Chorus Aviation Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
August 5, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Strong cash generation and balance sheet: Chorus generated CAD 32.3 million of free cash flow in Q2 and CAD 117.7 million in the first half, while leverage improved to 1.5x and liquidity stood at CAD 204 million.
  • Positive Sentiment: KADEX exceeded initial expectations in its first quarter under Chorus, contributing CAD 16.4 million of revenue and CAD 1.2 million of net income; management cited further cross-company and expansion opportunities.
  • Positive Sentiment: Adjusted EBITDA was broadly stable at CAD 50.7 million despite contractual CPA step-downs, as Voyageur and KADEX added CAD 6.5 million; adjusted EPS rose 54% to CAD 0.83, helped by aircraft-sale gains, lower costs, and share repurchases.
  • Positive Sentiment: Chorus returned CAD 17.3 million to shareholders in Q2 through dividends and buybacks, repurchased CAD 14.8 million of shares, and has monetized seven of nine targeted Dash 8-400 aircraft, with the final two expected to close by Q4 2026.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Management reaffirmed full-year guidance and expects to finish near its high end, but defense and ISR opportunities remain somewhat lumpy and government contract awards are progressing more slowly than some industry participants anticipated.
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Earnings Conference Call
Chorus Aviation Q2 2026
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Chorus Aviation Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all lines are in listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. At any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Wednesday, August 5, 2026. I would now like to turn the conference over to Matt LaPierre. Please go ahead.

Matt LaPierre
Matt LaPierre
Director of Treasury and Investor Relations at Chorus Aviation

Thank you, operator. Hello. Thank you for joining us today. With me today from Chorus are Colin Copp, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Gary Osborne, Chief Financial Officer. We will begin today's call with a brief summary of the results, followed by questions from the analyst community. As there may be some forward-looking discussion during this call, I ask that you refer to the caution regarding forward-looking statements and information found in our MD&A. This pertains specifically to the results and operations of Chorus Aviation Inc. for the period ended June 30, 2026, as well as the outlook section and other sections of our MD&A where such statements appear. Finally, some of the following discussion involves non-GAAP financial measures, including references to adjusted net income, adjusted EBT, Adjusted EBITDA, leverage ratio, and free cash flow.

Matt LaPierre
Matt LaPierre
Director of Treasury and Investor Relations at Chorus Aviation

Please refer to our MD&A for further information relating to the use of such non-GAAP measures. I will now turn the call over to Colin Copp.

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I am pleased to report that Chorus delivered strong second quarter financial results and continues to make meaningful progress towards our strategic growth objectives. We are today a trusted Canadian partner with a global reach, focused on growing our aviation, aerospace, and defense platform to create sustainable long-term value for our shareholders. We continue to execute on our capital allocation plan, generating CAD 117.7 million in free cash flow and proceeds on aircraft sales in the first half of the year, including CAD 72.6 million in the second quarter. This has allowed us to maintain a strong balance sheet with leverage at 1.5 and liquidity of CAD 204 million that provides financial flexibility in our long-term capital allocation plan to invest in growth opportunities while continuing to return capital to our shareholders.

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

A key milestone in our growth and diversification during the quarter was the completion of our acquisition of KADEX Aero Supply on April 1st. Since closing, the integration has progressed smoothly and the business continues to perform exceptionally well. During the quarter, KADEX contributed revenue of CAD 16.4 million and net income of CAD 1.2 million, including CAD 0.5 million of amortization expense on acquisition-related intangible assets, which tracks ahead of our initial expectations. KADEX has expanded our aviation and aerospace platform, enhancing the quality and diversification of our earnings and strengthening the resilience of our cash flow profile. Our approach to capital allocation remains unchanged. During the quarter, we repurchased shares under our normal course issuer bid while also maintaining our quarterly dividend.

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

Following the renewal of the NCIB earlier this year, we repurchased approximately CAD 14.8 million of shares during the second quarter, bringing the total repurchases to approximately CAD 20 million year to date. Since 2022, we've returned approximately CAD 144 million to shareholders through our NCIB and two substantial issuer bids. We have executed as planned on the monetization of the nine Dash 8-400 aircraft previously announced. Seven aircraft have now closed and been delivered, which include four aircraft transactions completed during the second quarter. The remaining two aircraft are planned to close by the fourth quarter of 2026, generating estimated net proceeds of approximately $14.4 million USD. Turning to the businesses, our subsidiaries have performed very well this quarter and continue to make inroads on several key strategic initiatives. The breadth of activity across our company highlights the unique capabilities we're building at Chorus.

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

Doug and the team at Jazz have been working hard on the Air Canada Express operation at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport with the launch of service to Chicago, Washington Dulles, and Boston during the quarter. In June, Jazz successfully completed its IOSA renewal audit, the global benchmark for airline safety management, and they look forward to the renewal. I'm also pleased to report that Jazz recently reached a tentative agreement with its Canadian Airline Dispatchers Association, representing the company's 56 flight dispatchers. At Voyageur, Cory and the team continue to drive several strategic growth initiatives, positioning the business to capitalize on Canada's growing defense and aerospace requirements. Progress continues on the Dash 8-300 Fireswift aerial firefighting program, with the first aircraft going through final certification and a second expected to be completed next quarter.

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

Voyageur has also expanded its aftermarket parts business by adding ATR and Boeing inventory and recorded its first sales of Boeing 757 parts during the quarter, adding two new platforms to the aftermarket offerings. As well, their domestic charter operations remain strong, supporting wildfire response efforts across Canada, and Voyageur has completed the sale of two Dash 8-400 aircraft. Looking ahead, Voyageur recently announced the purchase of a Flexrotor uncrewed aircraft system from Airbus, becoming the first Canadian customer and operator of the platform. This represents an important milestone in Voyageur's Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance capability and expansion into the uncrewed aircraft system market. In addition, Voyageur and Airbus signed an MOU to identify and pursue opportunities to collaborate on the delivery of Flexrotor remotely piloted aircraft system services for commercial and government customers across Canada. We look forward to providing further updates as this exciting new capability develops.

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

Voyageur also announced a new engagement with 49North, an MDA Space company focused on delivering advanced ISR solutions for Canadian government, defense, and security customers. Combining Voyageur special mission operations, maintenance, and training with 49North's mission systems and data analytics capabilities positions both organizations to support Canada's growing requirements in sovereignty, security, and defense. At KADEX, John and the team completed a 10,000 sq ft warehouse expansion at Peterborough Airport, significantly increasing capacity and consolidating inventory, shipping, and receiving operations into a single location. The expansion doubles storage capacity, improves fulfillment speed for its growing demand, supports greater inventory levels in Canada, and enhances service for customers. The investment positions KADEX well for its next phase of growth, while further strengthening customer service and operational efficiency. For TAF, Stéphan and the team at Elisen, work continues to progress on the Government of Quebec MEDEVAC program.

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

The design review phase has been successfully completed, and the aircraft is now being prepared for modifications. The project remains on schedule for completion by the end of the fourth quarter and continues to be an excellent example of the value that can be created through collaboration across the Chorus group of companies, with Elisen and Voyageur working together to deliver a specialized solution for the customer. At Cygnet, Lynne and the team continued delivering high-quality flight training and strengthening the pilot development pathways. A second destination Porter cohort and the 12th Jazz Approach cohort will begin shortly. The innovative Jazz Approach program is another strong example of cross-Chorus collaboration in action. Jazz plays a critical role in the Canadian pilot career pathway through its flow agreement with Air Canada, which has enabled more than 1,700 pilots to transition from Jazz to Air Canada over the past 10 years.

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

Programs like Jazz Approach are essential to sustaining a pipeline of highly skilled, career-ready pilots for Jazz and supporting the long-term health of the Canadian aviation industry. Cygnet is also advancing plans for its new flight training base in North Bay, which will support expanded training capacity and deeper collaboration with Canadore College. Across the organization, our businesses are executing very well, delivering strong operational and financial performance while advancing strategic initiatives that support long-term value creation. We remain committed to disciplined capital allocation and the pursuit of selective, accretive acquisition opportunities that align with our Chorus group of companies and investment criteria. We're encouraged by the opportunities we're seeing and continue to evaluate transactions that can strengthen and diversify our aviation, aerospace, and defense business while generating attractive returns for our shareholders.

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

Through this strategy, we're building a stronger and more diversified company and advancing our vision of being Canada's trusted partner and a global leader in aviation, aerospace, and defense. I'll now turn it over to Gary to walk you through the financials.

Gary Osborne
Gary Osborne
CFO at Chorus Aviation

Thank you, Colin, and good morning. We are pleased with our second quarter results. The quarter really shows the strength of the platform we are building with solid earnings, strong free cash flow, disciplined capital allocation, and good progress on growth. In particular, Voyageur and KADEX helped offset the contractual step downs in the CPA, with KADEX tracking ahead of our initial expectations. We continue to return capital to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. We made further progress monetizing Dash 8-400 aircraft exiting the CPA fleet. Looking at the quarter, Adjusted EBITDA was CAD 50.7 million, essentially in line with last year. What is important here is the mix. Voyageur and KADEX contributed an additional CAD 6.5 million of Adjusted EBITDA, primarily from higher part sales, which substantially offset the contractual step downs in fixed margin and leasing revenue under the CPA.

Gary Osborne
Gary Osborne
CFO at Chorus Aviation

Adjusted net income per share increased to CAD 0.83, up 54% from Q2 2025. That reflects the earnings contribution I just mentioned, a CAD 2.5 million gain on aircraft sales, along with lower depreciation and interest costs, and the benefit of our capital allocation activity, which reduced weighted average shares outstanding by approximately 13% compared to the prior year. Free cash flow was CAD 32.3 million, or CAD 1.41 per share. On a per share basis, free cash flow was higher than last year, which is a good example of the compounding impact of our buybacks alongside with the cash generation of the business. Leverage or adjusted net debt to Adjusted EBITDA was 1.5x, improving from 1.7x at year-end, and remains comfortably within our targeted range of 1 to 2x. As Colin noted, we closed the KADEX transaction on April 1st.

Gary Osborne
Gary Osborne
CFO at Chorus Aviation

KADEX contributed CAD 16.4 million of revenue and CAD 1.2 million of net income in the quarter, inclusive of half a million dollars of amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets. That bottom line contribution is ahead of our initial expectations. We are encouraged by how quickly KADEX is adding to both our earnings diversification and our parts and supply chain capabilities. We also made strong progress on aircraft monetization. Seven aircraft have now been sold to date, including four during the second quarter.

Gary Osborne
Gary Osborne
CFO at Chorus Aviation

Those sales generated CAD 40.4 million of proceeds in the quarter and CAD 58.4 million in the first half of this year and contributed to a CAD 2.5 million gain on sale in Q2. Combined with free cash flow of CAD 32 million, we generated CAD 73 million of free cash flow in aircraft sale proceeds in the quarter, bringing the total for the first half of the year to CAD 118 million.

Gary Osborne
Gary Osborne
CFO at Chorus Aviation

The two remaining aircraft are expected to close by the end of the year, following completion of required engine work for expected net proceeds of approximately $14.4 million U.S. Turning to capital allocation, we continue to execute against the 2026 to 2029 plan we outlined earlier this year. That plan includes up to CAD 100 million in share buybacks, CAD 40 million in dividends, CAD 190 million of amortizing term loan repayments, and CAD 170 million to CAD 220 million of flexible capital allocation. During the quarter, we repurchased and canceled approximately 617,000 common shares under our NCIB program, representing CAD 14.8 million of share buybacks. Year to date, we have repurchased and canceled approximately 845,000 shares, or CAD 20 million. We also paid a quarterly dividend of CAD 0.11 per share.

Gary Osborne
Gary Osborne
CFO at Chorus Aviation

You combine the dividend and the buybacks, we returned CAD 17.3 million to shareholders in the quarter while maintaining a strong balance sheet and the flexibility to support growth. Liquidity remains strong at CAD 204 million at June 30th. That gives us meaningful flexibility as we continue to balance growth, shareholder returns, debt reduction, and disciplined investment in the business. Overall, we're pleased with the quarter. The business continues to generate strong free cash flow. Our leverage remains well within our target range. KADEX is off to a strong start, and we are continuing to execute on our capital allocation plan we laid out earlier this year. We also reaffirmed our full year guidance, which reflects our confidence in the underlying cash generation of the business. We are now ready to take your questions.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press star followed by one on your touch-tone phone. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press star zero followed by two. If you are using a speakerphone, please leave the handset before pressing any keys. One moment, please, for your first question. Your first question comes from Konark Gupta of Scotiabank. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Konark Gupta
Konark Gupta
Analyst at Scotiabank

Thanks, morning, everyone. Congrats on a good quarter. My first question is on KADEX. Very first quarter with you guys. Seems like it has outperformed your expectations in the very first quarter.

Konark Gupta
Konark Gupta
Analyst at Scotiabank

Can you help us explain what led to the outperformance? What's going better there? Was it all integration or just the sheer end market exposure they have? Yeah, any thoughts there and how sustainable we should think for that business?

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

Morning, Konark. It's Colin. Yeah, thanks for the comments. Yeah, look, we've been pretty excited about KADEX from the beginning, and we have a lot of ideas on what we can do with the business, as well as the leadership team there. It's performed exceptionally well on a current business base. There's been some integration opportunities where we're looking at internal cross-Chorus opportunities, which are starting to develop. We're working our way through those things, and there's several things to be done as we move forward there. On top of that is really all the new areas that we're starting to look at, which is kind of a build-out strategy. I would say there's more opportunities in KADEX today for us to pursue than we can pursue right now.

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

Our focus is just steady growth, working with them to continue to build that business out, continue to make smart decisions on how we invest and where we invest. We talked about their hangar, their expansion they just went through, so they increased some space there. Yeah, there's endless opportunities we see, and we're working our way through that. Obviously, the internal stuff is going to start to happen as we move forward. It takes a bit of time as we leverage those opportunities, but they're coming together nicely. Excited about the business, exceeding expectations, and really no end to what we can do with the business as we move forward.

Konark Gupta
Konark Gupta
Analyst at Scotiabank

Yeah. No, thanks for the color there, Colin. If I can switch gears to Voyageur. You guys had signed, I think, a couple of MOUs recently, one with Airbus and another with 49North. Can you explain, is there an overlap between those two MOUs? Do you have to work with both Airbus and 49North together, or can they be separate? What kind of discussions are you having with potential customers, and what kind of role are you going to play in these MOUs?

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

Yeah. Good question. No, those agreements are not interchanged or exclusive in any way. They're not tied to each other, and they're very separate. If you think of 49North, what Voyageur brings to that book of business is different. They bring the operation and the maintenance and the support side. That's kind of a relationship build that is more of a team build where they're going to be working on initiatives and bids, bringing expertise from both sides of the business. Very different companies from that perspective, that when they work together, have a huge opportunity to pursue all kinds of bids when it comes to ISR. When you think of the Flexrotor opportunity, it's a little different.

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

We're talking there more about Voyageur being the operator of the uncrewed drone, it would be essentially a deployment opportunity for them where they would be looking after the deployment. They'd be out there flying the machine and doing whatever work needs to be done, whoever they're working for. Airbus, in that regard, is more of working with them to secure those opportunities. Great company to work with. This machine is well-known. It's got thousands and thousands of flight hours on it. It's in multiple deployment opportunities around the world. We're excited about it. We think Canada is right, so does Airbus, for this type of machine in order to give us lower cost and higher technology capabilities. There's several possibilities when you think about this. Generally speaking, you're talking about defense opportunities, you're talking about surveillance opportunities, you're talking about forestry observation, firefighting observation, mapping.

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

Those are the kind of things that you would see that government agencies, where this drone gets deployed in.

Konark Gupta
Konark Gupta
Analyst at Scotiabank

Okay. That's a very good color. Thanks. Just a very quick one, housekeeping. On the final two aircraft that you're disposing, any thoughts what led to the delays there? I think you guys were expecting to wrap them up by the third quarter, I think. Now it's ending in Q4. Any thoughts on the delays? Thanks.

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

Yeah. It's the usual stuff. When it comes to aircraft and moving them between owners, there's always some little things that come up in timing, on maintenance, and so on. It's all normal course stuff. You saw throughout all of those sales, there's some that get delayed a little bit, and they pop into the next quarter. It's normal course, nothing unusual, no issues. Everything's been pretty much as planned. Just taking it a little bit longer.

Gary Osborne
Gary Osborne
CFO at Chorus Aviation

Yeah, it's Gary here. It really just relates to waiting for some engines to come back from overhaul to deliver the aircraft. That's all we're waiting for.

Konark Gupta
Konark Gupta
Analyst at Scotiabank

Perfect. Thanks for the time. I'll turn the line over.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from James McGarragle of RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead, your line is open.

James McGarragle
James McGarragle
Analyst at RBC Capital Markets

Hey, congrats on a good quarter. Thanks for having me on.

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

Yeah, thanks. Appreciate it.

James McGarragle
James McGarragle
Analyst at RBC Capital Markets

I just wanted to ask a question on the guide. There's a sizable Q2 beat, but even at the high end of the range, kind of implies a pretty meaningful step down in Q3 and Q4. Can you just talk about the primary swing factors in H2 that kept you from increasing the guide? Is that FX or anything else that you can call out?

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

Sorry, I didn't hear. I'll let Gary take that one. I didn't hear the first part of the question. I'm sorry.

James McGarragle
James McGarragle
Analyst at RBC Capital Markets

I was just saying that there was a sizable Q2 beat, that the guidance, even at the high end of the range, implies a meaningful step down, versus Q2 in Q3 and into Q4.

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

Got you. Okay, Gary, I'll let you take that. Yeah.

Gary Osborne
Gary Osborne
CFO at Chorus Aviation

Yeah, no. Really, when we look at it, we are tracking towards the high end of the guidance. There's no question about it. We're not expecting any big step down in the remainder of the year. We do have the Aircraft Lease Canada CPA, we talked about that. We've given guidance on that. That's baked in. We feel very comfortable with it, and we're expecting Q3 to have more to give on that. There's really nothing that we expect really to hit us in the back end of the year. We expect Voyageur to continue to perform, KADEX to continue to perform, the same as Jazz.

James McGarragle
James McGarragle
Analyst at RBC Capital Markets

Okay. Appreciate the color there. On the new Jazz collective agreement, you flagged that as a cost headwind. Can you help us quantify the annual impact from that new agreement and the extent to that's being recovered through the controllable cost agreement?

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

Gary, I'll let you cover that one, too.

Gary Osborne
Gary Osborne
CFO at Chorus Aviation

On the labor deal with CALDA that we just completed, all of that is covered under the Air Canada CPA agreement and within the controllable cost guardrail. No issues there.

James McGarragle
James McGarragle
Analyst at RBC Capital Markets

All right. Appreciate it. I'll turn the line over.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from Cameron Doerksen of National Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Cameron Doerksen
Cameron Doerksen
Analyst at National Bank

Thanks very much. Good morning. I wanted to ask, I guess, about the aircraft parts sales. It does sound like the KADEX business is, as you mentioned, running a little ahead of your expectations and I assume fairly steady through the year. Just can you maybe update us on your outlook for the Voyageur part sales? It sounds like you're got a number of new programs there that are helping that, but it tends to be, I guess, a lumpier business. Maybe just any thoughts on what we should expect in the second half of the year as far as part sales specific to the Voyageur business?

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

Hi, Cameron. We see this as a growth area, right? We're continuing to focus on opportunities to push and grow in areas that make sense. The broader the platform we can build, the more opportunities and flexibilities to invest and grow. That's what you're really seeing us do on the ATR and the Boeing side of things. Those were opportunities that make good economic sense, we moved on them. We're going to continue to do that and continue to build that out to a broader platform over time. We've stayed, I'd say principally focused on the narrow body and down type aircraft. Most of what we carry is regional aircraft today. It's really just us slowly building things out where it makes economic sense to do that.

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

I would say that we will continue to see growth in that area for sure, over the long run. It is lumpy. There's no question about it. We've seen that in the first quarter where we had some ups and downs, and that's just the nature of the business. Overall, if you take the longer view, no question, growth for sure.

Cameron Doerksen
Cameron Doerksen
Analyst at National Bank

No, that's helpful. Maybe just a question on labor. Obviously, there's a lot of opportunities that you talked about perhaps on the defense side for your business. I'm just wondering, is the availability of labor or qualified people for those types of programs, is that a constraint at all for some of the programs you might bid on? There's obviously a number of other companies out there in Canada that are also pursuing similar type business. I'm just wondering if labor is one of those things that constrain you or is it not an issue for you?

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

It's a good question. It's not. We've been fortunate because we have a lot of critical size. You get to a kind of a critical mass, a certain size of business where you can start to bring on expertise, and we've just recently brought on another new expert in this area that has tons of field experience and knowledge. For us to now grow this out slowly with time, we've had no problems bringing in the right expertise that can help build this out and do the training we need. There will be some training first, and we've talked a little bit about that for the new Flexrotor. There's no constraint when you think of labor.

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

Even if you think of Mazer, when they expanded Mazer in Trenton, that was one of the questions we had and one of the things we had to do some research on to make sure we could get the qualified folks in the right location. We've had no problems with that. It's more on the commodity side. When you get into the specialty stuff, I think it's quite easy. When you get into kind of the day-to-day maintenance or day-to-day flying airplanes or like in the commercial world, it's definitely more competitive and can be harder. But all of the specialty type and niche opportunities, especially in defense, we haven't seen a lot of problems with anything related to labor.

Cameron Doerksen
Cameron Doerksen
Analyst at National Bank

Okay. No, that's helpful. I appreciate the time.

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from Daryl Young of Stifel. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Daryl Young
Daryl Young
Analyst at Stifel

Hey, good morning, everyone. I just wanted to touch on the Flexrotor, as well as potential longer-term autonomous firefighting aircraft, what you think the CapEx requirements are going to be coming down the pipe. Presumably, that's part of your discretionary capital and your multi-year plan. How does the revenue or economics of these arrangements differ from existing special mission flights that you're operating?

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

Yeah. Hi, Daryl. I'll tell you high level on the initial go with Flexrotor, it's a very small investment for us. It's more kind of the work to get there. We don't see this massive investment to get in here. It's a reasonable investment, and over time, you build it out. Gary's got some sense of it there, doing a bunch of work on it. I'll let Gary give some comments as well.

Gary Osborne
Gary Osborne
CFO at Chorus Aviation

Yeah, on the RPAS, back to Colin's point, it's certainly covered in our CapEx outlook, and we haven't moved that for the year. Daryl, it is covered in that piece, and it's a modest investment. It gives us the ability to start the process of getting the capability on the RPAS piece. We have a lot of expertise at Voyageur, this allows them to develop that piece. As far as the margins go, those are to be defined, they're good margins from what we can see in this business, is it's really about building the capability right now. We do expect, down the road, to actually get some revenue contracts in behind it and for it to produce some reasonable returns.

Daryl Young
Daryl Young
Analyst at Stifel

Got it. A second question, just on the M&A front, a bit of a higher level question. We've seen a lot of defense-based partnerships between countries, between NATO nations. Is that opening any new M&A opportunities, potentially in geographies you maybe would not have considered historically, just given, I think there's a shortage of folks with your capabilities and skills around modifications out there. Just curious if it's changing your lens on geographic positioning.

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

It's a good question because as time evolves, certainly we are especially if you think of Europe or even there's been opportunities in Australia. If you think about some of those other countries where, exactly what you said, we're closely tied, those things are starting to kind of slowly show up on the radar. It's not something we're pursuing immediately or that we're looking at right now, but it's something we would look at as time progresses here to see how we can build things out. The one advantage to being a Canadian defense contractor is your access into a lot of countries and your ability to do things in many countries, and Voyageur's operated in many countries over the years. Still does today in some. It's a unique opportunity being a Canadian contractor, it really is.

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

It gives you leverage in a lot of ways, and you're well-received. I think we're moving on that aspect of things as things kind of broaden and grow out. We have really strong relationships into the U.S. Voyageur has extensive relationships into the U.S. Matra is a good example, where they're building the aerial firefighter for them. That's a U.S. defense contractor, essentially, is what Matra is. They have several others as well that they work with. There's lots of opportunities as time progress. Our focus right now is a little more organic on the defense side because we have quite a bit of capability, but I wouldn't rule it out as we move forward.

Daryl Young
Daryl Young
Analyst at Stifel

Got it. A very helpful response, congrats on the good results, guys.

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Tim James of TD Cowen. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Tim James
Tim James
Analyst at TD Cowen

Thank you very much for the time. Good morning. My first question, just around the annual guide, we've sort of touched on this a little bit here, but I just want to see if I can kind of round this off and make sure I'm understanding the full year outlook. You're trending towards the top end of your EBITDA guide for the year. You mentioned KADEX is running a little better than expected. I know parts sales in the second quarter were strong. Some of that, if not all of that, I'm not sure, was a delay, I think, from Q1.

Tim James
Tim James
Analyst at TD Cowen

Can you characterize overall, is there anything or any particular business lines that you would point to as kind of pushing you towards the top end of your guidance, or is it really just kind of conservatism maybe across all business lines in your original range that you provided?

Gary Osborne
Gary Osborne
CFO at Chorus Aviation

Yeah. I think it's more on the conservatism side, Tim. Right now, we just need to see how the rest of the year comes out, but we do expect a good end to this year. Just where we're still within certainly the top end of that guidance, we decided to leave it where it's at. You look at where Voyageur's been trending. If you look year-to-date, and you back out KADEX's performance or year-to-date numbers, you can see they're modestly up year-over-year as far as revenue goes. I think what we need to remember there too is We've had the repositioning from the United Nations flights within there. They're up nicely year-over-year on the revenue side, and we just want to see how that plays out, but we expect it to continue to play out.

Gary Osborne
Gary Osborne
CFO at Chorus Aviation

On the KADEX side, we continue to expect them to perform in a similar fashion as they are. I think it's just let's see how the bulk of the year goes, but we do expect to be towards the top end of that.

Tim James
Tim James
Analyst at TD Cowen

Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. On the United Nations, I just wanted to ask, I know you've got a step down that's occurred or another one coming. I think actually your contract flying revenue was up sequentially in the quarter Q2 versus Q1. Is there sort of another modest step down at some point coming related to that, or is that already kind of embedded in your run rate revenues.

Gary Osborne
Gary Osborne
CFO at Chorus Aviation

Yeah

Tim James
Tim James
Analyst at TD Cowen

From that line of business?

Gary Osborne
Gary Osborne
CFO at Chorus Aviation

No, that's a good question, Tim. There is another one coming. We've kind of talked about that. We have one mission left with the United Nations. That's been extended out into March of next year or Q1 next year, so it'll be delayed a little bit into that period, and that's a natural extension as far as the contract goes. You'd probably look at more steady revenue from that over the next couple of quarters from what you've seen in the results.

Tim James
Tim James
Analyst at TD Cowen

Okay. That's great. Thank you very much.

Gary Osborne
Gary Osborne
CFO at Chorus Aviation

Yep.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from Krista Friesen of CIBC. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Krista Friesen
Krista Friesen
Analyst at CIBC

Hi, thanks for taking my question. Maybe just to follow up on some of the defense conversations that you've had on this call. Can you speak to how big you think defense could become for Chorus and maybe just the pace of some of these kind of defense contracts being awarded, is it slower or faster than you've been anticipating? Thank you.

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

Yeah, it's absolutely a good question and it's speculative to really kind of zoom in on it. That's the challenge with it is. If you look at what we're doing, we have a lot of opportunities that they're working, and they're working in a vast range of different things across several organizations with partnerships and so on. That's what you're seeing as build out. There's no question that we're starting to see some activity with the government and things being awarded, and so that's very positive. The pace at which that's going is maybe a little slower than I think industry would say than what we were anticipating. It's still progressing. We're seeing lots of different things coming to the table and being awarded. I would say, yeah, it's going pretty much as planned. Voyageur's doing everything they can right now to really focus in this area.

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

There's lots of opportunities for them to work on. There's no question over time some of these things are going to start to come to fruition. I can't really give you any clear indication as to when that will be. Percentage growth, if you start to think about growth, it's pretty hard to give you anything at this point. We haven't really put anything out, but Gary, I don't know if you have any comments on the growth side.

Gary Osborne
Gary Osborne
CFO at Chorus Aviation

Yeah, no, I think you kind of hit it. It will be kind of lumpy and step up as far as those things go. When we land a contract, you'll start to see the movements up. If you look year-over-year, we've seen some nice increase on the MRO and defense up about 15%, so it continues to grow nicely. We're hoping to keep that pace and maybe accelerate it if we can land a contract or two.

Krista Friesen
Krista Friesen
Analyst at CIBC

That's great color. Thank you. Maybe just one last one. How do you feel about your kind of competitive positioning in the defense area right now? Thank you.

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

Sure. That's another good one. We really like the position that we're in today because, number 1, there's not a lot of competitors in Canada that are in the same position as Voyageur and the offerings they have. I would say that there's probably one or two others that we compete against, which is a healthy thing, as we all know. One of the biggest things I think the industry in Canada has lacked is having that degree of competition, having that level of expertise growing in Canada. We're very comfortable with the competition. We expect that some of these new technologies will see more competitors pop out, and you do see that especially on the R&D side with more and more drone operators and development and stuff like that, R&D type stuff. For Voyageur, there's a high degree of expertise there.

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

There's a lot of years of experience. They've done a lot of deployments around the world. They've built a very niche business that's very hard to replicate. The barriers to entry are really hard when it comes to the type of capability they have. We're in a very comfortable position. Our expectation isn't to be an L3Harris. They have lots of opportunities to work with these larger defense companies to build out our business. Excited about it. Don't see a ton of competition in Canada, and I think in general, we're very comfortable with the ability to grow this business.

Krista Friesen
Krista Friesen
Analyst at CIBC

Thank you. I appreciate the color.

Operator

Thank you. We have a follow-up question from Konark Gupta. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Konark Gupta
Konark Gupta
Analyst at Scotiabank

Thanks for the follow-up. I think I want to go back to your capital allocation discussion from the last few quarters. When you laid out the framework back in February, I think you are tracking, I guess, pretty well on that. Just wanted to understand from an M&A standpoint. You had this flexible capital allocation bucket of CAD 170 million-CAD 220 million. I guess with KADEX and Elisen, you probably have burnt about 20% of that. On the share buybacks, you have also done about 20% of the CAD 100 million. Do you see the flexible bucket giving you enough flexibility to shift between M&A and incremental buybacks? That bucket, we should assume that's mostly earmarked for M&A?

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

I'll just give you a high level and then let Gary chime in as well and get his view. I think, Konark, there is going to be some movement going forward. What we've done there is we've provided as much clarity as we can on that flexible capital. I think we're going to stay pretty much on track and on plan, but you can't predict the future where opportunities lie. Our number one underlying goal, as we've said from day one, is we're going to deploy that capital to the absolute best ability we can to get the right returns. We've been clear in kind of laying out our returns and what our expectations are. I think we've been quite transparent on that, and we've stuck to that. We haven't come off that. I wouldn't expect a lot of variance. Right now, we don't see it.

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

We see lots of opportunities. We're still working our way through the acquisition opportunities now, the pipeline. We still plan to continue with our share buybacks. Our dividend as well is something that we're thinking about and focused on, and the board is evaluating on a regular basis. I wouldn't suggest that there's any significant change to what we've laid out there. Things change with time, and we'll continue to evolve the business and the use of that capital in the most efficient way we possibly can. That's the key focus. Gary, I don't know what your thoughts are.

Gary Osborne
Gary Osborne
CFO at Chorus Aviation

Yeah, Konark, it's Gary here. I think when you look at the CAD 500 million to CAD 550 million in free cash flow and asset sales numbers and the flexible capital allocation within that, we have not allocated any of the flexible capital allocation to M&A at this point. We still have the capacity to borrow. As you know, we're well within our range, 1.5x net debt to Adjusted EBITDA. We have the borrowing capacity. When we purchased KADEX, we put it on our operating line. We've subsequently essentially paid that off, we have the borrowing capacity. We've not committed to the flexible capital allocation being to M&A at this point. We're leaving all our options open. We have complete flexibility as to how we do that.

Gary Osborne
Gary Osborne
CFO at Chorus Aviation

Back to Colin's point, we don't see any change to that forecast we've given at this stage, and we'll provide an update when it's appropriate. We're tracking well within it.

Konark Gupta
Konark Gupta
Analyst at Scotiabank

I see. Makes sense. Thanks. If I can squeeze in a second follow-up. On Billy Bishop expansion, I think the government shut down the expansion prospects there. If it were to come back again, what would be the expectations from you by Air Canada to help fulfill the expansion? Would you be able to fly the CRJ there, or would you be able to diversify into some other jets?

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

Sorry, Konark, I apologize. My speakers aren't that good, what was the first part of the question? I get it was in regards to Air Canada, sorry, I didn't quite get it.

Konark Gupta
Konark Gupta
Analyst at Scotiabank

Yeah. The Billy Bishop Airport, the Toronto City Airport, they were trying to expand and there were proposals for that, they got shot down right on those proposals. I was just curious if the expansion opportunity comes back at the airport, how would you be able to participate in that? What would be the ask from Air Canada for you guys?

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

Yeah. I'll be honest, I don't know for sure, there's no question we are their operator in there. We've spent a lot of time and a big investment in setting everything up and being a critical part of that business. We would fully anticipate being there and expanding as they require on the commercial side. I don't know what their plans would be if that would happen. I couldn't tell you. Certainly there'd be more flying, I would fully anticipate, for us. We would obviously pursue that. The one thing with Air Canada and our relationship is our goal is to always build that business in any way we can. We're very close to Air Canada. We spent our whole careers working with them, and we've got a long history and a good track record.

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

Our goal with Air Canada and the CPA and the relationship between us is to continue to build that out over time. We haven't seen a lot of growth opportunities in that recently, we're focused in other areas right now. When there's opportunities for us to work with Air Canada and grow the business and it makes sense, we're absolutely going to be all over that

Konark Gupta
Konark Gupta
Analyst at Scotiabank

Yeah. No, makes sense. Perfect. Thanks again for the time.

Colin Copp
Colin Copp
President and CEO at Chorus Aviation

You bet.

Operator

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over to Colin and Gary for closing comments.

Gary Osborne
Gary Osborne
CFO at Chorus Aviation

Thank you, everyone, for joining today. That concludes today's call. Please have a great day.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference. We thank you for participating. As usual, please disconnect your line.

Executives
    • Matt LaPierre
      Matt LaPierre
      Director of Treasury and Investor Relations
    • Colin Copp
      Colin Copp
      President and CEO
    • Gary Osborne
      Gary Osborne
      CFO
Analysts
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