Wheels Up Experience Inc.

The Wills Up second quarter 2021 earnings call is due to begin shortly. If you would like to register to ask a question during the Q&A session, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back. Hello everyone and thank you for your patience. The wheels up second quarter 2021 earnings call will begin in approximately 30 seconds. hello everyone and welcome to the wills up second quarter 2021 earnings call my name is bethany and i'll be coordinating your call today If you would like to register to ask a question during the Q&A session, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind, you can press star followed by two. I will now hand the call over to your host, Keith Ferguson, Investor Relations, to begin. Keith, over to you.

Thank you, and welcome again to Wheels Up's second quarter 2021 earnings conference call. Earlier today, we issued a press release announcing our financial results for the periods. The release, with its supporting tables, as well as a copy of today's presentation, can be found on our investor relations website at wheelsup.com slash investors. Please refer to this slide with our disclaimer. Today's presentation contains forward-looking statements based on our current forecast and estimates of future events. These statements should be considered estimates only, and actual results may differ materially. During today's call, we will refer to non-GAAP financial measures, as outlined by the SEC guidelines. Reconciliations of GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures and definitions of non-GAAP financial measures are found within the financial tables of our earnings release and appendix of today's presentation. And with that, I'd like to turn the call over to our chairman and chief executive officer, Kenny Victor. Kenny?

Thank you, Keith, and thanks to all of you for joining us today. We are excited to share the Wheels Up story with you. Please check out our analyst day materials from April 16th, 2021, which you can find on our Wheels Up investor page. We will touch on parts of that original presentation today. Building on my 20 plus years in the private aviation industry, Wheels Up is bringing the next phase of disruption with our marketplace platform. Our marketplace will efficiently connect growing demand with global aircraft supply, which over time will increase access, drive down costs, open the aperture to a much larger total addressable market and improve yields for third-party operators. Our strategy in improving yields on underutilized assets is similar to how Uber has extracted value in cars and Airbnb had done in homes. Let me share some of the highlights from this morning's earnings release. We reported over $285 million in revenue in the second quarter, setting a quarterly record and up over 110% year-over-year. First half revenue was just under 550 million, which is up almost 90% year over year. Our active members grew almost 50% year over year and now exceeds 10,500 in total. Our live flight legs were up almost 150% year over year to over 18,000 in the quarter. Private aviation has rebounded more quickly than anyone in the industry expected. we are seeing unprecedented demand for leisure travel and the beginnings of a return for business and international travel. Our strategy to increase and diversify our fleet, cultivate our brand, provide exclusive partner benefits, and further develop innovative technology are key drivers to our performance. We view the combination of current market conditions and our strong customer cohort purchasing behavior as a great opportunity to increase our market share. We believe this is a defining moment in private aviation where being bold matters and where building relationships with consumers new to the market is critically important. As a result, we have made the strategic decision to invest in the growth of our business while some industry participants are pulling back. This gives us even more conviction and confidence to push forward. I'd like to take a moment to recognize our hardworking team for their tireless work in support of our customers. I'd also like to thank our loyal members and customers for their trust in us. As I mentioned, we are seeing very strong demand. Now allow me to explain how we are managing supply this year and our plans to enhance it. We deployed advanced machine learning algorithms that have improved our demand forecasting. This improved forecasting allows us to make short and long-term commitments to secure supply from other aircraft operators through the use of guaranteed rate programs. what we call GRPs. These asset-light GRPs now represent over one-third of our third-party capacity, up from nearly zero at the beginning of the year. We have expanded the number of charter hours available from our managed aircraft base. These aircraft owners allow us to use their airplanes for Wheels Up members and customers at times when these owners are not flying. We will continue to unlock the latent supply in the industry. We will use machine learning to further enhance our ability to find the right plane in the right place at the right time to drive utility and reduce repositioning hours. We are creating products and services for our aircraft management platform to drive additional asset light lift to support our flight demand. Our managed aircraft business provides a key component of supply. We are accelerating investments in areas of the business that we had expected to develop over a longer time horizon. That includes investing in human capital, technology, infrastructure, and key areas that will drive efficiency, reduce cost, and most importantly, deliver world-class experiences in the air and on the ground. We believe Wheels Up has a significant first mover advantage and that this strategy will generate strong margins and create substantial shareholder value over the long term. Now I'd like to recap some of our recent initiatives. We forged an exclusive partnership with American Express, a great opportunity to work with one of the most iconic brands in the world, offering unique programs and benefits to Platinum Card members. This represents an important opportunity for lead generation. We launched Up for Business, which formalizes our offering for businesses and their private aviation needs. With our diverse fleet and commercial relationship with Delta Airlines, we have already seen increased interest from businesses. As I like to say, CEOs like us, CFOs love us. I see a lot of opportunities with business customers. We recently integrated the mountain aviation fleet onto our Avianas flight management system. You will hear more about that in a few minutes. As part of our Meals Up initiative with Feeding America, we co-sponsored the match with Tom Brady, Phil Mickelson, teeing off against Aaron Rodgers and Bryson DeChambeau. I'm proud to announce that to date we have inspired funding for over 60 million meals. We continue to focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion, both inside and outside our organization. Partnerships with organizations like C200, a powerful community of the most successful women in business, representing companies with more than $1.4 trillion in combined revenue, and the NFL Players Association and its Community MVP Program are two such examples. Next up, I want to introduce to you Vinayak Hegde, our chief marketplace officer. Danayik is the newest member of our C-suite, having joined us this May. He is responsible for all of our marketplace initiatives, including the product and technology that will power it. Danayik was previously a senior executive at Airbnb, Groupon, and Amazon. Danayik was introduced to us by the chairman of our marketplace and board advisor, Greg Greeley, with whom he partnered with at Amazon and Airbnb. Vinayak is a force of nature and is already doing great things for us. With that, I'm now going to turn over the call to Vinayak.