SkyWest Q1 2025 Earnings Report

SkyWest EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $2.42
• Consensus EPS: $2.04
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.38
• One Year Ago EPS: $1.45

SkyWest Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $948.46 million
• Expected Revenue: $946.13 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$2.33 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +18.00%

SkyWest Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2025
• Date: 4/24/2025
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, April 24, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 4:30PM ET

SkyWest (NASDAQ:SKYW) is the holding company for two scheduled passenger airline operations and an aircraft leasing company. SkyWest's airline companies provide commercial air service in cities throughout North America with nearly 3,000 daily flights carrying more than 53 million passengers annually. SkyWest Airlines operates through partnerships with United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, American Airlines and Alaska Airlines. ExpressJet Airlines operates through partnerships with United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and American Airlines. Based in St. George, Utah, SkyWest employs nearly 17,000 employees.

SkyWest Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Presentation

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. My name is John, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the SkyWest Incorporated First Quarter twenty twenty five Results Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session.

[Operator]

Thank you. Now I would like to turn the conference over to Rob Simmons, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

[Robert Simmons, Chief Financial Officer at SkyWest]

Thanks, John, and thanks, everyone, for joining us on the call today. As the operator indicated, this is Rob Simmons, SkyWest's Chief Financial Officer. On the call with me today are Chip Childs, President and Chief Executive Officer Wade Steele, Chief Commercial Officer and Eric Woodward, Chief Accounting Officer. I'd like to start today by asking Eric to read the Safe Harbor. Then I will turn the time over to Chip for some comments.

[Robert Simmons, Chief Financial Officer at SkyWest]

Following Chip, I will take us through the financial results. Then Wade will discuss the fleet and related flying arrangements. Following Wade, we will have the customary Q and A session with our sell side analysts. Eric?

[Eric Woodward, CAO at SkyWest]

Today's discussion contains forward looking statements that represent our current beliefs, expectations and assumptions regarding future events and are subject to risks and uncertainties. We assume no obligation to update any forward looking statement whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Actual results will likely vary and may vary materially from those anticipated, estimated or projected for a number of reasons. Some of the factors that may cause such differences are included in our most recent Form 10 ks and other reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. And now, I'll turn the call over to Chip.

[Chip Childs, CEO, President and Director at SkyWest]

Thank you, Rob and Eric. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us on the call today. Today, SkyWest reported net income of $101,000,000 or $2.42 per diluted share for the first quarter of twenty twenty five. These results reflect a slight increase in production for the first quarter compared to Q4.

[Chip Childs, CEO, President and Director at SkyWest]

The winter quarters are typically the most challenging. However, together, our people completed over 30,000 more flights in the same quarter last year and delivered 99.9% adjusted completion. This quarter's year over year increase in number of departures continues to reflect the improved stability of our staffing. We expect our solid operating leverage to continue to deliver well with increased production translating into positive returns for our stakeholders. I want to thank our team of nearly 15,000 aviation professionals for their continued teamwork and dedication to excellence.

[Chip Childs, CEO, President and Director at SkyWest]

Though the current macroeconomic uncertainties have translated into some overall industry outlook softening, demand for our product is strong and SkyWest continues to lead our segment of the industry. We remain disciplined and steady as we execute on our growth opportunities to one, restore or bring new service to underserved communities two, redeploy and fully utilize our existing fleet and three, prepare to receive our upcoming deliveries of 16 new E175s over the next two years. During the quarter, we were pleased to complete an agreement extending more dual class CRJ aircraft under our Delta partnership, placing nearly all CRJ 700 aircraft under long term agreements. Additionally, as we receive another 16 E175s over the next couple of years, we will have two seventy eight by the end of twenty twenty six. We continue to see strong demand for our dual class flying and look forward to continuing to deploy additional CRJ550s for our partners.

[Chip Childs, CEO, President and Director at SkyWest]

Wade will speak more about that in a minute. As we continue to invest in our overall fleet, we expect our CRJ fleet to produce accretively well into the next decade. Our dual class aircraft generated 87% of our block hour production during the first quarter and the ongoing strong demand and delivery book continues to position us for increased regional market share. As we discussed last quarter, we believe we are now in a place where our pilot staffing, hiring and production are well matched with a very robust pipeline. We are fully confident the measures we have put into place over the past few years will ensure staffing is stabilized over the long term and we continue to expect block hour production to be up about 12% to 13% this year compared to 2024.

[Chip Childs, CEO, President and Director at SkyWest]

We were pleased during the first quarter to receive the Department of Transportation's tentative approval for SkyWest Charter or SWC's part three eighty scheduled service authorization. While our plans are to maintain SWC as a small portion of our overall business, we look forward to the DOT's final approval and to serve communities that cannot support Part 121 operations, but are seeking a higher standard of safety and service. The competitive landscape continues to change and SkyWest disciplined strategic decisions are advancing our market share through continued fleet acquisitions and flying agreements without taking on unnecessary complicated risk. We remain focused on our long term strategy with smart investments in our people and fleet as we redeploy and restore utilization and execute on our growth pathways. We have spent several years strengthening our balance sheet and fleet flexibility and reinvesting in our future growth.

[Chip Childs, CEO, President and Director at SkyWest]

We remain very confident that the steps we've taken have us exceptionally positioned despite the macroeconomic uncertainty. Overall, our well positioned fleet operation and our strong partnerships and demand, we remain optimistic about the year ahead. We continue to play the long game and to invest in our fleet in future and to ensure we are in the best possible situation to respond to market demand. Bob will now take us through the financial data.

[Robert Simmons, Chief Financial Officer at SkyWest]

Thanks, Chip. Today, we reported a first quarter GAAP net income of $101,000,000 or $2.42 earnings per share. Q1 pretax income was $121,000,000 Our weighted average share count for Q1 was $41,600,000 and our effective tax rate was 17%. Our Q1 EPS included $0.24 per share in discrete income tax deductions, which are not expected to recur the rest of the year. At a normalized tax rate of 25%, Q1's EPS would have been $2.18 per share.

[Robert Simmons, Chief Financial Officer at SkyWest]

First, let's talk about revenue. Total Q1 revenue of $948,000,000 is up slightly from $944,000,000 in Q4 twenty twenty four and up 18% from $8.00 $4,000,000 in Q1 twenty twenty four. Q1 revenue breaks down with contract revenue at $785,000,000 flat from Q4 twenty twenty four and up 16% from Q1 twenty twenty four. Pro rate and charter revenue was $131,000,000 in Q1, up 3% from Q4 twenty twenty four and up 29% from Q1 twenty twenty four. Leasing and other revenue was $32,000,000 in Q1, up 3% from Q4 twenty twenty four and up 28% from Q1 twenty twenty four.

[Robert Simmons, Chief Financial Officer at SkyWest]

These Q1 GAAP results include the effect of recognizing $13,000,000 of previously deferred revenue this quarter, down from the $20,000,000 recognized in Q4 twenty twenty four. As of the end of Q1, we have $3.00 $9,000,000 of cumulative deferred revenue that will be recognized in future periods. We anticipate recognizing approximately 10,000,000 to $20,000,000 of previously deferred revenue per quarter over the remainder of 2025, subject to production levels. Let me move to the balance sheet. We ended the quarter with cash of $751,000,000 down from $8.00 $2,000,000 last quarter and $821,000,000 at Q1 twenty twenty four.

[Robert Simmons, Chief Financial Officer at SkyWest]

The decrease in cash during the quarter included the accretive actions of: one, repaying $114,000,000 in debt two, buying back 141,000 shares of SkyWest stock in Q1 for $14,000,000 With the volatility in the equity markets in Q1, we opportunistically repurchased three times the shares that we bought in the fourth quarter. As of March 31, we had $34,000,000 remaining under our current share repurchase authorization. And three, investing $73,000,000 in CapEx, including the purchase of four CRJ-five 50 aircraft, spare engines and other fixed assets. We ended Q1 with debt of $2,600,000,000 down from $2,700,000,000 as of twelvethirty onetwenty twenty four. Cash flow is an important component of our shareholder value creation calculus.

[Robert Simmons, Chief Financial Officer at SkyWest]

We generated approximately $500,000,000 in free cash flow in 2024 and deployed it primarily to delever and derisk the balance sheet to the benefit of our partners, our employees and our shareholders. We generated over $140,000,000 in free cash flow in Q1 twenty twenty five. Our strong balance sheet and well grounded liquidity are powerful tools as we pursue a variety of growth opportunities, including acquiring and financing 16 additional E175s by the end of twenty twenty six, repaying an expected over $400,000,000 in debt in 2025 and continuing to execute opportunistically on our share repurchase program. As we remain focused on improving our return on invested capital, we'd like to highlight the following. Both our debt net of cash and leverage ratios continue at favorable levels at their lowest point in over a decade.

[Robert Simmons, Chief Financial Officer at SkyWest]

We continue to anticipate that our total 2025 capital expenditures funding our growth initiatives will be approximately $575,000,000 to $600,000,000 including the purchase of eight new E175s and aircraft engines supporting our CRJ550 opportunity. Total CapEx in 2024 was $311,000,000 Consistent with our policy in practice, we're not giving any specific EPS guidance at this time, but let me give you a little additional color on 2025. As Wade will discuss in a minute, we now anticipate our twenty twenty five block hours to be up approximately 12% to 13% over 2024. The improved outlook in our twenty twenty five block hours is driven primarily by improving fleet utilization and availability and ongoing strong demand for our production. We now expect our 2025 GAAP EPS could be in the low to mid $9 per share area, including the discrete income tax benefit in Q1, if we are successful in executing on the opportunities in front of us.

[Robert Simmons, Chief Financial Officer at SkyWest]

We continue to expect to deliver solid operating leverage with 12% to 13% year over year production growth, translating into 18% to 19% increase in earnings per share in 2025. For modeling purposes, we still expect our 2025 depreciation expense will be slightly down from 2024 and our maintenance expense in 2025 should still be a little over $200,000,000 per quarter. We also anticipate our effective tax rate will be approximately 26% for the remaining three quarters of twenty twenty five. We are optimistic about our growth possibilities going into 2025 and 2026, including the three focus areas. One, growth in underserved communities driven partially by the deployment of over 30 additional CRJ-five 50 aircraft second, improved aircraft utilization and availability on our ERJ and CRJ fleets and third, placing 16 new E175s into service in 2025 and 2026.

[Robert Simmons, Chief Financial Officer at SkyWest]

We believe that our strong balance sheet, operating leverage, free cash flow and liquidity and the actions we will be taking to deploy our capital against a variety of accretive opportunities will position us well to drive total shareholder returns.

[Robert Simmons, Chief Financial Officer at SkyWest]

Wade?

[Wade Steel, CCO at SkyWest]

Thank you, Rob. Last year, we announced a new multiyear flying agreement for a total of 40 CRJ550s with United, including 11 aircraft that we committed to purchase from United. As of March 31, we had purchased all 11 aircraft. In April, United exercised its option to add 10 additional CRJ550s to this agreement, bringing the total to 50.

[Wade Steel, CCO at SkyWest]

Of those 50 CRJ550s, 39 will be modified from our existing CRJ700 fleet. We were operating 12 CRJ550s as of March 31 and expect to operate 30 by the end of this year, with the last 20 entering service during 2026. I want to point out that this agreement represents net growth aircraft along with the additional new E175s arriving by the end of twenty twenty six. We are excited about our continued strong partnership with United. Also last year, we reached an extension of a multiyear flying agreement with American that would allow for SkyWest to operate a total of 74 CRJ700s under revenue agreements.

[Wade Steel, CCO at SkyWest]

This new agreement will allow for these aircraft to fly for American through most of this decade. You'll recall that we successfully launched our first Delta CRJ550 last July, and we anticipate transitioning 15 CRJ550s to our Delta fleet by midyear. During Q1, we signed an extension with Delta on 16 CRJ700s and agreements along with our CRJ700 agreement with American, bringing the number of unassigned dual class CRJ700s and 900s down to low single digits. We expect these few aircraft will be assigned to one of our major partners soon. We have 16 new E175s currently on order, 15 for United and one for Alaska.

[Wade Steel, CCO at SkyWest]

We anticipate delivery of eight this year and eight in 2026. We do expect to see delivery delays from Embraer this year, and we now anticipate that the majority of our 2025 deliveries will be in the second half of the year. At the end of 2026, our E175 fleet total will be two seventy eight, continuing to enhance SkyWest's position as the largest Embraer operator in the world. Let me review our production. Q1 completed block hours were slightly up compared to Q4 twenty twenty four.

[Wade Steel, CCO at SkyWest]

Based on our current Q2 schedules from our major partners, we anticipate a 5% increase in Q2 as compared to Q1. For the full year, we anticipate a 12% to 13% increase in 2025 compared to 2024 approaching our 2019 levels. We expect block hour seasonality to return to the model as utilization improves during the strong summer months. We still have approximately 25 parked dual class CRJ aircraft that will be returned to service. The majority of these aircraft are currently under flying agreements and will be operating in 2025 and 2026.

[Wade Steel, CCO at SkyWest]

As we shared last quarter, we continue experiencing challenges in our third party MRO network, including labor and parts challenges. We expect maintenance expense to average slightly over $200,000,000 a quarter during 2025 as we bring aircraft out of long term storage and service the current fleet as production continues to increase. As you would expect, the maintenance expense will happen before the aircraft goes back into service. Our partners remain very engaged in supporting our efforts to restore production. We also reached an agreement with another regional carrier to purchase 29 used CRJ900 airframes for $28,000,000 We expect to utilize many of these airframes for parts to mitigate any supply chain challenges we may face over the next few years.

[Wade Steel, CCO at SkyWest]

We do anticipate operating six of these aircraft in the future. As of March 31, we had closed on three of these aircraft. As far as our prorate business, demand remains extremely strong. With great community support, we are seeing opportunities to return SkyWest service to several communities as we restore CRJ production. We will continue to work with the communities we serve on the best way to expand our service.

[Wade Steel, CCO at SkyWest]

As we increase our pro rate business, we will see more seasonality reintroduced into our model. As typical with all airlines, Q2 and Q3 are stronger, our strong revenue quarters and Q1 and Q4 are softer. We feel good about our ongoing efforts to reduce risk and enhance fleet and financing flexibility and remain committed to continuing our work with each of our major partners who provide strong solutions to the continued demand for our products.

[Robert Simmons, Chief Financial Officer at SkyWest]

Okay, operator, we're now ready for Q and A.

[Operator]

Thank you. At this time, we will now begin the Q and A session. Thank you. Your first question comes from the line of Catherine O'Brien with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

[Catherine O'Brien, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks so much for the time. So I believe it's next year that the first of your e one seventy five come to the end of their initial contract and and the associated debt is paid off. When will you start having conversations about extending those contracts? Are there any early indications that bolster your confidence those aircraft will stay in place with their respective airline partners?

[Wade Steel, CCO at SkyWest]

Yes, Kathy, this is Wade. Yeah. We constantly have communications with all of our major partners about fleet, fleet renewal, continuing to fly the aircraft. The aircraft are great airplanes, have been very well maintained. We believe they're doing a very nice job with with our major partners.

[Wade Steel, CCO at SkyWest]

And so we are optimistic that we'll continue to fly those for the the major partners, that they're flying for today.

[Catherine O'Brien, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Got it. Thanks. Maybe one for Rob. You you stepped up share purchases from fourth quarter as you noted, opportunistically just given a stock price movement. Can you walk us through what the guardrails are to pacing future purchases?

[Catherine O'Brien, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

On my math, you could complete your remaining authorization this year and then some and still see leverage down from 2024. What are the metrics you're looking to?

[Robert Simmons, Chief Financial Officer at SkyWest]

Yes, Katy, great question. I think that the way that we look at it is in a broader context of overall capital deployment. And I think that you know, obviously, our favorite use of capital is, you know, to grow our, you know, continuing to grow our business accretively. But, know, we've got many different ways that we can grow this business and do that. But, you know, when our stock, know, represents a favorable investment, we're pleased that we have the free cash flow and the liquidity to be able to take advantage of those moments, you know, as we have buying back about 22% of our company since the beginning of twenty twenty three.

[Robert Simmons, Chief Financial Officer at SkyWest]

So as you noted, we're sort of getting to the end of an authorization, but we have conversation about how we want to deploy capital with our board every quarter and those will continue to be good discussions.

[Catherine O'Brien, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Got it. Maybe if I could just sneak one more in. Can you just give us an update on the CRJ200 fleet? I think last quarter you had just over 140 of those aircraft not on contract that you're looking to either fly under new CPAs or charter business or maybe even to sell. What's been the progress on that front?

[Catherine O'Brien, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

You know, other than other than, like, the small handful of dual class CRJs, are those the only idle aircraft across your fleet? Thanks so much for the time.

[Wade Steel, CCO at SkyWest]

Yes, that's a great question. This is Wade. So last quarter, we did talk about having 140 of those that we do own that have no debt and very little book value associated with those. We do have a lot of those still under contract with a major partner. We do fly those in pro rate at SkyWest as well.

[Wade Steel, CCO at SkyWest]

So there is a big chunk of those, somewhere in the range of 80 ish today that are flying at SkyWest Airlines. We also, as we talked about last quarter, we do deploy those assets in SkyWest Charter as well. And so they are being used within SkyWest Charter, very productively. And then we have had success in selling some to selling and leasing the engines to third parties as well. And so the asset is in still good demand from our perspective.

[Wade Steel, CCO at SkyWest]

We're still using it. We anticipate using it for several more years. So yes, the CRJ200 is still something that we're still very optimistic about.

[Catherine O'Brien, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Sobhijit with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

[Savanthi Syth, MD - Airlines & Advance Air Mobility at Raymond James Financial]

Think, Chip, you mentioned really strong demand, clearly taking up block hours here a little bit I was curious if your partners have talked to you. I know this is kind of beyond, kind of that four month period that maybe schedules are being set. But have your partners talked to you about kind of their post summer plans and and how that might look?

[Chip Childs, CEO, President and Director at SkyWest]

Well, I no. Savi, this is Chip real quick. You know, I

[Chip Childs, CEO, President and Director at SkyWest]

think I think you have

[Chip Childs, CEO, President and Director at SkyWest]

to kinda look a little bit from the starting point with all of that. I mean, still understand, and we've talked about it the last couple of years. We're still we're still striving our way through a pilot shortage. And in all honesty, small community strong demand that we have not yet got back to. So, I I think the dynamics of of what our model is and the niche of what our model is is a little, different from a domestic perspective.

[Chip Childs, CEO, President and Director at SkyWest]

I mean, for your answer, we're always having ongoing conversations about, you know, the current climate beyond, you know, the next four months or whatever is gonna happen with the current, you know, macroeconomic situation. Nothing is Nothing has taken our eye off the long term still because the long term still needs planning as of today. Some of the things that could impact us for the summertime, we still look to have a very strong robust schedule for the summertime you know, and some of the most that we've had. And so from that perspective, you you do see some of the things that we've talked about in previous quarters about, you know, de urbanization of United States, where we fly, the small communities that we still have to get back access to, which we have a lot of opportunities to do that we're working on now. The conversation relative to our business model is, I would say, it's still dynamic with our partners, but we're still in a catch up mode with pretty much all of them, some more than others.

[Chip Childs, CEO, President and Director at SkyWest]

So overall, for the entire model, it's it's still pretty strong and solid as of as of now.

[Savanthi Syth, MD - Airlines & Advance Air Mobility at Raymond James Financial]

Makes sense. Appreciate that. And then I noticed the SkyWest Charter or, you know, it shows nine CRJs in SkyWest Charter. I think last time it was 18. Was is that just kind of seasonally something came down there?

[Savanthi Syth, MD - Airlines & Advance Air Mobility at Raymond James Financial]

Or what's the kind of the latest view on SkyWest Charter for this year?

[Wade Steel, CCO at SkyWest]

Yes, Savi. This is Wade. That's right. So we had 18 flying at the end of last quarter. And as you know, the demand for SkyWest Charter at the moment, the demand during the winter months is very, very strong.

[Wade Steel, CCO at SkyWest]

And the demand at SkyWest Airlines is extremely strong in the summertime. And so in order to fulfill all of our demand that we have at an entity level, we felt like we needed to move a few of those back to SkyWest to continue to fulfill all of demand at SkyWest Airlines. And so long term, we do anticipate those airplanes going back. But for the short term, in order to fulfill all the demand that we have at SkyWest Airlines, we needed to move those over.

[Savanthi Syth, MD - Airlines & Advance Air Mobility at Raymond James Financial]

And and maybe I can ask you, Wade, just you did see, prorate stepping up from fourth quarter, which is a little bit unusual. Was that just more charter business? Was that just strength in demand? Or I was curious why that was stepping up.

[Wade Steel, CCO at SkyWest]

Yes. So on the pro rate side, the increase year over year is definitely due to increase of markets that we've added. We've had the opportunity to add several new markets year over year. And so as we said, the small community air service, the demand is extremely strong. A lot of these small communities are looking for good, reliable air service, and so we've been able to fulfill that, we'll continue to look to do that over the next several years.

[Savanthi Syth, MD - Airlines & Advance Air Mobility at Raymond James Financial]

Your QO QO is up too, which is unusual, which is what I thought.

[Wade Steel, CCO at SkyWest]

Yeah. And that's also just capacity increases.

[Savanthi Syth, MD - Airlines & Advance Air Mobility at Raymond James Financial]

Makes sense. Seems like strong demand. Alright. Thank you.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Mike Linenberg with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

[Michael Linenberg, Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

Yes. Hey, I just I wanted to follow-up on the DOT approval process for SkyWest Charter. It was it seems like it was a few months ago that they came back and it was a fairly comprehensive endorsement of what you were trying to do. It was a two week show cause. It seems like that was a few months ago that usually you have your two weeks and then we get a response.

[Michael Linenberg, Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

Is that did I miss something? Are we still waiting for a response?

[Chip Childs, CEO, President and Director at SkyWest]

No, Mike. It's Chip. It's a great question. We did get show cause of order, which typically says you're you're basically, I would suggest, at the one foot line on the go line, and, you've just got a little bit further to go. I you can imagine, in our view, we would have hoped to have gotten the final approval by now.

[Michael Linenberg, Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

Yep.

[Chip Childs, CEO, President and Director at SkyWest]

But as as you can imagine, things in DC are a little chaotic right now, and so we we attribute it to a little bit of that. Now k. Once we get that, yeah, once once we get the approval, I mean, like we've already talked about with some of the fleet going back and forth with SkyWest, I think that's very good for us to smooth out the seasonality issues that we have with Charter. And, again, to get them fully deployed with small community service in certain areas that we want to do this in, you know, it does take a little bit to get them up and going.

[Chip Childs, CEO, President and Director at SkyWest]

So, look, we've been patient for three years. We still think that there is a tremendous value to the SkyWesting family with this model, and we'll continue to be patient and pursue this. We think it's coming soon, though.

[Michael Linenberg, Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

Okay. And then as we think about the sizing of Charter, as Savi mentioned, it was 18 airplanes, it went to nine. That list of cities who filed on your behalf of in support of Charter, it's a long list. It's a lot of cities that either have no service or have lost almost all their service. Like what as we think about sizing and how big that could get, how many airplanes could that be?

[Michael Linenberg, Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

It would seem like it's a lot more than 18 airplanes.

[Chip Childs, CEO, President and Director at SkyWest]

Yes. I would say that it could be. We don't get too far ahead of ourselves because we probably got a little bit of PTSD from three years of trying to get through the process, which is which is a long and arduous no one's ever gone through this.

[Michael Linenberg, Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

Yep.

[Chip Childs, CEO, President and Director at SkyWest]

And I I think from our perspective, everybody knows the kind of company SkyWest is. They know we're gonna do it right. We're really gonna enhance safety throughout the industry, and so you have all those factors that are coming into this. And, you know, for us to sit down and actually pencil it out, some of those cities will go will go towards SkyWest Airlines, but some of the more applicable ones will go to to SkyWest Charter, and then it enables us to do some other things, you know, with Charters that, from our perspective, could provide some some very good value to the company and to to other communities. So we we haven't gotten too far ahead of ourselves until we get past the one foot line over the goal line, and then we'll probably give some more guidance when we get there.

[Michael Linenberg, Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

Okay. Fair enough. And if I could just squeeze one more in. The last that I saw on the number of airplanes that you had leased out to third parties, the last I saw was like 40 airplanes. I don't know where that number is today at the end of the March quarter.

[Michael Linenberg, Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

But as you think about going forward, is there an opportunity for as those airplanes come off from their leases that it makes sense to put them in the SkyWest business with one of your partners? Or does it make sense to continue to have a decent, a pretty healthy lease portfolio because of the diversification that it offers you SkyWest? Plus I suspect that the margins are probably pretty good on that business as well. How do you think about that, your lease book?

[Wade Steel, CCO at SkyWest]

Yes. So Mike, this is Wade. So as far as the number that we have, it's very consistent with what you're saying. It's right at the $40,000,000 mark. Some of these leases, they do go out for several more years.

[Wade Steel, CCO at SkyWest]

But the nice part portfolio is we can operate every one of those airplanes. Right? Whether they're five fifties or nine hundreds, we can. And we do evaluate that, look at that. I'll tell you the the and and the margins are good in that.

[Wade Steel, CCO at SkyWest]

They're fine. But the other business that's been very good for us is also the engine leasing business. Right? There's very high demand for the engine leasing. And because of some of the assets that we've had, we've had a lot of success in that because of the size and scope and what we're able to bring.

[Wade Steel, CCO at SkyWest]

And so the demand has been very strong on both engine and aircraft leasing.

[Michael Linenberg, Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

Thanks, Wade. Thanks, everyone.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Duane Pfennigwerth with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

[Duane Pfennigwerth, Senior MD at Evercore]

Hey, thanks. Good afternoon. Just wondering if you're seeing any changes in how your customers are scheduling given this theme of stronger peaks and weaker off peaks. I assume that regional lift is one of the tools in the toolbox for your customers to get more tactical with their scheduling, maybe on some level down gauging to a regional could actually help in these off peak periods. So basically, premise of the question is any changes in how you're asked how you're being asked to fly and how you're being scheduled given this peak versus off peak dynamic?

[Chip Childs, CEO, President and Director at SkyWest]

Duane, it's Chip. That's fantastic question. And one I think that would is good for us to address for a couple of reasons. One, you know, the the this has happened, you know, so quickly from the perspective of the summer schedules. You know, our partners have gone out and said, look.

[Chip Childs, CEO, President and Director at SkyWest]

They're softening demand domestically. From our perspective, we're still seeing strong schedules. We're have tremendous, you know, visibility in the yield. That's also, you know, always at our what our partners are. But to the extent that you could look back at history, typically, economic downturns, even going back to 09/11, going back to the financial crisis as well as COVID, typically, we're kind of the lowest common denominator relative to the aircraft size that we have.

[Chip Childs, CEO, President and Director at SkyWest]

So they do strategically and have the ability to deploy this level of aircraft or these levels of aircraft in different ways. The the schedule have been published so long, you're just gonna have to be stuck with some

[Chip Childs, CEO, President and Director at SkyWest]

of the schedules that they've got. But if this

[Chip Childs, CEO, President and Director at SkyWest]

thing continues to, stay on pace at where it's at today, we probably will see some difference of of schedules and how and where they fly us and frequency and that type of stuff. We just don't have that visibility in the schedules that we're working with over the next six months today. So and and and no conversations about, okay. It's time to to do a massive pivot. So from that perspective, nothing yet, but it's good to know typically what happens in economic softening and downturn relative to regional fleets and what we've seen in the past.

[Duane Pfennigwerth, Senior MD at Evercore]

That's helpful. And then just as you ratchet your utilization incrementally higher, at least for this year, can you just walk us through how you get there? Does start with lower observed attrition in your workforce and then you go back to your customers and commit to that? Or does it start with an ask from one of your mainline customers and then you go back and solve for that?

[Wade Steel, CCO at SkyWest]

Duane, that's a great question. It really starts with the demand from our major partners at this point. We have told all of our major partners they can schedule how they want at this point. We the staffing at SkyWest is very good at this moment, and we're bringing a lot of airplanes out of long term storage. And so we give them the number of airplanes they can schedule, and they can schedule it, how they see fit.

[Wade Steel, CCO at SkyWest]

And so we are seeing very good utilization for these summer months as Chip said and the demand appears to be very strong for our products still.

[Duane Pfennigwerth, Senior MD at Evercore]

Okay. Appreciate the thoughts.

[Chip Childs, CEO, President and Director at SkyWest]

Thanks

[Chip Childs, CEO, President and Director at SkyWest]

Duane.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Tom Fitzgerald with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

[Tom Fitzgerald, VP - Equity Research at TD Cowen]

Hi. Thanks so much for the time and congrats on the nice quarter. Are there just given that you changed up some of the contracts during the pilot crisis, is there any risk, from the higher variable element of your CPA revenue that we should be thinking about?

[Wade Steel, CCO at SkyWest]

That's a good question. We've worked with each of our partners on optimizing our contracts, as you said, during COVID. All of them still have the fundamentals of minimum utilization, how they schedule us. They have to work with us on our schedules to make sure we are comfortable with them. And so the basic fundamentals are still very strong in the contracts.

[Tom Fitzgerald, VP - Equity Research at TD Cowen]

Okay. That's really helpful. That's great to hear. Most of them have been answered. But I was just curious, just given some of the headlines on the reverse merger between your second biggest independent competitor and one of the smaller regional airlines, I was just wondering how you and the Board are thinking about consolidation in the regional industry and M and A among your capital allocation toolkit?

[Tom Fitzgerald, VP - Equity Research at TD Cowen]

Thanks again for the time.

[Chip Childs, CEO, President and Director at SkyWest]

Yes. Tom, that's a great question. And from our perspective, the situation that you've discussed has has been out there for a while. We've been a part of those conversations at some time or the other. We did we were able to do some things, even some things that we mentioned today that that gives us some opportunities within that situation, but it doesn't take you have to go back in history probably, you know, ten to twelve years and and see when we used to be in a scenario where we would like to go out and buy and merge competitors, and that did not end up well for us.

[Chip Childs, CEO, President and Director at SkyWest]

In fact, it almost destroyed our company. So we we don't have the right culture and environment to do that type of stuff anymore, and we and we've said that on this call. I mean, we're very much an organic growth oriented company. Given the dynamics of who we are and what we do and the way we do it, it just doesn't align that we could go out and do any of those acquisitions. And I think we've said this in on calls in the past.

[Chip Childs, CEO, President and Director at SkyWest]

But if yeah. Yeah. What the right opportunity is, I think I think we're we're very comfortable with what the acquisition between Republic and Mesa is. We think that consolidation in our space is good. We think that as we continue to go forward in the future, there be bit more one way or the other.

[Chip Childs, CEO, President and Director at SkyWest]

But from our perspective, our preference is just to find ways to acquire assets, deliver a fantastic product for our partners and be strategic with them in ways that nobody else can be. I mean, I think we've been clear with them that we we can't do acquisition type of stuff given given the DNA that we have. But we are very comfortable doing capital enhancements to derisk any elements of their business that they have. That's the real difference between us as I think that we as we continue to have a future with these four fantastic partners, we wanna be more than just a carrier that flies from point a to point b. We wanna be a carrier that sits down with them and enhances what their risks are, what their problems are, and find ways to leverage what is a fantastic operation, an amazing culture with the best professionals, as well as the best balance sheet and and creativity and be be able to to help them in ways that we can in the future.

[Chip Childs, CEO, President and Director at SkyWest]

And we were very, very comfortable with that given what we have in the marketplace and what we can continue to grow with.

[Operator]

And it seems that we have no further questions. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Keith Childs for closing remarks.

[Chip Childs, CEO, President and Director at SkyWest]

Thanks, John. Appreciate it. We appreciate everybody's interest in the call today. Obviously, it's a very dynamic world we're living in today. We're comfortable with the investments and the discipline that we've had in the past to make it through these dynamic economic environment.

[Chip Childs, CEO, President and Director at SkyWest]

And we're looking forward to not only just protect what we have, but be opportunistic in ways to deploy our capital. So we will update you on that progress again in three months. Thanks again.

[Operator]

This concludes the conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Robert Simmons, Chief Financial Officer
• Eric Woodward, CAO
• Chip Childs, CEO, President and Director
• Wade Steel, CCO

Analysts

• Catherine O'Brien, Analyst at Goldman Sachs
• Savanthi Syth, MD - Airlines & Advance Air Mobility at Raymond James Financial
• Michael Linenberg, Analyst at Deutsche Bank
• Duane Pfennigwerth, Senior MD at Evercore
• Tom Fitzgerald, VP - Equity Research at TD Cowen