Gogo - Earnings Call - Q3 2025

Executive Summary

• Q3 2025 revenue was $223.6M, up 122% YoY and roughly in line with consensus; GAAP diluted EPS was $(0.01), reflecting a $15M pre-tax earn-out accrual related to the Satcom Direct acquisition; Adjusted EBITDA was $56.2M with a 25% margin, down sequentially as mix shifted toward lower-margin equipment and increased 5G/HDX/FDX investments.
• Versus Wall Street: revenue modestly beat consensus ($223.6M vs $222.2M*) and Primary EPS exceeded consensus ($0.12 vs $0.07*); Adjusted EBITDA beat ($56.2M vs $48.6M*). Estimates were S&P Global figures; see Estimates Context for details.
• Guidance reiterated at the high end: FY25 revenue $870–$910M, Adjusted EBITDA $200–$220M, and Free Cash Flow $60–$90M; management lowered strategic initiative OpEx and strategic investment assumptions and reset FCC reimbursement expectations, but kept net capex at ~$40M.
• Operational catalysts: record 437 ATG units sold, >200 HDX shipments YTD, 5G network flight testing succeeded with year-end 2025 network launch timing confirmed; VistaJet to deploy Galileo fleet-wide; FDX line-fit win at Bombardier; multiple Mil/Gov contract wins.
• Near-term stock reaction drivers: confirmation of 5G launch timing, accelerating Galileo momentum (HDX/FDX STCs and fleet deals), and reiterated high-end FY25 guide vs continued near-term ATG AOL pressure and Q4 EBITDA headwinds called out by management.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• New product momentum: “We are at the goal line on 5G,” with successful end-to-end airborne 5G calls and Q4 launch timing reiterated; 28 of 33 5G STCs completed, line-fit commitments with five OEMs.
• Galileo traction: pipeline ~1,000 HDX/FDX units (up from 500), >200 HDX shipments YTD with 93% tied to customers, FDX flight demos reached ~200 Mbps, and Bombardier line-fit win; VistaJet plans fleet-wide Galileo deployment.
• Record equipment shipments and service margins: 437 ATG units sold (+8% q/q) including 229 C-1 units ahead of LTE cutover; combined service margin was ~52% and Adjusted EBITDA margin ~25%.

What Went Wrong

• ATG fleet pressure and ARPU drift: total ATG AOL fell to 6,529 (−7% YoY, −3% q/q) and ATG ARPU dipped to $3,407 (−3% YoY, −1% q/q), with management expecting ATG pressure to persist near-term.
• Sequential EBITDA decline expected: Q4 EBITDA to decline sequentially due to increased 5G/Galileo testing spend and mix shift toward lower-margin equipment; ATG pressures also weigh on Q4 margin.
• GAAP EPS impact from earn-out: net loss of $(1.9)M (diluted $(0.01)) driven by a $15M pre-tax fair value adjustment to the Satcom earn-out liability, masking solid underlying Adjusted EBITDA and FCF generation.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Hello, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Gogo Third Quarter 2025 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. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press Star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press Star 11 again. I would now like to hand the conference over to William Davis. You may begin.

William Davis (VP of Investor Relations)

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Gogo's third quarter 2025 earnings conference call. Joining me today to discuss our results are Chris Moore, CEO, and Zach Cotner, our CFO. Before we get started, I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that during the course of this call, we may make forward-looking statements regarding future events and the future performance of the company. We caution you to consider the risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements on this call. Those risk factors are described in our earnings release filed this morning and in a more fully detailed note under risk factors filed in our annual report on 10-K and 10-Q and other documents that we have filed with the SEC. In addition, please note that the date of this conference call is November 6th, 2025.

Any forward-looking statements that we make today are based on assumptions as of this date, and we undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of more information or future events. During this call, we'll present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. We have included a reconciliation and explanation of adjustments and other considerations of our non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measures in our third quarter earnings release. Our call is being webcast and available at irr.gogoair.com. The earnings release is also available on the website. After management comments, we'll host a Q&A session with the financial community only. It is now my great pleasure to turn the call over to Chris.

Chris Moore (Director and CEO)

Thank you, Will, and good morning. I will let Zach handle the numbers, but I am pleased with our financial discipline, integration, and synergy execution, and free cash flow generation as we prepare for growth as a result of our new product ramps and global contract wins. My remarks will focus on the significant progress made across our key new products in the third quarter, including 5G, HDX, and FDX, all of which are expected to provide a step function increase in speed, consistency, and performance. I will also discuss our progress in the MilGov end market, including several recent contract wins that validate our unique multi-orbit, multi-band strategy for this important customer base. We believe Gogo is well positioned to execute on our new product launches, and this bolsters my confidence in achieving long-term sustained revenue and free cash flow growth.

Before we jump into our product rollouts, let's review the positive demand trends within our under-penetrated market. Global business jet flights are about 30% above pre-COVID levels and at an all-time high. Fractional demand is robust. Overall demand for business jets remains healthy, with major OEMs reporting strong backlog and estimating 2025 final book-to-bill ratios one times or higher. Last month, Honeywell estimated business jet deliveries globally of 8,500 over the next 10 years, representing an annual growth rate of approximately 3%. Given that our global addressable market of 41,000 business aircraft is less than 25% penetrated with broadband connectivity, these factors create a robust end market.

In summary, our value creation is to grow our current strong position in the under-penetrated market with long-term high-margin customer relationships by delivering a set of new products and services which deliver order-of-magnitude improvements in performance with purpose-built equipment that is easier to install, maintain, and upgrade than competitors' products. Let's start our new product update with Galileo, our global LEO-based service that comes in two flavors. HDX for smaller aircraft and FDX for larger aircraft. The recent announcement by VistaJet, a leading global business jet operator, of its plans to deploy both HDX and FDX across its fleet of 270 aircraft is a powerful endorsement for Galileo. HDX installations begin this month in Europe and start in the U.S. and Asia in January.

Vista expects one aircraft upgrade with the Gogo Galileo terminal every nine days, reaching at least 60 aircraft with the Galileo terminal within the first 18 months. VistaJet was comfortable with both the robust performance of our Galileo service and our commitment to long-term global customer support, as well as the ability to manage capacity and route traffic across a global fleet with multiple aircraft types. The VistaJet contract continues our momentum across multiple global fleet operators. In addition to VistaJet, Gogo has announced wins with the following fleets, all with plans to upgrade their fleet to Galileo and/or 5G. NetJets, Luxaviation, Wheels Up, and Avcon Jet. All in, we believe that there is a path for Gogo to reach well over 1,000 fleet aircraft, with either Gogo Galileo, or 5G representing a true slingshot to propel our LEO and ATG business on a global scale.

Further, our combined Galileo pipeline for both HDX and FDX is now approximately 1,000, up from 500 at the end of Q2, and we continue to see a favorable pipeline mix between U.S. and global market of about 60/40. Note, as we win new contracts like the VistaJet deal, this pipeline rolls off into new business one, so a pipeline is just one piece of the puzzle in tracking our progress. Next, let's drill down on HDX. HDX is ideal for the 12,000 mid-size and smaller aircraft outside North America without broadband and the 11,000 mid-size and smaller aircraft in North America that fly outside CONUS or want faster speeds than 5G. Our execution on HDX bore significant fruit during the quarter as we increased our completed STCs from 8 to 19 out of 40 under contract. We are very close to reaching critical mass with our HDX STC count.

Additionally, we have now shipped over 200 HDX units year to date, nearly three times the 77 shipments we announced on our Q2 call in August, with 93% earmarked for specific customers. Our HDX installations are now 50, including outstanding STCs, which we expect to ramp significantly as we begin to install on our major fleet accounts and execute online fleet installations with TechStrong beginning in early 2026. Accelerating AOL in a new product is truly where the magic happens and will be the key to future service revenue acceleration. HDX is performing ahead of speed expectations and was purpose-built to fit on 41,000 global aircraft, and we expect a very significant ramp in shipments and AOL growth in 2026 and beyond.

Now let's shift to FDX, our larger LEO antenna for the large global business market of 10,000 aircraft. A successful flight test with OEMs, dealers, and fleet customers is a fantastic endorsement for the status of the new product. At the recent MBA show, we flew multiple flight demos with speeds reaching 200 megabits at the high end of our predicted speed range. As we see, this was screaming. We operated 27 streaming devices simultaneously and consumed an outstanding 36 gigs of data in 36 minutes. I've been launching and testing aviation Wi-Fi systems for a couple of decades and have never seen such flawless execution on a flight demo within a week of aircraft installation and delivery. It was truly an awesome performance. Hats off to the Gogo team and our partners, Hughes, StandardAero, and OneWeb. We were thrilled to announce in our earnings release this morning that FDX will be a LEO line fit option for all new Bombardier Challenger and Global business aircraft types.

In our view, this validates our technology, our team, and shows great trust from a major global business aircraft OEM. We expect revenue generation from this important win in early 2027. We have now announced strong Galileo relationships with the following major global OEMs: Bombardier, Dassault Aviation, Dassault, and Embraer. Let's now move on to 5G, our multi-year investment to substantially improve the performance of our ATG network. I am thrilled to say that we are at the goal line on 5G. Our 5G flight testing began on October 28th, and the results have exceeded our expectations. As a result, we reiterate Q4 launch timing for 5G, and we plan to begin shipping boxes to our 400 pre-provisioned 5G customers in early Q1. They already have the 5G antenna installed, and the wiring is completed.

We expect our 5G service revenue to begin in the latter part of the first quarter once installations have begun. Beyond our focus on pre-provisioned aircraft, 28 out of the 33 STCs under contract are now completed, and we expect the remaining five will be completed by the end of the year. Further, Gogo has 5G line fit commitments with five OEMs, with one already installing the AVANCE L5 box on the production line today. These boxes will be swapped with the LX5 5G box when service is turned on. We continue to believe that significant pent-up demand exists for 5G among customers who predominantly fly domestically, particularly those with light and medium-sized aircraft. 5G offers a tenfold increase in speeds versus the existing L5 ATG solution and is a cost-effective solution versus the more premium-priced HDX or FDX. Keeping the focus on ATG, let's move to our LTE upgrade.

The upgrade of our ATG network to LTE, which will be largely subsidized by FCC funding, is expected to bring multiple benefits. One, accelerating the upgrade of classic aircraft to AVANCE. Two, increasing ATG network capacity and increasing speeds. Third, accelerating our U.S. government business on the ATG network, given the enhanced security of the network. We shipped a record 437 ATG equipment units in the quarter, up 8% sequentially, split between 208 AVANCE units and 229 C1 units. Equipment shipments are typically a leading indicator of future installs. We recorded a record 145 classic to AVANCE upgrades in Q3, as AVANCE AOL grew 12% year over year to 4,890. AVANCE now represents 75% of our ATG fleet, and that figure is quickly heading to 100%.

Correspondingly, our classic count of roughly 1,500 aircraft is only 25% of the ATG fleet, and over 400 are part of fractional or managed accounts with a defined upgrade path. This leaves approximately 1,100 classic aircraft not associated with a fleet account. We expect that our count of 101 C1 aircraft will ramp significantly over the coming quarters. The C1 box is identical in size to the classic box and allows the system to operate after the LTE system is turned on. This box swap takes only a few hours and benefits from FCC subsidies. Bottom line, we are accelerating our progress towards the anticipated LTE cutover in May of 2026. Our entire dealer network is pushing all out to upgrade our classic fleet as they have a strong vested interest in a smooth transition of our air-to-ground network.

While we are encouraged with our efforts to improve the performance of the ATG network across multiple levels, including the 5G and LTE rollouts and the C1 upgrade process, we continue to believe that industry trends will pressure our ATG online count for the next several quarters. Our ability to return to sustained service revenue growth will be dependent on two things. First, the pace of the ramp of our new products, including HDX, FDX, 5G, and second, progress in the MilGov end market. Let's jump into the discussion of performance of our GO business. We ended Q3 with 1,343 GO AOL, up 161 units, or 14% from the prior year, powered by our line fit positioning. We expect that our investment in GO technology will continue to improve speed and performance over time for business jets, which we believe can be leveraged across our MilGov customers as well.

Our SD router, called SDR, is on about 2,400 GO aircraft and is synchronized with the AVANCE routers on other 4,900 aircraft. That is a total of approximately 7,300 systems that should be upgradable to new products without box swaps or expensive interior rewiring. Now moving to our military government end market. Given that our MilGov service revenue is relatively new to most of you, let me provide context about how we view it. First, the global MilGov aircraft number has an even lower broadband penetration than the business jet market, and this presents a compelling long-term growth path. The 25x25 Initiative from the U.S. Air Force is a great example of this. The U.S. Air Force set a goal that 25% of its 1,100 non-fighter aircraft would have broadband speeds of 25 megabits or greater by the end of 2025, and that the goal will come up short.

Of note, the architect of the 25x25 Initiative, retired General Mike Minihan, joined our board this year. Second, we believe governments globally will seek diversity amongst their aero bandwidth suppliers and will place premium on multi-orbit, multi-band service for redundancy and performance. These capabilities are military prerequisites for PACE, standing for Primary, Alternate, Contingent, and Emergency. Gogo is the only company that can fit that bill. This was a major contributing factor in our recently announced five-year federal contract to deliver 5G, LEO, and GO services to a U.S. government agency. This is the first service win for 5G in a multi-orbit government contract. Third, we can reuse business aviation terminal offering for MilGov use without incremental R&D spend. This advantage was highlighted with our recent five-year contract with SES Space & Defense.

For a blanket purchase agreement for U.S. Space Force Space Command, we will plan to deliver managed global Ku-band GO Flex Air services utilizing our plain simple Ku-band antenna to provide scalable, secure, and high-speed satellite connectivity across government operations worldwide. This contract ceiling value is $33 million, of which aviation is a major component, and the total revenue split is 80% service and 20% equipment. Finally, given that MilGov contracts are typically multi-year, we believe that increased predictability, revenue streams under contract in this segment have the potential to add a new layer of strategic value for Gogo. Given that context, we expect that MilGov, which is 13% of our total revenue, is likely to move towards 20% over the longer term.

Thank you for your attention and our trust that you share our enthusiasm for the significant progress we have made over the last few quarters in transitioning this global business. I will now turn the call over to Zach for the numbers.

Zachary Cotner (CFO and Treasurer)

Thanks, Chris. Good morning, everyone. Third quarter revenue was in line with expectations highlighted by strong equipment shipments. Also, adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow were ahead of plan as our integration synergies and financial discipline continued to materialize. As a result, we are reiterating the high end of our 2025 financial guidance ranges for revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and free cash flow. As Chris mentioned, global demand for our new products continues to expand, and we believe this will ultimately lead to service revenue growth.

As implied in our 2025 financial guidance, we expect a return to modest year-over-year revenue growth in Q4, while increases in Galileo and 5G investments, as well as elevated inventory levels driven by our new product launches, should decrease adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow sequentially. We are still completing our 2026 annual plan and will be providing guidance on our Q4 call in February. However, in the meantime, we would like to provide a bit of context around next year. We see the potential for some incremental working capital need in 2026 to support our new product ramps, as well as continued ATG AOL volatility, particularly amongst our classic fleet. Despite these considerations, we believe that new product growth, the rollout of 5G and Galileo investments, as well as further OEx and CapEx rationalization will benefit us next year.

I'll now provide an overview of our third quarter results. I will turn to our capital allocation priorities and outlook for the balance sheet transactions to reduce interest expense and further deliver. Finally, I will provide some additional color on the guidance. On a combined pro forma basis, Gogo's total revenue in the third quarter was $224 million, down 1% on a pro forma basis year-over-year, as well as sequentially. On a standalone basis, Satcom Direct's Q3 revenue declined about 4% year-over-year. Total service revenue of $190 million increased 132% over the prior year and declined 2% sequentially. Total ATG aircraft online at the end of Q3 was 6,529, a decline of approximately 7% versus the prior year period and down 3% sequentially. Consistent with our strategic goals, total AVANCE AOL increased 12% from the prior year period and now comprises 75% of the total ATG fleet, up from 62% a year ago.

Since the end of 2022, our total AVANCE AOL has grown by over 1,600. Total ATG ARPU of $3,407 declined about 3% year-over-year and approximately 1% sequentially. Total broadband GO AOL, excluding networks that are end-of-life, reached 1,343, up 14% from the prior year and 2% sequentially. This strength highlights our OEM line fit positions. In addition, most GO broadband aircraft are under fixed-term contracts, enhancing revenue stability, and our GO ARPU continues to hold up better than expected. This performance was the primary driver in the increase in the fair value of the earn-out liability that affected our net income in the quarter. Now turning to equipment revenue, total equipment revenue in the third quarter was $33.6 million, up 80% year-over-year and 5% sequentially. Total ATG equipment shipments of 437 were an all-time high and up 8% sequentially from 405 in Q2, which was a prior record.

AVANCE shipments remained robust at 208, while C1 shipments ramped substantially to 229 and up from 129 in the prior quarter. Given that equipment shipments are generally a leading indicator of future installation activity, we believe our strong Q3 shipments bode well for the future conversion of classic customers ahead of our expected LTE network cutover in May of 2026. Now moving on to our margins, Gogo delivered combined service margins, inclusive of Satcom Direct, of 52%, which was in line with our budget. Service gross profit accounted for 97% of total Q3 gross profit. We continue to focus on driving this recurring high-margin service revenue. Equipment margins were about 8% in Q3 as Galileo equipment pricing remains close to cost.

Now turning to operating expenses, total Q3 operating expense for G&A, sales and marketing, as well as engineering design and development, were $57 million, up slightly sequentially, largely due to SmartSky litigation spend. Now let's turn to our major strategic initiatives, 5G, Galileo, and the FCC reimbursement program. Total 5G spend in Q3 was $6 million, with approximately $5.5 million tied to CapEx. We continue to expect total 5G spend to decline in 2026 as we launch our 5G network in Q4. Turning to Galileo, we recorded $1.2 million in Q3 OpEx and about $2.2 million in CapEx. We continue to expect total external development costs for both the HDX and FDX to be less than $50 million, of which $34 million was incurred from 2022 through the first nine months of 2025, with approximately $11 million expected this year.

We anticipate approximately 80% of Galileo's external development costs will be in OpEx. Finally, our FCC reimbursement program. In the third quarter, we received $6.6 million in FCC grant funding, bringing our program-to-date total to $59.9 million. As of September 30, we recorded a $26 million receivable from the FCC and incurred $22.8 million in reimbursable spend during the quarter. The timing of reimbursement payments has not been affected by the government shutdown, but we are monitoring the situation closely. The receivable is included in prepaid expenses and other current assets on the balance sheet, with corresponding reductions to property and equipment, inventory, and contract assets, with a pickup in the income statement.

Moving to our bottom line, Gogo generated $56.2 million of adjusted EBITDA in the quarter, and our adjusted EBITDA margin of 25% was consistent with the initial long-term view of the mid-20s we described when the Satcom deal was announced. Net income for the quarter was negative $1.9 million, and EPS was negative $0.01. Net income includes a $15 million pre-tax fair value adjustment related to the Satcom acquisition I described a moment ago. As of Q3, we have achieved over $30 million of annualized synergies and expect run-rate synergies to modestly exceed our previous range of $30 million-$35 million when approximately two years of closing the Satcom deal. This is a significant improvement from our original guidance of $25 million-$30 million. We continue to anticipate total cost to achieve synergies in the range of $15 million-$20 million.

While we have achieved the vast majority of our headcount reductions, we feel confident that we can further reduce costs as we head into 2026 in multiple areas, including real estate, back-office software solutions, and CapEx rationalization. Now moving to free cash flow, Gogo generated $31 million of free cash flow in Q3, above expectations and totaling $94 million year-to-date. Based on our current 2025 guidance, we expect Q4 free cash flow to be the lowest of the year, mostly due to the timing of strategic investments and inventory purchase related to the launch of our new products. Now I'll turn to the discussion of our balance sheet. Gogo ended the third quarter with $133.6 million in cash and short-term investments and $849 million in outstanding principal and off-to-term loans, with our $122 million revolver remaining undrawn.

This equates to a net leverage ratio of 3.1x for Q3, down from 3.2x in the prior quarter. Our cash interest paid net of hedge cash flow was $16.3 million. Our hedge agreement is now $250 million, with a strike of 225 bps, resulting in approximately 30% of the loans being hedged. In 2025, we continue to expect cash interest paid net of hedged cash flow to be approximately $70 million. Consistent with our Q2 call, our immediate focus remains exploring ways to streamline our balance sheet, reduce interest expense, and continue our deleveraging process. Between our cash on hand and our revolver, we have more than $250 million in liquidity. This is significantly more than we need to operate the business, and we believe this provides plenty of financial flexibility to find the right balance sheet solution in 2026.

Bottom line, we continue to believe our expected free cash flow growth over the next few years will provide ample excess cash to pay down debt, reduce our interest expense, and ultimately return capital to shareholders. In our earnings release this morning, we are largely reiterating key elements of our 2025 financial guidance. For the year, we expect total revenue at the high end of the range of $870 million-$910 million, adjusted EBITDA at the high end of the range of $200 million-$220 million, reflecting operating expenses of approximately $15 million for strategic initiatives, including 5G and Galileo, versus our prior expectations of $20 million. Given our guidance, we expect Q4 EBITDA will decline sequentially, largely due to the timing of planned investments and an expected decrease in ATG service revenue. Free cash flow at the high end of the range of $60 million-$90 million.

We now expect approximately $40 million slated for strategic investments in 2025 net of any FCC reimbursement, versus prior expectations of $60 million. This reduction is largely due to timing. Our net CapEx is still expected to be $40 million after $30 million of CapEx reimbursement from the FCC reimbursement program. In conclusion, 2025 has largely been a year of blocking and tackling execution that includes the integration of Gogo and Satcom, significant product investments, and launching HDX, FDX, and 5G. Now nearly a year after the close of the Satcom deal, we are seeing the results of our transformation. Shipments and installations of game-changing new products are starting to ramp. Significant costs are being removed, and we are winning long-term contracts with global fleets, OEMs, and governments.

I want to express my gratitude to the Gogo team for their hard work in driving this transformation and their dedication to providing exceptional customer service. Operator, this concludes our prepared remarks. Please open the queue for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder to ask the question, please press star 11 on your telephone, then wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from line of Scott Searle with Roth Capital Partners. Your line is open.

Scott Searle (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. Hey, maybe just to dig in initially on the fourth quarter implied guidance. Chris, Zach, I'm wondering if you could dive in a little bit more in terms of detailing that outlook it implies, adjusted EBITDA in the $40 million range. You've mentioned incremental strategic investments and the ATG kind of rolloff. Could you take us through that a little bit more in detail in terms of the thought process and if you're being conservative on that front, or ATG is expected to continue to transition, particularly on the classic front?

Zachary Cotner (CFO and Treasurer)

Yeah, hey, morning, thanks for the question. I think the way we're looking at it is, as you've seen, the ATG pressure continues, right? And that's the highest margin revenue, right? We anticipate a decline, albeit not as aggressive as the prior quarters, largely because the C1s should start their shipping. The other piece is our revenue is actually going to be up, right? Another piece of that is equipment shipments. You have lower margins on equipment shipments, so the mix changes. As well as that, we have significant testing on 5G.

There's a little bit of compression on gross margin because of the mix, and then the OpEx side is going to be a little bit higher, largely because of 5G testing.

Chris Moore (Director and CEO)

Yeah, I think also, if you look at the record AVANCE shipment, C1s that Zach picked up, it's clear that customers are also planning to upgrade. I think the fact that we're rolling out the 5G network and that's successful, I think that's also a very positive sign at this point in time.

Scott Searle (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Got it. For my follow-up, I'm wondering if we could dig in a little bit more in terms of existing Classic, the transition to C1, and kind of the offset there now that we're starting to see momentum on 5G and Galileo as we go into 2026. Could you help us frame in terms of Classic, how that's expected to roll over the next several quarters? Now, with the C1 out there, you had a lot of momentum this quarter. Is a majority of that base expected to convert pretty quickly to C1, or are some of those expected to upgrade to 5G as well? Thanks.

Chris Moore (Director and CEO)

I think it's a mix. If you look at the record AVANCE shipments, clearly those customers are looking forward to 5G. It depends also on the customer budget. The C1 is really a placeholder product, but it's really encouraging that people are also taking that when you think it's just moving them onto a more modern network. Our MRO partners are putting in field service teams. We expect that to pick up and de-risk Classic customers not cutting over. Everything we see at the moment is extremely positive, so we're feeling pretty good about it.

Scott Searle (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Chris, if I could just add on to the back of that, from an ARPU standpoint, how do you see things trending as we go into the first half of next year? There's some downward pressure, I would imagine, as we're going to C1, but you're also having some of the higher ARPU services starting to kick in. How do you see that playing out as we go into 2026? Thanks.

Chris Moore (Director and CEO)

Yeah, I think what's encouraging is if you look at 5G, ARPU is worth twice that of a classic customer. That conversion, we actually see upside. I think that's really where our head's at at the moment. Obviously, you've got more price-sensitive customers, but we've got a lot of price flexibility within the plans. People cutting over from. Over to C1, that's one aspect. And then you've got people who, I mean, we're going to be delivering a 50-80 megabit service. On 5G. I mean, that's completely and utterly a different service level than these customers have ever experienced. We see that as those customers really being on a higher ARPU as they're streaming and being able to use video applications within the aircraft that they've never been able to do before.

Scott Searle (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Thanks. I'll get back to the queue.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, that's star 11 to ask the question. Please stand by for our next question. Our next question comes from line of Justin Lang with Morgan Stanley. Yolanda is open.

Justin Lang (VP of Aerospace and Defense Equity Research)

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I just want to double back on the implied 4Q EBITDA guide. Maybe we could just put a finer point on how much of the implied headwind is related to Galileo and 5G investments versus some of the ATG pressures you flagged. Thanks.

Zachary Cotner (CFO and Treasurer)

Yeah, I would say it's kind of split a little bit evenly between ATG pressure as well as increased OpEx. I would say there's a bigger piece of it related to 5G versus Galileo. There's still Galileo costs, but the STCs are running through. And 5G, there's a lot of testing that has to go. We got it on aircraft right now, so that's a big driver.

Justin Lang (VP of Aerospace and Defense Equity Research)

Okay, got it. And then I know you've mentioned in the past sort of regular maintenance has been a big driver of some of the ATG AOL declines. Are you still seeing that trend, or are you seeing heightened competitive pressure anywhere? Thanks.

Chris Moore (Director and CEO)

Not really seeing competitive pressure. I think one of the natures of the market is customers have scheduled maintenance for upgrades. Going to the C1, what I mentioned on the previous questions really is that our MRO partners have put field service teams. It's a very simple upgrade for C1, which we've designed. We're doing a lot of those in the field, and there's been a lot of press about that with Omni, West Star, MRO partners there. I think that will continue to have positive momentum for us, and we see that really encouraging. I think you can see that with the C1 numbers that are starting to really pick up now. Obviously, customers who are also waiting for scheduled maintenance, they'll wait until that point as well. It's just the nature of the market.

Justin Lang (VP of Aerospace and Defense Equity Research)

Got it. Okay, that's helpful. And then just really quick on the shutdown. I know, Zach, you mentioned it. It's not really impacting FCC reimbursement. Are you seeing any other impacts, maybe around MilGov or not sure if there's any regulatory oversight outstanding for 5G flight testing, but are you seeing that creep up anywhere else?

Chris Moore (Director and CEO)

Yeah, I think you can definitely see things have slowed down a little bit with, kind of, when you need government approvals in certain areas. But it's not really affecting our business at this point in time, so we're just keeping a close monitor to it, but we're not seeing major effects in our revenue outlook because of government shutdown.

Justin Lang (VP of Aerospace and Defense Equity Research)

Okay, perfect. Thanks, guys.

Operator (participant)

Thank you.

Chris Moore (Director and CEO)

Thanks, Justin.

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, that's star 11 to ask the question. I am showing no further questions in the queue. I would now like to turn the call back over to Will for closing remarks.

William Davis (VP of Investor Relations)

Thank you for joining our third quarter earnings conference call. You may disconnect.

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Goodbye.