April 23, 2024
Wheels Up will report its first quarter of results since a Delta Air Lines led group gained 95% control last September.
Critics and customers of Wheels Up will be able to dissect the private jet flight provider’s full year and Q4 2024 financials early next month.
It will mark the first full quarter since a Delta Air Lines-led group of investors closed on a $500 million investment that gave them 95% of the company’s equity.
Results will be released before the market opens on March 7, 2024, and at 10 am, management will provide an update.
Previously, the company said it would maintain its target of becoming EBITDA profitable this year.
The company has been retrenching since last June when it reduced the primary service area to the mainly east of the Mississippi River, Texas, California, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, and a few additional popular western destinations.
It also sold its management business to Airshare, spun out its aircraft sales unit, licensed tech platform Avianis, and pruned its fleet, including its signature King Air 350s.
With former Delta board member George Mattson ensconced as CEO, Wheels Up is focused on leveraging the airline’s corporate sales unit, which has over 40,000 contracted accounts.
Last September, Mattson said, “Delta sees this as an opportunity to expand and extend its offerings to its premium customers, both corporate and high-value, high-net-worth individuals.”
He continued, “The opportunity that we see strategically together is something that hasn’t really been done in aviation before. It is the opportunity to seamlessly integrate for the customer, even though we’re separate companies in historically separate commercial and private aviation ecosystems.”
Since then, there has also been a stream of executives who have moved from the airline to Wheels Up’s new headquarters in Atlanta.
Last week, it officially confirmed it was reducing its footprint in New York City, where the company was founded in 2013.
READ: A brief history of Airlines and Private Jet partnerships
Besides the financial and operating numbers and fleet plans, observers will also be keen to see if Wheels Up continues to release flight performance numbers.
During its Q3 earnings call, Mattson disclosed a completion rate approaching 99%, with almost 90% of flights departing within 60 minutes of the scheduled time, including ATC, weather, maintenance, and customer delays.
Management, including CFO Todd Smith (pictured right), could also provide an update on discussions with Delta partners about expanding its private aviation footprint.
Last year, Mattson told attendees at Corporate Jet Investor in Miami, “We’re already having discussions about how Wheels Up at large, with Air Partner, can work closely with Virgin Atlantic, or Air France or KLM…and replicate what we are doing here (with Delta) for their high value corporate and individual customers in their geographies, that’s going to be part of our strategy as well.”
