Wheels Up Experience Inc.

Hello and welcome to the Wheels Up Experience's first quarter of 2022 earnings conference call. My name is Harry and I'll be your operator today. If you'd like to ask a question during the presentation, you may do so by pressing star, follow by one on your telephone keypad. It is now my pleasure to hand you over to Keith Ferguson from Wheels Up to begin. Keith, please go ahead.

Thank you and welcome to Wheels Up's first quarter 2022 earnings conference call. This afternoon, we issued a press release announcing our financial results for the period. 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 the slide with our disclaimer. Today's presentation contains forward-looking statements based on our current forecast and expectations 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 SEC guidelines. Unless otherwise noted, all income statement-related financial measures will be non-GAAP other than revenue. Reconciliations of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures and definitions of non-GAAP financial measures are found within the financial tables of the earnings release and appendix of today's presentation. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to our Chairman and CEO, Kenny Dickerson. Mr. Thank you, Keith.

And thanks to all of you for joining us today. I am pleased to report record revenue for the first quarter as we continue to see unprecedented demand across our platform and more broadly across our industry. It has long been our goal to build a technology-enabled marketplace for private aviation that connects strong and growing demand with highly fragmented supply. This marketplace playbook is a proven destructor in many other verticals, And we are relentlessly focused on providing an unparalleled member experience in the air and on the ground, backed by an unwavering commitment to safety. Our strategy is already showing results. Today, we are a clear leader with a growing base of more than 12,000 active members and well north of $1 billion of annual revenue. We have built an iconic brand in private aviation, and we have forged a strong and unique commercial relationship with Delta Airlines, as well as significant brand partnerships that deliver even greater value to our members. While generating demand is typically the more difficult part of building a marketplace, it is where we have been very successful. In fact, our first quarter is a testament to that success. We reported revenue exceeding $320 million. Again, a record for the first quarter and up almost 25% year over year. Active members are 26% higher than a year ago, and our live legs were up 15% year-over-year as we marked the anniversary of the rebounds in travel during the pandemic. Prepaid block sales, a great indicator of future demand, were exceptionally strong, over $170 million for the quarter and up over 150% year-over-year. Overall demand remained strong at the start of the second quarter, and our average pricing is increasing. Our core member retention continues to be robust, and our core members continue to spend more than $80,000 per year with us on average. Our newest cohorts spend more than our prior cohorts, who also continue to spend with us at a healthy clip. We believe all of these factors provide a strong foundation for future revenue growth. Our key strategic priority is to aggregate the supply side of private aviation and drive the scale utility and efficiency that enables the network effect of our marketplace. This is the key to unlocking additional profitable consumer demand. Ultimately, the difference maker for us will be the industry-disrupting technology and innovation we deploy. We see an enormous opportunity to improve the customer experience and effectively create a broader and more accessible marketplace for private air travel, as much as Uber has done for taxis and black car and Airbnb for vacation home rentals. Vinayak will talk in more detail about our operating and technology initiatives. I'm encouraged by the steady progress in both areas, and we are in a much stronger position today than we were at the beginning of this year. As a direct result of those initiatives, Our operations improved each month throughout the quarter, and we continue to improve in April. In fact, absent the impact of higher fuel prices during the quarter, our adjusted contribution margin would have improved sequentially in the first quarter. With the benefit of our fuel surcharge, our recent pricing actions and program adjustments, and the contribution from Air Partner, coupled with our improving operating performance, we believe we are poised to show margin improvement throughout the remainder of the year. Let me now highlight our most recent acquisition and a strategic minority investment. We closed on the Air Partner acquisition on April 1st. Air Partner is a great fit with our growth strategy, giving us an asset-like platform to extend our offerings globally and includes attractive adjacent businesses that we can grow over time. The company has a seasoned and well-respected management team, that will lead our international expansion and enable us to provide a true end-to-end solution for our members who are increasingly looking to travel around the world. Beyond the strategic rationale, the air partner acquisition makes great financial sense as well. Next, we made a strategic minority investment in Tropic Ocean Airways, a leading provider of Cessna Caravan seaplanes, which is ideal for last-mile service in Florida, the Bahamas, and the Caribbean, and a great addition to our marketplace. We see opportunities to expand their service to other geographies and introduce their offerings to a much wider customer base. We look forward to keeping you updated on our progress. We will also continue to broaden our supply capabilities through the strategic acquisition of charter management companies and opportunistic aircraft purchases. As we have said many times, we are not demand constrained. That's why we are focused today on building our supply network while deploying our technology to be best positioned in a supply constrained environment. I'd like to provide an update on our environmental initiatives. Sustainability is something that is incredibly important to me and where Wheels Up can be a leader over the long term. Sustainability is a journey that we have embarked on, and I'm pleased to announce beginning in June that we will fully offset the carbon emissions of our member and customer flights. Carbon offsets are important, but we are also focused on how to reduce the overall impact of our operations on the environment. Even seemingly small things like using sustainable, responsibly sourced materials and reducing single-use plastics can make a difference in the aggregate. We will be sharing more details on these important initiatives as they develop. One quarter into the year, we are moving quickly to invest in our members and in our customers, expand our supply network, further develop our technology-enabled marketplace, and capture a much larger overall pan. Before I turn it over to Vinayak, I wanted to share that our CFO, Eric Jacobs, will be stepping down later this month to pursue a new endeavor. I'd like to thank Eric for his many contributions to Wheels Up, where he's been a key member of our executive leadership team and played an integral role in taking wheels up public. He has helped build a tremendous finance team that he leaves in the very capable hands of Eric Cabezas, who has served as our SPP finance for over three years and will serve as our interim CFO. We have retained Russell Reynolds to conduct an external search for a permanent replacement. Eric Jacobs has graciously agreed to stay on as an advisor, and we are very happy we will be able to tap his insights and perspective going forward. As always, I am thankful to our loyal members and customers for continuing to put their trust in us. I would also like to recognize and thank the entire hardworking team at Wheels Up for the tremendous effort they put forth every day. Now let me turn it over to Vinayat, who will provide an update on our technology and operating progress.