MONTREAL -- A series of deadly hurricanes that whipped through parts of the Caribbean last fall is going to have a damaging impact on the winter results of tour operator Transat A.T. Inc., its senior executives said Thursday.

The Montreal-based company said in December that it didn't expect to feel the brunt of September's hurricanes, but its assessment has changed.

"If numbers remain what they are today we will not improve our results in the second quarter versus the one of last year," chief financial officer Denis Petrin told reporters after the company's annual meeting.

Analyst Cameron Doerksen of National Bank Financial said Transat's forecast for $1.5 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amoritization in the second quarter is down from the $16 million anticipated by analysts.

Transat took a $5-million hurricane hit in the first quarter and expects another $10 million to $15 million in the second quarter because of changed travel patterns resulting from the storms.

"What happened in the last three months is that the people that normally are interested in the Cuba destination did not show up," Petrin said.

Travel to Cuba accounts for about one quarter of the airline's seats to sun destinations. Bad publicity that included images of destruction prompted many Canadians to vacation in other locations. Airlines shifted some capacity to places like Mexico, which forced operators like Transat to lower prices to compete, thereby reducing their profits, he said.

Canadian travellers have shied away from Cuba even though all the sun destinations that Transat serves except St. Maarten and San Juan were repaired in January, added chief operating officer Annick Guerard.

She said demand for Cuba should come back at some point because it remains a favourite Canadian destination with attractive prices and great beaches.

Transat introduced its five-year strategic plan Thursday that will aim to cut an unspecified amount of costs on top of $105 million realized in its previous plan. It also plans to build a hotel network with 5,000 rooms.

The company will seek existing hotels to patch up, but will mainly purchase land and build 4.5 and five-star waterfront resorts in Mexico's Riviera Maya, Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic and probably Jamaica.

Transat is also surveying other airlines for examples of gaining more revenues from ancillary fees such as checked baggage, reserved seating and other measures already in place in Canada.

The tour company, which operates Transat, missed expectations in its seasonally slow first quarter as its net loss attributable to shareholders was $6.6 million, compared with $32.1 million in the prior year.

Excluding one-time items including the $48.2-million sale of its Jonview Canada Inc. subsidiary, Transat had an adjusted loss for the period ended Jan. 31 of $33.9 million or 91 cents per share. That compared with an adjusted loss of $36 million or 98 cents per share in the first quarter of its 2017 financial year.

Revenues rose to $725.8 million from $689.3 million on a 6.2 per cent increase in the number of travellers to sun destinations and 20.3 per cent to Europe.

Transat was expected on average to post an adjusted loss of 78 cents per share in the quarter on $739.7 million in revenues, according to analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.