Cargojet Inc.

And welcome to the CargoJet First Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to David Tumchenovic. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today on this call. With me on this call today are A.J. Vermani, Executive Chairman, Pauline Dillon, Chief Executive Officer, Aaron McKay, Chief Financial Officer, Sanjeev Maini, Vice President of Finance, and Randy Trombley, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. After opening remarks about the quarter, we will open the call for questions. I would like to point out that certain statements made on this call, such as those relating to our forecasted revenues, costs, and strategic plans, are forward-looking within the meaning of applicable securities laws. This call also includes references to non-GAAP measures, like adjusted EBITDA, adjusted earnings per share, and return on invested capital. Please refer to our most recent press release and MD&A for important assumptions and cautionary statements relating to forward-looking information and for reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to GAAP income. I will now turn the call over to Pauline.

Thank you, David. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Before we begin, I want to take a moment and recognize our CargoJet team. In a highly volatile and uncertain environment, their resilience, their discipline, and their execution continue to set us apart. Their commitment to delivering reliable, world-class service is the foundation of our organization. We concluded the first quarter with an on-time performance of 99.2%, a key metric for our customers. The first quarter were shaped by significant global disruption. The conflict in Iran reduced global air cargo capacity and impacted key hubs across the Middle East. At the same time, disruptions to oil supply routes drove a sharp increase in fuel prices, with volatility remaining elevated and visibility limited. Fuel prices have increased materially during the quarter. Importantly, we have a well-established fuel surcharge mechanism in place. While there is a small time lag, this structure allows us to recover these increases and remain generally cost neutral. This is a critical advantage in managing through periods of volatility. In this turbulent environment, we remain vigilant, and focused. Our ability to dynamically align our fleet, our operations, and our cost structure with market conditions has allowed us to protect margins while maintaining industry-leading on-time performance. That disciplined approach continues to differentiate cargo jets and positions us to perform consistently through uncertainty. Turning to our business segments, our core domestic overnight network delivered a strong and stable performance with revenues in line with the first quarter of last year, despite an unusually strong comparison driven by tariff-related demand pull forward in early 2025. Matching that elevated level reinforces the strength and the resilience of our domestic franchise. Our hybrid ACMI business performs in line with expectations and reflects a more normalized run rate. We continue to manage this segment on a quarter-by-quarter basis, ensuring we remain agile and responsive to evolving market conditions rather than committing to fixed long-term assumptions. Our charter business continues to be an important strategic growth leader. We are deliberately focused on selective, high-value opportunities in underserved and niche markets, where our flexibility and operating model provide a clear competitive advantage. A strong example of this is our recent charters to Venezuela for a South American-focused partner. The first by a Canadian carrier in approximately seven years. This demonstrates our ability to access markets and to create value through execution and network reach. The grounding of the MD-11 aircraft has also created incremental demand for lift, and we have been selectively capturing that opportunity. We are approaching this by ensuring we remain disciplined and do not overcommit capacity against what is, by nature, a very fluid situation. That said, based on current visibility, regulatory authorities have not identified a clear timeline for the MD-11 fleet to return to service, which continues to support near-term demand for our network as well as charter opportunities. We will continue to leverage this dislocation where it makes strategic and economic sense, while maintaining full flexibility in how we deploy our assets. We anticipate our MD-11 flying to continue to at least the third quarter of this year. Our Liege operation continues to perform above expectations, strengthening our European connectivity enhancing the value of our domestic network through integrated global flows. Overall, we are very pleased with our performance in the first quarter. In the challenging and uncertain operating environment, our team executed exceptionally well, maintaining our existing business while continuing to identify and capitalize on new opportunities, which has always been our strength. Looking ahead, While the global trade and geopolitical environment remain unstable, our strategy remains clear. We will continue to operate with discipline, remain focused in how we deploy our assets, and selectively pursue opportunities where we have a structural advantage. Cargojet is built for this kind of environment, and we intend to continue executing from a position of strength. With that, I'll turn the call over to Aaron to review our financial performance.

Thank you, Pauline, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today. Like Pauline, I'm very pleased with our performance in the first quarter of 2026. Despite challenging operating conditions, the diversity of our revenue streams, our deep customer relationships, and our team's ability to identify and take advantage of opportunities in the markets has allowed us to deliver year-over-year revenue growth. At the same time, our relentless focus on cost and operational discipline continues to produce robust, adjusted EBITDA margins. The Cargojet team's consistency in delivering through all types of market and operational conditions is what drives the success of our business, and I echo Pauline in my thanks to all Cargojet employees. During the first quarter of 2026, we generated $254.7 million of revenue, up $4.8 million, or 2%, from the $249.9 million generated in the first quarter of 2025, despite very challenging operating conditions and a tough comparable period in Q1 last year. Our revenue growth, along with our continued focus on cost control and optimization of fleet utilization, led to another strong quarter of adjusted EBITDA, coming in at $81.9 million, up from $80.8 million for the same period in 2025, at a roughly equivalent margin. We also delivered free cash flow of $87.4 million in Q1, or $25.3 million excluding the previously disclosed receipt of proceeds from aircraft sales during Q4 of 2025, a significant improvement from the $45.9 million outflows in Q1 of 2025. I'm very pleased with the resilience of our domestic network revenues, which continue to benefit from growing e-commerce demand across Canada. In the first quarter of 2026, our domestic network generated $104.8 million of revenue in line with the first quarter of 2025, despite the growth and changing market conditions in 2025 that Pauline has already spoken about. During the first quarter of 2026, Our hybrid ACMI business generated revenues of $54.2 million, down slightly from the $59.4 million during the same quarter of 2025, but in line with the run rate we generated in the back half of 2025, excluding Q4 peak flying. I'd like to remind everyone that during the first quarter of 2025, our hybrid ACMI network had not fully transitioned from longer stage length east-west flying to the current north-south intra-Americas flying, which is the primary driver of the change in year-over-year revenues. In Q1, we saw the full benefit of the new charter opportunities we discussed on our fourth quarter call. Total charter revenue of $58.1 million was up 26% or $12.1 million from the $46 million generated in the first quarter of 2025. As the basket of new charter opportunities, including the support flying for a long-term partner, our new long-term charter partners serving Central and South America, and our new service to Liège more than outweighed the revenue generated by our trans-Pacific flying in the same period of 2025. The connectivity of our domestic and hybrid ACMI businesses to geographies where we are serving those new charter partners also allows us to manage our fleet efficiently, supporting the robust adjusted EBITDA margin generated this quarter. The final item I'd like to discuss is our continuing focus on our efficient and disciplined approach to capital. During our year-end conference call, I had shared that subsequent to the year-end, we would receive the proceeds from the disposition and sale of two non-standard Pratt & Whitney powered aircraft from our fleet. I'm happy to report that transaction is now complete. Those proceeds combined with our core free cash flow allowed us to reduce our net debt to $915.2 million at the end of the first quarter, a reduction of $72.7 million from the end of 2025, bringing our net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio to 2.8 times, well on the path to our long-term target of less than 2.5 times. As we previously noted, our capital allocation priorities continue to be sustained dividend growth, the pursuit of accretive growth opportunities with disciplined capital deployment, opportunistic use of our NCIB, and maintaining our net leverage below 2.5 times over the long term. In Q4 2025 and Q1 2026, we've demonstrated our commitment to those goals by announcing an annual dividend increase along with our Q4 results, using existing capacity to pursue new accretive charter opportunities efficiently linked to our domestic and hybrid ACMI networks, renewing our normal course issuer bid and executing the repurchase cancellation of more than 188,000 shares while reducing our net debt towards our long-term target. We expect to continue to focus on those priorities through the remainder of 2026. With that, I'll hand the call back to Paul.

Thank you, Aaron. Over the past several quarters, we have seen persistently elevated levels of volatility and uncertainty driven by fluid global conditions. As we move through the second quarter, we remain measured in our outlook. That said, as demonstrated in the first quarter, challenging environments also create opportunities. At its core, Cargojet is built for these opportunities. We will continue to actively manage the business with discipline, while remaining focused on identifying and capturing opportunities in a dynamic and ever-changing market. Before we open the call for questions, I would like to take a moment and thank our team. The results we are delivering today, operationally and financially, are a direct reflection of their commitment, their resilience, and their professionalism. I am extremely proud of how our team continues to show up adapt, and execute at a very high level. With that, we'll open the lines for questions.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, press star 2. One moment, please, for your first question. Your first question comes from Chris Murray from ATB. Please go ahead.

Thanks, folks. Just starting a little bit with the announcement from Amazon yesterday about extending their logistics network to other customers. I know in Canada, you have a pretty sizable and dominant position, and Amazon is a pretty big partner, but I guess two parts to this. One, does that impact you at all with that announcement? And then second, on a more broader basis, can you talk a little bit about What you're seeing in terms of growth in that domestic market from perhaps other folks who don't have it as involved in e-commerce platform. I know there's been some discussions in the past with perhaps other retailers or other vendors about bringing them into the network perhaps more directly. Any idea about how we should be thinking about growth in domestic over the next year would be great.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are experiencing some technical difficulties. Please remain on the line. Thank you. Chris Murray, if you wouldn't mind repeating the question, please. The speaker is now back with us. Thank you.

Okay, great. Thank you. The question I had was about Amazon's announcement yesterday, extending their logistics network to other customers. In Canada, you have a pretty sizable and dominant position, and Amazon's a pretty big partner. But two parts to this question. First, does that impact you with this announcement? And then second, on a broader basis, can you talk a little bit about what you're seeing about about growth of the domestic market from perhaps other companies who may be looking to build a more developed e-commerce platform looking for distribution. I know there's been some discussions in the past with other retailers or other vendors about bringing them into the network perhaps more directly, so any color on what that looks like over the next year and how you think the domestic business evolves or even longer term would be helpful.

Hi Chris, it's AJ. I'll take that question. First of all, Amazon announced this entry into the logistics arena. I think that their goal primarily from what we can see and what we've been told is to put some grade on their network so it lowers their network cost. Whether they become a real operator and real integrator, that remains to be seen because as you can see, UPS and FedEx have billions of dollars of investment and infrastructure, tracing, tracking, service, pickup, delivery. I don't know if Amazon has reached that level, but obviously with their size and resource, they can if they want to. But from what we've seen in the marketplace, they're not ready yet. The second part of it is whether if they do become let's say in Canada, a parallel to UPS and FedEx, keep in mind they are on our network. So, if they were going to take any business from anywhere, it comes back to our network. So, we don't impact, and we have a long-term contract with Amazon that with certain provisions, which I'm not able to disclose, that that activity can be limited in Canada, and secondly, anything that moves off cargo jet network from container A, it might go to container B. So we don't see that as a net negative to us in any which way. And third thing, domestic outlooks look strong. We're growing on the domestic side in spite of all the geopolitical and other disturbances we have in the marketplace. As you notice, we recently announced that we're going to invest and spend more money and time onto the domestic networks, strengthening it more instead of cross-border. And I think that we find the domestic business here to be the one that is consistent growth and also easier for us to manage it in our backyard. So I hope that clarifies any Amazon issues that you might have.

No, that's helpful. Thank you. The other question, this one's for Aaron, but just kind of broadly, I know you had the sale of the two aircraft last year, but you also talked a little bit about wanting to look at your mix of leased aircraft versus owned aircraft to the idea of maybe call it right-sizing the balance sheet, maybe doing some more sale and leaseback transactions. And, you know, you mentioned your goal of trying to get down below two and a half times leverage. which I think maybe perhaps opens up other opportunities. Can you talk a little bit about your thoughts around additional transactions, what's available to you in the marketplace right now, and how we should be thinking about cash flow over the balance of the year, either with those transactions and any updates on CapEx would be helpful.

Ladies and gentlemen, please remain on the line. Once again, we have left the speaker. We'll take a few moments. Thank you. Okay, and we have the speaker back. Chris, if you don't mind repeating your last question, please. Thank you.

Yeah, sure. So, again, probably more for Aaron, but just looking at the transactions he did last year on the sale of the aircraft, you had talked previously about maybe looking at the mix of owned versus leased aircraft on the balance sheet with the opportunity to maybe free up or manage some capital. I'm just wondering, you know, any thoughts around, you know, additional transactions this year and how that would impact free cash flow and any thoughts around CapEx for the year that goes into that calculation would be helpful as well.

Yeah, thanks, Chris. So I think what we've been saying and will continue to say is, From the perspective of looking at sale leasebacks, we are looking at the transactions opportunistically. I wouldn't say we have a set program of going out and pursuing sale leasebacks. Where we can get attractive deals that will lower our overall cost of capital and are accretive to the business, we will certainly take a hard look at them. I think... There's certainly potential for you to see at least maybe one more of those deals this year. I think from a free cash flow point of view, you'd certainly see us show that as a net cash inflow in free cash flow. From a net debt perspective, I mean, the lease liability goes on the balance sheet, so it really depends on the transaction terms on what your inflow is versus that lease liability. But generally, it's not going to have a major impact on that debt directly.

Okay. That's helpful. Thank you.

I'll leave it there. Your next question comes from Kevin Chen from CIDC. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks for taking my question. Maybe just wondering what impact, if any, did the fuel lag have in Q1 on your earnings? I believe your domestic revenue segment typically sees about a two-month lag in terms of recovery?

Yeah, we think of it, Kevin, more as a one-month lag. I think it's a little tighter than that. Fuel prices really started to come up right towards the end of Q1. So the impact wasn't as great in Q1 as you might end up seeing in Q2. For us, fuel is obviously largely the pass-through after that bit of lag. So You probably didn't see an overall material impact in Q1. We obviously put a fuel surcharge in place fairly quickly, so I think we'll expect more of that in Q2.

Okay, that's helpful. And this is going to be my second question. I noticed your receivables ticked up here in Q1 and If I look at your receivables turnover, maybe a little bit lower than we've typically seen. Anything we should be thinking about on the receivables front for the remainder of the year, maybe as a working capital tailwind as you unwind this receivables number?

Yeah, I think you'll see it stay up a little bit through the years. Some of the new business we're doing has a little bit of a longer receivable timeline, but Some of that also, we had recoveries of insurance proceeds, but I think if you look at the subsequent events, you'll see we received some of that after Q1.

It's just a timing difference. Yep. Yep. That's helpful. That's it for me. Thank you.

Your next question comes from Conarch Gotham from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Morning, everyone. Maybe first on the hybrid, sorry, hybrid ACMI. So I think the point you guys tried to make initially in the remarks is, you know, last year you probably hadn't seen the full transition from longer stage land to the shorter stage land. So would you say Q1 of this year is actually reflective of all the changes that have taken place in that business? I mean, this is the sort of bottoming or troughing in that market because it seems like the revenue is at the low point compared to what you had in 2022 maybe. So, yeah, any thoughts on ACMI? Where does it trend from here? Is it the bottom, or you might still see some downward shifts in the next few quarters?

So, Kunark, I'll take that. It's AJ. ACMI is pretty solid. The number of planes committed are the number of planes, so we don't see anything going down. Hours shift sometimes because ACMI For example, they might not want to fly to Bogota because there's more demand to Venezuela. So there might be a couple of hours difference here and there. So that's the flexibility we offer our customers. We don't see that we're going to lose any aircraft unless the total trade is dead and the geopolitical tariffs and war situations are so bad that everything is shut down. So we don't anticipate that. But again, everybody's Your guess is as good as mine on that issue. As far as the hybrid ACMI is concerned, what Colleen did was implemented a model where we were not able to use a lot of ACMI planes for our own charters. So right now, our agreement now allows us the flexibility with DHL to use any ACMI planes that we have as long as they are available And we can do it within the rest period of the plane. Maintenance is not affected. So many factors go into it. The bottom line is that, you know, 12 or 13 aircraft that we fly for DHL today, they are available at least three days a week to us to look for charter opportunities. So that change and model will increase our crew utilization. It will increase our aircraft utilization, and we have started to market some of that product. We have seen some small successes, but again, this is just a work in progress that we started. We'll see some more results as the year goes by.

Okay. That's very good, Kalar. Thanks. On MD-11s, I want to understand the opportunity set here. It seems like the grounding is still on. I think one carrier, Dole, recently announced that they might look to unground some planes because it's costing them a lot of money and all that. What are you hearing from your customers on MD-11 side of things? Yeah, I'll take that one.

Regulatory authorities have not permitted the MD-11 flying again. We will take our guidance from FAA and Boeing again. While we are hearing some noise that an integrator is going to bring them back online and use them in their network, we have not been officially given that green light, nor has the industry. In my opening remarks, I did state the customer that we are operating our assets for. We will continue to do so until the end of Q3. That's the commitment that we have. that customer has officially come out and said that they will not bring the MT-11s back into their fleet.

Okay, thank you. And last one for me on the Iran war and the Middle East conflicts, I guess, as a whole. I mean, it sounds like the global air cargo capacity that's impacted by Iran's situation is about 5% or something. That's meaningful, right? what are you seeing from your customer base in terms of opportunities maybe? I mean, again, obviously the risks are evident from fuel and whatnot, but what could be the potential opportunity here for you guys? And would that be more on the HMI side or charters?

Well, the opportunities that we are seeing, Konark, are getting inquiries and that we are mulling over are, opportunities from Europe to Asia, Europe to India. Europe to Africa. Europe to Africa, and there's some active quotations and active discussions going on. But again, our model is that we don't want to get into a commercial risk. On handling these shipments, we like to work on ECMI or a charter model, which our base risk is protected, and if there's some upside, We can handle that or small downside, but we like to cover most of our risks. So you can call it ACMI. You can call it charter. At the end of the day, we have to be risk-free on fuel. We have to be risk-free on filling the plane.

And just to AJ's point, we want to make sure that we're safe. You know, it's opportunities like these that we continue to monitor as they come available. We continue to have dialogues. The world has gotten smaller since the war. And CargoJet is very well positioned with our weekly flights into Liege to carry those flights forward, as AJ said, to India, to Africa, or to anywhere that we see an ACMI opportunity or a charter opportunity.

Okay, that's it for me. Thank you.

Your next question comes from Cameron Darkson from National Bank. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks. Good morning. Just wanted to quickly follow up on the fuel lag question. You mentioned kind of minimal impact in Q1. Just wondering what we might expect in Q2, I guess, from a bottom line perspective. Let's assume that the fuel price kind of stays steady through Q2. Obviously, you'd have higher fuel surcharge revenue coming in, and I presume with a one-month lag would be pretty much that would fully offset the cost impact. We just want to make sure we're so surprised, I guess, on the bottom line in Q2 from any transient fuel issues.

No, I think you're thinking about it correctly, Cameron. I think you'll have that one month lag, but otherwise it's generally a pass-through for us.

Okay, okay, that's good. I guess my main question, I just want to, I guess, better understand how the new charter work that you're doing to the South and Central America is evolving. I guess, has the volume of work changed at all since you first talked about it, I guess, earlier in Q1, and Is there any seasonality to that business that we should expect over the coming quarters?

Yeah, we've added Venezuela to that. This is both about my opening remarks. Venezuela is a new additional route. We are operating two flights a week into Venezuela for that customer. Everything is moving as it should be. We're very pleased with that routing. We're having a lot of other customers. also reach out. It's a new market. It's a market that Canada, our Canadian operators, haven't flown into since 2019. So it's lending to be a strategic opportunity for cargo jet.

Okay. And just, I guess, broadly on that customer and then those markets, I mean, is there any seasonality, I guess, we should expect through the year, or is it pretty steady quarter to quarter?

It's pretty steady quarter to quarter.

Okay. Perfect. I'll pass the line. Thanks very much.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from Daryl Young from Stifel. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, everyone. Just wanted to touch on the domestic network. It sounds like the outlook is still quite strong, but with some of the consumer sensitivities that are starting to be talked about, how are you thinking about your exposures? I think in the past you've talked about structural e-commerce trends maybe being more important than short-term consumer sensitivity? Has that thinking changed at all, or how should we think about that?

No, I think April's trending to be a strong month. I think that you're going to continue to see e-commerce growth in this country. Canada lagged the rest of the world when it came to e-commerce. And while you do see increasing fuel prices and maybe consumers moving away from restaurants or travels, The shift has come to buying patterns where consumers are now buying online. Shopping has changed. We don't anticipate, nor have we seen, any slowdown in the domestic overnight consumer demand.

And just to add to it, you know, when shifts like these happen, we have seen that before. people are not going to stop buying. Instead of a $100 pair of shoes, you might buy a $50 pair of shoes. You know, instead of stocking 10 of toothbrushes, you might just keep two. So, you know, the shipments continue on. Maybe the value of the shipments is less. Maybe slightly the weight might vary. There will be more frequent smaller shipments and bigger shipments. So all these trends we have experienced from COVID on or even before that when the economies go down or when there's some doubt, but don't see the change for us. It might be a value of the shipment that's not going to impact us. So that's the trend we've always seen in these situations.

That's helpful. Thank you.

Your next question comes from Walter Sprachman from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Morning, Walter. Good morning. I just want to have a question on capacity and where you sit, perhaps. You know, if we do get a little bit of an uptick in volume, there's talk of the freight recession coming to an end among your trucking peers, even some of your railroad peers. So if we do see some of that lift as the year plays out, Where do you have capacity, maybe touch on domestic, you know, mainly in your domestic, and how does that look outside of your domestic in the charter and ACMI as well?

Yeah, thanks, Walter. You know, one thing that we've gotten better with is the utilization of our aircraft. We now consider ourselves as having a one aircraft market, which allows us to deploy our assets from whether they're in Miami or whether they're in Liège to better capture markets. We are interchanging aircraft here on the domestic network. We are looking at incremental revenue opportunities through our existing fleet. We feel we have enough capacity. We're confident that we do. And we have the ability to flex that utilization as needed on demand lanes. So we're confident we have the right fleet with the right ability to handle any growth that we see in the next

year. Fantastic. Just getting a run rate, because you're all in charter, obviously you're having some great success there. It's up 26%, but another seasonality, inter-quarter seasonality in that number as well. Is that something we see tick down, quarter sequential as it has in the past, or is this a new kind of run rate that we build on from here through the course of the year, just I just want to model correctly the kind of all-in charter revenue given some of the opportunities that you've executed on in that segment.

No, Walter, we don't see any changes there.

I think, too, Walter, so in the earlier point, you know, some of the new charter partners maybe have a little less seasonality to them. This basket of new opportunities is, I would say, more of a steady through the year versus seasonal.

Got it. Okay. Perfect. That's all my questions. Thanks very much.

Your next question comes from Steve Hansen from Remen James. Please go ahead.

Yeah, guys. Thanks for the time. I'm going to just go on the previous comment and just look a little bit further out. I mean, it sounds like to me you almost have more then you can perhaps satisfy – capacity is, of course, limited to some degree. So, I mean, as we think about the balance of this year for charters statistically, can we expect that to grow through the year and put up numbers that are, you know, again, maybe not as high as the first quarter growth rate, but you've got to – the comps are actually easier through the year. So, trying to channel the growth profile, we've got to look for charters through the year. Thanks.

Yeah, it's a great question. We continue to look at new markets. We're looking to expand. We were going to go into Tel Aviv. In April of this year, unfortunately, with the situation globally, we had to pull that back. We feel that we have the right fleet. It's the utilization of the aircraft. To AJ's point earlier, we were dedicating assets to DHL. We are now using those assets when it's not operating the DHL network to deploy and capture any charter opportunities that are available to us. So do we see charter opportunities? Absolutely. Are we aligned to service those with our current fleet? Absolutely. We just have to utilize the aircraft better and strategize our routes and our lanes and look for opportunities.

Okay, great. And just one last one. I know you've already discussed the ACMI sort of entering sort of a new a new sort of level here. But is there any indications at all yet, just given the global situation, that you have opportunities to start re-increasing stage length yet, or is it still too early for that?

I think it's still too early for that. You know, with that particular customer, we're still flying the same number of aircraft. It's just that we're not flying trans-Pacific and trans-Atlantic as we've previously done so, primarily because of the tariffs and the uncertainty in the geopolitical climate.

Okay, very good. Thank you.

Your next question comes from Tim James from TD Caled. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Good morning, everyone. My first question, I just want to tie back into the last discussion there related to DHL and the ACMI flying. You've outlined some adjustments, I guess, to the approach with DHL where it frees up or gives you aircraft availability to deploy in other places. Can you kind of reconcile that to the sort of August announcement of last year about where you renewed the DHL agreement? It was sort of implied an upside or an upsize in terms of revenue. I mean, are these changes that you're talking about sort of revisions or adjustments to that agreement as it was announced last year? Or was this all embedded in that original sort of renewal that was disclosed last year?

Yeah, I tell you what, CJ, that agreement was on its own. That's got nothing to do with the changes. Times have changed. Asset utilization is where it is. If you don't utilize the assets that are sitting there, you know, it's a shame on everybody. So we've been trying for a while to convince DHL that, look, if we were to fly these assets more, They'll generate more revenue, and we can share some of that additional revenue with them rather than a plane setting. The concern is you can fly the planes when they're not flying for DHL, but the service to them is very, very critical. So what we are working on is placing a spare in Cincinnati and Miami hubs if we can, you know, find the right equipment to do that, but also step up the maintenance so that Friday, Saturdays, and Sundays, and even Mondays, these plans are available to us for charters. This is not a part of the original agreement. This is a tweak that was initiated by the team here a couple of months ago. We just finalized that, but in principle, we could use it whenever there is a charter opportunity. This is an add-on. It's strictly... Again, when the planes are sitting on ground, they're not making any money. But if they're flying, they will. And DHL, if any partner, they recognize most because they're in the same business. And, you know, there will be – we haven't finalized the exact number yet, but they will get some portion of the revenue if we generate revenue. So it will be a win-win situation for both parties.

Okay, that's really helpful. Thank you, AJ. My second question, I think Pauline, you were commenting earlier about the global uncertainty, geopolitical uncertainty, etc., that is impacting the industry. And could you just talk through how it's impacting your business? Or maybe the question should be, is it? Because, you know, I look at the results and I almost struggle a little bit to sort of draw a direct line and say it's having a negative impact here. I'm just wondering if you could tell us if that's like an observation about the world around you, but you're very well insulated, or are there little places where you're feeling it?

Yeah, you know, Tim, I think if we're facing it anywhere, it's not on the domestic overnight. And just to my comments earlier, The domestic continues to grow. We've had a strong April. Consumer demand, to what AJ was stating, hasn't really changed. Whether they buy a $100 or a $50 item, they're still shipping it. Canada was way behind on e-commerce, and we're catching up to the rest of the world. Retailers are closing, and if they are open, they aren't carrying the inventories that Warehouses are caring. So we're seeing the domestic overnight still performing well. Where we've seen a lag is the ACMI business, where we were doing additional flying on top of the minimums for our ACMI customer. We've seen that decline. Having us shift over to looking at different opportunities to use those assets when the customer's schedules allow us to. So we're seeing a little dip there. You know, we've also brought the charter business sort of back into the North American and South American flying. You saw that in the increase in the charter business. It is something we continue to focus on. I think our shift is really focused on the utilization of the assets, no matter where the assets sit, and continue to explore opportunities outside of the Canadian domestic marketplace.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Your next question comes from Benoit Poirier from Desjardins Capital Market. Please go ahead.

Yeah, good morning, everyone. First question, we are seeing a capacity reduction from overall airlines because of higher fuel expense. A lot of airlines came down. I just suspect that capacity from passenger belly might come down. And just wondering whether it brings new opportunities or new discussion for you, maybe not to the magnitude that we saw during COVID, but maybe whether it provides a little tailwind for you.

At this point, you know, we're just in all those conversations. We're looking at roots. That's why Tel Aviv was interesting for us. We were activated and moved into that market at the beginning of April. But due to the war, due to the Middle East crisis, we pulled back. Venezuela was a new opportunity for us. We moved into that market. It's proving to be a successful route for us. Liege was another opportunity that we did sort of a research and development in November to see what opportunities existed. And if those would sustain, and we're very pleased. with the decisions and the chances that we've taken to the markets that we are moving into. We'll continue to explore underserved markets and look at niche opportunities that best fit for cargo jets, just not in the short term, but for longer strategic growth.

And as I added, if you recall, a few minutes ago, I said we're looking at opportunities in India and Africa, and some of those countries are at the reason because some of those flights, have been reduced to those countries because of the Middle East conflict. So those are the ones in consideration to replace the passenger lift.

Okay, that's interesting. And maybe, Pauline, to come back to the domestic business that you see growth in April, I was just wondering how would you qualify Q2 2025? I know that Q1 was very strong a year ago. You got some pull forward in demand. I was just wondering whether Q2 2025 was also a strong quarter. Was there some pull forward in demand, or we could see a higher growth in Q2 this year?

Yeah, I think if you look back at last year, Benoit, both Q1 and Q2 had pretty significant year-over-year revenue growth versus 2024. I think you saw that demand pull forward as the new U.S. administration started talking about tariffs. That kind of happened in late Q1, early Q2. So I think that pull forward impact is in both quarters.

Okay. And maybe any potential opportunities around the restructuring with Canada Falls or basically a neutral as it could move from container A to container B?

Yes, exactly. container A to container B storage.

Okay, that's great. And last one for me, could you maybe provide an update on the upcoming pilot agreement that will be up for renewal?

Yes, so we are in active negotiations with the pilots. We are progressing. We have made a lot of progress. There's a number of areas still need to be done. We've got a couple of months to get those done. We have regular meetings with the leadership at Pilots' Union. We have an extremely cordial and good relations. We expect that by the end of June or beginning of July to have something in place. That's our vision. The Pilots' Union also want to see something done quickly, so I think it's moving quite, quite smoothly at this stage, I would say, but you never know with these things, but At this stage, I don't expect any kind of turbulence because I think at the end of the day, everybody understands the market conditions. We understand what we have to do. They understand what they have to do. At this stage, there's no concerns. There's no red flags that we can see. We're very happy with the progress we have made.

Thank you very much for the time.

And our last question for today comes from Razi Hassan from Paradigm Capital. Please go ahead.

Yeah, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe for Aaron, just on gross margin, you know, lower year-over-year and sequentially, could you maybe just walk us through how gross margins should be looked at for the remainder of the year?

Yeah, so there's a couple of things that you're seeing in the gross margin, the fixed cost generally, and I'll expand the comment outside of that as well. So there's a couple of items in gross margin that are non-cash, that are more fixed in nature. They don't really vary directly with revenue. And I'm thinking of heavy maintenance amortization and depreciation in particular. So those are more based on the timing of CapEx. And with sort of the elevated CapEx last year, you're seeing those higher. But again, they're non-cash and a little more fixed in nature. The other thing you're seeing going on in Q1 is in things like crew costs. If you look back at Q1 2025, any line in our financial statements that was linked to our stock price, so stock-based comp for pilots in the crew costs, stock-based comp in SG&A, as well as the below-the-line stock warrant item, you'll see all of those have a large credit or a large recovery last year as our stock price changed by about 30% through Q1 2025. So some of that is really just the year-over-year comparable, where you're seeing a large credit at some of those costs last year that didn't exist this year.

Okay, that's helpful. And maybe just lastly, just in terms of the number of aircrafts you're seeing or expecting by the end of the year, can you just comment? You're at 40 now. Which girl will you be at the end of the year?

Yeah, so we had 42 in the MD&A. I mean, we're at 40 at Q1. That's a bit of a, I'll say, a tight number. So we actually took delivery. We had previously said we'll take delivery of two aircraft this year. We took delivery of one just before the end of Q1, but it wasn't into service. We have to run a number of entry into service processes from Megan's point of view and paint in the aircraft, et cetera. So the aircraft was actually in paint at the end of Q1, so it's in service now. So that is one, and then there's one more aircraft to come later in the year.

We have to 42 by the end of the year. Yeah, that's perfect. Thanks very much. Thank you.

And I will turn the call back over to Pauline Dillon for closing remarks.

Yeah, thank you. Thanks again, everyone, for joining us today. We have the one-on-one calls, and we'll be attending those, and we just want to extend our gratitude again for you taking the time. to participate in our earnings call. Have a good day. Stay safe, everyone.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect. Thank you.