Sun Country Airlines Holdings, Inc.

Good day and welcome to the Sun Country Airlines fourth quarter and full year 2022 earnings call. My name is Chris and I will be your operator for today's call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during that session, you will need to press star 1 1 on your phone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded, and I will now turn the call over to Chris Allen, Director of Investor Relations. Mr. Allen, you may begin.

Thank you. I'm joined today by Jude Bricker, Chief Executive Officer, Dave Davis, President and Chief Financial Officer, and a group of others to help answer questions. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that during this call, the company may make certain statements that constitute forward-looking statements. Our remarks today may include forward-looking statements which are based upon management's current beliefs, expectations, and assumptions and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially. We encourage you to review the risk factors and cautionary statements outlined in our earnings release and most recent SEC filings. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statement. You can find our fourth quarter and full-year earnings press release on the investor relations portion of our website at ir.suncountry.com. With that said, I'd like to now turn the call over to Jude. Thanks, Chris. Good morning, everybody. To review, our multi-segment business is unique in the airline industry. Due to the predictability of our charter and cargo businesses, we're able to deliver the most flexible scheduled service capacity in the industry. The combination of our schedule flexibility and low-cost model allow us to respond to both predictable leisure demand fluctuations and exogenous industry shocks. We believe, due to these structural advantages, we'll be able to reliably deliver industry-leading profitability throughout all cycles. In execution of our multi-segment business, it's critical that we're able to deliver industry-leading operational performance. I'm especially proud that in 2022, Sun Country delivered the industry's best completion factor. During the challenging December period, we delivered 99.6 completion factor, also best in the industry. So proud of our whole team that continue to come through for our customers every day. We continue to see strong demand for all segments of our business. In scheduled service, currently selling through August, we're seeing consistently strong yields, even compared to an already strong 2022. The first quarter, notably year-over-year TRASM improvement implicit in our guide, is mostly a result of a strong recovery in international demand as compared to Omicron-impacted first quarter 2022. This outperformance is overcoming West Florida demand, which is still recovering from Hurricane Ian. All indications are that unit revenues will continue to remain strong through the summer, including observable bookings, overall industry capacity across our network, loyalty spend, contracted distribution agreements, and local economy metrics. In scheduled service through the next year, we expect to continue to build out our MSP operation to its natural share. To that end, we've decided to postpone the restart of our summer Hawaiian operations until 2024. Keep in mind that in the first quarter, which is typically our strongest of the year, keep in mind that the first quarter is typically our strongest of the year under constant fuel and normalized demand. I expect charters to put up big growth numbers in 2023. Mostly we're focused on long-term contracted charter revenue. We've expanded our casino operation to five aircraft and added a second aircraft to our VIP operations. I expect to have eight aircraft committed to contracted charter flying by the end of 2023, counting our 12 cargo aircraft that brings our contracted fleet to 20 aircraft of the 55 we have in service. All these aircraft fly at consistent operational levels with pass-through economics. This operating base allows us maximum flexibility with our scheduled business. I expect our sports business to grow this year as well, focused on collegiate sports and Major League Soccer. Charter demand remains strong, and we believe it's generally underserved by the industry. Our cargo business will improve this year due to contracted escalation, but we expect volumes to be consistent year over year as we focus on building out our scheduled and chartered businesses. On the fleet, we'll continue to be opportunistic buyers. I expect most of our 2023 growth to come through utilization increases, which remain well below 2019 levels. This will allow us to deploy capital for debt repayments through amortization, consider share buybacks, and some prudent infrastructure investment like our new training centers that open in 4Q and technology to support our operations. I'm confident we'll continue to find the growth aircraft that we need as we need them. And with that, I'll turn it over to Dave.

Thanks, Jude. We're pleased to report strong Q4 results, which I'll detail in a minute, near the upper end of our guidance range for both revenue and operating margin. Adjusted pre-tax income for the quarter was $10.3 million, a 39% improvement over Q4 of 2021, despite an increase in fuel prices of nearly 44% in the impact of the new pilot agreement that we signed near the end of 2021. Although we are now comparing our results to prior year, it's important to note that our Q4 adjusted pre-tax income is nearly 26% higher than it was in Q4 of 19. Additionally, we grew Q4 2022 year-over-year capacity on both a system block hour and ASM basis by 10% and 14% respectively. Q4 system block hours were 37% higher than they were in Q4 of 19. Let me start with a discussion of revenue and capacity. As Jude noted, the revenue environment remains very strong. Q4 of 22 total operating revenue of $227.2 million was 31.6% higher than the year-ago quarter. The scheduled service business is particularly strong, as TRASM grew 27% versus last year on an almost 14% growth in scheduled service ASMs. Ticket plus ancillary revenue grew 45% year-over-year as we saw an increase in total fare to $177.36, combined with an increase in load factor from 76.6% last year to 84.4% in Q4 of 22. This strength in unit revenue shows no signs of abating as we move into the first quarter. The story is the same for the full year 2022 with scheduled service TRASM growing almost 37% and an increase in scheduled ASMs of 16%. Both total fare of $175.29 and load factor of 83.5% were the highest full year results since 2018 when we began our conversion to a single class configuration. We finished 2022 with full year revenue of $894.4 million, a 44% increase over 2021, and a record for Sun Country. Charter revenue grew in the fourth quarter by 11%, as we saw another quarter of strong growth and flying under long-term contracts, referred to as program charter, and steady improvement in our ad hoc business. Ad hoc charter revenue doubled versus Q3 of 2022, and is showing steady progress as we continue to add pilots to pursue these opportunities. We've made a concerted effort to grow the amount of our charter business under long-term contracts, and we've been very successful so far. For the full year, program charter revenue was $121.7 million, nearly 2.5 times higher than it was in 2021, and we feel there remains room to grow. We added the equivalent of a third aircraft serving our CSRS contract in the fourth quarter of 2022. Full year revenue for the ad hoc charter business is still about 60% below its peak in 2019, but as we continue to add pilot resources, we expect to see steady growth in this segment. Cargo revenue grew 5% in the fourth quarter on a small decline in capacity. For the full year, cargo revenue declined 1% on a 4% decrease in cargo block hours. During the first half of the year, we had numerous Amazon aircraft and heavy maintenance, which drove the block hour decrease. Our cargo flying remains a consistent source of revenue in all environments, and we do not expect this to change in the future. Let me turn now to costs. Our fourth quarter adjusted chasm increased 7% versus last year. For the full year, adjusted chasm increased 9% year over year. Similar to what we have been saying all year, the main drivers of this cost increase have been twofold. First, we have been smaller than we had initially planned to be due to labor and aircraft constraints. Second, 2022 results reflect the cost of the new pilot agreement we signed at the end of 2021. This is an important point as the results of many of our competitors have yet to fully incorporate the cost of recently completed or upcoming new pilot contracts. Two additional aircraft are expected to enter service in Q1 of 23. As we grow into our expanded fleet throughout 2023, we expect to see a deceleration in unit cost increases. Let me say a few words now about our strong balance sheet. We finished 2022 with $289.4 million in total liquidity, including $264.7 million in unrestricted cash and short-term investments. Our year-end net debt to adjusted EBITDA was 2.7. During January of 2023, we completed the $25 million ASR portion of our share buyback program, repurchasing approximately 1.4 million shares at an average price of $18.23. We still have $25 million in board-approved share repurchase authority and will execute any buybacks under the program opportunistically, considering the liquidity needs of the business. Let me switch now to Q1 2023 guidance. As I said previously, we're seeing very strong demand with approximately 80% of our planned Q1 passenger revenue already booked, and we expect the strength to continue throughout the quarter. Total Q1 2023 revenue is expected to be between 280 and $290 million, which would be 24 to 28% higher than Q1 of 2022. We expect total block hour growth of 3.5% to 6.5%. We're expecting an operating margin of between 15% and 20%, assuming a fuel price of $3.58 per gallon. Just a quick reminder, Q1 is historically our strongest quarter of the year, and we expect to see seasonal trends similar to previous years. The fundamentals of our unique diversified business remain strong, and our model is highly resilient to changes in macroeconomic conditions. Our focus remains on profitable growth. With that, I'll open it for questions.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 1 1 on your phone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 1 again. We ask that for the Q&A, if you please just have one question and one follow-up.

One moment for our first question.

Our first question will come from Ravi Shankar of Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Thanks. Morning, everyone. Great to hear the strong commentary for 1Q. If you can just kind of give us a little more detail there. How far out the booking curve can you see? Can you see past spring break, maybe into early summer as well? Does it feel like even the tail end of that booking curve continues to remain strong, just trying to get a better sense of what the rest of the year might look like?

Hey, Ravi. Good morning. This is Jude. Yeah, so the main thing that's impacting the first quarter relative to the first quarter last year is going to be the recovery in international demand. We have a sizable international network. Traditionally, during the first quarter last year, it was affected heavily by Omicron. So we're seeing strong demand across the Caribbean, Mexican markets, Central American markets. It's sort of unprecedented from my experience looking at traffic down there. We have really good insight. As Dave mentioned, we're over 80% sold for the first quarter, so there's not a lot of variance there. Most of the variance in our first quarter revenue will come from how much charters we're able to sell into the March period. Looking past the first quarter, April is pretty well clear at this point, and it continues the same trend of fairly dramatic year-over-year revenue improvements. The summer we have a little less insight on just because the summer relative to the first quarter tends to book more close in, and we shift our network to more domestic markets and shorter haul markets that also tend to book more close in. But all we're looking at is unit revenue and fares and ancillary production, things like that for the bookings that we can see, which again for the summer period is well below 20% of our volume. Um, it's very, very strong. I don't see anything that would indicate, I can't find any weakness across the network. I was, I was concerned about, um, Ian's impact because Fort Myers is a big, a big part of our network in March in particular, and that area of the country is mostly recovered. It's still lagging the strength in other areas, but there's really no weakness that I can find anywhere across our schedule service network.

Got it. That's a pretty definitive statement. And so maybe as a follow-up to that, it kind of sounds like the biggest impediment to kind of growing into that strength is going to be capacity. Can you just comment on what the pilot availability situation is like and what you expect in terms of maybe any headwinds there kind of easing in the next 12 months?

Hey, Ravi. It's Dave. Yeah, so our pilot situation continues to get better. As we've detailed and talked through a number of times, we've had some particular issues in our training pipeline. We continue to have no issues with sort of recruiting pilots to come to the company, so that continues to hold. We're making steady progress, like identifiable improvement in pilots that are going to the line here, especially over the last two or three months. We expect that positive momentum to continue in the back half of the year. I think I mentioned 3.5% to 6.5% block hour growth for the first quarter. I think we're looking now at block hour growth for the year of around 10%. So we'll be accelerating as we move into the summer months and then into the back half of the year. Yeah, which is particularly positive because we'll be putting up

in excess, you know, double-digit growth rates by June, which is, so we'll be able to catch most of the, the growth rate will align with where the peak opportunities are.

Fantastic. Thanks, both. Thank you. One moment, please, for our next question. Our next question will come from the line of Duane Fenningworth of Evercore. Your line is open.

Hey, thanks. Good morning. Hey, Dwayne. Just to follow up on the last question, and I know we had an interesting couple of years, to say the least, and prior to that you had significantly restructured this business, but that 80% book for one queue, do you have any feel for how that compares to normal, if there is such a thing as normal?

Yeah, so probably I had... just on an estimation of about five points relative to history. We're booking ahead, and a lot of that is just us aligning our algorithms to the demand environment. We need to load higher fares from the beginning. Recall that pricing is a heuristic algorithm, so bookings determine fares, and a lot of that depends on our expectation going into the selling period. we're aligning to the new environment. So we're probably headed by about five points.

That's great. And then on CapEx, can you just remind us, how are you thinking about 2023 and 2024 maybe versus the year just ended? Where do those plans stand today? And are you seeing any signs that the used 737 market is loosening up as MAX deliveries finally take the appropriate pace here.

Yeah, without going into precise numbers, let me give you some color on CAPEX. So, you know, we grew, we added between seven and eight aircraft last year, or I should say in 22. This year, we are not going to add as many planes as Jude mentioned, the fact that we're going to get growth mostly through utilization, but I would expect us to add probably one or two aircraft into the fleet this year, so that capex will be down significantly. We're already lining up deliveries right now for 2023 and even into, I'm sorry, for 2024 and even into 2025. So we expect to resume growth in 24, probably seven to nine aircraft, and the same in 2025. So we're going to take a little bit of a pause here, which will bring CapEx down in 23.

And on the market, I'm pretty comfortable not being a buyer right at the moment. The opposite has happened, Dwayne. It's actually a pretty strong market for 737, 800 values. as airlines across the world extend leases to accommodate delays in their max order stream. There's also sort of a broad rebound in demand across the globe. We're still seeing some spot bankruptcies like Flyer in Norway last week or this week, but these planes get absorbed really quickly. So we're not going to get, in my view, a lot of price relief But I'm confident we'll get the plans we need.

Makes sense. Thank you very much.

Thank you. And one moment, please, for our next question.

Our next question will come from Catherine O'Brien of Goldman Sachs.

Your line is open.

Hey, good morning, everyone. Hope you're well. Hey. Hey, guys. So, you know, I know unit costs have been lumpy, but if we just solve for unit costs in one queue based on, you know, revenue and operating margin and maybe, you know, taking scheduled data for ASMs, we get to CASMX growth in the high teens year over year. I guess first, correct me if I'm wrong, but then, you know, you alluded to, like, a lot more block hours coming online. You're doing that via higher utilization, which I'm guessing is pretty accretive on the CASMX side. I don't know if there's maybe like some efficiencies we're getting as we move through the pilot contract, but we'll just, you know, find it helpful if you guys could talk about like the level of deceleration on Chasm X, you know, we should expect for maybe that high teens in the first quarter. Thanks.

Yeah, first of all, I think that I'm not sure what the math is there. We can go through it, but that number is too high. It's not going to be sort of close to the high teens from a Chasm basis for the first quarter. I would expect probably a number high single digits, very low double digits. And then as we continue growing here through the first quarter into the back half of the year, that should moderate significantly as we get to the back half of the year. So, you know, I talked a bit about Casimir over year. We should see any increases that we see in 2023 will be significantly lower than what we saw from 21 to 22.

Hey, Catherine, welcome back. One other bit of color is that, you know, just recall we did our pilot contract a year ago. The rest of the industry is rolling through pilot agreements now. And so our cost trends will look really good relative to the industry based on that fact.

Yes, for sure. And then maybe just as my follow-up, you know, we continue to see really strong growth on the ancillary side for you guys. Can you just walk us through where the future opportunities lie there? Is that going to be optimizing for yield? Are there any step function changes, kind of like the offering? Thanks a lot.

Sure. Yeah, I mean, so first of all, I would continue to guide you to look at total revenue per passenger. Most ancillary initiatives that increase ancillary unit revenues have an effect on the airfare, but increase total revenue per passenger. So, just always keep looking at it like that, particularly bag fees and seat assignment revenue and convenience fees and things like that that most airlines are pushing really heavily on raising right now. What we're focused on, in contrast, is on new products. We launched our bundled solution in the back half of last year, which is performing as expected. We're also You know, like most airlines, getting a lot of uplift through our loyalty program, which is setting records in every quarter, certainly in the last quarter was consistent with that. And then what's exciting for me in particular is our third-party products, which is us selling hotels and cars and travel insurance to our customers. And that is purely accretive. You know, every bit of revenue that's incremental doesn't affect the airfare for those products. And so we're really excited to see that. And those on a unit basis are increasing by triple digits as we roll out our car solution for the first time, really, which is really, really exciting. So I think you're going to see significant, you know, we're going to continue to have tailwinds on unit ancillary revenues. And for us in particular, I think that's going to drive continued tailwind on total revenue per passenger because of the kind of products that we're seeing growth in.

That's a great call. I really appreciate it.

Sure. Thank you. Thank you. One moment for our next question.

Our next question will come from Helaine Becker of Cowan. Your line is open.

Thanks very much, Operator. Hi, everybody. the time this morning. On CapEx, what's maintenance CapEx?

You mean like a total absolute dollar amount of maintenance CapEx?

Yeah.

Probably for the year, depending on exactly what we call maintenance CapEx, we include some of our engine purchases in there, probably on the order of $40 million to $50 million.

Okay. And that'll be financed through cash, I guess?

That would be financed through cash, yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you. And then just my other question, as you think about aircraft, are you just looking at the 800 NGs or, you know, 737-700s make any sense for you? What's like your optimal size that you would be looking for?

We think that 900 would work as well. So 800s and 900s.

Perfect. Okay. Thank you.

Thanks, Elaine.

Thank you. And one moment for our next question. Our next question will come from Michael Lindenberg of Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Oh, yeah. Hey, good morning, everyone. Yep, good numbers and outlook. Just on the aircraft, I want to clarify. Jude, I thought you said you're taking two airplanes in the March quarter, and then Dave said, will be taking one to two this year. Is that one to two that are incremental to the two because maybe those two showed up last year and they're being put in service? I just, I want a clarification around that.

Yeah, it's what you just said. So the two that are coming in in the first quarter were purchased last year and have been going through induction. They'll be entering service. And then the one to two that I mentioned are incremental to those two.

I see, I see. And then these airplanes, they're all being, cash financed or debt financed, right? I mean, you've moved away from leases, right?

Yeah. I mean, we haven't done any operating leases and we don't intend to do any operating leases. We've either debt financed things, pay cash for them, or enter into finance leases, which give us basically a purchase option. So yeah, that's how we finance all of them.

And then just, you know, from a modeling perspective, you know, you were down to like just over 1 million of rentals. Does that go to zero sometime this year, or is it next year, or is there always going to be a little residual there?

We have a couple more aircraft that are on operating leases, I think probably 2026. 2024 for both of them. Yeah, so after that, I guess our rentals will go to zero, yeah.

There might be some engine leases from time to time.

Yeah, a few miscellaneous things like that, but that line should drive to zero.

Okay, good. And then just lastly, you know, Jude, you have made some interesting comments about how things have sort of shifted and changed through, you know, COVID and a few comments maybe a month – well, this is actually several months ago about, you know, how demand was shifting through the week and was it – less business travel or more leisure. I think he made a comment about the fact that the fares were so high during peak period that it was pushing more demand into like Tuesday, Wednesday and helping out with sort of, you know, volatility on demand and pricing through the week. Any additional thoughts around that? It's always interesting to hear, you know, as it relates maybe to your March quarter demand.

I'm all ears. So I think... There's been a lot of commentary about leisure and travel patterns being kind of pushed into a more flexible customer base where you can travel on Tuesdays, you can travel in off-season. And my commentary was mostly that I see the same uplift in off-peak periods, but I don't have any reason. I can't go as far as Guy Kirby, for example, to draw causals. relationship, and I think we should be careful about it. So what we're seeing is dollar improvement roughly the same across all periods. But on a percentage basis, then, it's a bigger percentage increase in off-peak. So I think there is an opportunity for us to expand utilization into off-peak periods, but I'm very careful about adjusting the entire strategy towards taking advantage of these opportunities because I think a big reason off-peak has been expanding the way it has is because fares are so high. And so you just have value shoppers that are adjusting their schedules to find lower fares. And, you know, I don't know if that's really a permanent shift in behavior.

Yeah, but it sounds like, you know, you'll take advantage of it when you can, right?

Yeah, so if you look at monthly... year-over-year percentage growth will show the highest percentage growth in September in 2023. That's our weakest month. And that's a function of us just having more opportunity in those months because fares are generally higher. Great.

Very good. Thanks. Thanks for all the help.

Yeah, thanks, Mike.

Thank you.

And one moment, please, for our next question. The next question will come from Scott Group of Wolf Research.

Your line is open.

Hey, thanks. Good morning, guys. Thanks, Scott. So pretty much everyone else has given us some thoughts on full year. I'm wondering if you could do the same. I understand Q1 will seasonally be the best margin quarter, but do you feel good about double-digit operating margins this year? Can we get back to the 12, 12.5 we did in 2019? Just any thoughts?

Yeah, we're obviously not given full year guidance yet, but we feel very good about the entire year. Our 2023 plan is very strong. I don't want to give specific operating income information, but we'll be largely back on track in 2023 as our plan to historical margin levels.

OK. And then as other airlines get their labor deals done, do you worry that as pay rates reset higher that maybe some attrition issues start to emerge again?

I think it's a concern. Maybe less attrition issues and more like availability issues. But there's been a number of new deals we haven't really seen. We haven't really had any problems so far attracting folks. So we're not overly concerned about that. And actually, our attrition figures continue to underperform what we forecast them to be. So attrition is actually lower than we've been planning. So, you know, intuitively you would say yes, that as others increase wages, there's going to be some competitive pressure. We haven't seen any impact of that so far.

To the extent it emerges at some point, are there mechanisms in place where you can make adjustments if needed? Would you think about that?

You know, we just signed a new deal at the end of 2021. We'd make, you know, spot tweaking here and there if we needed to to solve particular issues, but we don't contemplate any wholesale changes.

And also the contract that we have has, you know, right, escalators, yeah, and venue and rig and, you know, changes as well. So our pilots will get raises irrespective of amendments to the contract.

Okay. All makes sense. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it. Thanks, Scott. Thanks, Scott.

Thank you. Again, to ask a question, please press star 11 on your phone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. And also, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. One moment, please, for our next question. The next question will come from Brandon Oglenski of Barclays. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning, Jude and Dave. Thanks for taking the question. I guess, yeah, guys, I'm not looking for a specific guidance, but, you know, coming out of the IPO, we understood the business mix here. You guys do have a unique model relative to your competitors, you know, with the Amazon flying and the charter flying. And hypothetically, you know, you guys should probably be generating margins towards the top end of the group. I guess, what is the impediment as you look forward in 23, or do you think

know get the pilot deal done last year is what's the biggest issue yeah i would call two things to your attention one is that amazon has low margins right at the moment because we increase pilot uh pay rates faster than the escalation in the contract so those margins were compressed that'll be a temporary issue and it'll be better this year and it'll be even better in 2024 etc so there's escalators built into the amazon contract exactly And then the second thing is, you know, right now, the highest margin opportunities are constrained mostly today by pilots. And as we, you know, as we've talked about, as we bring our staffing up, then we'll be able to add particularly during those periods of time. So, you know, that that was What impacted us most strongly during the summer 2022 which we talked about as we, you know, we're kind of under allocated into the markets that saw the biggest rises, namely big city connectivity Minneapolis and our network. We're under allocated there because we didn't have a crew. That'll be different this summer and you know, I think margins will continue to expand as we look forward into 24.

Yeah, I think I think it sort of more broadly. In answer to your question, the thesis that we had in place when we went public remains and we think we can generate either the top or one of the, you know, very near the top in industry margins on a go forward basis and our 2023 plan reflects that. As Jude said, some temporary things out there, you know, growth as we can continue to continue to hit our growth targets. plenty of opportunities out there. We don't think we're at sort of marginal fair levels yet, and there's plenty of growth opportunity for us. We actually think the 2023 growth plan is achievable and actually somewhat modest, and if we hit those numbers, we will be, we believe, near the top of the industry again.

Okay, appreciate that. And then maybe just a quick follow-up on the Amazon comment. Do you guys have, you know, built-in Cost index is there, so if your pilot wages go up, then the Amazon contract will adjust, or is that just the normal rate increase that you guys had negotiated previously?

It's normal, and pilot escalation has been lumpy. So, you know, they eventually will align, but sometimes we're ahead, sometimes we're behind.

Okay. Thank you both.

Thank you. One moment, please, for the next question. Our next question will come from Christopher Stathelopoulos of Susquehanna. Your line is open.

Good morning, everyone. Jude, the comment in your prepared remarks on the 20 aircraft that are contracted out of the active fleet of 55, is that do you have a – target level for that piece of the fleet that you want to keep on contracted or chartered? Or is that just going to move around in response to the market? And then could you just remind us of the economics here? What utilization minimums are there, if any, and escalators that are built into those contracts? Thank you.

Yeah, so I would look at it on a block hour basis, and we would be optimized at around a quarter of our block hours allocated to fix fee contracts. And that's because of the mins and maxes associated with our pilot contract. So if those contracts service minimum hour obligations to our crews, then we're optimized for being peak to off peak on our sketch service. So we want to keep it around 25. Those opportunities aren't reliably presented to us, and we can't just pluck them out whenever we want, so we're going to continue to take those opportunities as they come and build up that side of the business and try to keep the scheduled service growing as we can. That's basically the philosophy, so about a quarter of our block hours. Now, each of these contracts are different. You were talking about economics. In the case of the Amazon contract, for example, there's a fixed component and then a variable component. So, you know, margins expand as utilization goes down, actually. Most of our fixed fee contracts have something similar where there's a minimum hour obligation from the customer and then a variable component beyond that. And that variable component, in many cases, actually gets cheaper for them to incentivize more flying. You know, all these businesses are going to produce really high margins, and the stability of that operation is really what we're after. I don't know, Chris. I don't know what else I can tell you on those.

Okay. Thank you. And then on a follow-up, so you said utilization driven growth this year. Could you just put a finer point there on the moving pieces, stage gauge departures, and then peak versus off-peak? Thank you.

I mean, our peak utilization numbers are going to be, you know, the nature of the business is a very peaky business. Our peak utilization numbers will be 12, 13 hours a day. Our trough utilization numbers will be, you know, mid to high single digits.

I don't know, Grant, a comment on the stage? Stage links, we do see it coming down a little bit in the summer. as we take advantage of the growth opportunities that we talked about, our new markets out of Minneapolis, which I would say are all booking expectations, feel good about those. So there will be a little bit of seasonality in terms of the stage length where we do longer in the first quarter and then we shorten it up a little bit in the summer. But it all corresponds with what Dave was saying.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. One moment please for our next question. And for our next question, we have a follow-up from Duane Fendingworth of Evercore. Your line is open.

Hey, thanks. Maybe a small percentage of your business, but for large tour operators, Apple Leisure as an example, can you talk about in this backdrop how willing you are to sell blocks of inventory to an Apple Leisure and how that maybe compares to the past and how you think about that business when the fair environment and the demand environment are so strong?

Well, keep in mind that we have kind of two network strategies that are fairly different. We have Minneapolis origination, and that's been expanding into the upper Midwest. In those markets, in Minneapolis in particular, we're creating a really strong brand. We're investing in the brand through marketing. we intend to originate the maximum amount of that capacity as possible through direct distribution. And we're not having any issue with that. And so that's a strategy and partnering with an Apple or, you know, any kind of tour operator in those markets isn't that exciting to us. In contrast, though, we're also augmenting our winter peak with summer opportunities, most notably out of Dallas, but also Houston and Central Texas and South Texas and many other markets in the future because some are such a strong peak for most markets with what we would say is a price-driven consumer where we're going to be competitive during peak periods, still generating an average fare that's higher than the incumbents because we're only capitalizing on those very peaky opportunities. In those markets, we are very open to block sales of our capacity with tour operators, OTAs, other distribution partners. And in my initial comments, I specifically called out contracted flying. That's kind of what I'm talking about. And we're negotiating those rates now or recently, and we're seeing a lot of demand from them. And we're more than happy to offload some of our capacity into those markets through those partners' channels.

Really interesting, Jude. Thank you.

Sure.

Thank you. As I am seeing no further questions in the queue, I would now like to turn the conference back to Jude Bricker for closing remarks.

Hey, thanks for your time, everybody. We're really excited about where we're headed. It's good to kind of get some of the challenges of the last year behind us and focus on growth and execution. Thanks for joining us on the call. We'll talk to you in about 90 days. Thanks, everybody.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect. Have a good day and enjoy your weekend.