flyExclusive, Inc. (FLYX) Q4 2025 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Greetings, and welcome to the flyExclusive Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to C.J. Neil, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining flyExclusive's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Joining me on the call today is Jim Segrave, flyExclusive's Founder and Chief Executive Officer; and Brad Garner, our Chief Financial Officer. We announced fourth quarter and year-end financial results this morning before the market opened, along with the filing of our Form 10-K for the year-end December 31, 2025. We'll be providing certain non-GAAP information during today's discussion. Important disclosures about this information and reconciliation of the non-GAAP information to comparable GAAP information is included in our Form 10-K filed with the SEC and is available on our Investor Relations website. In addition, this discussion might include forward-looking statements. Actual results might differ materially from any number of reasons, including risk factors described in our annual report on Form 10-K and our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. And in the press release covering forward-looking statements. Rather than rereading this information, we are going to incorporate it by reference in our prepared remarks. And with that, let me turn the call over to Jim Segrave.

Thank you. Good morning, and thank you for joining us. 2025 was a turning point for flyExclusive. Over the last 2 years, we made a deliberate decisions to transform this company, modernizing the fleet, eliminating nonperforming aircraft, restructuring costs and raising our execution standards across the organization. Those decisions were not always easy, but in the fourth quarter, the results validated the strategy. We delivered $105 million in fourth quarter revenue, up 15% year-over-year. We generated $6.8 million of positive adjusted EBITDA, our first positive quarter since becoming a public company. That milestone matters, but what matters more is how we achieved it. We didn't grow the fleet to get there. We improved the fleet and we executed at a higher level across the board. Let me walk through what changed last year. We removed 28 nonperforming aircraft. We added 7 highly profitable aircraft. Overall, we flew 13% more flight hours while operating 14% fewer aircraft. Our revenue was up 15% to $376 million for the year. Our gross profit was up 53%. In 2025, we flew over 74,000 flight hours, including over 20,000 in the fourth quarter. We are now the #1 charter operator in the United States and the overall #3 operator when including fractional Turboprop and management operators. Core fleet utilization increased approximately 23% per aircraft to an average of 73 hours per plane over the full year. And we achieved this performance in the face of all the nonperforming aircraft we have been eliminating. Dispatch availability improved roughly 7% year-over-year. And let me remind you that every 1% improvement at our current size translates to $2.5 million per year on our bottom line. To drive this initiative, we put 12 mobile service unit maintenance trucks in place late in 2025 and expect to double this fleet over the next 6 months. Adjusted EBITDA margin improved nearly 1,500 basis points. This is not a seasonal or cyclical improvement. This is structural improvement. We removed the drag from the system and the system responded. SG&A as a percentage of revenue declined approximately 10% generating more than $8 million in annualized savings. Revenue per SG&A employee increased approximately 28%, generating $1.9 million per person and revenue per employee overall increased 15% to $800,000 per person. Contractually committed demand hours from our fractional club and partner programs increased approximately 33%. Again, all on a size -- a fleet size 14% smaller. Operating losses from the nonperforming aircraft fleet declined for more than $3 million per month at the beginning of 2024 to approximately breakeven today. The reset is largely complete, but we are far from done. Now we scale from strength. Before moving forward, I want to recognize our team. We ask this organization to execute with discipline, focus and a willingness to change. They delivered. They didn't just improve results. They changed the trajectory of this company. Every department executed from accounting to flight control, maintenance control, technicians, pilots, sales, services and the management team. The fourth quarter was an example of what great teamwork across the board looks like. I'm incredibly proud of what we have accomplished. I also want to thank our investors for their continued support and trust. We are all focused on delivering results for you and our customers. Looking forward, while not providing formal long-term guidance, I want to be clear about our trajectory and future direction. First quarter 2026 will soundly exceed first quarter 2025, but it will not exceed our fourth quarter 2025 results as the fourth quarter is always our strongest quarter, and we executed exceptionally well. But as we look forward quarter-by-quarter, we expect every quarter of 2026 to meaningfully outperform the corresponding quarter of 2025. And to put a little historical context on this, over the last 8 quarters, we have improved our profitability every quarter by an average of $3.7 million per quarter. That is the trajectory we are on. We are continuing to execute and with the drag of the nonperforming fleet behind us, fully expect to grow the number of aircraft, flight hours and improve every financial performance metric in 2026 just like we did in 2025. Let me ground these expectations in some numbers. In the first quarter of 2025, adjusted EBITDA was a negative $12.5 million and management adjusted EBITDA was a negative $6.4 million. Today, more than 2/3 of the way through the first quarter of 2026, we believe it's appropriate to provide some directional commentary. Based on the current performance trends, we expect to reduce our first quarter 2026 loss by approximately 50% compared to the first quarter of 2025 continuing the positive trajectory we have been delivering over the last 2 years. This improvement reflects structural change, improved fleet economics, higher utilization, lower SG&A and stronger demand from every revenue channel. We expect to improve our dispatch reliability another 10% in 2026, which will translate to another $25 million in annualized bottom line performance improvement. We expect to increase our revenue per SG&A employee more than 15% to well more than $2 million per employee in 2026. This is not formal guidance. It's simply transparency around our trajectory and our momentum, and the momentum is clearly moving in the right direction. With the fleet reset largely complete, we are focused on disciplined growth. The government shut down late last year that delayed our plan to reach 10 challenger aircraft by year-end 2025. But since then, aircraft 8 and 9 were added in January and aircraft 10 just arrived 10 days ago. In 2026, we expect to add approximately 20 CJ3, XLS and Challenger aircraft. With these additions, the average age of our fleet will continue to reduce in age. And utilization, along with dispatch reliability will continue to increase with these more reliable aircraft. Economics will also continue improving. We expect flight hours to grow again by more than 15% in 2026 and reached an annualized run rate of more than 100,000 hours by year-end. Today, flyExclusive is the #1 jet charter operator in the United States based on hours flown and the third largest overall, and we fully expect to continue our growth going forward. In Q4, we closed the first half of the Volato transaction acquiring their aircraft sales division for $2.1 million. That acquisition contributed approximately $5.7 million in bottom line improvement. Before the end of Q2 2026, we expect to close the second half of the Volato transaction. This second half brings the scheduling and optimization software platform they internally called Mission Control into flyExclusive as well as the cash flow positive empty leg program. Mission Control is an aircraft charter, operator-focused, scheduling and optimization platform designed specifically for operations like ours. It includes an optimization engine, along with AI scheduling, closing and workflows that will substantially improve operations and profitability as it is fully implemented in the coming months. Vaunt is a subscription-based software service that provides access to empty leg. This business was launched less than 2 years ago by Volato and has been rapidly expanding its client base. We expect immediate contribution from this part of the acquisition as soon as it is closed in the coming months. But the big news around this second half of the transaction as we plan to make the scheduling and optimization system available to all operators, and we intend to offer this access at no cost. The value for us is not selling scheduling software. The value is improving network efficiency. If operators can securely share aircraft availability without sharing or compromising customer identities or proprietary data, we believe the entire industry can find demand, source lifts when needed and execute their flights more efficiently. For flyExclusive, this means we can sell more flights and deliver a more optimized schedule with confidence, especially with the ability to source internally and externally more effectively. We also received over 500 trip requests every day, over half of which we are unable to sell and source. This software will allow us to fill more of these requests potentially generating substantial additional revenue. As we continue to develop this system, we will leverage our operational expertise and deep experience in this business to deliver the best scheduling system in the space. And just for clarification, this is not a long-term goal. We expect to execute on this over the coming months. In fact, we are working hard to be able to show the beta version of the system at the NBAA Schedulers & Dispatchers convention later this month. To summarize, this will increase our sales, improve the customer experience, improve our utilization and optimize our schedule. And it will do this for any operator who wants to eliminate their scheduling software costs. The push into the technology space, fully leveraging AI and our operational experience has the potential to be a game changer for flyExclusive. Now on to our balance sheet and capital planning for growth. Our ATM is now fully in place, and we have now exceeded the baby shelf restriction that requires a minimum $75 million of public float market cap, this gives us flexibility to support future growth while continuing to reduce debt, both of which we expect to deliver in 2026. Speaking of debt, we reduced our long-term debt in 2025 by approximately 36%, representing an $84 million reduction while maintaining our year-end cash position compared to 2024. In 2026, we expect to add approximately 20 aircraft to our fleet to continue reducing debt, deliver full year EBITDA profitability, increase cash and improve liquidity and at the same time, reduced fleet age. In the first quarter of 2026, we have already removed 3 additional nonperforming aircraft and have a few remaining operating at breakeven. We have added another Challenger 350. We will close on another XLS plus later this month for our fractional program and we have already reduced our debt an additional $10 million between short-term and long-term elimination. Growth and discipline can coexist, and we are proving that. On the connectivity front, by year-end, we expect every aircraft in our fleet will have high-speed Internet installed with the majority of them being the Starlink system. High-speed connectivity has become one of the most requested capabilities in private aviation. We believe this will create pricing power, increased demand for our products and drive incremental work across our maintenance, avionics, paint and interior businesses. Few operators can deliver this vertically integrated solution, we can. In fact, we just finished our first Starlink installation in just 9 days a week ago, and the pipeline of customers already exceeds the speed at which we can acquire the hardware. Starlink has built an incredible system that customers now expect in their aircraft, and we are excited to now be a dealer for this product. 2025 proved our business plan and model works. 2026 is about compounding that progress. We are excited about the trajectory, but we are far from done. Execution remains critical, discipline remains nonnegotiable. The momentum is real. Now we scale it. And now I'll turn the call over to Brad.

Thank you. I'll begin by reinforcing Jim's comments that the fourth quarter and full year 2025 represented another decisive and positive step in the transformation of flyExclusive. What we're now seeing is not episodic improvement. It's the result of intentional structural change. The fleet modernization is being executed. The cost base is being rightsized. The revenue mix is improving in quality and the operating leverage in our model is increasingly evident. The progress we delivered in 2025 reinforces our belief that the trajectory of this business is sustainable and accelerating. With that, let me begin my review of the summary financials for the fourth quarter and full year. Revenue for the fourth quarter totaled $104.3 million, which is a 14% increase over Q4 of 2024. For the full year of 2025, revenue expanded 15% to $375.9 million. Importantly, and largely as a result of removing nonperforming aircraft during 2025, we delivered this growth with a fleet that is 14% smaller than it was a year ago. This is proof that the quality of our fleet and the leverage in our model are both improving and real. Revenue growth was strong and broad-based across each charter, fractional and MRO. Charter flight revenue topped $98 million in Q4 of 2025, an increase of 13% year-over-year. Flight hours for the fourth quarter also increased 13% to approximately 20,400 as compared to the same period in the prior year. For the full year, flight hours increased 12% to nearly 75,000 hours, which, as Jim referenced, places us as the third largest private operator in the United States. As we've highlighted historically, we have intentionally focused on slowly shifting our revenue mix towards contractually committed demand. For the full year of 2025, our fractional and Jet Club programs increased approximately 33% year-over-year. Members contributing to revenue in 2025 were approximately $1,300, an increase of 9% compared to '24. This continued product mix shift towards recurring contracted programs enhances predictability, improves pricing durability and stabilizes margins. Our wholesale business, which is and will continue to be foundational to maximizing our fleet utilization grew to $185.5 million in full year of '25, an increase of 7% compared to the prior year. As we transition in 2026 to a fleet growth mode, with younger, more efficient aircraft, we will continue to optimize both our retail and wholesale channels to maximize productivity and margin per aircraft. Fractional revenue driven by the expanding fractional offerings of our Challenger fleet additions, the popular CJ3 and XLS inventory and the reinstatement of bonus depreciation, drove a 21% increase compared to fourth quarter of 2024. For the full year, fractional sales revenue increased nearly 56% compared to prior year. With the addition of challengers to the fractional fleet, fractional share sales increased 26% compared to the prior year generating approximately $60 million in fractional retail sales. Finally, for the fourth quarter of 2025, our MRO reported external revenue of approximately $2.9 million, up 52% from fourth quarter of 2024. For the full year, the MRO reported an increase of 48% compared to prior year. With the world-class capabilities of our in-house MRO operation spanning from paint to interiors to maintenance and avionics, which is especially enhanced by our recent Starlink authorized dealership announcement, we expect aggressive continued growth in 2026 for our MRO. Turning to profitability. Gross margin for the fourth quarter of 2025 was 18% and for the full year was 15%, a 32% increase compared to full year 2024. This margin expansion reflects an improved fleet mix, higher utilization, increased dispatch availability and disciplined cost control. Sequentially, margins improved each quarter, signaling a structural trend. We expect our operating leverage to continue to expand as we complete the disposal of the remaining nonperforming aircraft by the end of 2026, and we add more profitable CJ3s, XLSs and challengers to the fleet. As I've highlighted each quarter, we continue to drive meaningful scale in our cost structure. SG&A declined to 21% of revenue in the fourth quarter, a 616 basis point reduction compared to fourth quarter of 2024. For the full year, SG&A as a percentage of revenue declined to 22%, a nearly 600 basis point reduction and roughly $9 million in annual savings. We expect that the SG&A base will remain stable throughout 2026 and that SG&A as a percentage of revenue will continue to tighten as our revenue and top line accelerates. The fourth quarter was momental monumental for flyExclusive as it marked the first quarter with positive adjusted EBITDA of $6.6 million, representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of 6%. Compared to the fourth quarter of 2024, we reported an improvement on a gross basis of over $13 million. As Jim mentioned, our strategic acquisition of Volato's aircraft sales division generated a Q4 profit of approximately $5.7 million. But even without that addition, flyExclusive generated positive adjusted EBITDA in Q4 from our normal operations. That tells the powerful story of the structural transformation of our operations. For the full year, adjusted EBITDA improved over $49 million, narrowing the loss to just $7 million. Adjusted EBITDA margin for the full year improved 1,531 basis points compared to 2024. A transformation of this magnitude is not the result of a single lever but rather the compounding effect of sustainable and sequential gains across growing customer demand, revenue mix, fleet modernization, aircraft utilization, cost discipline and operational efficiency. The trajectory is clear and durable. Lastly, I'll conclude with several key updates on flyExclusive's ongoing effort to improve our liquidity and balance sheet flexibility. During 2025, we made significant progress on reducing our leverage. As Jim highlighted, we reduced our long-term notes payable by approximately $84 million, a 36% reduction year-over-year. Importantly, cash on hand increased despite this debt reduction, reflecting improved operating performance and disciplined cost management. In January, we utilized our shelf and raised $15 million in an offering at $6.65 per share. Additionally, as Jim mentioned, our ATM is now fully operational. As we've highlighted in previous quarters, we have a merger agreement with Jet.AI that will not only provide operational synergies with the acquisition of their aviation operations, but will provide capital for growth and delevering of our balance sheet. We've extended the outside date for the completion of that merger agreement, which was delayed in part due to the government shutdown. We expect the deal to go to a Jet.AI shareholder vote shortly and close in early Q2 2026. We also anticipate that we'll close the second tranche of the Volato acquisition, as Jim mentioned. which grants us the right to acquire the high-growth technology platform, including Vaunt, a subscription-based experiential travel app, providing access to empty legs and Mission Control and AI-enabled flight management private aviation operation software. We believe the acquisition of these assets and the IP related will enable flyExclusive to strengthen our vertical integration strategy and position us as a technological leader in the space. As we enter 2026, we expect to strengthen liquidity and provide additional flexibility to support our fleet growth and balance sheet optimization. Our capital structure today is materially stronger than it was just a year ago, lower leverage, greater flexibility and improved access to capital markets. All of which positions us to accelerate and build upon the transformation that we accomplished in 2025. As I close, I'd like to underscore those accomplishments. Over the past 2 years, we made difficult decisions, rationalizing the fleet, reducing structural costs, tightening execution standards and rebuilding the foundation of the business. Those decisions are now translating into measurable financial performance, increased operational efficiency, expanding margins, higher utilization, stronger recurring demand and positive adjusted EBITDA. We are operating with a fundamentally different fleet, a fundamentally different cost structure and a fundamentally different level of discipline than we had just 12 months ago. That matters. Durable profitability in this industry is not achieved through growth alone. It's achieved through utilization, availability, mix and cost control. We have improved in every single facet. Our business today is more predictable. It's more productive per aircraft, it's more efficient per employee and is better positioned to compound earnings. We remain focused on execution that will yield increasing market share and profitability, but we're no longer correcting structural inefficiencies. We're scaling a refined platform. The heavy lifting of the transformation is behind us. What lies ahead is disciplined growth built on a stronger base, and that's a very different company than the one investors saw just a year ago. Before I do turn it back to the operator, I want to take a last moment to recognize the team behind these results. Transformations like the one we've executed doesn't happen by accident. It happens because of people, people willing to challenge processes, raise the bar, lead and build systems that can support a company operating at a much higher level. We have not only improved our financial and operational performance, we have institutionalized the company, strengthening internal controls, establishing a disciplined reporting cadence, building the infrastructure required of a public company and creating the processes that allow this organization to scale responsibly. To our team from finance, flight operations, maintenance, sales, customer service and administration, thank you. The progress we're reporting today reflects your discipline, professionalism, and commitment to building something exceptional. I'm incredibly proud of what this organization has accomplished and even more excited about what lies ahead. Thank you all again, and now I'll turn it back to the operator.

Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference and webcast. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.