Earnings Labs

Wheels Up Experience Inc. (UP)

Q2 2024 Earnings Call· Fri, Aug 9, 2024

$6.21

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Hello, everyone, and welcome to today’s Wheels Up Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Webcast. I will now hand the line over to Keith Ferguson to begin.

Keith Ferguson

Management

Thank you. This morning, we announced our second quarter results. The earnings release with the supporting tables as well as a copy of today’s presentation can be found on our Investor Relations website at wheelsup.com/investors. Please refer to the slide with our disclaimer. Today’s presentation contains forward-looking statements based on our current forecasts and expectations of future events. These statements should be considered estimates only, and actual results may differ materially. During today’s webcast, 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 our earnings release and appendix of today’s presentation. And with that, I’d like to turn over to Wheels Up’s Chief Executive Officer, George Mattson.

George Mattson

Management

Thank you, Keith, and thanks to all of you for joining us today. For several months now, you’ve heard about Wheels Up’s commitment to leading the industry and operational excellence while driving efficiency, profitability and durability across our business model. I’m pleased to report that in Q2, we have once again exceeded our internal goals for both completion rate and on-time performance, coming in at 99% and 87%, respectively. Last quarter, we also introduced an additional benchmark we call brand days or days in which we have zero cancellations of any type across our entire controlled fleet. In Q2, we had 31 days, a new record, a nearly 15% increase from Q1, which had been our highest since we started tracking against this metric. We are proud not only of our strong and greatly improved operational performance but also that we are leading the industry in operational transparency, the first and only major private aviation operator to be publicly sharing our operational performance. And we continue to encourage the industry to follow our lead. Our operating results are a clear reflection of the continuous improvement mindset that starts with our world-class leadership and team of aviation experts and expands to define our operational culture as a whole. This mindset has been a crucial foundation for our journey to being the best-run private aviation company. Notably, and as Todd will discuss, we have also seen financial improvements over the last quarter, an indication that our initiatives are working and an encouraging sign of our ability to achieve profitability and financial stability. In the quarter, we’ve also spent a significant amount of time closely analyzing our product portfolio and our market positioning. In June, we announced a streamlined and enhanced product portfolio, providing global access through options for membership and charter for…

Todd Smith

Management

Thanks, George. It is great to be with you all today. For my remarks, I will focus on 3 topics: first, a review of our second quarter and the momentum we are seeing; second, the structural changes that we have made that have led to significant improvements in our underlying businesses; and third, how we will continue our journey to build the best-run private aviation company in the world. Starting with a review of the second quarter. Revenue was $196 million in Q2, flat to the first quarter, demonstrating the increased stability in our business. The year-over-year comp was impacted by the previous simplification of our operations, including the exit of our aircraft management and our aircraft sales businesses and last year’s program changes that allowed us to exit unprofitable flight revenue. In addition, we continue to focus on driving growth in our profitable charter business and increasing its weighting within our revenue mix. Since charter revenue is reported on a net rather than gross basis, as that mix increases, GAAP reported revenue growth will not fully reflect the underlying demand trends of our business. That is why we believe flight transaction value, or FTV, is the best proxy for the performance of our business as it captures the full value of what our customers spend on flights with us. In the first quarter, total private jet flight transaction value, which captures the value of all of our private jet flying, was up 13% sequentially, reflecting stabilized demand with a normal seasonal pickup, and down 19% year-over-year, reflecting our transition to focus on more profitable flying that started just over a year ago. Total charter FTV was up 33% sequentially and 16% year-over-year, outpacing our overall business and now accounting for 61% of our total flight transaction value in the…

George Mattson

Management

Thanks, Todd. Over the course of the quarter, we’ve made great strides in our progress toward becoming the best-run and most reliable private aviation company in the world. We’ve fortified our business through continuous operational excellence, which, in turn, has created the foundation for substantive updates to our product offerings that have allowed us to more fully capture the addressable market. And in Q2, we began to see the early signs of the positive effect of all of that progress on our financial performance. With operational excellence as our base, we remain committed to continuing to capture demand through our enhanced commercial engine as we look towards modernizing our fleet to align with our mix of customers and further drive an elevated customer experience. Before I close, I want to once again thank our best-in-class team here at Wheels Up for their continued commitment, passion and dedication to providing safe, reliable experiences worth repeating every day. I want to personally thank David Adelman, who is retiring from our Board, for his years of invaluable service and his unwavering commitment to achieving the Wheels Up mission. David was central to building the company and getting us through the challenging times of last year. Thank you, David. I’m also very pleased to welcome Greg Summe to our Board. Greg brings decades of relevant experience, including in the aviation industry, as a successful CEO, as an investor and as a member of many blue-chip public company boards. I look forward to his contributions to our Board. Greg, welcome. And finally, most importantly, I want to thank our members and customers for their continued loyalty. We are thrilled to bring our new product portfolio to fruition and see such a positive response and remain committed to placing accessibility, flexibility and transparency at the forefront of your experience while continuously delivering an exceptional experience on every flight. Thank you for your interest.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you all very much for joining.