Copa Holdings' January 2026 Traffic Improves Year Over Year

Copa Holdings, S.A.CPA, based in Panama City, Panama, is gaining from upbeat passenger volumes. The latest positive update from the Latin American carrier came when it reported robust traffic numbers for January 2026 on the back of upbeat air travel demand. Driven by high passenger volumes, revenue passenger miles (RPM: a measure of air traffic) improved on a year-over-year basis in January.

To match the demand swell, CPA is increasing its capacity. In January, available seat miles (a measure of capacity) increased 11.9% year over year. RPM improved 13.3% year over year. Since traffic growth outpaced capacity expansion, the load factor (the percentage of seats filled by passengers) rose to 87.5% from 86.4% in January 2025.

CPA currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

January 2026 Traffic of Another Airline Company

Apart from Copa Holdings, another airline company that has reported traffic numbers for January 2026 is Ryanair Holdings RYAAY.

Ryanair Holdings

European carrier, Ryanair Holdings, reported solid traffic numbers for January2026, driven by upbeat air-travel demand.

The number of passengers transported on Ryanair flights was 12.7 million in January2026, reflecting a 2% year-over-year increase. Ryanair’s load factor (percentage of seats filled by passengers) remained flat year over year at 91% in January2026, reflecting stable and consistent demand for the carrier’s services. RYAAY operated more than 73,000 flights in January2026.

With travel bookings rising across the industry, Ryanair’s passenger revenues are also increasing. Because of this air-travel demand strength, RYAAY's traffic grew 9% to 183.7 million passengers in fiscal 2024. Further, we would like to remind investors that Ryanair carried 200.2 million passengers (traffic up 9% year over year) in its fiscal year ending March 2025, positioning itself as the first European airline to reach 200 million passengers in a single year. As a result, RYAAY is now the world’s leading low-fare airline in terms of passenger traffic, with low fares and reduced costs acting as the main catalyst. During the first nine months of fiscal 2026, RYAAY’s traffic grew 4% year over year to 166.5 million passengers.

Given the aforesaid encouraging backdrops, Ryanair has unveiled its raised traffic outlook for fiscal 2026 (concurrent with its third-quarter fiscal 2026 earnings release on Jan. 26, 2026). Ryanair now expects its fiscal 2026 traffic to increase 4% to 208 million passengers (prior view: 207 million), owing to earlier than expected Boeing BA deliveries and solid demand during the first nine months of fiscal 2026.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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