Surf Air Mobility Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: The company beat Q1 guidance with $25.6M revenue and an adjusted EBITDA loss of $12.3M, and it raised full‑year adjusted EBITDA guidance ~40% to a loss of $25M–$30M while keeping revenue guidance at $128M–$138M.
  • Positive Sentiment: Management says SurfOS is already reducing costs (guidance cites ~6% airline and ~15% charter savings), accelerating AI‑assisted development, and is being commercialized via BrokerOS, OperatorOS and enterprise offerings with Palantir support.
  • Positive Sentiment: Surf On‑Demand delivered a breakout quarter — $10.1M revenue, +77% YoY, 340 bps margin improvement — and Powered‑by program is scaling (29 brokers now, target 100 by year‑end) with new supply deals to expand capacity.
  • Positive Sentiment: Strategic electrification partnership with Beta includes a firm order for 25 all‑electric aircraft (options for 75), Beta launch‑operator designation and exclusive Hawaii MRO rights, and it lets Surf Air avoid up to $100M of prior Caravan electrification capex.
  • Negative Sentiment: Despite progress, net loss widened to $20.3M in Q1, the company faces near‑term headwinds from higher fuel and April weather (guidance flags Q2 impact), and sustained profitability depends on SurfOS adoption and benign macro conditions.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Surf Air Mobility Q1 2026
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good evening. My name is Christine Lynn, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Surf Air Mobility first quarter 2026 earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. Thank you. I will now pass the call over to Sam Levenson. Please go ahead.

Sam Levenson
Sam Levenson
Head of Investor Relations at Surf Air Mobility

Thank you, Operator. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Surf Air Mobility's first quarter 2026 earnings call. I'm joined today by Deanna White, our Chief Executive Officer; Louis Saint-Cyr, President of Airline Operations; Joshua Loden, President of Surf On Demand; Liam Fayed, Co-Founder of Surf Air Mobility; and Oliver Reeves, our Chief Financial Officer. Our earnings release can be found on the SEC EDGAR website and on our Investor Relations page at investors.surfair.com. Before we begin, I want to remind everyone that during today's call, we will discuss our outlook and expectations for future performance. These forward-looking statements may be preceded by words such as we expect, we believe, or we anticipate. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from the views expressed today.

Sam Levenson
Sam Levenson
Head of Investor Relations at Surf Air Mobility

Some of these risks are set forth in our earnings release and in our periodic reports filed with the SEC. We will also present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. Additional disclosures regarding non-GAAP measures, including the reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP, are included in our earnings release posted on our Investor Relations website and in our SEC filings. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Deanna. Deanna?

Deanna White
Deanna White
CEO at Surf Air Mobility

Thank you, Sam, and thank you all for joining us this afternoon. Our Q1 2026 results came in better than we expected. Revenue landed at $25.6 million at the high end of our guidance range, an Adjusted EBITDA loss of $12.3 million outperformed our guidance. These results reflect a business that is executing with more discipline and efficiency than a year ago, despite the macro environment and higher fuel prices. We have improved our 2026 Adjusted EBITDA guidance by approximately 40% to a loss of $30 million-$25 million, while maintaining our annual revenue guidance at $128 million-$138 million, 20%-30% growth year-over-year. This revised Adjusted EBITDA guidance represents a significant improvement from our previous guidance and is a result of four factors.

Deanna White
Deanna White
CEO at Surf Air Mobility

First, we anticipate SurfOS to continue to reduce costs across the airline and charter businesses, 6% for the airline, 15% for on-demand private charter. Second, corporate automation and procurement discipline will reduce our staffing requirements by 32% and our professional services spend by 17%. Third, our charter business is growing revenue through the Powered by Surf On Demand program without a proportionate increase in fixed cost. Fourth, AI-assisted development has compressed SurfOS build cycles and reduced development spend. Together, these four factors are expected to generate an incremental $15 million-$20 million in Adjusted EBITDA improvement from our previous guidance. The bigger picture is that SurfOS is now visibly moving our financial results. Last week, we released go-to-market details of the SurfOS platform with a presentation available on our Investor Relations site.

Deanna White
Deanna White
CEO at Surf Air Mobility

In just a few minutes, our Co-Founder, Liam Fayed, will share more on our go-to-market strategy. Lastly, our strategic partnership with BETA Technologies remains central to our ambitions to adopt electric aircraft within our operations. In March, we announced a firm order for 25 BETA all-electric aircraft with options for 75 more and a designation as BETA's launch operator for commercial passenger electric service. Under the agreement, Surf Air Mobility will become BETA Technologies' exclusive maintenance, repair, and overhaul facility in our launch market of Hawaii with the ability to expand into future geographic areas. Importantly, this partnership allowed us to eliminate up to $100 million in planned capital expenditure on our Cessna Caravan powertrain electrification program. We still believe in a long-term case for an electric Caravan and are exploring partner paths forward that would complete the initiative without further deployment of our capital.

Deanna White
Deanna White
CEO at Surf Air Mobility

I'll now turn it over to the business leaders of our company to discuss their specific areas, beginning with Louis Saint-Cyr, President of our airline operations.

Louis Saint-Cyr
Louis Saint-Cyr
President of Airline Operations at Surf Air Mobility

Thank you, Deanna. Q1 2026 was a solid quarter for our airline operations, both in terms of operational performance and how we're using technology to improve efficiency across the network.

Louis Saint-Cyr
Louis Saint-Cyr
President of Airline Operations at Surf Air Mobility

For the quarter, we maintained a controllable completion factor of 96%, with on-time departures of 72% and on-time arrivals of 78%. All three metrics improved relative to the same period last year. Within our peer group of regional airlines, we're consistently operating as a leader on these metrics. That consistency is a direct result of better tools, better processes, and a focus on safety and reliability. Our two airline brands, Southern Airways Express and Mokulele Airlines, flew approximately 65,000 passengers on nearly 13,000 departures in the quarter. Scheduled service revenue of $15.5 million reflects a 13% year-over-year decrease, which was planned. We have continued to exit routes that do not contribute positively to the business. That trade-off is the right one. We're building a more profitable scheduled service network, not one optimized for revenue at the expense of margins.

Louis Saint-Cyr
Louis Saint-Cyr
President of Airline Operations at Surf Air Mobility

We also had a solid quarter managing our cost base. The airline came in better than plan for Q1, driven by tighter cost discipline and operational efficiencies. That kind of cost performance is what makes the network rationalization sustainable. The efficiency gains reflected in our financial results are largely driven by what SurfOS is doing inside the airline. In Q1 2026, SurfOS powered crew scheduling, aircraft dispatch, and maintenance digitization drove measurable improvements in both productivity and reliability. Our proprietary mobile crew app and maintenance management system reduced both the cost and frequency of regular operation. These cost efficiencies are the result of better data, better planning, and faster decision making, all integrated through SurfOS. As we automate more workflows and feed more operational data into the system, the returns compound.

Louis Saint-Cyr
Louis Saint-Cyr
President of Airline Operations at Surf Air Mobility

We expect these results to be indicative of the efficiencies we can drive for our SurfOS customers. In Hawaii, we continue to execute on our investment commitments. We renovated our terminal, which has significantly improved our passenger experience at our Honolulu Airport hub, and we took delivery of two new Cessna Caravans in April. These are tangible improvements that enhance the experience for Hawaii's inter-island travelers and reinforce our position as the largest inter-island airline network by departure and airport served. Hawaii is also the market where our electrification roadmap will come to life. The ultra short-haul route network, the airport access, and the community relationships that Mokulele has built over many years provide the operating foundation for BETA cargo demonstration flights, which will begin this summer, and ultimately for passenger service on electric aircraft.

Louis Saint-Cyr
Louis Saint-Cyr
President of Airline Operations at Surf Air Mobility

That transition will happen because we've already established the operational footprint and credibility in that market. Safety, reliability, and profitability in that order are the priorities of our airline. In April, we completed the implementation of our safety management system known as SMS. We are one of nine Part 135 commuter operators in the country that have completed an operational SMS, and we did this a full year ahead of the FAA's May 2027 mandate. SMS is a key differentiator in how we manage risk and how we demonstrate safety leadership to regulators, partners, and passengers. It also governs the vetting of all third-party operator partners used by Surf On Demand private charters. With that, I'll hand it over to Joshua Loden, President of Surf On Demand, to cover our private charter business.

Joshua Loden
Joshua Loden
President of Surf On Demand at Surf Air Mobility

Thanks, Louis. Q1 2026 was a breakout quarter for Surf On Demand. We set records across revenue and margin and have stronger momentum than at any point in the history of this business. Surf On Demand private charter of $10.1 million represented a 77% year-over-year increase and our highest revenue quarter since inception. March was our highest revenue month ever, gross margins improved 340 basis points from the same quarter year-over-year. Margin improvement reflects our deliberate shift in how we're building the business. Some stats that support this. Revenue per flight increased 38% in the first quarter, driven by a number of factors, including long-haul flights over 1,000 miles grew 149% year-over-year, international departures increased 87%.

Joshua Loden
Joshua Loden
President of Surf On Demand at Surf Air Mobility

Flights on larger cabin aircraft, defined as greater than nine seats, were up 49%. We're flying farther with larger aircraft and to more destinations, domestically and internationally. Supporting this performance were efficiency gains from BrokerOS. Comparing Q1 2026 to Q1 2025, BrokerOS contributed to top brokers closing 32% more bookings, quote to close time improving 57%, and payments processed on platform increasing 40%. What these improvements mean is that our On Demand private charter business is more productive than at any point in our history. We're booking more, we're closing faster, and we're keeping more of the transactions on platform. One of the contributors to growth in our private charter business is Powered by Surf On Demand. Powered by Surf On Demand equips independent brokers with BrokerOS to sell under the Surf On Demand brand and enables us to continue to scale globally.

Joshua Loden
Joshua Loden
President of Surf On Demand at Surf Air Mobility

At the end of Q1 2026, we had six active independent brokers enrolled on the program. That number has grown to 29, and we have hundreds of additional applications in the queue. Independent brokers are looking for a branded platform that offers a full suite of tools, including 24/7 customer service, safety accreditation, real-time aircraft access, and complimentary aircraft recovery. The economics are attractive. We generate incremental revenue without a proportional increase in fixed costs, and we anticipate that margin will continue to expand as we scale. In April, we signed another exclusive wholesale agreement to expand our aircraft supply by 67% and added a new aircraft category. Those supply agreements directly support our ability to serve the growing demand coming through Powered by Surf On Demand.

Joshua Loden
Joshua Loden
President of Surf On Demand at Surf Air Mobility

Looking at the full year, we expect Surf On Demand to be the largest single contributor to revenue growth in 2026, with expanding gross margins as the mix continues to shift towards higher value flights as the Powered by Surf On Demand program gains traction. One final milestone worth noting. In March, Surf On Demand achieved the ARGUS Certified Charter Broker accreditation, making us one of only 16 ARGUS certified brokerages globally. This accreditation is not easy to obtain. It matters to our clients and reinforces that we operate at the safety and compliance standards that they require. We also joined the Air Charter Safety Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advocating for safety, professionalism, and operational best practices throughout the charter aviation industry. With that, I'll hand over to Liam Fayed, Co-Founder of Surf Air Mobility, to discuss our SurfOS initiative.

Liam Fayed
Liam Fayed
Co-Founder at Surf Air Mobility

Thank you, Josh. To briefly introduce myself, I'm Liam, the co-founder of Surf Air Mobility, and I run the Surf Air Technologies team developing SurfOS. Most software companies enter a market from the outside, then try to learn as they build and iterate from there. We took a different approach. Every SurfOS product is built and validated on the operational and commercial data from our airline and charter business before we offer it to external customers, which means we've worked through our own pain points and found solutions within our own business first. Looking to the broader opportunity, SurfOS is targeting a large and growing market spanning charter aviation, private aircraft sales, and MRO aftermarket. Taken together, these three interdependent market segments share the same operators, brokers, and aircrafts and represent an estimated $156 billion global opportunity.

Liam Fayed
Liam Fayed
Co-Founder at Surf Air Mobility

Yet each still largely runs on legacy software and manual processes. SurfOS is designed to bring the data and workflows across all three onto one connected operating system. Our software development is moving at record speed. To highlight just a few of the new tools we built in the first quarter of 2026. We developed an aircraft intelligence tool to monitor fleet utilization and movement patterns of third-party aircraft to better inform charter and sourcing decisions. We integrated Palantir's AIP-enabled price rating directly into BrokerOS, allowing brokers to determine the market rates and identify margin opportunities in every quote. We continued expanding BrokerOS CRM capabilities, moving closer to a true end-to-end solution for an independent brokers operating under the Surf On Demand brand.

Liam Fayed
Liam Fayed
Co-Founder at Surf Air Mobility

After the end of the first quarter, we launched a fuel optimization module and a crew reserve optimization module for our airline operations. These are both AI-supported workflows built on Palantir's Foundry and AIP infrastructure. Last week, we released the details of our SurfOS commercial go-to-market strategy. I wanna walk through that here and to reiterate our approach to the software business in 2026 and beyond. In 2025, we focused on building our data infrastructure on Palantir's Foundry platform, digitizing our processes, capturing data, and deploying tools within our own business. Now, with the infrastructure in place, we're focused on bringing three SurfOS products to market this year. BrokerOS launched commercially in December of 2025. Independent brokers joined our Powered by Surf On Demand program and used BrokerOS to manage sourcing, quoting, pricing, and bookings end-to-end.

Liam Fayed
Liam Fayed
Co-Founder at Surf Air Mobility

Before external launch, BrokerOS was developed inside Surf On Demand's own sales team. The results speak for themselves. A 32% increase in bookings for top performing brokers, 57% faster quote to close cycles, and 40% more payments processed on platform comparing Q1 2026 with Q1 2025. BrokerOS generates revenue via a take rate across on-demand private charter bookings. The early results are encouraging, and as Josh mentioned, we are accelerating the Powered by Surf On Demand program as the primary commercialization channel for BrokerOS. Our 2026 target is 100 independent brokers onboarded by year-end. OperatorOS is targeted for commercial launch in the second half of 2026.

Liam Fayed
Liam Fayed
Co-Founder at Surf Air Mobility

It is designed for small and mid-sized Part 135 operators, both scheduled and charter, and provides core modules for crew and aircraft scheduling while integrating supply directly into BrokerOS distribution. The better OperatorOS works for operators, the more real-time aircraft supply is available to our brokers. The products are designed to reinforce one another. We have worked with over 440 operators over the past several years who supply our charter operations. These operators form our prospective software sales pipeline for OperatorOS, and we currently have 17 LOIs and software agreements signed. OperatorOS will be monetized through a modular subscription fee and based on operator size, with additional revenue generated through ancillary services upsells. Our highest strategic priority for OperatorOS is aggregating as much supply onto the platform as possible.

Liam Fayed
Liam Fayed
Co-Founder at Surf Air Mobility

Our 2026 targets are 10 additional LOIs signed and five operators live on the platform by year-end. SurfOS Enterprise Solutions targets large operators, charter brokerages and aircraft manufacturers that need fully-customized SurfOS deployment. Under our exclusive teaming agreement, Palantir Forward-deployed engineering team participates directly in enterprise sales conversations alongside us and provides us business development resources for go-to-market and commercialization. The combination of Palantir's infrastructure, credibility, and forward-deployed engineers paired with our real-world software operational use case opens up doors and shortens sales cycles in ways that pure SaaS competitors have trouble replicating. Our 2026 target for enterprise software is to close multi-year, multi-million dollar contracts, and we are currently in several active conversations. I also want to briefly address SurfOS approach to agentic AI because it's where the next phase of our software gets particularly interesting.

Liam Fayed
Liam Fayed
Co-Founder at Surf Air Mobility

The data from our own airlines and charter business is already unified on Palantir's Foundry, which means the foundation is in place to maximize the impact from deploying AI agents to autonomously optimized workflows like crew scheduling, aircraft sourcing, maintenance prediction, and aircraft recovery. With Palantir's AIP, we're embedding agents quickly into the highest impact opportunities. Our SurfOS products, as they launch and grow within the market, will enable something that does not exist today. A distributed charter network where brokers and operators, aircraft owners and passengers all benefit from the coordinated supply and demand on a single AI-enabled operating system. Operators reduce costs and improve fleet utilization. Owners maximize asset returns. Brokers close more deals with better aircraft sourcing. Passengers access more inventory at a transparent competitive prices. None of that is possible today because the ecosystem is so fragmented, causing stakeholders to operate with incomplete information.

Liam Fayed
Liam Fayed
Co-Founder at Surf Air Mobility

SurfOS will change that. The more participants on the platform, the more valuable it becomes for everyone. That's the big opportunity we see ahead of us. For additional details on our go-to-market strategy and our product roadmap, the full presentation is available on our Investor Relations website. I'll now turn it over to Oliver Reeves, our Chief Financial Officer.

Oliver Reeves
Oliver Reeves
CFO at Surf Air Mobility

Thank you, Liam. I'd like to begin by covering our Q1 2026 financial results, and I will then walk through guidance for the second quarter and full year 2026. Total revenue of $25.6 million came in at the high-end of our guidance range of $24 million-$26 million, representing a 9% increase year-over-year. Scheduled service revenue was $15.5 million, a 13% decrease compared to the prior year period. As Louis mentioned, scheduled service revenue reflects the intentional exit of unprofitable routes. We are trading short-term revenue for long-term margin, which is the correct outcome to drive long-term value. Surf On Demand private charter revenue of $10.1 million grew 77% year-over-year.

Oliver Reeves
Oliver Reeves
CFO at Surf Air Mobility

That is the strongest quarter the charter business has had since inception, and it reflects both the demand growth Josh has described and the productivity gains flowing through BrokerOS. Net loss for Q1 2026 was $20.3 million, compared to a net loss of $18.5 million in the prior year period. Both periods include investments in R&D for technology initiatives, stock-based compensation, transaction costs, and other non-recurring items. The year-over-year increase in net loss reflects our continued strategic investment in SurfOS development and the commercial rollouts we are building towards. Adjusted EBITDA loss for the quarter was $12.3 million, outperforming our Adjusted EBITDA loss guidance range of $15.5 million-$13.5 million.

Oliver Reeves
Oliver Reeves
CFO at Surf Air Mobility

Adjusted EBITDA results were driven by improving on-demand charter margins, effective cost controls across our airline operations, and the more rapid and cost-efficient development and deployment of SurfOS. Additionally, Adjusted EBITDA loss improved by $1.1 million compared to the prior year, driven primarily by the broader internal adoption of SurfOS within our airline operations. This is the ninth consecutive quarter in which we have met or exceeded our revenue and/or Adjusted EBITDA guidance. We do not take that record for granted. It reflects a management team that sets guidance it can stand behind and then executes against it. In April, we revised our full year 2026 Adjusted EBITDA loss guidance to a range of $25 million-$30 million, an improvement of approximately 40% from our prior Adjusted EBITDA loss guidance of $40 million-$50 million.

Oliver Reeves
Oliver Reeves
CFO at Surf Air Mobility

Revenue guidance is unchanged at $128 million-$138 million, representing 20%-30% growth over full year 2025 revenue. The guidance improvement is not driven by a single factor. As covered by Deanna and the team, there are several drivers behind the upward revision, including SurfOS driven cost reductions in the airline and charter businesses, corporate automation and procurement discipline, profitable revenue growth through the Powered by Surf On Demand program, and lower SurfOS development costs through AI-assisted build cycles. For the second quarter of 2026, we expect revenue in the range of $27 million-$30 million. These expectations reflect both continued growth in On Demand private charter and the impact for scheduled service of the prior year's exit of unprofitable routes.

Oliver Reeves
Oliver Reeves
CFO at Surf Air Mobility

We expect Adjusted EBITDA loss in the range of $10.5 million-$8.5 million. Adjusted EBITDA excludes the impact of stock-based compensation, changes in the fair value of financial instruments, and other non-cash and non-recurring items. Adjusted EBITDA loss guidance for the second quarter reflects two external headwinds. First, global fuel markets moved against the industry and April weather in Hawaii drove an elevated cancellation rate on our inter-island network with both revenue and unit cost consequences. We responded to the fuel pressure with targeted fare actions in markets where demand supports them. The operational improvement we've talked about in recent quarters, including SurfOS productivity gains and maintenance and scheduling efficiencies, provided a meaningful offset. Absent these two events, our Q2 guidance expectations would have demonstrated the underlying margins trajectories more clearly.

Oliver Reeves
Oliver Reeves
CFO at Surf Air Mobility

In summary, in line with our recently announced 40% improvement to full year 2026 Adjusted EBITDA guidance, our company is focused on accelerating its path to profitability and anticipates Adjusted EBITDA loss to further narrow through the second half of 2026 absent unexpected macro or geopolitical headwinds. One additional item worth noting. In April, we raised $30 million in new capital, $15 million through a non-dilutive aircraft backed credit facility and $15 million in common equity led by a co-founder with participations from officers, directors, and existing institutional investors. The proceeds are primarily intended to accelerate SurfOS implementation and fund our electrification initiatives. The fact that co-founders, our chairman, CEO, CFO, and other directors collectively purchased approximately $5.3 million of Surf Air Mobility common stock in the offering translates as follows. The people running this company are buying the stock.

Oliver Reeves
Oliver Reeves
CFO at Surf Air Mobility

We believe in our plan. I'll hand it back to Deanna for some closing remarks before we open for questions.

Deanna White
Deanna White
CEO at Surf Air Mobility

The operational and financial results of the first quarter clearly demonstrate that the work we did in 2025, building SurfOS, tightening operations, and recalibrating the private charter business, is starting to bear fruit. We exceeded Adjusted EBITDA guidance, improved full-year guidance by nearly 40% and closed the first quarter with a series of milestones that matter. SMS completion ahead of schedule, ARGUS certification, and a capital raise backed by the leadership team's own capital. The plan we have laid out for 2026 is clear. We are executing against it. We appreciate your time today and interest in Surf Air Mobility. I will now turn it back over to the operator.

Operator

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Mike Latimore with Northland. Mike, your line is now open.

Mike Latimore
Mike Latimore
Analyst at Northland Securities

All right, great. Afternoon, yeah. Nice to see the accelerating growth on On Demand and the overall efficiency benefits from SurfOS. Great results here. I guess as we think about moving from 29 brokers to 100 by year-end, can you talk a little bit about your visibility into that? You know, what's the process for onboarding? Is this gonna be a linear process throughout the year?

Deanna White
Deanna White
CEO at Surf Air Mobility

Hi, Mike, it's Deanna. Thanks for your interest in the company. I'm gonna turn that question over to Josh Loden, who's the President of the On Demand business.

Joshua Loden
Joshua Loden
President of Surf On Demand at Surf Air Mobility

Hi, Mike. Since we launched the program, as I mentioned, we've brought on board, you know, just shy of 30 brokers in the first couple of months and we've had over 200 brokers apply to join the program. Hitting the 100 brokers is something that we know we can do. We really wanna focus on quality. The reason we believe in this program is because it can be scaled globally, and we wanna make sure we focus on brokers that have as, you know, have the industry relationships and the customer relationships to bring to the table. We are confident we can hit our goal of 100 brokers.

Joshua Loden
Joshua Loden
President of Surf On Demand at Surf Air Mobility

In terms of onboarding the brokers, it is a fully-automated process through the software that we built together with Palantir. The process of getting on board and getting selling for some brokers can happen in just a couple of days.

Mike Latimore
Mike Latimore
Analyst at Northland Securities

Okay. Excellent. Just with regard to the airline operations, it looks like you're already getting some of the efficiencies from using SurfOS. I guess, you know, you've mentioned some of the modules you currently use internally, and they're having, you know, a good impact here obviously. As you think about the next sort of tranche of modules you could use, how impactful could they be kind of relative to what you've implemented over?

Deanna White
Deanna White
CEO at Surf Air Mobility

I'm gonna turn that over to Louis Saint-Cyr, the President of Airline Operations.

Louis Saint-Cyr
Louis Saint-Cyr
President of Airline Operations at Surf Air Mobility

Hi, Mike. Thanks for the question. I think our vision, what we wanna do is really have a completely, you know, from end-to-end a digital experience for our operation, for our employees, and for our customers. When you do that, you get rid a lot of the redundancy, a lot of the...You end up having and managing an airline that's a lot less complicated. You end up having savings from processes from being more efficient. We're seeing that now, and we're really excited about where we're going.

Louis Saint-Cyr
Louis Saint-Cyr
President of Airline Operations at Surf Air Mobility

Just to give you an example of what that looks like, our pilots, as an example, when they're gonna be interacting with us through their iPads, they already have a, you know, a robust set of modules right now, but the next step is really from the time they bid their schedules to the time that they get paid the following month, it's all gonna be virtual. We're really excited about that. It's all gonna be seamless.

Mike Latimore
Mike Latimore
Analyst at Northland Securities

Okay. Excellent. Great. Thanks a lot. Best of luck this year.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Brian Kinstlinger with Alliance Global Partners. Brian, your line is now open.

Kevin Pimental
Kevin Pimental
Analyst at Alliance Global Partners

Hi, this is Kevin for Brian. Thanks for taking our questions. On the BrokerOS side, as you start to scale in external adoption, how should we think about those progressions from internal efficiencies to meaningful take rate revenue with customers of the platform, and what are some of the early indicators that give you confidence in that monetization path?

Deanna White
Deanna White
CEO at Surf Air Mobility

Yeah. Thanks, Kevin. I'm gonna turn that over to Josh Loden, President of On Demand, who's actively been using BrokerOS and is managing the Powered by Surf On Demand program.

Joshua Loden
Joshua Loden
President of Surf On Demand at Surf Air Mobility

Yeah. Hi, Kevin. Thanks for your question. We'll continue to scale that take rate on BrokerOS naturally by increasing the number of brokers that we have on the platform and also through some of the additional modules that we'll be developing. You know, without getting too much into the weeds, we have a tool that can help brokers source aircraft from our aircraft partnerships. One of the things that I mentioned was our supply deals, and that's a great way for us to be really competitive in what we're offering brokers and therefore increasing revenue per broker. We can also increase our take rate per broker.

Joshua Loden
Joshua Loden
President of Surf On Demand at Surf Air Mobility

We can also give brokers access to markets that they wouldn't usually be able to access to our global brands, so enabling brokers in North America to sell in Europe and so on and so forth. It's really about increasing that take rate through increasing the market share that each of our brokers can get and acquiring and working with brokers around the world.

Kevin Pimental
Kevin Pimental
Analyst at Alliance Global Partners

Got it. Thank you. For the OperatorOS side, what are some key milestones you think that'll determine successful conversion from those LOIs to live operators once you launch? What do you view as the primary driver of adoption as you start to kind of roll this out?

Deanna White
Deanna White
CEO at Surf Air Mobility

Thanks, Kevin. I'm gonna turn that over to Sudhin Shahani, our Co-Founder, to talk about that.

Sudhin Shahani
Sudhin Shahani
Co-Founder at Surf Air Mobility

Hi, Kevin. Nice to meet you. As you mentioned, you know, we're pursuing a number of enterprise kind of relationships and have LOIs in place at the moment also on the OperatorOS side. We see OperatorOS as being a way to bring both supply into the market to enable BrokerOS and be complementary to that, as well as to bring these operators real efficiencies within their own business. We've seen significant efficiencies ourselves in our business, which is the reason we kind of developed this product and bringing it out to market. As our BETA customers then start to realize these efficiencies in their early tests, we expect to see strong conversion from LOIs into contracts.

Kevin Pimental
Kevin Pimental
Analyst at Alliance Global Partners

Great. Thank you so much.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Austin Moeller with Canaccord. Austin, your line is now open.

Austin Moeller
Austin Moeller
Analyst at Canaccord Genuity

Hi. Good afternoon. Just my first question here, if we think about what you discussed in Hawaii and the higher fuel prices, are you able to pass on the higher fuel costs within the Essential Air Service program through inflation cost escalators or what are the dynamics there?

Deanna White
Deanna White
CEO at Surf Air Mobility

Thanks, Austin. I'll turn that question over to Louis Saint-Cyr, the President of Airline Operations.

Louis Saint-Cyr
Louis Saint-Cyr
President of Airline Operations at Surf Air Mobility

Thanks, Austin. Obviously fuel is a problem in the industry for everybody. I mean, from the get-go, you basically feel that with the Cessna Caravan, you know, we're really well-positioned because it's such an efficient aircraft. It's really a leader in its class. From a cost, you know, to revenue perspective, I think we've got an advantage over the, you know, the industry. Having said that, we've already put some modules through SurfOS to help us better manage our fuel program, which is great. When we look at the EAS program, the EAS program is really not built to kind of, you know, reset the rates.

Louis Saint-Cyr
Louis Saint-Cyr
President of Airline Operations at Surf Air Mobility

We're comfortable with what we've done in the past, you know, six months, 12 months with the bids that we've put in place. We've got a few this year as well that we'll be adjusting for fuel. All those things combined, the technology, the rebidding of routes, what we did in the past year I think puts us in a good position.

Austin Moeller
Austin Moeller
Analyst at Canaccord Genuity

Hi. Just my second question, how should we be thinking about the revenue mix for SurfOS, BrokerOS, OperatorOS relative to the core airline business as that's rolled out to customers over time?

Deanna White
Deanna White
CEO at Surf Air Mobility

Thanks, Austin. I'm gonna turn that over to Oliver.

Oliver Reeves
Oliver Reeves
CFO at Surf Air Mobility

Hi, Austin, good to talk to you again. I think as we said, Austin, if you look at least at the, you know, short to medium term, we expect BrokerOS, its impact on the Surf On Demand business to be the largest part of the growth that we are looking to experience through the expansion phase of our transformation plan. I think that as you start getting further out and you see us convert on some of these opportunities that Sudhin mentioned on the enterprise side, you'll start seeing the customized versions of SurfOS become a more meaningful percentage of our revenue going forward.

Oliver Reeves
Oliver Reeves
CFO at Surf Air Mobility

As you know, there's a sometimes longer conversion cycles for the larger enterprise customers, you would expect to see them a little bit further off, notwithstanding the fact that we still anticipate seeing our first multi-year, multi-million dollar contracts on SurfOS this year.

Austin Moeller
Austin Moeller
Analyst at Canaccord Genuity

Great. I'll pass it back there. Thank you.

Operator

Our last question comes from the line of Dave Storms with Stonegate. Dave, your line is now open.

Dave Storms
Analyst at Stonegate Capital Markets

Evening, thank you for taking my questions. Wanted to start with some of the upcoming stuff you have with BETA and Hawaii, beginning June. With those cargo aircraft flights, I guess, what would you consider early success there? Can you help us understand maybe how the margin profile is different between cargo flights versus passenger flights with that? Maybe any additional color there as we start to look forward to that.

Deanna White
Deanna White
CEO at Surf Air Mobility

Thanks, Dave. Turn that over to Louis to answer.

Louis Saint-Cyr
Louis Saint-Cyr
President of Airline Operations at Surf Air Mobility

Thanks, Dave. We're really excited about the trials. They're gonna start at the end of June. The plane's gonna be there for, you know, two months. Essentially what we're doing during those trials, we're doing cargo flights as you mentioned. We're teaming up, you know, our flight ops team, our maintenance team, ground team is teaming up with the BETA team, it's really gonna be an exchange of, you know, operational knowledge with the BETA folks. It's gonna be an exchange of data, a lot of data, coming back to us from the aircraft. As we are basically, you know, operationalizing between, you know, Honolulu and Molokai and Lanai, it's to do with several things.

Louis Saint-Cyr
Louis Saint-Cyr
President of Airline Operations at Surf Air Mobility

The first one is to validate the assumptions and to see the aircraft and the performance of the aircraft in an environment that we think is the best suit in the United States for this airplane. When you look at the stage lengths, when you look at the population there, when you look at kind of the remote, some of the remote areas in Hawaii, this plane is perfect to service the communities. With our staff working side by side with the BETA staff who have already flown this aircraft, you know, over, you know, 130,000 miles, that's where the kind of the transfer of knowledge is really gonna start. That's where we're gonna start building our programs, our training programs, our manuals, et cetera.

Louis Saint-Cyr
Louis Saint-Cyr
President of Airline Operations at Surf Air Mobility

Really get us ahead of the curve, because from certification in terms of when these planes are gonna be coming into our fleet in 20 to 24 months. Very excited about what's gonna happen this summer.

Dave Storms
Analyst at Stonegate Capital Markets

Understood. That's great color. Thank you. Then just maybe circling back to the brokers that are in the Surf On Demand platform. I guess, what are you seeing, are there any differences in the sophistication between the brokers? Are there some that are using it more or less than others? Is it a pretty homogenous group? Is that informing, any of the additional rollouts, you know, to other brokers that you have planned?

Joshua Loden
Joshua Loden
President of Surf On Demand at Surf Air Mobility

Thanks, thanks for your question. You know, the program is obviously new for this year. We certainly want to focus on sophisticated brokers. One of the real benefits of building BrokerOS for ourselves within our own On Demand business first, was that we got to build a lot of modules to try and get everybody to a certain standard. As I mentioned, we recently accomplished our ARGUS certification, that's really enabled us to have and obtain a standard that we can train our brokers to, which many sophisticated brokers thought might not have worked for an ARGUS-accredited brokerage. We've really leveraged that to build out modules and training within the platform that bring everybody to a standard.

Joshua Loden
Joshua Loden
President of Surf On Demand at Surf Air Mobility

You're completely right that there is, you know, brokers that have different levels of sophistication and understanding of different markets. Something that we definitely see is a broker might be really experienced in regional charter, for example, and have less experience when you get into mid-sized jets and up. Our platform has all been built to guide brokers through, you know, how to manage that relationship and how to get those customers flying on larger planes with you versus going somewhere else. I'm confident that with the platform that we've built, we can get all of our brokers to a very high standard. I don't think that the goal of getting 100 brokers means that we have to compromise on quality.

Operator

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to the Surf Air executive team.

Deanna White
Deanna White
CEO at Surf Air Mobility

Now, we'd like to take some questions to the team from our Say platform and some other inbound sources. We appreciate all the investors and shareholders who submitted questions. The first question is, net income keeps going down. What is being done to fix that? I'll turn that question over to our CFO, Oliver.

Oliver Reeves
Oliver Reeves
CFO at Surf Air Mobility

Thanks, Deanna. As you know, Deanna, net income includes a lot of things. They include some non-operating expenses, some one-time items, non-cash items, and each of those affect net income comparability. The reason that we use Adjusted EBITDA as a measure of profitability is because it excludes those, and it really gives you the ability to compare without having some of this volatility within the numbers. As we've mentioned, the company is accelerating its path to profitability. We anticipate net loss to narrow in the second half of 2026 absent unexpected macro or geopolitical headwinds. On top of that, we expect Surf Air to improve the scale and margin of both our scheduled and on-demand businesses. When you put all of these things together, we anticipate that net loss is going to transition into net income, and that's the benefit of our shareholders.

Deanna White
Deanna White
CEO at Surf Air Mobility

Thanks, Oliver. Lots of interest from shareholders in our technology. The next question is, how is the partnership with Palantir allowing you to gain an advantage in this space? I'll turn that over to Sudhin Shahani to answer.

Sudhin Shahani
Sudhin Shahani
Co-Founder at Surf Air Mobility

Thank you, Deanna. Our Palantir partnership gives us a number of advantages. Let me just break them out. One, we use the enterprise-grade Foundry and AIP data infrastructure platform to develop our proprietary applications on. This infrastructure is used by some of the world's largest government and commercial organizations. We use their development and deployment resources to accelerate the pace of our development, as well as their business development resources to build out our enterprise sales platform. Their platform also allows us to develop and launch AI agents much faster on top of the data foundation we've already built. Additionally, we have an exclusive with them in the charter broker and operator category. Our data advantage compounds significantly as more brokers, operators, and flights transact through SurfOS.

Deanna White
Deanna White
CEO at Surf Air Mobility

Thanks, Sudhin. Our next question has two parts. What kind of specific qualifiable milestones and timelines can you share for SurfOS commercialization and the BETA electric aircraft program in 2026-2027 that would drive revenue acceleration and contribute to positive Adjusted EBITDA and support free positive cash flow? I'll turn it back to Sudhin to first comment on how SurfOS will do that.

Sudhin Shahani
Sudhin Shahani
Co-Founder at Surf Air Mobility

Great. Thank you, Deanna. I'll recap some of this since I know we've covered some of it. We expect SurfOS to begin contributing meaningfully in the second half of 2026. SurfOS is both products and services. For the products, BrokerOS has been live since September of 2025. We have a target of 100 active brokers enrolled by the end of 2026, up from the 29 currently enrolled, and with hundreds of applicants already in the queue. For OperatorOS, we're targeting second half of 2026 commercial launch. Our target KPIs are 10 signed LOIs and five operators live on the platform by year-end. For our enterprise solutions, we have an active pipeline in discussions with large operators, brokers, and aircraft manufacturers. Our target there are signed multi-year, multi-million dollar contracts in 2026.

Sudhin Shahani
Sudhin Shahani
Co-Founder at Surf Air Mobility

This is where our teaming agreement with Palantir and their go-to-market team are supporting this pipeline directly. I'm now going to pass it over to Louis to talk about BETA.

Louis Saint-Cyr
Louis Saint-Cyr
President of Airline Operations at Surf Air Mobility

Thanks, Sudhin. I think also the question asked part of the issue with the BETA aircraft. You know, we're doing the demonstration flights this summer. We're very excited about that and all the data that we're going to get. You know, when we, when we signed the agreement with BETA, it's an aircraft that, you know, we've got the ability to have different variants in terms of certification for the plane, cargo, passenger service. We also have, with BETA, a factory-authorized service, maintenance, you know, agreement with them where we are gonna have exclusivity rights in Hawaii, we really wanna build on that.

Louis Saint-Cyr
Louis Saint-Cyr
President of Airline Operations at Surf Air Mobility

When we look at the program itself in terms of its, you know, its real advantage is that it's really gonna cost us about 30% less to operate per aircraft compared to the Cessna Caravan, and that's the real competitive edge. We're very excited about that, and that's driven by, you know, obviously fuel. It's driven by maintenance. You know, when we look at the reliability of this aircraft in terms of days that it's down for heavy maintenance, it's considerably less than the traditional aircraft that we have seen and, you know, also the Caravans. Those are the real opportunities.

Deanna White
Deanna White
CEO at Surf Air Mobility

Thanks, Louis. Next question is, how close are you to certification, and what are some hurdles and important dates ahead of that? I'll turn this over to Louis.

Louis Saint-Cyr
Louis Saint-Cyr
President of Airline Operations at Surf Air Mobility

Yeah. Just picking up on that with the, you know, with the BETA aircraft, we initially had a focus on the electric power plant, powertrain with the Cessna Caravan, and we've moved away from that. You know, the advantage of doing that is, you know, instead we're gonna focus on the OEMs that are bringing new technology to the marketplace. What that's doing is it's really allowing us to really not spend, you know, up to a hundred million of capital on this electrification with the Caravans and reallocate our spend where we plan to have a higher ROI, like things like SurfOS and what we have talked about. That's gonna be a real advantage for us.

Louis Saint-Cyr
Louis Saint-Cyr
President of Airline Operations at Surf Air Mobility

When we look at the BETA aircraft itself in terms of the progress that BETA's been doing with the ALIA, they're part of the eIPP program that's gonna be starting this summer. They basically were awarded, you know, seven of the eight programs in the U.S., which is significant, and that is really gonna allow them to expedite the certification process. Even if we're talking about, you know, 24 months, you know, at the end of Q4 2028 for the arrival of our first aircraft, we're optimistic with everything that BETA's doing and what they've got laid out. They've got it. They clearly have, you know, a direct path to certification.

Louis Saint-Cyr
Louis Saint-Cyr
President of Airline Operations at Surf Air Mobility

Again, as I mentioned earlier, they, you know, they've already flown this aircraft, you know, 130,000 miles, and so they have a lot of experience here. Again, Hawaii really is going to be a showcase for this aircraft. You know, we're excited about what we're doing this summer and what will happen in the next couple of months.

Deanna White
Deanna White
CEO at Surf Air Mobility

Thanks, Louis. Last question is, in the Q1 call you said that Surf and BETA would co-market SurfOS with BETA aircraft. With the cargo flights approaching, can you confirm if SurfOS is being designed with native electronic capabilities like battery state monitoring or cycle charging optimization? Turn this one over to Sudhin again.

Sudhin Shahani
Sudhin Shahani
Co-Founder at Surf Air Mobility

Thank you, Deanna. As we discussed, we're building SurfOS to support operational requirements of fleets at scale. The benefit of next-gen aircraft is you can actually design them from the ground up with enhanced data capabilities. The capabilities we intend to have include battery health monitoring, charge cycle tracking, and predictive maintenance, amongst other things, all of which will of course, be weighted by the commercial and operational realities of flying electric aircraft. These are all areas where the Palantir Foundry AIP platform has proven to be very effective in its deployments across larger commercial aircraft manufacturers and airlines, and we're bringing this to Part 135 space.

Deanna White
Deanna White
CEO at Surf Air Mobility

Thanks, Sudhin. That ends our Q&A session. I appreciate everybody's interest and time today, and hopefully you all call in and meet us next time on the next quarter. Thank you very much.

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • Deanna White
      Deanna White
      CEO
    • Joshua Loden
      Joshua Loden
      President of Surf On Demand
    • Liam Fayed
      Liam Fayed
      Co-Founder
    • Louis Saint-Cyr
      Louis Saint-Cyr
      President of Airline Operations
    • Oliver Reeves
      Oliver Reeves
      CFO
    • Sam Levenson
      Sam Levenson
      Head of Investor Relations
    • Sudhin Shahani
      Sudhin Shahani
      Co-Founder
Analysts