Global Crossing Airlines Group Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to today's conference call to discuss Global Crossing Airlines financial results for the third quarter of 2024. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. Joining us today are Chris Yamros, Executive Chairman of Global Crossing Airlines, and the company's President and CFO, Ryan Coppell. Please be advised that this conference will contain statements that are considered forward-looking statements under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to certain known and unknown risks and uncertainties, as well as assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected in these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are also subject to other risks and uncertainties that are described from time to time in the company's filing with the SEC. Do not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements which are being made only as of the date of this call. expect as required by law, the company undertakes to obligate or publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. The company's presentation also includes certain non-JAP financial measures, which including EBITDA as supplemental measures of performance of the business. All non-JAP measures have been reconciled to the most direct comparable GAP measures in accordance with SEC rules. You will find reconciliation tables on other important information in the earning press release and form 8K furnished to the SEC yesterday, which are currently available in the company's Edgar page on the SEC's website and will be available on the company's investor relations section of its website within approximately 24 hours after this call has ended. And now I'll turn the call over to company's executive chairman, Chris Amross. Chris, please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you, operator. Thank you for everyone joining us. Third quarter results highlight the resilience and adaptability of our operating model with another period of year-over-year growth and improved profitability on a per aircraft per hour basis, which is a key metric we track in our business. Our operational model proved its strength and adaptability in September, handling unforeseen maintenance challenges caused by severe weather, multiple bird strikes, and damage from a third-party vendor. It is absolutely unprecedented that an airline would have effectively lost more than a third of its fleet in a single month. But thanks to the efficiency and resilience of our processes, the competence of our management team, four of the five effective passenger aircraft were back in service by early October. I should mention that all those events impacted our cash cow, which is our passenger side of the business. The robust framework allowed us to minimize disruptions for our customers and maintain momentum despite these unprecedented and unexpected hurdles. Over the past year, we've remained focused on our vision of becoming the largest charter airline in the U.S. with a commitment to leading the industry in on-time performance and reliability. This objective is core to our strategy and central to earning the trust and loyalty from our customer and partners. And despite these challenges, we have not lost momentum on that front, and Ryan will tell you more about that. We've concentrated on strengthening our core operations, improving processes, and fostering strong, lasting relationships while expanding our fleet to meet the rising demand, which is absolutely key to our strategic growth strategy. By enhancing operational efficiency and building capacity, we are well positioned to capture growth opportunities and provide consistent dependable service on a go-forward basis. Before I turn over to Ryan, I want to reiterate our commitment to maximizing shareholder value through scalable growth and improved profitability. By sharpening our focus on corporations, we are building a robust business model geared toward a long-term success. And with that, I will now hand it over to Ryan, our president and CFO, to elaborate on GlobalX's third quarter operation and financial highlights. Ryan?

Thank you, Chris, and good morning, everyone. As Chris mentioned, we experienced several unforeseen events in September that took approximately 35% of our fleet offline for almost two weeks. The reduced fleet availability impacted our revenue, required a spike in non-revenue flying, and additional subservice to cover obligations driving the majority of the loss reported. Despite the challenges we faced in the quarter, we still delivered double-digit revenue growth with record block hours flown. Our strong top-line growth was driven by our ACMI business, which almost doubled to 37 million in revenue compared to the year-ago quarter. The growth in ACMI was preliminary driven by the increase in our fleet, continued strong customer demand, and further growth in a key government-agency relationship. We also shifted aircraft from our charter segment to ACMI as it tends to be long-term, predictable work driving higher margins. As a result of the shifts, charter revenue decreased 31% year-over-year to $15 million. During the quarter, we booked a record 8,064 block hours, including subservice, between ACMI and charter, which is a 17% increase compared to the year-ago period. On a sequential basis, we generated a 15% increase in block hours flown, reflecting our ability to win new business and effectively deploy our fleet. For ACMI and Q3, we booked 6,571 block hours, an increase of 42% compared to Q3 of 2023. For charter, we booked 1,254 block hours compared to 2,256 in the year-ago quarter. Due to the maintenance events discussed earlier, we saw a decrease in the average utilization for aircraft compared to the year-ago period. More specifically, passenger aircraft utilization was down 7% from 735 hours in Q3 to 594 hours per aircraft in Q3 2024, which is also a byproduct of our two aircraft operating in Europe at 400 hours each per month being a smaller percentage of the fleet in 2024 versus 2023. Cargo utilization was down 77% from 450 hours to 101 hours due to the loss of the U.S. Postal Service contract that was canceled as part of the move from FedEx to UPS. On a sequential basis, total aircraft utilization grew 7% to 491 block hours per available aircraft. As I mentioned earlier, we have purposely shifted our revenue mix to prioritize ACMI as it carries higher utilization per aircraft in a month with the minimum hour guarantees and hence a higher margin profile compared to one-off charters. As a reminder, while ACMI typically generates lower revenue per flight hour than our charter services, it also comes with reduced costs. as the customer covers expenses like fuel, demand and price risks, and handles landing, airport, and other operational fees. We are seeing accelerating momentum in the passenger market, resulting in higher utilization rates across our passenger fleet. This growth is driven and fueled by several key factors, an ongoing supply shortage, reduced direct competition, and a rising demand for air charter services amongst colleges, corporate groups, and other organizations seeking flexible travel solutions. Together, these dynamics are driving sustained, robust growth in the passenger segment, underscoring its critical role in our broader strategy. To generate sustainable growth, it's critical that we consistently examine our business to optimize our cost structure and unlock operating efficiencies. This is reflected by our growth and average revenue per block hour. For ACMI, we generated an average of $5,607 per block hour, which is an increase of 37% over the prior year quarter. Per charter, average revenue per block hour grew 24% to $11,951 compared to $9,672 in Q3 of 2023. These gains are primarily achieved through successful renegotiation of key contracts for higher rates, a strategy that reflects our commitment to maximizing revenue per block hour. By securing more favorable terms, we're able to capitalize on the increasing demand and beneficial market conditions While we continue to leverage this approach as a cornerstone of our growth strategy to derive sustained improvements in revenue and profitability across our fleet. In the third quarter, we took delivery of two additional aircraft, one 320 and one 321 passenger aircraft, bringing our total fleet to a total of 18. We expect to take delivery of our 19th aircraft in December, and as of today, we have signed letters of intent for four additional aircraft, which we expect to bring online in the second half of next year. Commenting on the leasing market, it is impacted, in my view, by higher than normal engine values due to the strong demand for engines. My personal view is the demand for older aircraft that we will target will start to soften in 2025, and we are looking at opportunities to not only lease but purchase aircraft or airframes to strengthen our balance sheet going forward. In September, we announced a new partnership with Airblocks, a digital platform for air freight capacity and financing. Through this partnership, we operated round-trip cargo flights between Chicago and San Juan three times a week. This service, which is exclusively available through the Airbus platform, utilizes state-of-the-art Airbus A321 freighter, offering 25 tons of capacity in each direction on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. During the quarter, we did not have a couple of additional flights, and we're looking to add to that schedule throughout the fourth quarter. The A321 freighters deliver 14% more containerized capacity than the 757-200, along with a 19% reduction in fuel consumption. This combination allows us to offer industry-leading pricing and operational efficiency. We are thrilled to partner with Airbox and look forward to building a mutually beneficial partnership. To achieve our long-term vision at GlobalX, it's essential to bring executives aligning with our goals, and high-performance culture. With that in mind, October, we welcome Lori Villa as our Chief People Officer to lead our human capital management functions. Lori's role will focus on recruiting, developing and retaining top talent, supporting crew and team member relations, driving performance management, and fostering a culture rooted in our core values to support our rapid growth. With over 30 years of global leadership experience, including roles as the Chief People Officer at JetBlue and a Chief Human Resource Officer at Spirit Airlines, Lori brings a wealth of experience to GlobalX. We're excited to have her join us and look forward to her invaluable contributions. During the quarter, we made considerable progress in strengthening our partnerships with both new and existing customers, fostering deep relationships and aligning our services more closely with our needs. To start, our Top Flight Charters team has secured contracts with more than 10 college basketball teams for the 23-24 season beginning this month. This is a notable increase compared to last season and reflects our strength and reputation in the collegiate sports sector and our team's ability to meet the unique demands of high-profile athletic programs. In our cargo business, we have already secured full bookings for three of our four cargo aircraft in the fourth quarter, positioning us well to capitalize on the traditionally high demand driven by the holiday season. This advanced booking reflects both the reliability of our cargo operations and the trust our clients place in us to support the critical seasonal needs. For our international business, we operated in the quarter 1,600 block hours in Europe using two aircraft in Q3. We are planning to expand our European operations with a third aircraft in 2025, enabling us to meet the rising demand and better serve our clients across the region. This expansion underscores our commitment to strategic growth and simplifies our presence in key international markets. For the U.S. government, we operated over 4,500 block hours in the third quarter, which includes almost 250 hours for the Department of Defense a relatively new customer to ours. Now turning to the financial results. Please note that all financial results discussed today or over our three-month period ended in September 30, 2024, while various commentaries on a year-over-year basis unless stated otherwise. Revenue in the third quarter increased 23 percent to $52.4 million compared to $42.6 million in a year-ago period, driven primarily by higher block hours flown and aircraft fleet expansion. as well as the increased revenue per block hour for both passenger ACMI and charter. Charter revenue in Q3 was $15 million compared to $21.8 million. ACMI revenue increased 93% to $36.8 million compared to $19.1 million. Total operating expense was $54.9 million compared to $44.9 million, driven primarily by our higher aircraft rent and personnel costs associated with the expansion of our fleet, as well as higher travel costs related to the expansion of the government contract. Net loss is flat at 4.9 million compared to the year-ago quarter. Net loss per share remained unchanged as well as a negative 8% per share . EBITDA increased approximately two times to 15.4 million compared to 7.6 million, driven primarily by the increase in revenue, improved operating margins, and higher average rates for block-hour phone for both passenger and charter, turning to a liquidity. We ended the third quarter with cash and restricted cash at $7.8 million compared to $10.4 million at June 30, 2024, and $17.7 million at December 31, 2023. We're targeting to get that number over $10 million by year-end. With that, we remain comfortable with our liquidity position, which gives us a runway we need to execute on our growth profitability objectives and turn it to cash flow positives. Looking ahead to Q4 and full year 2024, we are forecasting a revenue range of $55 to $61 million and annual revenues driving annual revenues of $218 to $224 million. Annually, this would represent a 34 to 40% increase compared to full year 2023. On an EBITDA basis in Q4, Q4, we're forecasting a range of $16 to $19 million and for the year, $60 to $63 million. This annual growth represents 195% to 215% increase over full year 2023. These results will be impacted by the level of flying, which is difficult to predict, and could be improved if we're able to bring online our 19th aircraft or pair of damaged aircraft sooner than estimated. That being said, all of our passenger aircraft through August of next year are effectively spoken for. It is a matter of us determining what is the best market for us to expand into and what can be done to increase the utilization per month for aircraft. Our focus is all on about how we get that last 20 to 30 hours per aircraft per month sold in places where we have gaps in our schedule as those last 20 to 30 hours are highly accreted. Over the last year, we've built a solid foundation to drive sustained growth and profitability with our expanding fleet, growing customer base, and continued strong demand for ACMI operations. We are well-positioned to close out 2024 on a strong note and deliver another record year in 2025. This concludes our prepared remarks. I now open the call for Q&A. Operator, back to you.

Yes, sir. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. And for those who want to ask a question over the phone lines, just press star and one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. Once again, star and one if you wish to ask a question. At this time, I will hand the call back to Sean Mansouri. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you. And thank you to Chris and Ryan. And thank you, everyone, for participating in the conference call. As we gather the Q4 Live questions, we'd first like to address a few of the questions that have come in via email over the past couple of weeks and even within the past hour. So to kick things off, can you provide more color on what led to the sequential increase in block hours flown? Is this rate of growth sustainable?

Yeah, I'll take that one. As we mentioned on the call, block hours, including subservice in Q3, increased 15% to Q2 compared to Q2. This is primarily driven by new contract winds and our ability to effectively deploy our fleet. Q3 also benefited from overseas seasonal demand, leading to robust block hour growth. During this season, we operated flights to Europe to accommodate their peak summer travel, resulting in higher block hours, although at a more competitive rate, as we've discussed before. As you may have noticed, our Q4 guidance of block hours ranges between 6,600 and 7,400, which is lower than the 8,000 we reported in Q3. As I just mentioned, this is due to the strong seasonal demand from Europe, whereas we put two aircraft in there that operate well above our average utilization per hour, 400 per hour, which don't operate on that level of utilization Q4.

However, while the block hours are expected to increase slightly, our rate per block hour will improve sequentially.

Thank you. And can you expand on the growing demand in the passenger market? Do you expect this to continue into 2025?

Yeah, I'll take that as well. We continue to see accelerating demand in the pasture market, which is driving our increased aircraft utilization and improved profitability for aircraft on an hourly basis. The market demand is fueled by limited aircraft supply, reduced custom direct competition, and an increase in air charter use amongst colleges, corporate groups, governments, and other organizations looking for flexible travel solutions. We do expect this trend to continue in Q4 and into 2025. To meet the needs of the market, we're prioritizing pasture aircraft deliveries over cargo, In fact, we deferred a cargo delivery in Q4 to late 2025 for that very reason. Focusing our sales and operational efforts on building long-term relations with major clients, long-term minimum guaranteed contracts drive higher margins, and that's been a key focus of ours, and expanding it to new markets as opportunity arise. As we mentioned before, pass-through charter services will be the primary driver of full elections growth, especially in 2025.

Perfect.

And can you expand on how you plan to achieve your goal of becoming the nation's largest charter airline?

Yeah, let me take that one. So our vision to become the largest charter airline in the U.S. is grounded really on the strong foundation of operational reliability and deep customer relationships. We continue to expand both, you know, very strategic market positioning when we focus on the most attractive niches of our customer cohorts. We believe that our competitive strengths really lie in our commitment to on-time performance, operational efficiency, and the flexibility of our fleet, enabling us to respond swiftly to changing demand. And obviously, September was a good test case for that. By prioritizing high-margin ACMI contracts, like Ryan said, we are able to secure steady, broad, predictable revenue streams while also maintaining a balanced portfolio that includes seasonal and high-demand charter services, which are very attractive and absolutely core to our business model. On the other hand, we're further enhancing our competitive position by expanding our fleet to increase capacity for high-value clients. That obviously includes a government client and large institutional partnerships, and recent partnerships in both cargo, which we're obviously delighted to welcome, and passenger segments extend our market reach and align us more closely with our customer needs, which is just phenomenal. And lastly, again, like Brian mentioned, you know, we continue to invest in strengthening not just our infrastructure and fleet, but our management executive bench. And Lori's arrival is huge for us, and that's meant to, you know, foster a high-performance culture that supports our profitable growth. And, you know, her pedigree as an executive is huge. is exactly what we wanted, and we've worked hard with Ryan to securing a high-caliber executive to join our ranks. In parallel, our focus on maximizing profitability per aircraft and negotiating favorable contract strengthens our agility and resilience in the competitive market. Obviously, we always say that you need to earn your right to grow and deserve your right to grow, and by being a very reliable, high-touch firm, high customer service provider, we effectively help ourselves in that demand. And together, you know, all these initiatives create a scalable model that drives growth and delivers long-term value for our shareholders.

Thanks, Chris. And can one of you provide an update on the cargo charter market?

Yeah, I'll take that one. The cargo charter market continues to see softness because of several macro factors. including the rebate of the U.S. Postal Service contract to move the key route from air to truck, broader economic conditions, and excess capacity in the North American freight market for narrowbody aircraft. As we mentioned before, to minimize the impact on the business, we've elected to take two A321s as passenger rather than freight, deferred two other cargo deliveries to late 2025. And while it's hard to predict exactly when the cargo market will fully rebound, we've taken prudent steps to reduce our financial exposure, sign contracts such as we do on with air blocks to look at different ways to utilize our aircraft. However, as we stated on the call, we've secured bookings for three out of the four cargo aircraft in Q4, which is a considerable improvement over Q2 to take advantage of the seasonally high demand from the holiday season. In Q3, the cargo was a drain on our earnings. The goal is to get that to break even or profitable on an operating income basis.

We're hopeful we can do that, which will be a boost to our results.

Thank you. And operator, that wraps up our Q&A received via email. If you want to take it over for live Q&A, please.

Yes, sir. Thank you. And we have our first question over the phone lines. And this comes from the line of Brian Fode from Broadway Capital. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, gentlemen. Just a couple of questions for clarification, if I may. The shape of the delivery schedule for 2025, what does that look like on a quarterly basis? And how does it split? You mentioned a couple of deferrals on the cargo side. So how would that look for the year?

Yeah, so on the deliveries, we know the four leased aircraft, the four LOIs we have that are committed is really late, you know, mid Q3 to Q4 is when they're slated to come on board. The cargo deliveries is still kind of a nothing firm in the sense effectively when they are. I think there's ability if the market rebounds strongly to accelerate them in. But I think we've got a really good relationship with our lessors as to what makes the most sense for the business to bring those on board. All that being said, I think one of our key focuses is, as you know, I'm tracking over 200 aircraft right now. I think I'm in over, I'm in 12 separate conversations regarding over 20 aircraft for deliveries in the first half of next year and 2026, because we're really thinking about 26 as well. Nothing's signed, nothing's confirmed, but I think from our perspective, We also are maintaining our discipline. We don't want to overpay for any aircraft in what I consider kind of a hot market. But we're looking at, like I said, airframes and leasing engines. We're looking at acquiring aircraft. We're looking at leasing aircraft. And so nothing has been, you know, I don't want to promise something being delivered. So from a business model perspective, We're trying to bring in one or two aircraft in the first half of the year, but nothing's confirmed yet. That would, in my mind, be upside to our outlook for next year. But we do know we have the four for the second half of next year committed.

Gotcha. Just one more if I may. Europe is a nice business. How big could it get if we look out two, three, four years?

I think for this summer, we had two aircraft. We could have done five. For next summer, we could do six or seven. Currently, we're targeting three. And really, that comes down to our ability to get more aircraft in the first half of next year delivered and on the certificate to go deploy. And that's, you know, when you think about the market in Europe on the ACMI basis, that's a, I think, a 200 to 300 aircraft business right now. So us putting, going from three to six is not a huge market share. But I think with our performance, you know, we've operated for TUI. I think we had the best on time performance of all their third party contractors, which is why they're looking to expand the relationship. And we really haven't put much effort into expanding the relationship because we just don't have the aircraft to deploy. But as we get confirmation and we get deliveries of aircraft, that's a massive market where we can go deploy. And not just the two-month contracts we're seeing, but there's opportunities for four, six, seven-month contracts over there as well that absolutely we are looking to do. But the practical matter is with our commitments domestically, there's not a lot of aircraft to send over there. So definitely we're trying to get more aircraft so we can feed that market. Um, you know, there's nothing, what we don't want to do is send 10 aircraft over there in the summer and have nothing for them to do in the winter when they're here. That's not a good model either. So, um, I think it's our domestic, our domestic volume, especially our sports business sort of drives what we have available to send over to Europe.

And then we have it to send.

Okay, great. Good stuff. I'll, uh, I'll jump back in the queue if I have more, but thanks. And, uh, Great stuff, all things considered.

Thanks. Thank you.

Once again, for those who want to ask a question, just press star and one on your telephone keypad.

Star and one should you wish to ask a question. Again, if you wish to ask a question, just press star and one on your telephone.

I think we're good.

Okay, sir. Yes. So this concludes our conference call for today. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect.