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Strata Critical Medical, Inc. (SRTA)

Q3 2021 Earnings Call· Mon, Aug 16, 2021

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to the Blade Air Mobility, Inc., fiscal Third Quarter 2021 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Tom Cook, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Tom Cook

Analyst

Thanks, Andrew. And good morning ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by and welcome to the Blade Air Mobility fiscal third quarter 2021 conference call and webcast. We appreciate everyone joining us today. Before we get started, I'd like to remind you of the company's forward-looking statement Safe Harbor language. Statements made in this conference call that are not historical fact, including statements about our future period, maybe then to constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the private securities litigation reform act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties and actual future results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. And we refer you to our SEC filings including our Form S-15 with the SEC on May 28, 2021, and the Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30th, 2021, filed with the SEC on August 16th, 2021. For a more detailed discussion of the risk factors that could cause these differences. Any forward-looking statements provided during this conference call are made only as of the date of this call. As stated in our SEC filings, Blade disclaims any intent or obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements except as required by law. During today's call, we will also discuss non-GAAP financial measures which we believe can be useful in evaluating our financial performance. A reconciliation of the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures to those non-GAAP financial measures is provided in our press release which will be available on our website. These non-GAAP measures should not be considered an isolation or as substitute for our financial results prepared in accordance with GAAP. With me at today's call are Rob Wiesenthal, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Blade; and Will Heyburn, Chief Financial Officer. I will now turn the call over to Rob Wiesenthal. Rob?

Rob Wiesenthal

Analyst

Thank you, Tom. Good morning, everyone. I'd like to thank you for your interest in Blade and welcome you to our earnings call for the fiscal third quarter ending June 30th, 2021, our first report as a public company. We had a great quarter and I'm very pleased to inform you of our 277% revenue growth versus 2020 and our 73% revenue growth compared to the pre-COVID 2019 period. Before we dive into our results, I'd like to thank our employees and particularly our on the ground prior experienced team replacing our fliers and their safety first as we continue to operate our business through the pandemic. The commitment of our team is particularly critical for our MediMobility service which moves human organs for transplant by helicopter and fixed wing aircraft. This business grew dramatically compared to last year and it would never have been possible without our team showing up in person every single day so that we could continue providing with essential services to hospitals across the North East. While our other business line have now rebounded before even shown growth versus the historical pre-COVID period and uncertainty still remains to the public. Our passengers trust us to get in quickly and seamlessly to whoever they need to be with the help and our safety of our fliers and employees remains paramount. Blade has led away in implementing health and safety protocols. And we continue to adjust our approach as needed. In light of the dynamic nature of the virus. We are the first aviation company to mandate in-flight masking that first they had pre-boarding blood oxygen saturation testing and first to provide on-site COVID testing for a longer whole flights. And this leadership position continues. This past Thursday, we were the first aviation company to announce the…

Will Heyburn

Analyst

Thank you, Rob. Blade continues to make great progress in our long-term strategic plan. We relaunched our New York City airport service in June 2021 and are very encouraged by the results so far. Two months into the relaunch, we are well ahead of the same point in our 2019 launch and we've already achieved an annualized run rate of approximately 10,000 passengers for a single route between Manhattan and JFK. For contacts at our historical pre-COVID peak in late 2019, the new running service to LaGuardia, New York and three JFK routes, we had an annualized run rate of approximately 20,000 passengers. This fall, we plan to expand our service back to include both LaGuardia and New York. Moving on to the financials for the quarter ended June 30th, 2021. Revenue increased by 277% and $3.4 million in 2020 to $13 million in 2021, marking an impressive recovery from the COVID lows. We're especially pleased with our results compared to the pre-COVID period with revenues up 73% from $7.5 million in the June 2019 quarter. Short Distance revenues increased by 810% from $600,000 in 2020 to $5.7 million in 2021 recovering to near pre-pandemic levels with revenues at 87% of the same period in 2019. This was driven primarily by strong intra-week commuter demand that exceeded pre-pandemic levels but was offset by lower demand for typical peak weekend travel which remained below pre-pandemic levels as in-office work schedules are shifting dramatically. MediMobility organ transport and jet revenues grew by 147% from $2.6 million in 2020 to $6.5 million in 2021. A comparison of this business line to the same period in 2019 is not meaningful as our MediMobility did not exist to this point at 2019. MediMobility remains an important focus area for us given the use of helicopters…

Rob Wiesenthal

Analyst

Thank you, Will. Let me take a moment as to our strategy within the broader emerging Urban Air Mobility industry. First, a few data points. Over $5 billion have already been invested in the design and manufacturing the electrical vertical aircrafts. Five EVA manufacturers have either gone public or in the process of going public with expectations to rate incremental capital of more than $4 billion during this year alone. Outside space transportation, there may be no more ambitious task and for a standalone company to build certified and manufacture EVA and to do it as scale into do it on budget and to do it on schedule. Simply put, that is not our business. We will continue the similar focus we have of we have had for the past six years, building, creating, an acquiring all of the necessary elements to provide the best Urban Air Mobility service layer possible ensuring deployment of EVA to the public in a seamless convenient cost effective and safe manner. These elements include our network of exclusive terminals in key locations in the most important markets in the country, our partnerships with leading aircraft manufacturers, our consumer-to-cockpit technology stack, and our 24/7 on the ground flier experience team as well as our trusted brand in over 200,000 users. These are competitive strengths and they are extremely difficult to replicate. As we continue to build new services using conventional rotorcraft, we will be in a powerful position to enable manufacturers to deploy their EVA to the flying public achieve safely and as quickly as possible. Unlike many companies in the Urban Air Mobility ecosystem, we have a strong and growing business today using conventional aircraft. As such, we've set a number of important milestones for this pre-EVA period through our investors. Two accretive acquisitions…

Tom Cook

Analyst

Thanks, Rob. As a reminder, we will take questions from Analysts and Investors on this call today. Reporters should send enquiries to me directly. Operator, we're now ready for questions.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Etah Michelle with Citi. Please go ahead.

Etah Michelle

Analyst

Hi great, thanks. Good morning, guys.

Rob Wiesenthal

Analyst

Good morning.

Etah Michelle

Analyst

Just to do the first question on the recovery that you saw this past quarter. The passenger that were flown, can you maybe share kind of how many were new to the Blade platform versus those who were prior fliers kind of coming back?

Rob Wiesenthal

Analyst

Well, I would say the majority of the passengers this quarter were passengers that we had seen before, given that we didn’t introduce Airport until June. And that's the biggest driver and new passengers for us. That will change as we go into the next quarter but for this quarter, given our reliance on those matured core commuter routes in the Northeast. We did see a lot of the same passengers. At the same time, I think if you were able to disaggregate it and say who was flying during the week. We saw in a lot of our leisure routes, people that had not been flying Blade prior because of the ability to fly seven days a week and just kind of shift from this weekend-only cadence to when we've back in April we saw ourselves flying seven days a week. So, that really opened up the business to a brand new flier which we did see during those kind of business days and we're not breaking out the numbers for both of those segments.

Etah Michelle

Analyst

Got it, that's very helpful. And then just maybe two questions on kind of the upcoming couple of quarters. So, I know still really tough to predict as you mentioned during the delta variant. Any comments around perhaps how July trends trended out for you. And then maybe I think well you mentioned some of the about you know the new route gross margin dilution you can have as you bring back Airport over the next 18 months. Anyway to roughly quantify how we should think about that kind of models going forward over the next few quarters of that impact?

Rob Wiesenthal

Analyst

You're saying impact of delta?

Etah Michelle

Analyst

The impact of -- so, maybe just for delta if you could just comment on July trend, kind of if you're seeing anything thus far early in the quarter. And then secondly, just on the Blade Airport ramp at the beginning June. I think that you mentioned it should run at a loss typically in the beginning. Anyway to quantify what that can be in terms of the gross margin impact from the Airport ramp?

Rob Wiesenthal

Analyst

Sure. I'll let Will take the second part in terms of Airport ramp, in terms of what we've been seeing. Again, it's always kind of this mixed bag. What I would say is because of our health and safety protocol, we did not see fall of our passengers who chose not to fly Blade and take other forms of transportation because of safety concerns. So, that’s wrong. Additionally, because of delta variant at the same time and I'm talking about this basically whole summer to-date, there were definitely a lot of Blade fliers that may have had plans to travel longer distances perhaps overseas that cancelled their plans. And so, we definitely saw for some of our closer term leisure routes. We just consistently seen across the travel business a much more much greater focus by our travelers on staying nearby this summer.

Will Heyburn

Analyst

And then in terms of the margin impact from Blade Airport, if you look at revenue less cost of revenues, we're ramping very aggressively. And as we mentioned, we'd be adding those additional routes this year. So, I would expect a low single-digit million dollar negative impact. So, that revenue less cost of revenues for the rest of the year.

Etah Michelle

Analyst

For Airport?

Will Heyburn

Analyst

For Airport, yes.

Rob Wiesenthal

Analyst

And again, we breakeven on Airport flights typically at anything above 2.2 passengers out of six possible passengers on that aircraft. So, luckily that hurdle is not very high but how we still need a very robust schedule to really engage our fliers and let them well they can fly they can a time that's most meaning to them.

Etah Michelle

Analyst

Terrific, that's all. Very helpful. Thanks, so much.

Rob Wiesenthal

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Jason Helfstein with Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Jason Helfstein

Analyst · Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Hey guys, thanks. I'll ask you three. First, may we talk about like the cost to you to secure the EVA deals, what's kind of the - just what's the cost to you, what are you kind of committing to, et cetera. Second, will the Airport service to be any different or want to resume as remaining airports are basically same as it was before. And then, can you talk about the seasonality of MediMobility, should investors assume like that does that business should generate kind of the same revenue which quarter, give or take your ability to grow it or is there a seasonality in that. Thanks.

Rob Wiesenthal

Analyst · Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Okay.

Analyst · Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

And in fact, if we take a look at our conventional businesses, we often get phone calls from conventional aircraft manufacturers who'd say we know you work with operator X on your platform, how many hours you think you could do this year. And people finance again the kind of volume that we do. So, we expect that model to continue going forward. What was the second question? Okay. In terms of the Airport service, you're saying being any different, are you talking about the actual service itself, is there any asset --.

Jason Helfstein

Analyst · Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Yes. I mean I guess, any improvements that you guys have kind of to trust them and you apply then imagine it's been a while since they used it. Would there be any improvements or changes given kind of pre-COVID or just kind of things that or was just bring it back to the other airports?

Rob Wiesenthal

Analyst · Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Yes. Look, I think it's we obviously learnt a lot when we first did it and I think we're getting a turn time in the tarmac much quicker. We're dealing with the recovery much more effectively in terms of when there's increment weather. But most importantly, we continue to work with airports and airlines to enjoy behind the tarmac service that we have had with American Airlines where you can actually get off the plane when you land at JFK and be driven by American behind the tarmac directly to your Blade helicopter. That not only saves this two-hour drive which we turn into a five in a flight say 20 minutes probably walking to an airport and finding a car. So, I think more of those alliances we got a few to see that in the future. I'll let Will talk about MediMobility.

Will Heyburn

Analyst · Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Jason, on your seasonality question, the sort of the few things in that revenue disaggregation line, the MediMobility business did not show seasonality. However, and it's been showing good growth. However, there is some jet charter and by the seat jet, it's also in that line. And on the buy the seat jet business that is seasonal. So, that's our Blade One service if that is focused on the winter months at Miami and then Aspen. So, you see a couple of million positive impacts from that over the season. And then the jet charter side of things, it can be a little bit unpredictable. So, that piece there is not I wouldn’t say its specific pattern to it but it can be lumpy quarter-to-quarter. So, hopefully that helps you breaks down to pieces. There's a strong phase of revenues in there that it doesn’t have seasonality but there are some moving pieces. And was there a follow-up?

Rob Wiesenthal

Analyst · Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Anything else?

Jason Helfstein

Analyst · Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

I mean now, yes I'll go back in the queue. I'll ask another one depending there's other people, I'll go back in the queue, thanks.

Rob Wiesenthal

Analyst · Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Yes. But I think the segment, this segment obviously the vast majority is MediMobility which is fast growing and not seasonal. We're opening, that's where we'll be focusing on.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And we have a follow-up from Jason Helfstein from Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Jason Helfstein

Analyst

Thanks, why not. Just Rob, how are you thinking about any of the potential risk of policy changing at any landing location to the extent you -- I'm particularly thinking about kind of the Hampton, where I think there are some stuff coming up with the time or how do you think about it kind of any commentary with other parties et cetera and just kind of concentration issues on the business there, thanks.

Rob Wiesenthal

Analyst

Sure. The good news is we have the leisure route especially out to Long Island. Our passengers are not going to stop flying. The had -- since this is the legacy market of ours, it's not core to our future growth strategy which is identifying short distance routes that are well-suited for EVA. Now, I mean none-the-less we fly to all areas there many in which we'd be actually even in the Town of East Hampton, Montauk Airport, Southampton, Westhampton, and even amphibious seaplanes into local bodies of water that are only 10 minutes away from the Easthampton airport. So, I think that the close to the airport would be very shortsighted, our fliers are going to keep flying. We've multiple opportunities for them to fly to that area. So, it's not something that we see as frankly impacting our business as much as some people may think. There is just tremendous economic benefit to that community you know I think it was about minor jobs $77 million in terms of the economic impact. So, we are hopeful they'll continue to keep it open, it's been open for over a 100 years and if not our fliers will keep flying and they're not going to be a landing too far away from they were originally intending to fly.

Will Heyburn

Analyst

One final think I will mention is that I think there is a growing understanding that it could be very short sighted for airports or heliports all over this country that may be considering what to do, mitigation strategy in terms or noise because we really are on the precipitous of emission-free and quiet electric aircrafts. So, our deal with magniX that's 2023. That's not a -- that is not a large hurdle in terms of that certification where this. You're essentially taking an existing aircraft and changing the motor to an electric motor that is quiet and emission free. So, I think we're in a pretty good shape in that front.

Jason Helfstein

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Rob Wiesenthal, CEO of Blade, for any closing remarks.

Rob Wiesenthal

Analyst

Well, I think we're fine. We appreciate you joining us for this call today. And we look forward to take any questions that you have. If anybody in this call had not had their questions answered because of time constraints, feel free to reach over to Tom Cook at ICR and he'll take those and refer them back to us. And we look forward to talking to all of you soon.

Operator

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you, for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.