ATSG Reports Strong Third Quarter 2022 Results

WILMINGTON, Ohio--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov 3, 2022--

Air Transport Services Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATSG), the leading provider of medium wide-body aircraft leasing, contracted air transportation, and related services, today reported consolidated financial results for the third quarter and nine months ended September 30, 2022. ATSG's third quarter 2022 results, as compared with the third quarter 2021, include:

Third Quarter 2022 Results

• Revenues of $517 million, up $51 million or 11% from a year ago.
• GAAP Earnings of $50 million, or $0.68 per share, down $12 million. Third quarter 2021 GAAP results included $30 million pretax in government grants representing pandemic relief for ATSG’s passenger airline, and $7 million in incremental pretax losses on financial instruments, primarily related to warrant revaluations.
• Adjusted Earnings Per Share* of $0.60 increased three cents per share. In addition to adjustments for government grants and warrant revaluation gains, results for each year reflect additional shares for a change in GAAP presentation related to convertible notes.
• Adjusted Pretax Earnings* of $67 million, up $7 million.
• Adjusted EBITDA* of $163 million, up $10 million.
• Operating Cash Flow of $148 million, versus $122 million for the year ago quarter. Also, Adjusted Free Cash Flow* of $91 million, versus $73 million for the year-ago quarter, as sustaining capital expenditures, primarily for aircraft maintenance, increased $7 million.

Rich Corrado, president and chief executive officer of ATSG, said, "Our teams continued to achieve or exceed our growth and performance goals during the third quarter, as our emphasis on long-term lease and commercial arrangements with customers continues to dampen the effect of macroeconomic factors on our results. We will complete delivery of eight Boeing 767-300 freighter leases this year while adding seven more customer-provided freighters that we fly on their behalf. Freighter leases continue to fuel our earnings momentum, driving pretax earnings for our leasing subsidiary up 30 percent in the third quarter. Operating hours for our airlines continue to grow, and we’re expecting another busy peak season."

* Adjusted Earnings Per Share, Adjusted Pretax Earnings, Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted Free Cash Flow are non-GAAP financial measures and are defined and reconciled to GAAP measures at the end of this release.

Segment Results

Cargo Aircraft Management (CAM)

• External leases of seven more Boeing 767s since September 2021 contributed to CAM’s 18 percent third-quarter revenue gain and 30 percent increase in pre-tax profits from a year ago. Also contributing to CAM's improved results were engine leasing and pay-by-cycle engine support services.
• Eighty-nine CAM-owned 767 freighter aircraft were leased to external customers as of September 30, 2022. Five of eight newly converted 767-300 freighters CAM expects to lease in 2022 were delivered in the first nine months of the year.
• Twenty-one CAM-owned aircraft were in or awaiting conversion to freighters as of September 30, 2022, consisting of fourteen 767-300s and seven A321s. That included six 767-300 and six A321-200 passenger aircraft purchased for conversion to freighters during the first nine months of 2022.

ACMI Services

• Third-quarter revenues from ATSG’s three airline subsidiaries increased 8 percent to $357 million compared to the year ago quarter.
• Revenue block hours increased 3 percent for the third quarter, including an 8 percent increase for cargo operations and a 14 percent decrease for passenger and combi flying. Our airlines operated ten more freighter aircraft under CMI arrangements. Passenger airline operations in support of the U.S. government were exceptionally high in the third quarter of 2021 as Omni Air supported the evacuation of military and civilian personnel from Afghanistan.
• Pretax segment earnings were $25 million for the quarter, down from the prior-year period but up sequentially from the second quarter of this year. Third-quarter 2021 results included $30 million in earnings from government grants awarded to offset pandemic effects on Omni Air’s passenger operations. Third-quarter results continued to be affected by increased travel and training expenses for flight crews and contracted line maintenance technician costs.

2022 Outlook

ATSG expects its Adjusted EBITDA for 2022 to meet or exceed $640 million, up nearly $100 million from 2021. The 2022 Adjusted EBITDA forecast assumes for the fourth quarter:

• Delivery of the last three of eight dry leases of 767-300 newly converted freighters CAM will complete this year.
• Addition of the last three of seven customer-provided 767 freighters that our airlines will operate under CMI arrangements.
• Achieving projected levels of peak-season flying.

ATSG expects its capital spending for 2022 will be $625 million, including $195 million in sustaining capex and $430 million for growth. Growth capex will be funded primarily by the strong Adjusted Free Cash Flow ATSG is generating this year.

“We are on schedule to meet our targets, as demand for our express-package network assets and flight operations remains strong. We are ready to operate under expanded peak holiday-season flight schedules for our CMI customers, supporting fulfillment of higher e-commerce shopping spurred by special early-season promotions. We anticipate growth in ATSG’s cash flow through the current economic cycle and beyond," he said.

Corrado noted that ATSG expects to lease more than 20 freighters in 2023, including fourteen 767-300s and at least six A321-200s. By year-end 2022, CAM will own or hold rights to acquire all of the 767s and A321s it requires for lease deliveries in 2023. Those orders are backed by customer deposits or are from existing lease customers.

In 2024, CAM expects a similar pace of 767 and A321 lease deliveries, plus the first of twenty-nine Airbus A330-300 freighters it will purchase, convert and lease.

“We expect the Boeing 767-300 and the Airbus A330-300 to be the aircraft of choice for regional express air cargo networks for years to come,” Corrado said. “CAM has secured a sizeable portion of the conversion capacity for both aircraft types emerging from current sources through the middle of this decade. Customers have already placed orders for more than 20 of the 29 A330 freighters we expect to lease through 2027. All of those customers are based outside of North America, which will further diversify our revenue streams and expand our presence abroad.”

Share Repurchases

In August, ATSG noted that restrictions on its ability to repurchase shares under CARES Act provisions would expire at the end of September. ATSG resumed share repurchases during October 2022, acquiring 1.6 million, or approximately 2 percent of its issued and outstanding shares in open-market and private transactions.

Corrado said, "ATSG’s Board of Directors continues to believe that share repurchases, as one component of a carefully considered capital allocation program, are in the best interest of all shareholders of ATSG. ATSG will continue to buy back shares when both market conditions and our assessment of other capital allocation alternatives indicates that they represent the best use of our capital, consistent with our goal to maximize shareholder returns over the long term."

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

This release, including the attached tables, contains non-GAAP financial measures that management uses to evaluate historical results and project future results. Management believes that these non-GAAP measures assist in highlighting operational trends, facilitating period-over-period comparisons, and providing additional clarity about events and trends affecting core operating performance. Disclosing these non-GAAP measures provides insight to investors about additional metrics that management uses to evaluate past performance and prospects for future performance. Non-GAAP measures should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for analysis of the Company's results as reported under GAAP.

The historical non-GAAP financial measures included in this release are reconciled to GAAP earnings in tables included later in this release. The Company does not provide a reconciliation of projected Adjusted EBITDA because it is unable to predict with reasonable accuracy the value of certain adjustments. Certain adjustments can be significantly impacted by the re-measurements of financial instruments including stock warrants issued to a customer. The Company’s earnings on a GAAP basis and the non-GAAP adjustments for gains and losses resulting from the re-measurement of stock warrants, will depend on the future prices of ATSG stock, interest rates, and other assumptions which are highly uncertain.

Conference Call

ATSG will host an investor conference call on Friday, November 4, 2022, at 10 a.m. Eastern time to review its financial results for the third quarter of 2022. Participants must register in advance to receive a number and PIN to connect by phone, using a link provided on our website, atsginc.com/investors. A separate link will offer access to a live, listen-only webcast of the call. The webcast will remain available for replay via the same site for 30 days.

About ATSG

ATSG is a leading provider of aircraft leasing and air cargo transportation and related services to domestic and foreign air carriers and other companies that outsource their air cargo lift requirements. ATSG, through its leasing and airline subsidiaries, is the world's largest owner and operator of converted Boeing 767 freighter aircraft. Through its principal subsidiaries, including three airlines with separate and distinct U.S. FAA Part 121 Air Carrier certificates, ATSG provides aircraft leasing, air cargo lift, passenger ACMI and charter services, aircraft maintenance services and airport ground services. ATSG's subsidiaries include ABX Air, Inc.; Airborne Global Solutions, Inc.; Airborne Maintenance and Engineering Services, Inc., including its subsidiary, Pemco World Air Services, Inc.; Air Transport International, Inc.; Cargo Aircraft Management, Inc.; and Omni Air International, LLC. For more information, please see www.atsginc.com.

Except for historical information contained herein, the matters discussed in this release contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. A number of important factors could cause Air Transport Services Group, Inc.'s ("ATSG's") actual results to differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, but are not limited to: (i) the extent to which changes in market conditions impact the number, timing, and scheduled routes of aircraft deployments to new and existing customers; (ii) the cost and timing with respect to which we are able to purchase and modify aircraft to a cargo configuration, which may be impacted by global supply chain disruptions; (iii) our operating airlines' ability to maintain on-time service and control costs; (iv) our ability to remain in compliance with key agreements with customers, lenders and government agencies; (v) persistent elevated rates of inflation and changes in general economic and/or industry-specific conditions such as higher labor costs, increases in interest rates, an economic recession, and downturns in customer business cycles; (vi) the impact arising from COVID-19 outbreaks, including the emergence of COVID-19 variants; (vii) mark-to-market changes on certain financial instruments; and (viii) other factors that are contained from time to time in ATSG's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including its annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. Readers should carefully review this release and should not place undue reliance on ATSG's forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements were based on information, plans and estimates as of the date of this release. Except as may be required by applicable law, ATSG undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect changes in underlying assumptions or factors, new information, future events or other changes.

Adjusted Pretax Earnings excludes certain items included in GAAP based pretax earnings (loss) from continuing operations because they are distinctly different in their predictability among periods or not closely related to our operations. Presenting this measure provides investors with a comparative metric of fundamental operations, while highlighting changes to certain items among periods.

Management uses Adjusted EBITDA to assess the performance of its operating results among periods. It is a metric that facilitates the comparison of financial results of underlying operations. Additionally, these non-GAAP adjustments are similar to the adjustments used by lenders in the Company’s senior secured credit facility to assess financial performance and determine the cost of borrowed funds. The adjustments also remove the non-service cost components of retiree benefit plans because they are not closely related to ongoing operating activities. To improve comparability between periods, adjustments from earnings also remove the recognition of government grants and charges, net of related insurance recoveries, resulting from the inadvertent discharge of a fire suppression system at one of the Company's maintenance hangars in August of 2022. Management presents EBITDA from Continuing Operations, a commonly referenced metric, as a subtotal toward computing Adjusted EBITDA.

EBITDA from Continuing Operations is defined as Earnings (Loss) from Continuing Operations Before Income Taxes plus net interest expense, depreciation, and amortization expense. Adjusted EBITDA is defined as EBITDA from Continuing Operations less financial instrument revaluation gains or losses, non-service components of retiree benefit costs including pension plan settlements, amortization of warrant-based customer incentive costs recorded in revenue, recognition of government grants, charge off of debt issuance costs upon debt restructuring and costs from non-consolidated affiliates.

Sustaining capital expenditures includes cash outflows for planned aircraft maintenance, engine overhauls, information systems and other non-aircraft additions to property and equipment. It does not include expenditures for aircraft acquisitions and related passenger-to-freighter conversion costs.

Cash receipts from government payroll support programs, which are included in operating cash flows, were $0 and $83.0 million for the nine month periods ended September 30, 2022 and 2021, respectively. Cash receipts from government payroll support programs were $0 for the twelve months ended September 30, 2022.

Adjusted Free Cash Flow (non-GAAP) includes cash flow from operations net of expenditures for planned aircraft maintenance, engine overhauls and other non-aircraft additions to property and equipment. Management believes that adjusting GAAP operating cash flows is useful to evaluate the company's ability to generate cash for growth initiatives, debt service, cash returns for shareholders or other discretionary allocations of capital.

This presentation does not give effect to convertible note hedges the Company purchased having the same number of the Company's common shares, 8.111 million shares, and the same strike price of $31.90, that underlie the Convertible Notes. The convertible note hedges are expected to reduce the potential equity dilution with respect to the Company's common stock upon conversion of the Convertible Notes.

Adjusted Earnings from Continuing Operations and Adjusted Earnings Per Share from Continuing Operations are non-GAAP financial measures and should not be considered as alternatives to Earnings from Continuing Operations, Weighted Average Shares - diluted or Earnings Per Share from Continuing Operations or any other performance measure derived in accordance with GAAP. Adjusted Earnings and Adjusted Earnings Per Share from Continuing Operations should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for analysis of the company's results as reported under GAAP.

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CONTACT: Quint Turner, ATSG Inc. Chief Financial Officer

937-366-2303

KEYWORD: UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA OHIO

INDUSTRY KEYWORD: LOGISTICS/SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT AIR TRANSPORTATION TRANSPORT TRAVEL

SOURCE: Air Transport Services Group, Inc.

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