Allegiant Travel Company - Earnings Call - Q3 2020

Transcript

Speaker 0

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Third Quarter Allegion Travel Company Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question and answer session. Please be advised that today's call is being recorded. I'll now turn the call over to Sherry Wilson.

Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Michelle. Welcome to the Allegiant Travel Company's third quarter twenty twenty earnings call. On the call with me today are Maury Gallagher, the company's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John Redman, the company's President Greg Anderson, our EVP and Chief Financial Officer Scott Sheldon, our EVP and Chief Operating Officer Scott DeAngelo, our EVP and Chief Marketing Officer Drew Wells, our VP of Revenue and Planning and a handful of others to help answer questions. We will start with some commentary and then open it up to questions. The company's comments today will contain forward looking statements concerning our future performance and strategic plan.

Various risk factors could cause the underlying assumptions of these statements and our actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by our forward looking statements. These risk factors and others are more fully disclosed in our filings with the SEC. Any forward looking statements are based on information available to us today. We undertake no obligation to update publicly any forward looking statements, whether as a result of future events, information or otherwise. The company cautions investors not to place undue reliance on forward looking statements, which may be based on assumptions and events that do not materialize.

To view this earnings release as well as the rebroadcast of the call, visit the company's Investor Relations site at ir.allegiantair.com. With that, I'll turn it over to Maury.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Sherry, and good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our October 2020 conference call. First, let me thank all of our team members, their spouses and families as we continue to fly in these perilous times. Our passengers are very important to us, and our team members are doing a yeoman's job as always. Again, thank you. I'm happy to say we can report some optimism, some mind you, but with the understanding there's still a ways to go.

The only way back will be one step at a time as it appears. In the early days, we had little to no view on how we were going to get back to the top after we had fallen into this abyss. Today, however, we have a good sense of where we are and are beginning to believe we can return to our former state. In February, we were looking at a record year. After March 1, it turned to record losses, pre COVID and post COVID respectively.

This generational event has changed how we think. In the early nineteen eighties after nineteen nineties rather, after the Soviet Union fell, there was a proclamation by a certain historian that it was the end of history as we knew it at that time. So it was after March first of this year. It's the end of our history as we know it. Year over year comparisons are meaningless.

Month over month is what is important. And the further I remind you, we get away from March, the better our results will be. But for June, each of our subsequent months has improved consecutively since that time. And we expect this trend to continue through the end of this year and into 2021. And given this new measurement approach, we had a very good quarter.

In fact, September wasn't a cash burn month, but rather it was a cash flow breakeven month. Breakeven, by the way, includes debt service and other payables. Also, is without any CARES payments. On the P and L front, excluding special items, Q3 had a breakeven operating profit. And if you take September out of that mix by itself, we had a 17% operating margin, our best month in the past two quarters with actually better margins than we had in June.

This operating profit, however, was aided by our CARES payments. This climb out of this abyss has been a slow one and will continue to be slower than we would like, small percentages equally each week with possible setbacks in the not too distant future. But we are seeing a better October than September, and we believe the same can be said as we look into November and December. You will hear from Greg about how strong we are positioned with cash going forward. I want to highlight that we might be the only carrier who has not had a dilutive equity offering nor taken the expensive government loan package.

Our total debt levels have only increased $130,000,000 from year end twenty nineteen levels at the end of Q3. We did however add $150,000,000 number additional debt in early October. Furthermore, our aircraft debt amortizes within five years very quickly. And on an annual basis, we are paying approximately $200,000,000 in principal plus our interest costs. Our Q3 debt payments were $50,000,000 with just over half of that total paid in September.

Yet we had sufficient cash flow from operations to cover these debt payments and other special items during the final month of Q3. But perhaps the best position we find ourselves in is our future CapEx requirements. Many others have large order books in front of them priced at pre COVID numbers. Most everyone will want to do sale leasebacks to finance those purchases. Terms will certainly be more difficult I would think than pre COVID numbers.

We however have minimal obligations going forward. In our delayed May report for the first quarter, I touched on the overnight change in our industry between the suppliers and operators. Historically, there's been a natural tension between our two groups, a zero sum game of sorts, if you will. For the past fifteen years, aircraft demand has been incredibly strong, particularly with the economic emergence of China, India and others. As a result, suppliers have held the upper hand, witnessed the recent seven to eight year order backlogs between Boeing and Airbus.

Fast forward to November 2020 and the advantage has changed, namely it's moved to our side of the ledger. This is particularly true for carriers such as us that trade in used aircraft. The airline industry took it on the chin this year. The leasing industry has not seen the immediate problems faced by the airlines. Early on, no one understood the depth of this malady and we were hopeful we would be in full rebound by now.

And while we are seeing a slow steady rebound in the leisure segment here in The US, many places in the rest of the world still haven't found bottom. As a result, it appears 2021 will be a tough year for many aircraft owners. The Far East is upside down as we understand it, particularly carriers such as Air Asia, and many aircraft have been parked in The US and Europe. The hope that a significant rebound will be happening in the next year, believe, is fading. It doesn't appear our COVID problems will leave anytime soon.

International governments are making up travel rules with each passing day. We are fortunate here in The US, we have a large robust country with a well heeled leisure traveling site travel segment. It appears The US domestic leisure space will pull itself up and out of the pandemic in the coming months, hopefully in 2021. But as the pandemic fatigue is setting in, people want this exercise to be over. Additionally, they are knowledgeable about what the risks are and are judging their actions accordingly.

We will be the beneficiary, I believe, of this rebound in domestic travel. An added bonus will be the availability of inexpensive aircraft and associated parts, motors, etcetera, in the coming twelve to twenty four months, perhaps longer. If so, we'll be able to substantially lower our ownership costs and add capital assets with minimal cash outlays. I'll repeat my comment from our last call, namely we continue to be the best of the worst. The U.

S. Airline industry will struggle for years a number of years to come, I believe, particularly with respect to business and international traffic. Allegiant with our focus exclusively on domestic leisure traffic, our flexible model plus our excellent cost structure, you'll hear some of that from Greg in a bit, should emerge from this fray better than most in the coming twelve to twenty four months. Our shareholders are fortunate to have such a capable management group, which has shown its depth and understanding of how to maneuver in this extreme environment. Speaking as a shareholder, I know I'm grateful we have this talented team.

Lastly, our team members have been the true heroes in our world. I want to again personally thank each one for all they have done during this trying seven to eight months. You are the backbone of this company. In the meantime, in the airline space, we will take care of our business and we are survivors with a great company and an excellent business model. Thank you very much.

And with that, I'll turn it over to John.

Speaker 3

Good afternoon. Thank you, Maury, and good afternoon, everyone. It's hard to imagine after all we've gone through the last eight months dealing with an industry devastating pandemic that we'd be sitting on the highest cash balance in the history of the company at roughly $850,000,000 at month end, while only adding roughly $300,000,000 in debt and no dilutive equity as Maury mentioned. Quite an accomplishment and a testament to the efforts of the entire Allegion team. I would be remiss if I didn't take this opportunity to thank them for their incredible efforts during these unprecedented times.

Through the combination of a resilient business model, a very broad domestic network, leisure traveler focus, quick and aggressive cost cutting and continued financial discipline, we are weathering the storm better than anyone such that we no longer will be referring to cash burn. Not only is the term creatively defined and seemingly unique to each carrier, it no longer applies to us. Greg will get into this with more detail in his remarks. It was very important for us to get the term out of the vernacular and was a guiding principle as we level set the entire organization. Since the Q1 earnings call, we have stated the number one priority was strengthening our balance sheet.

We have come a long way since then, but our focus has not and will not change. We will continue paying down debt in a meaningful way as we move through 2021. Furthermore, our cost initiatives to date will put us in a position for our CASM our 2021 CASM ex to be below 2019 levels. With regards to Sunseeker, I have no new updates nor has there been any change to our approach or strategy. We have spoken to many and remain open to equity investments by others.

While our conversations have been encouraging and we remain optimistic, I have nothing to report at this time. Our strengthening balance sheet and improving cash position should not be a sign we are positioning ourselves to restart the project. It's all about flexibility, and we believe there will be incredible generational opportunities to purchase planes in the coming years. Cash and low leverage will be golden. Stay tuned.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Scott Sheldon.

Speaker 4

Thanks, John, and good afternoon, everyone. First off, and before I get into providing some color on the third quarter, I wanted to start by saying thanks and expressing how proud I am of the entire Allegiant team and all of our partners throughout the network. Our operational results in 3Q were terrific. Your continued focus on health and safety, the sensitivity and care you show our guests and each other, and most importantly, the consistency in your daily execution is making an impact in restoring customer confidence and travel. As you'll hear from the rest of the leadership team here shortly, we are certainly seeing signs of life, signs that customers are becoming increasingly confident and returning to the air, and your efforts will be as critical as ever as we move into 2021.

Now quickly on to the third quarter. Despite the obvious continual challenges of operating in a COVID environment, which the highlights can be seen in our press release, there are two areas I wanted to comment on today. First is our core operational performance, where virtually every measurable metric is up year over year. The operations team produced seasonal best for D0 and A14 production. And with our controllable completion factor trending back to pre COVID levels, we produced just 2,500,000 in irregular ops costs, a dramatic bounce back from our second quarter lows.

In addition, the operation team received tremendous help from the planning group. Drew and team's continued strategy of casting a wide net, creating as many selling opportunities as possible and a volatile demand environment has its inherent operational challenges. That being said, its group's execution and the resulting schedule integrity for the third quarter had a tremendous downstream impact on the operation. As an example, disruptive cancellations, which we defined as cancellations within seven days of travel, were over 6,700 during the second quarter off a base of nearly 17,000 total cancellations. As we exited the third quarter, our disruptive cancellations were just under 400 off a base of 6,800 total cancellations, so a 94% decrease.

This not only reduced significant costs, but coupled with better operational execution drove our Net Promoter Score back to pre COVID levels. Once again, a great result, a great bounce back in a very difficult environment. And secondly, I wanted to take a few moments and comment on labor. As you recall from our second quarter, we were in active discussions with both the unionized and non unionized labor groups about a number of different cost saving measures with varying levels of success. It's with mixed emotions I can report.

Although we were ultimately successful in negotiating the right deals with the right partners, many folks were left the organization, but we are looking forward to a successful 2021. Ops labor costs, both direct and indirect, will be substantially down. And ops headcount productivity, which we define as heads per aircraft, should return to levels not seen since 2013. On the unionized front, we're able to successfully negotiate near term deals with dispatchers, flight attendants and as of last night, our pilot group. I'd like to thank each of our union partners and leaders for their tireless efforts.

Each agreement contained attributes different attributes, but I can say unequivocally, all contain the right and appropriate balance of cost flexibility while maintaining near full operational capabilities. On the nonunionized front, and although we have a number of cost saving voluntary programs in place, we made the difficult decision to rightsize the organization fairly aggressively, both in restructuring and reductions in force. I want to sincerely thank those individuals who are no longer here. They were instrumental in helping make Allegiant what it is today. And for that, I thank them.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Scott DiAngelo. Thank you, Scott. Our commercial approach remains focused on leveraging the strengths of Allegiant's unique business model, being focused solely on domestic leisure travel, selling directly to our customers and having a proprietary e commerce platform. As they have so many times before, these aspects of our business model have enabled us to stimulate and capture demand in a fashion that has us outpacing the field in terms of relative web search traffic and leisure travel bookings, while at the same time reducing our sales and marketing cost per booking by 75% versus prior year. Ultimately, our greatest commercial advantage has been the ability of our organization to pull together and solve for the cost side of the equation, while maintaining the majority of our flying schedule and not making unnatural changes to our network strategy.

Doing so has us seeing light at the end of this pandemic tunnel even amidst current levels of uncertainty. While the initial impacts of the COVID-nineteen pandemic shutdown saw our number of bookings drop as much as nearly 90% below prior year back in April before coming back to prior year levels briefly in mid June, each subsequent shock wave has seen about half the negativity as the one before it. In mid July, bookings fell to as much as 50% below prior year before gaining strength again through the September. And even now with recent headlines of rises in the number of COVID-nineteen cases, bookings appear to be stabilizing around the twenty five percent to 30% below prior year. Based both on what our customers are saying and what our customers are doing, we see a clear divergence in terms of their attitudes toward the pandemic and their intentions toward leisure air travel.

That is to say, customers believe the situation may once again be getting worse, but their leisure travel activity or their travel booking intent remains largely unchanged. Corroborating our own customer insights, which are gleaned through weekly tracking surveys that our marketing analytics team began building back in March, is tremendous data analytics work by our corporate intelligence team who's been expertly translating a variety of external data, most notably the consumer mobility data made available by Descartes Labs. This mobility tracking data shows that consumers nationally exhibit their highest level of movement since the pandemic began towards the end of this past quarter. And even with choppiness in the past several weeks, consumer mobility remains near that high point and on the rise as we head towards holiday travel. While pandemic fatigue among consumers may certainly account for some of this dynamic, many of our customers are also feeling more confident that they can smartly and safely begin resuming important aspects of their lives.

This includes everyday activities like shopping and eating out, but also leisure travel activities like visiting family and friends, taking vacations to beaches and national parks or traveling to and from their second vacation homes. But this growing confidence to travel by air again comes with conditions. And for many customers, the most critical condition is that the flight must be nonstop, which, of course, is a hallmark of Allegiant's there and back approach to operate. Customers we surveyed with travel booked already regardless of the airline told us a single factor that most impacted their purchase decision during this time was finding a non stop flight. Also, a strong majority of customers, regardless of whether or not they had travel currently booked, made it abundantly clear that the prospect of connections or layovers typically occurring in crowded hubs has a major negative impact on their intention to fly during the pandemic.

While overall visitation to our website allegiant.com has been down versus last year, not surprisingly, it's worth noting that the vast majority of web visitors are coming at little or no cost and without the possibility for competitive interference by either directly entering the URL allegiant.com or by clicking on a link from one of our targeted marketing emails. In fact, web visitation from direct URL and email marketing was actually up by more than 15% versus last year. Conversely, web visitation from general search pools like search engines and online travel agencies, which we of course don't sell to but we do advertise on, is down by more than half versus last year. The fact we communicate directly with and sell directly to our customers sets us apart from those who depend primarily on search engines or OTAs for leisure travel bookings. As a result, despite lower overall visitation to allegiant.com, visitors have been converting at rates that are considerably higher than pre pandemic levels.

During the third quarter, about two thirds of our bookings were directly attributable to tactics associated with our co brand credit card or email marketing campaigns. As mentioned in past calls, these programs focused on featuring work from home, away from home, air and hotel packaged offers for Las Vegas and Florida destinations, reverse travel from larger cities to less populated national park or beach areas and targeted promotions based on age groups, family composition and or second and vacation home ownership. Looking forward, web searches at allegiant.com continue to show improvement for all travel weeks through late February. And in particular, search volume improvements concentrated around Thanksgiving and the weeks of Christmas and New Year's are especially encouraging. Third quarter also saw the debut of Allegiant Stadium on Monday Night Football's MegaCast this past September 21.

More than 15,000,000 viewers tuned in and billions of impressions were generated through broadcast and digital media. In fact, sports media measurement firms reported that Allegiant was the NFL's fourth strongest performing brand on social media ahead of iconic brands such as Pepsi, Lexus and Gatorade. Most importantly, Allegiant Stadium has enabled us to build awareness during a time that our traditional advertising tactics have been virtually nonexistent and drive web traffic from our major origin cities such as Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Pittsburgh, which were each up in web visits by 50% to 60% and large new cities for Allegiant, like Chicago, Boston and Houston, which were each up in web visits by 60% to 80%. And most reassuring has been the heightened impact Allegiant Stadium exposure has had on marketing activities such as email marketing. Around the games played at the stadium, we've seen web visitation from email marketing increase by more than 200% above its already relatively strong levels.

And finally, going to distance for health and safety remains foundational to all that we do. And that includes proudly sharing our ranking by Safe Travel Barometer as the number one airline among North American carriers and among the top five worldwide for best COVID-nineteen traveler safety measures. But that wasn't the only award we earned this quarter. For the second consecutive year, the Allegiant World Mastercard was voted by USA TODAY readers as the number one airline co brand card. Our card loyalty program continues to be a shining example of how Allegiant continues to provide added value and flexibility to customers during these uncertain times.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Drew Wells, Head of Revenue Management and Network Planning.

Speaker 5

Thank you, Scott, and thanks to everyone for joining us this afternoon. Our third quarter revenue was down just more than 50% year over year with scheduled service ASMs down 6.5%. Overall, I'm quite pleased with unit metrics staying relatively flat on the nearly 60% jump in ASMs versus the second quarter, as Maury mentioned earlier. The third quarter was interesting in that we never saw a trough as low as April nor peaks as high as June for booking demand. However, a much more metered and consistent growth provided some stability and cautious optimism throughout the quarter, especially as it correlated very well with improvements in Scott's customer sentiment data.

In fact, despite the revenue peaks around the July 4 and Labor Day, the load factor in the last two weeks September were the best of the quarter. As we look ahead, October will continue the load factor expansion we experienced through September. We have maintained TSA throughput share outperformance and are roughly double where we were last year. However, there will still be uncertainty as we enter the winter. Our fourth quarter ASMs should finish around 15% below last year in total, but will continue to be quite variable.

Appropriately matching capacity to demand remains our main objective. And the peak Thanksgiving and Christmas weeks should see at least 30% more flying than the weeks earlier in those months. The approach of casting a wide net continues to provide us with insight that we could not have gotten otherwise. Despite justifiable concerns around leisure demand in September, we held a significant portion of our schedule for sale and were able to record arguably our best month of the pandemic. We believe that we've been the fastest to react to the significantly changing environment, and we will continue to be nimble as we approach some potentially large demand peaks and valleys.

I am very thankful for everyone's perseverance and flexibility on the Allegiant team as we slowly climb out of the canyon. And with that, I'd like to pass it over to Greg.

Speaker 6

Thank you, Drew. Good afternoon, everyone. And I too want to echo the comments in praise and appreciation for our dedicated team members. Their professionalism and hard work throughout this unusual period has been key in keeping us well positioned. For the third quarter, our daily bookings averaged just over $2,000,000 resulting in an actual cash burn of $1,300,000 per day, and this compares with our cash burn expectations of just over $1,000,000 The month of September, typically our lowest performing month of the year, was cash flow positive for the airline.

And as a reminder, our cash burn definition takes into account cash from ops, total debt payments and CapEx. It excludes aircraft CapEx and also excludes any cash and tax benefits received from the CARES Act. As Drew mentioned, we saw slow and steady improvement in demand throughout the quarter. Recent trends are encouraging and at both September and October each are averaging more than $3,000,000 per day in bookings. Turning to costs.

Despite a capacity reduction of only 9.4%, our cash operating costs, which exclude ownership and special items, were down more than three times that amount at 29%. Our adjusted CASM Ex, which excludes special items and benefits from CARES Act, for the quarter was $0.06 $25 and less than our full year 2019 CASM Ex of $0.65 We have worked hard to pull every lever we have in our operation to cut costs and preserve cash. The list of measures we have taken is long, extensive, and innovative. Regrettably, that list does include some strategic reductions to our workforce. It is heartbreaking to lose valued colleagues and friends, and we all share in that loss.

These position eliminations came as a last resort, but are also incredibly meaningful in helping us get back to a breakeven cash flow status. Turning to our balance sheet. Throughout the pandemic, one of our top financial priorities is defending our balance sheet, while ensuring sufficient liquidity to withstand the weakened demand environment. We are pleased with the progress to date as we ended the third quarter with net debt of $840,000,000 which is even less than our net debt at year end 2019 of $950,000,000 Our ability to navigate the pandemic without a material negative impact to our balance sheet is attributable to the following year to date cash inflow items: employee voluntary pay reductions and leaves, PST grants and associated loans of $177,000,000 NOL carryback refund to date of $95,000,000 with an additional $125,000,000 expected to be received in early twenty twenty one financings of $300,000,000 and year to date EBITDA, excluding special items, of slightly positive at $2,000,000 As a data point, we expect EBITDA to remain positive at average daily bookings of around $2,700,000 or above. These cash inflows were offset by the following year to date outflows: CapEx of $190,000,000 and heavy maintenance of $40,000,000 and this includes the $46,000,000 for Sunseeker.

Also, a Sixth Street partner termination payment of $15,000,000 and total debt payments of $152,000,000 which includes $38,000,000 of interest. And subsequent to the third quarter, we issued $150,000,000 private placement bond backed only by the collateral already pledged to our existing term loan. Not having to post incremental collateral was important as it allows us to maintain greater fleet flexibility by keeping 22 of our aircraft unencumbered. Pro form a for this bond, our cash balance was roughly $850,000,000 And at September's and October's booking levels of over $3,000,000 per day, we are flirting with cash flow breakeven. While the environment remains fluid and bookings will certainly ebb and flow, our data suggests these average booking levels are sustainable moving forward.

As such, we believe we have ample liquidity to see us through to a full recovery in demand. Given our sound financial footing, we declined to participate in the government loan program that would have provided the company with access to an additional $270,000,000 in borrowings. Because we no longer view liquidity as a key risk to Allegiant, we will not be explicitly providing cash burn guidance going forward. Instead, we prefer to direct our messaging towards traditional areas such as capacity, op expense and capital expenditures. We expect a fourth quarter capacity reduction of around 15%.

We expect our total operating cost to be down closer to 25%, which assumes a fourth quarter fuel cost per gallon of $1.35 and implies a total airline CASM of down 10% year over year. We have made a number of long term structural cost improvements to cope with the reduced demand for airfare. And in total, we expect structural cost changes to equate to about $75,000,000 in annual operating cost savings. These include $40,000,000 in labor, 15,000,000 in marketing, 15,000,000 in IT and another $5,000,000 in other. And as a result, we expect CASM ex fuel to be meaningfully reduced based off of twenty nineteen capacity levels.

Looking to CapEx. For the remaining three months of 2020, we expect total CapEx, including heavy maintenance, to be roughly $130,000,000 and 75% of this relates to the acquisition of five A320 aircraft. Options to finance these aircraft are readily available, but given our current liquidity position, additional borrowings may not be required. We expect to end 2020 with gross debt of about $1,650,000,000 And based on our current booking trends, we expect to end 2020 in a net debt position of roughly $875,000,000 which too compares favorably to our ending 2019 net debt of $950,000,000 Turning to fleet. We expect to end the year with 93 aircraft in operations, five in temporary storage and eight planned for permanent retirement.

As we look towards 2021 and beyond, we are not burdened with a costly fleet order. We believe this is a key strategic advantage for Allegiant. In addition, we continue to see an influx of potential deals for used A320ceos at prices significantly discounted from pre COVID levels. The post COVID environment may provide a unique opportunity to either strategically replace aircraft and or grow our fleet depending on demand. At the economics we are seeing, such deals should lead naturally in averaging down our ownership costs, further improving our already industry leading low fixed cost structure.

In addition, by enhancing our fleet flexibility, we expect to further reduce future heavy maintenance costs. As an example, recently, we were presented with an attractive opportunity to bring in a leased A320 in 2021, and so we quickly actioned retirement of an older A319, which was due for a costly maintenance visit. The leased A320 will have lower ownership costs than the three nineteen, more seats, and we will harvest the engines from the A319 to avoid costly heavy maintenance CapEx. And as Maury mentioned, there are more potential fleet transactions where we would have the ability to minimize upfront cash requirements, thus helping to keep our future CapEx at lower levels. For 2021 CapEx, including heavy maintenance, we currently anticipate $125,000,000 This includes $40,000,000 for two aircraft to be delivered in early twenty twenty one.

Prior to COVID, we estimated our 2021 CapEx spend would have been at least $100,000,000 higher just between the incremental heavy maintenance and other non aircraft CapEx. We currently expect to end 2021 with between ninety eight and one hundred and three aircraft in operation with travel demand determining when we return to service our aircraft in temporary storage. In closing, we are very well positioned. We have sufficient liquidity to manage through the crisis. Our debt levels are modest.

Our quickly amortizing debt will have offset the equivalent of around 40% of the debt we raised since the onset of the pandemic. This will happen by year end. And then we think the remaining balance could be offset by next year's end. We also expect our full year interest expense in 2020 to be around $55,000,000 which is 25% less than the $75,000,000 interest we paid in 2019. And currently, we expect twenty twenty one's full year interest to be lower than 2020.

So to the best of my knowledge, Allegion is the only carrier since the onset of the pandemic to nearly double its cash position, lower net debt, reduce interest expense, all without issuing an equity dilutive transaction. This provides us confidence we will continue to remain very well positioned on the other side of this pandemic. And with that, we turn it over to the operator.

Speaker 0

Our first question comes from Mike Linenberg of Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Speaker 7

Hey, good afternoon. You know, I'm listening to this call and I'm just thinking what planet are you guys on because it doesn't at all seem to reconcile with the planet that I'm on with respect to being an observer of the industry. So congratulations on getting to breakeven and really essentially positive free cash flow. I guess a couple of questions here. Greg, I guess you ran through kind of the big sort of ticket items for why CASM ex in 2021 will be below 2019.

You talked about this 75,000,000 of structural change. And is there anything sort of incremental to that? Or you'd highlighted labor. You talked about IT, marketing and other. Is that what's driving it?

Or are there other elements of efficiency? And maybe it's you guys are building in just lower aircraft ownership costs in 2021 for any sort of incremental shells that you bring on just given where the market is today versus where it was pre COVID? Any additional color there?

Speaker 6

Sure. Hey, Michael, and thanks for the comments. Let me start with the last point. No, we're not building in any improvements in our ownership costs through some of the strategic kind of initiatives we're looking around the fleet side. We wouldn't do that until deals were actioned.

So we're just taking a conservative approach on the fixed side of the cost of house. But no, you're spot on. I think the major areas that we're focused on, one and Scott hit on this in his opening remarks is labor and productivity. As Don mentioned, how to set the organization and we're going to rebuild and we're going to be more productive. To put that into perspective, I think in 2019, we had roughly 50 FTEs per aircraft.

And in 2021, we expect to have 38. And we haven't had that level of productivity since back in 2015, I think, and before. So that's a big one. Marketing, I think I'd like to D'Angelo is here and give him and his team a shout out, because they through this pandemic, they find ways they have found many ways to be more surgical and more efficient with the capital that we can provide to them and are getting better. And so we feel comfortable and confident to take our marketing budget down, and that's a structural improvement.

And then IT and the other areas that you mentioned, there's just there's a lot of improvements from there. We think we'll be more productive and just better on the other side because of this.

Speaker 7

Great. And then just my second question and this is really for Maury and John. You know, as we come up to the election, know, Dems versus Republicans and this is not me trying to call out, you know, what you're you know, politically which side you're leaning toward. I'm just curious, you know, depending on how things play out, what outcome is better to Allegiant? And what I'm really moving towards is the fact that, you know, if we do get a blue wave, you know, the concern is that, you know, in the past we've seen the Dems be much more aggressive in sponsoring legislation that, to some extent, would undermine the Allegiant model, you know, I.

E, you know, kind of a return of regulation on seat size and the like on one hand. On the other, airline employees are their peeps and don't want to do anything that undermines the businesses that they work for. And reregulation ultimately impacts profitability and ultimately impacts what union employees can earn. So there's some tension there and that's what we've seen in the past and the possibility maybe of additional stimulus, which is good for the overall economy. So I know it's sort of a broad question.

How do you think about Allegiant, whether we get a blue wave or we end up getting something in between? What's best for Allegiant?

Speaker 2

I'll go first and join the follow-up. In the many years I've been doing this, my goal is just to hold steady and not Just to go can you hold where you're at and see what see what you can stay away from. Certainly, we've seen the blue side has been very much a regulation. In fact, we've got a lot of deregulation under mister Trump's administration, you know, with just DOT loosening things up and and allowing us to do things. I think the seat thing has been settled, but I'm not gonna sit here and say it has.

Speaker 7

Yep.

Speaker 2

You open up Pandora's box if you go in and try and reregulate the seats in the airplane. Yeah. You know, our I can't speak for anybody that way. I just know that you said kind of rolling that forward. It's gonna be it's gonna be a huge problem.

And, you know, this industry is already being subsidized by the federal government, in effect. And you wanna take seats out of the airplane, you know, it's the economics are pretty simple. Yeah. Good. Want us to talk about that.

I don't know that you'll you'll see that happen. You know, I think the you'll see a lot of labor initiatives. They're already on record saying they wanna improve the ability for people to unionize. And it's not that we're already a union industry. Yeah.

So there's probably not a lot of downside there. But the biggest downside would be a green movement where you wanna see, you know, the older airplanes go away for improved, you know, green benefits Mhmm. Which says, you know, by neos and the new engine types. You know, candidly, that could also be a plus for Boeing, GE, and those types of Airbus for that matter. So anyway, we'll we'll have to see.

But, you know, I think our model the one thing we do well is we adapt. Yeah. We we we are able to make it work for whatever it is. We're the surpasser agents. They increase the cost, we'll pass it through.

That's what we do well. And we're probably better at that than anybody else. But John?

Speaker 3

Mean, Mori's comments, of course, I echo those. They're spot on. I think when you look at the team here for this entire year, we've never had a conversation on what if at all. We only deal with things that we can control. And that's what we've been focused on, right?

So we just been spending a lot of time doing everything that Greg just referenced. One of the biggest ones, of course, was just level setting the organization from a labor standpoint. I think the further away you get from tenone, the less likely there's a retroactive component to whatever may happen, right? Just because every airline has taken whatever steps it feels to be able to rightsize its organization. So labor is what it is, but our focus is just trying to control what we have control over.

And I think we've moved very quickly and aggressively to deal with all that since the onset of all this.

Speaker 7

Great. Thanks, everyone. Well done.

Speaker 0

Our next question comes from Duane Pfennigwerth of Evercore ISI. Your line is open.

Speaker 8

Hey thanks. Maybe just a network question. Obviously preference for direct flights certainly resonates right now. It's always been a part of the model, but it certainly resonates right now. And so many dots have been taken off of the domestic map, not from an Allegiant perspective, but from a U.

S. Airline industry perspective. And so I wonder if you could talk a little bit about new market opportunities that may be opening up. It feels like there would just be a lot of green space for your low frequency model right now given where capacity is.

Speaker 5

Yes, Duane, this is Drew. And I think you're spot on. We had already communicated a significant network runway pre pandemic and didn't have any concerns about our ability to grow. And there will certainly be incremental opportunities that stem from this. I think we're trying to kind of be level headed about how we approach this and not trying to grow too fast into this with uncertainty, but not trying to sit back either and trying to find that right balance, guess.

So I think you'll see things from us that we know that there's going

Speaker 6

be growth

Speaker 5

available. So I'll give you kind of a big generic answer here saying that yes, opportunities exist, and we will be looking for them timing kind of TBE.

Speaker 8

So far, it's preserving what you have and preserving connectivity that you had and less diversifying into new markets. Is that fair?

Speaker 5

Largely fair. We've had one route announcement that was relatively small by our standards, less than 10 routes, kind of strengthening where we're strong, particularly from a destination perspective. And those have all served off quite well. We haven't had our first flight on any of those yet, so still in the booking phase there. But certainly, I would agree that there's more that will come from this.

Speaker 8

Thanks. And then just for my follow-up on nonairline, I apologize if this is in the disclosure, but can you just tell us where nonairline revenue and cost and kind of loss was here in the third quarter? I imagine it's a lot skinnier. And what your outlook is going forward? It feels like what we should be solving to is sort of the airline CASM ex from 2019, not the overall CASM ex, but would appreciate your thoughts there.

Thank you.

Speaker 6

Hey, Duane, it's Greg again. Thanks for the question. Yes, I think the spirit of what you mentioned is correct. It's the focus back on the airline. But maybe I'll just run through the three non airline business lines, starting with nonstop.

So that's been for the third quarter that was closed down, very minimal costs associated with that. Nothing to report, no revenue there. As far as Sunseeker, similarly, it was very minimal cost, maybe $1,000,000 or so throughout the quarter that we paid just for security or just to make sure we're protecting our investment in that asset. And then with TSNAP, that still remains an asset held for sale. Team's done a really nice job of being self sufficient there, restructuring that organization.

That's actually turned to a positive position. So it's actually earning cash, and it has for the past six, seven months. So but we'll still explore strategic options there. We are. And we have nothing to report today.

But once we have more, we'll report back on that front.

Speaker 8

Okay. Thank you.

Speaker 0

Our next question comes from Savi Syth of Raymond James. Your line is open.

Speaker 9

Hey, good afternoon. Just on the fleet side, I recognize you're going to be opportunistic with things that come up. But right now, how many can aircraft do you have grounded? And what's your plan as you look to 2020 CASM ex being less than twenty nineteen? Is that assuming kind of 2019 levels of flying?

Speaker 6

Yes. I mean we're not we haven't come out and given capacity guidance on twenty twenty one. I was pointing or just saying as a data point based on twenty nineteen capacity, we would expect CASM ex to be less. But as we think about the fleet, Savi, 're going to go ahead as far as where we sit today, we have five that are in storage, temporary storage. We're considering those flexible fleet kind of, if you will.

So depending on the environment and demand, we would bring those back into service. Last call, I think we mentioned we had identified seven aircraft for retirement. But given the deal that I just mentioned in my opening remarks, that's now up to eight. And we'll retire the majority of those through this year with a few stragglers in the next year.

Speaker 9

Got it. And then just a quick question on the vouchers within ATL. It seems like maybe 65% of the ATL is vouchers. What are you seeing in terms of usage of those vouchers? And has that kind of trend changed as bookings have moved up?

Speaker 6

Yes. Definitely we've seen the voucher redemptions trend increase. So I think like pre COVID, it was like 1% or 2%. It was really small as compared to revenue. Right now, it's at 15% to 20%.

So we've definitely seen an increase. We're working through those. So I think the last report I had, Savi, since March through the end of the quarter, we had issued about $350,000,000 in credit vouchers. And so we've burned through I think we're at $220,000,000 now. So right?

So we've burned through about $130 I mean, the cadence of those issuance of credit vouchers has come down significantly. To put that into perspective, I think March was $150,000,000 of loans. And so and then I think October to date is much less September, which is less than August. So we're burning through it. But we'll see.

Yes, I think that's am I missing anything, Drew, that? Anything else you want to add?

Speaker 9

All right. Great. Thank you.

Speaker 0

Our next question comes from Hunter Keay of Wolfe Research. Your line is open.

Speaker 2

Hi, everybody.

Speaker 10

A little bit more on Sunseeker. John, for you, you said you're optimistic. What did you mean by that? Are you just basically suggesting that you're optimistic that this project could still occur, just not in the way that it was originally intended, not on your balance sheet? Is that what you're getting at when you say that, when you use that word?

Speaker 3

No. It more relates to the conversations we're having with people that will be able to find some sort of a solution that hopefully would involve additional equity partners. So we've had a lot of great conversations. There's several doing due diligence work. We realize it's obviously a big project for people to look at.

But we've had some great conversations. So that's all I was getting at is that optimistic about these conversations we've had and people's level of interest.

Speaker 10

I got it. Okay. And then I think probably one for Scott Sheldon. Can you elaborate on the terms of the pilot agreement that you reached last night? Is this a reduction in minimum pay guarantees?

I mean what does this give you flexibility to grow or shrink if conditions warrant like we've been seeing from some of your competitors? Anything you could and is it final yet? Are they vote on it? Can you just give us some more color on that, please? Yes.

Speaker 4

Hunter, thanks for the question. Yes. So as we said back in 2Q, and we communicated this to the pilot group, that there was a possibility that we could furlough up to two seventy five folks. That would obviously drive a number of downgrades. We had already actioned 100 of those two seventy five.

That was basically as of October 1. The next 100, we were getting ready to action basically October 31. Unfortunately, we didn't have a lot of preventative and voluntary programs in place, meaning just voluntary leaves, flexibility on when schedules are at release so we get a better idea of what Drew and team wants to fly. So these guys, basically, we were shooting over different possibilities literally up until late last night. So basically, furlough profile is capped at 130.

If you think about the 130, 60 of those were new hires that hadn't even been bidders on the line yet. So ultimately the impact of the 130 and the associated 30 downgrades is minimal. If you look at what we want to go fly even March and even through the summer and targeting a 98 or 103 aircraft profile, we can do that very comfortably. If we want to bring these folks back, we can. So that's basically kind of the language and what was agreed to yesterday.

But we didn't change rate. We didn't change the guarantee. But it's sizable savings when you think about the 30 downgrades and just the 130 that were on payroll that are no longer on.

Speaker 2

Got it. Okay. Thanks, everybody.

Speaker 0

Our next question comes from Joseph DeNardi of Stifel. Your line is open.

Speaker 11

Thanks. Good afternoon. Maury, can you talk a little bit about kind of the timing of when you think you would start to invest more meaningfully in the business, again, I guess, on the aircraft side And maybe the magnitude of the investment that you think you'd be willing to make at this point?

Speaker 2

Joe, I think that we're gonna feel that out as we go along with the ability to add airplanes with minimal cash approaches. It makes it easier for us to add new equipment. I think we'll also have the benefits of lower cash requirements for motors. I know we will. And so our cash balances should stay very, very nice.

But I think in the next two years, we can add a good number of shells with a minimal amount of money out there. Power by the hour arrangements are out there. You know, we can do fixed rates that are generally, we can get an $83.20 now for a release rate that's the same as we're paying for $3.19 on a depreciation stuff. The other piece of this is we like to own our planes, particularly as you get mid level towards the back end of their lives. You don't want to be returning old airplanes.

It's tough to do that in lease basis. So we think we can still structure deals where effectively you reverse the purchase instead of putting your money down upfront with debt. You have to the owner of the airplane carry the paper, and we we buy it out of the backside. So when you think about that, you don't have to put much capital. Like, you can add add the shelves.

I think we'll have to just see. We need to bait inside, go fast, just take your time. But as the data reveals itself, it appears there's opportunities out there. And one of two things we can do, we can certainly grow shells where we can replace three nineteen perhaps with 186 seat airplanes. If you can get an airplane with 186 seats, 30 more seats than a three nineteen for the same ownership cost, The marginal cost to fly that airplane is is minimal.

And my my way of looking at it is I want a seven forty seven on Sunday, I want a Cessna on Tuesday. But I'll I'll take the I'll take the benefits of flying the seven forty seven around during the week to have those profit potential seats on the peak days.

Speaker 11

Mario, are you on the go fast or the take your time side of the argument?

Speaker 2

Yes. Okay.

Speaker 11

Okay. And then maybe a question for Drew. Just on the network side, can you talk about kind of the level of competition that you're seeing now? And then probably more importantly, what how much less competitive the network will be on the other side of this as you're thinking about it? Thank you.

Speaker 5

Yes. We've certainly seen level of competition come down over the last six, eight months. There's been a handful of new leisure oriented markets announced by other carriers on top of us. By and large, those have already been competitive routes. They're not necessarily incrementally new to us, just some incremental seats, which never a great thing, but not quite the same as new competition.

We've been heading back down, and maybe someone else in here knows the exact, and we've been down south of 15% competitive, I believe, over the last few months. So in a markedly better position than we've been in the last several years, for sure, as we began making a series of network investments that elevated that number and touch. As we move forward, all of the routes that we talked about pre pandemic, only about 10% of those were competitive and were going to enable us to kind of build that moat even deeper and wider. And I think as a lot of industry network decisions take place, that number will get even better as routes come open. So I could see us living in a world closer to 10% for a while.

That might be a touch optimistic, but I think it's plausible as we look forward in the short to medium term.

Speaker 2

I think one

Speaker 3

of the things, too, just to add on to what Drew said, when you look at that even on those competitive routes, the pricing environment going forward with the levels of debt that all these carriers have added, it's going be very interesting. We haven't done that. So our pricing structure is not going to be completely out of whack where the competition can't say that. I mean, they're going to have interest expense that is incredible for a long time. Very helpful.

Thank you.

Speaker 0

Our next question comes from Helane Becker of Cowen. Your line is open.

Speaker 12

Thanks very much, operator. Hi, everybody, and thank you very much for your time. I'm not sure who, but the stadium was referenced in. And it actually I haven't been there yet, but it does look like a really nice stadium. And I'm kind of wondering if you have been able to determine the revenue benefit versus the cost and what it's been and I know it's been, what, a month or so?

What it's been so far maybe? And where you see the track you see it going, so maybe the return on that invested capital?

Speaker 4

You bet. This is Scott DeAngelo. Thanks for the question. I'll give you the construct of how we think about it. There's two basic ways.

One is, I mentioned and do a bunch of goofy big numbers in terms of billions of impressions, millions of viewers. That we take and is all able to translate into what you would have to spend to get that anyway. And as Greg mentioned earlier, we've been able to pull down by 15,000,000 or more in marketing based on what that investment is able to get us. So that's one way we talk about the cost side of the value and what we're able to take down. And then conversely, on the revenue side, I mentioned the kind of lift we see in email marketing, but the same thing is true of anything and everything we do.

Because of that heightened sense of awareness, we measure the baseline lift. Let's say, 1% of people get our emails, open them and click through, and now that goes to 1.1%, 1.2% and just play that small ball game all the way to see what that return is. And so we measure that as well. The line in the sand is that we need what is roughly zero two of a percentage point, 20 bps across everything that we do to get several million more people in the funnel over a year's time, meaning to the website, and then all other things equal, that gets us over our hurdle rate of what the investment is. So without specific numbers, that's how we think about it from a construct point of view and then how we measure it.

Speaker 12

Okay. Actually that's pretty helpful. And then I know that this question was sort of asked for my follow-up question. But Maury was breaking up so I didn't really get the answer other than maybe he said lease rates on A320s are about equal to what they are for A319s. So are you looking at acquiring, I mean, any aircraft that you would bring on above, you know, maybe what's what's already there, the 103 that was referenced as where you can end the year.

Are you looking at bringing them on as owned aircraft or aircraft? I would think owned aircraft would make more sense than leased aircraft.

Speaker 6

Helane, this is Greg. Maybe I'll just kick it off real quick. And then Robert Nail is in the room, who heads up he's our Treasurer and heads up our Fleet Acquisition team. The way we're looking at it is just what makes the most sense and the best economics. So Maury I think what Maury was alluding to or getting at is there's deals out there where we don't have to put up capital upfront, but we can get kind of really strong rates, lease rates and then pay in the back end, call it like

Speaker 5

a reverse kind of mortgage type thing.

Speaker 6

Yes, so we're just looking at deals that make sense. We're not going out. We're looking almost the onesies and twosies to see if that makes sense to replace existing aircraft that are coming up on heavy maintenance events or if they're sorry, they're coming near retirement age as well. But with that, let me turn it over to B. J, if he has anything to add color on that side.

Speaker 4

Yes. Hey, Helane. Think it's probably a little bit of both. I mean, we want to own our aircraft at the end of the day, and most folks we work with know that. But I think near term, there's probably some really good opportunity for natural lease expiries from other carriers over the next twenty four months.

And that's where seen the most benefit.

Speaker 3

Got you. Okay. What Laurie was saying, just so you have that data point correct, what he was referring to, just to give you an idea of how the market is, what he was saying is that we are seeing deals with a lease rate on a threetwenty that's less than the ownership cost on a threenineteen.

Speaker 2

That was a Okay.

Speaker 12

That makes more sense. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 12

Alright. Well, thanks, everybody. I appreciate all of that.

Speaker 0

That's all the time we have for questions. I'd like to turn the call back over to Maury Gallagher for closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Thank you all very much. Appreciate your inputs and we'll see you again in another ninety days. Have a good week.

Speaker 0

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude the conference. You may now disconnect. Everyone have a great day.