Republic Airways Holdings Inc.

Hello everyone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to the ARJET fourth quarter 2025 earnings conference call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. I will now hand the call over to Keely Mitchell. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Warren, and thank you, everyone, for joining Republic's first earnings call subsequent to the Mason merger. On with me today are David Grizzle, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Matt Koskal, President and Chief Commercial Officer, and Joe Allman, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. I will kick off our call today reading the State Harbor disclosure, and then I will turn the call over to David for some opening remarks to discuss the strengths of Republic and our position within the regional airline industry. Following David, Matt will walk us through the Mesa merger and integration, key differentiating investments that have positioned Republic for the long term and our focus on long term strategy. Following Matt, Joe will take us through the financial results, the fleet, and provide guidance for 2026. We will then open the call for Q&A. In the investor relations section of our website, you will find the earnings press release and slide presentation to accompany today's discussion. This call is being recorded and will be available for replay on our investor relations website. Today's discussion will include forward-looking statements regarding Republic Airways' future performance, strategic initiatives, and market outlook. These statements reflect our current expectations and beliefs based on information available to us today. but they are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our projections. The aviation industry operates in a dynamic environment with inherent risks, including regulatory changes, economic fluctuations, weather-related disruptions, and evolving market conditions that can significantly impact our operations and financial performance. Additionally, our business is subject to the operational and financial health of our major airline partners, labor market conditions, aircraft availability, and other factors beyond our direct control. For a comprehensive understanding of the specific risks and uncertainties that may affect our business and financial results, I encourage all participants to review our detailed disclosure in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our Form 10-K to be filed with the SEC. These documents provide important context and detailed information that supplement today's discussion and are or will be available on both the SEC's website and in the investor relations section of our company website at rjet.com. Additionally, throughout this webcast, we will also present and discuss non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of our non-GAAP financial measures to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measures to the extent available without unreasonable effort, appear in today's earnings press release and presentation, which are available on our investor relations website. And now I will turn the call over to David.

Thank you, Keely. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on the call today. Before I dive into our presentation, I would like to give a thank you to our more than 8,400 Republic and MESA associates across the network. These aviation professionals persevered through a challenging quarter, navigating the longest US government shutdown in history and significant winter weather disruptions, which have extended into the new year. Moreover, our associates who support our frontline associates have done extraordinary work to bring our merger with MESA to the finish line and to set us up for success in the future. In the midst of all of this, we delivered strong results for the quarter and full year 2025. Let's start with the key messages about Republic Airways we will discuss today. Republic is a leader in operational excellence. and we have a highly experienced senior leadership team with 100-plus years of collective aviation industry experience. The leadership and vision of our executive team is focused on continuing to position the airline for long-term, sustainable performance. We have made targeted investments in training infrastructure, technology, and fleet growth that enhance reliability and expand our ability to support partners at scale. Our vertically integrated workforce pipeline gives us a structural advantage in a constrained labor environment. We maintain a strong balance sheet with an improving debt profile supporting financial resilience. And in 2026, as we execute the MESA integration, we expand our scale increase strategic relevance, and position the company for greater breadth and long-term value creation. We reported Q4 results to date with an adjusted EPS of 54 cents and total revenue of $464 million, up 21% in Q4 versus the similar period in the prior year. With the closing of the transformational merger with Mason, Republic Airways is now back in the market as a publicly traded company. For those who are new to the Republic story, we are the largest Embraer jet operator with 306 E-170 and E-175 aircraft, which as a single fleet type drives operational simplicity. We maintain longstanding partnerships with American, Delta, and United With our fleet diversified across those key partners, we operate 12 crew bases, mostly in the Eastern US, and carried 21 million passengers in 2025, supporting 800 daily departures and more than 370,000 safe arrivals. Our operational performance remains our most important differentiator, as evidenced by our delivering nearly 100% controllable completion and approaching 10 hours per day of utilization for each contract aircraft. In fact, in 2025, we had 349 days of perfect, controllable operations, which is no small feat. Our 2026 financial projections reflect that execution, with revenue reaching a $2 billion run rate with MESA included on a full year basis. Projected adjusted EBITDA are strengthened to 380 million, underscoring operational leverage and improving profitability. Our business model is built on contractual revenue streams that significantly mitigate demand risk. Under these agreements, our partners are responsible for ticket pricing and demand management, while we are responsible for providing safe, reliable, and cost-efficient operations. Our customers also bear 100% of the fuel risk. This structure allows us to focus relentlessly on operational performance and cost discipline, which are the core drivers of value in our model. Over the past three decades, Republic has consistently evolved its fleet, scale, and structure while remaining anchored in operational excellence in the CPA business model. We transitioned from a turboprop-focused operator in the late 1990s to an early adopter of larger regional jets, expanded through strategic acquisitions, and ultimately sharpened our focus exclusively on contract regional flying. Today, with a unified E-170, E-175 fleet and the Mesa merger positioning us for greater scale and market share, we enter our next chapter as a stronger, more focused and strategically relevant regional partner. Regional airlines are the backbone of the U.S. air transportation system, serving 95 percent of the nation's airports that provide scheduled passenger service and providing the only source of scheduled air service to 64 percent of those communities. Regional airlines operate seamlessly behind the major airline brands and have undergone significant consolidation over the past decade and a half. In 2009, there were 16 top independent regional airlines competing in the market. Today, that number has narrowed to just four fully scaled independent operators. This consolidation highlights Republic's position as one of the few independent regionals supporting the largest brands in commercial aviation. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Matt, who has been a standout leader of public for over a decade and a great partner to me. As we announced in December, the board expects to promote Matt to CEO within this calendar year. He has been instrumental in building our culture, strengthening relationships with our valued customers, and driving operational excellence. In addition to his responsibilities as president and chief commercial officer, Matt is also spearheading the Mesa integration. Matt.