it going to be asymmetrical? So I think it's taking the industry a couple of years to see the trends. And some markets did grow more than they should have, and some markets probably grew slower than they should have. And 2025, it's still a year that in my view, it's going through those market adjustments in many markets. But by the end of this year, I think most of it has been completed, and I expect that 2026 More symmetrical growth, more established. And also each of us, each of the carriers have already established the footprint they wanted. So my impression is that market adjustment is already being done. Maybe some, some still to do in 2026, but most of it is already done.

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