Strata Critical Medical Inc (SRTA) 2024 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Blade Air Mobility fiscal third-quarter 2024 earnings release conference call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Matt Schneider, Vice President of Investor Relations and Strategic Finance. Matthew, you may begin.

早安，女士們、先生們，歡迎參加 Blade Air Mobility 2024 財年第三季財報電話會議。（操作員說明）謹此提醒，此通話正在錄音。現在我想將會議交給投資者關係和策略財務副總裁 Matt Schneider。馬修，你可以開始了。

Thank you for standing by and welcome to Blade Air Mobility conference call and webcast for the quarter ended September 30, 2024. We appreciate everyone joining us today. Before we get started, I would like to remind you of the company's forward-looking statement and Safe Harbor language. Statements made in this conference call that are not historical facts, including statements about future time periods, may be deemed to constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

感謝您的耐心等待並歡迎參加截至 2024 年 9 月 30 日的季度的 Blade Air Mobility 電話會議和網路廣播。我們感謝今天加入我們的所有人。在我們開始之前，我想提醒您注意公司的前瞻性聲明和安全港語言。本次電話會議中所作的非歷史事實的陳述，包括有關未來時間段的陳述，可能被視為構成 1995 年《私人證券訴訟改革法案》含義內的前瞻性陳述。

These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties and actual future results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. We refer you to our SEC filings, including our annual report on form 10-K, filed with the SEC for a more detailed discussion of the risk factors that could cause these differences.

這些前瞻性陳述存在風險和不確定性，未來實際結果可能與前瞻性陳述明示或暗示的結果有重大差異。我們建議您參閱我們向 SEC 提交的文件，包括我們向 SEC 提交的 10-K 表格年度報告，以更詳細地討論可能導致這些差異的風險因素。

Any forward-looking statements provided during this conference call are made only as of the date of this call. As stated in our SEC filings, Blade disclaims any intent or obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements, except as required by law. During today's call, we will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe may be useful in evaluating our financial performance.

本次電話會議期間提供的任何前瞻性陳述僅截至本次電話會議當日作出。正如我們在 SEC 文件中所述，除法律要求外，Blade 不承擔任何更新或修改這些前瞻性聲明的意圖或義務。在今天的電話會議中，我們還將討論某些非公認會計準則財務指標，我們認為這些指標可能有助於評估我們的財務表現。

A reconciliation of the most directly, historical, comparable consolidated GAAP financial measures to those historical non-GAAP financial measures is provided in our earnings press release and investor presentation. Our press release, investor presentation, and our Form 10-Q and 10-K filings are available on the Investor Relations section of our website at ir.blade.com. These non-GAAP measures should not be considered in isolation or a substitute for financial results prepared in accordance with GAAP.

我們的收益新聞稿和投資者介紹中提供了最直接、歷史性、可比較的綜合公認會計準則財務指標與歷史非公認會計準則財務指標的調節表。我們的新聞稿、投資者介紹以及 10-Q 和 10-K 表格文件可在我們網站 ir.blade.com 的投資者關係部分取得。這些非公認會計原則措施不應被孤立地考慮，也不應取代根據公認會計原則編制的財務結果。

Hosting today's call are Rob Wiesenthal, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Blade; and Will Heyburn, Chief Financial Officer. I will now turn the call over to Rob.

今天的電話會議由 Blade 創辦人兼執行長 Rob Wiesenthal 主持。以及財務長威爾海伯恩 (Will Heyburn)。我現在將把電話轉給羅布。

Thank you, Matt, and good morning, everyone. I'm extremely proud of our team's effort in achieving an important milestone this quarter in our passenger business, achieving positive segment adjusted EBITDA in a trailing 12-month period ending September 30, 2024, more than a full year ahead of our previous guidance to achieve profitability by the end of 2025.

謝謝你，馬特，大家早安。我對我們的團隊在本季在客運業務中實現重要里程碑的努力感到非常自豪，在截至2024 年9 月30 日的過去12 個月內實現了正的部門調整EBITDA，比我們之前的指導提前了一整年多到2025年底獲利。

In Q3 2024, we saw significant margin expansion driven by both our passenger and medical segments, resulting in a 27.3% year-over-year increase in flight profit, while adjusted EBITDA of $4.2 million increased more than 5-fold compared to the $0.8 million in the prior year period. We're also pleased to see strong conversion of adjusted EBITDA into cash flow as we generated $6.4 million of operating cash flow and $3.7 million of free cash flow before aircraft acquisitions in the quarter.

2024 年第三季度，在客運和醫療部門的推動下，我們的利潤率大幅增長，航班利潤同比增長 27.3%，調整後 EBITDA 為 420 萬美元，與 80 萬美元相比增長了 5 倍多在上一年期間。我們也很高興看到調整後的 EBITDA 強勁轉化為現金流，因為本季我們在飛機收購之前產生了 640 萬美元的營運現金流和 370 萬美元的自由現金流。

I will now review the key business operational and strategic highlights for Q3 2024 starting with passenger. We had a strong summer season particularly for Northeast Leisure that drove Q3 2024 short distance revenue up 6.5% year over year or 9.8% excluding our discontinued Canadian operations. Our passenger segment enjoyed a significant improvement in profitability in the quarter with passenger flight profit rising 31% the prior year period, while passenger segment adjusted EBITDA doubling versus the prior period, and passenger segment adjusted EBITDA margin rising to 14.4% versus 7.3% in the year ago period.

我現在將從客運開始回顧 2024 年第三季的主要業務營運和策略亮點。我們的夏季表現強勁，尤其是東北休閒業務，這推動 2024 年第三季短途收入年增 6.5%，不包括我們已終止的加拿大業務，成長 9.8%。本季度，我們的客運部門獲利能力顯著改善，客運航班利潤較上年同期增長31%，客運部門調整後EBITDA 較上年同期翻倍，客運部門調整後EBITDA 利潤率升至14.4%，而上年同期為7.3%。

On top of strong underlying customer demand, several factors contributed to a faster path to profitability in passenger. We've taken action to exit on profited business lines and focus on routes with the most attractive growth and profitability characteristics that are strategic in nature. For example, we formally exited the Western Canada market during Q3 2024, an intention we discussed on our Q2 earnings call.

除了強勁的潛在客戶需求之外，還有幾個因素有助於更快地實現客運獲利。我們已採取行動退出獲利業務，並專注於具有最具吸引力的成長和獲利特徵且具有戰略意義的航線。例如，我們在 2024 年第三季正式退出加拿大西部市場，我們在第二季財報電話會議上討論了這個意圖。

In Europe, our management team has taken several aggressive steps to improve profitability. During Q3, we restructured our European operations which is expected to generate significant cost savings and enable stronger organizational and commercial alignment with our local partner. As a result, we expect to see improvement in profitability for Europe which will mostly manifest itself during the busy summer months given the seasonality of that market.

在歐洲，我們的管理團隊採取了多項積極措施來提高獲利能力。第三季度，我們重組了歐洲業務，預計將顯著節省成本，並與當地合作夥伴實現更強有力的組織和商業協調。因此，我們預計歐洲的獲利能力將有所改善，考慮到該市場的季節性，這將在繁忙的夏季月份中反映出來。

We've also been laser focused on maximizing cost efficiencies across passenger with the year-to-date segment adjusted SG&A falling approximately 6% compared to the same period in 2023. Blade's vertical transportation platform is now stronger than ever and well positioned for the transition to electric vertical aircraft are what we call EVA or eVTOL in industry parlance. This transition from conventional rotorcraft and seaplanes to EVA is now coming closer into focus following the FAAs recent release of the necessary guidelines for EVA operations as well as the incoming administration's stated agenda of achieving adoption ahead of other countries.

我們也一直專注於最大限度地提高乘客的成本效率，年初至今，經細分市場調整後的銷售、管理及費用 (SG&A) 與 2023 年同期相比下降了約 6%。Blade 的垂直運輸平台現在比以往任何時候都更強大，並且處於向電動垂直飛機（行業用語中我們所說的 EVA 或 eVTOL）過渡的有利位置。隨著美國聯邦航空局最近發布了 EVA 操作的必要指南以及即將上任的政府提出的先於其他國家採用的議程，從傳統旋翼機和水上飛機到 EVA 的過渡現在越來越受到人們的關注。

The timing couldn't be better for Blade. We've always said that our strategy is to create an urban air ability platform that can operate profitably at scale today using conventional aircraft before the introduction of EVA, which we expect will lead to an abundance of conveniently located landing locations throughout all major metropolitan areas as well as lower cost of operations.

對《刀鋒戰士》來說，時機再好不過了。我們一直說，我們的策略是創建一個城市空中能力平台，在引入 EVA 之前，今天可以使用傳統飛機大規模盈利，我們預計這將在所有主要都市區帶來大量位置便利的著陸點以及更低的營運成本。

Today, we've achieved the key milestone passenger segment adjusted EBITA positive year for the 12 months ending September 30, 2024, over one full year earlier than expected. I couldn't be more proud of the hard work from our team to make this possible.

今天，我們在截至 2024 年 9 月 30 日的 12 個月內實現了客運部門調整後 EBITA 正值的關鍵里程碑，比預期提前了一整年。我為我們團隊為實現這一目標所做的辛勤工作感到無比自豪。

Our passenger business -- given its captive infrastructure, proprietary technology, large flyer base and strong brand -- has never been more valuable to our customers and the manufacturers of EVA. Blade has only fortified its position as the largest operating vertical transportation company for commuters in the world, and we are with our competitors for many of our key services.

我們的客運業務——鑑於其自有基礎設施、專有技術、龐大的傳單基礎和強大的品牌——對我們的客戶和長榮航空製造商來說從未如此有價值。Blade 不僅鞏固了其作為全球最大的通勤者垂直運輸營運公司的地位，而且我們在許多關鍵服務方面與競爭對手不相上下。

Turning to medical, segment adjusted EBITDA grew 15.1% in Q3 2024 versus the prior year period with margins expanding 70 basis points year over year despite a softer than expected quarter for US organ transplant volumes. Will is going to provide more detailed medical margins later in the call, but I'm pleased to report that we saw a significant rebound in activity for October with our medical segment achieving one of the highest monthly revenue levels in company history.

轉向醫療領域，儘管美國器官移植量季度疲軟，但 2024 年第三季調整後的 EBITDA 較上年同期增長 15.1%，利潤率同比增長 70 個基點。威爾將在稍後的電話會議中提供更詳細的醫療利潤率，但我很高興地報告，我們看到10 月份的活動大幅反彈，我們的醫療部門實現了公司歷史上最高的月度收入水平之一。

We remain extremely bullish regarding the long-term opportunities for our medical business. The fundamental growth drivers of organ transplants in America continue to gain momentum as well as our ability to continue to gain market share. We're seeing increased adoption of existing and rapidly emerging technologies to increase the supply of donor organs in the US, including organ perfusion and preservation devices, procedures like normothermic regional perfusion or NRP, and a thriving industry of companies to provide the surgical staffing necessary for hospitals to increase recovery volumes.

我們仍然非常看好我們醫療業務的長期機會。美國器官移植的基本成長動力持續增強，我們也有能力繼續獲得市場份額。我們看到越來越多地採用現有和快速新興的技術來增加美國捐贈器官的供應，包括器官灌注和保存設備、常溫區域灌注或NRP 等程序，以及提供必要的手術人員的蓬勃發展的公司業界幫助醫院增加復健量。

This reinforces the validity of our strategy to remain agnostic as to the technologies, procedures and services embraced by our hospital partners and we welcome the opportunity to work directly with these innovative companies whenever the need arises.

這增強了我們對醫院合作夥伴所採用的技術、程序和服務保持不可知論的策略的有效性，我們歡迎在需要時有機會與這些創新公司直接合作。

To that end, we're decided to announce a strategic alliance with OrganOx to broaden access to their metro perfusion device which extends liver preservation times, aid and identification of viable donor livers enables longer distance transportation and increases the utilization of donor organs. OrganOx will preposition metro devices at strategic locations across the United States utilizing Blade's air and ground logistics to enable rapid deployment to transplant centers for on ground use.

為此，我們決定宣布與OrganOx 建立戰略聯盟，以擴大其地鐵灌注設備的使用範圍，從而延長肝臟保存時間、援助和識別可行的供體肝臟，從而實現更遠的運輸距離並提高供體器官的利用率。OrganOx 將利用 Blade 的空中和地面物流在美國各地的戰略地點預先部署地鐵設備，以便能夠快速部署到移植中心供地面使用。

We know from speaking with our customers that demand for OrganOx's metro device currently exceeds the supply of available machines. This partnership will enable higher utilization of available devices through rapid distribution to centers who need them on a case-by-case basis. As livers make up for more than half of all heart, liver and lung transplants in the US, this illustrates the significant potential impact on our medical business.

從與客戶的交談中我們了解到，目前對 OrganOx 地鐵設備的需求超過了可用機器的供應。此次合作將根據具體情況快速分發給所需的中心，從而提高可用設備的利用率。由於肝臟占美國所有心臟、肝臟和肺移植手術的一半以上，這說明了對我們醫療業務的重大潛在影響。

Our medical platform continues to strengthen with 10 owned and 20 dedicated aircraft, strategically positioned near our customers, a growing ground logistics capability with 9 hubs and 45 vehicles around the country and an organ placement services offering that we call TOPS that is gaining traction in the industry with five signed customers and a strong sales pipeline.

我們的醫療平台不斷增強，擁有10 架自有飛機和20 架專用飛機，策略性地部署在靠近客戶的位置，地面物流能力不斷增強，在全國各地設有9 個樞紐和45 輛車輛，我們稱之為TOPS 的器官放置服務在全球範圍內越來越受歡迎。

Looking through the quarter-to-quarter volatility, our continued market share gains are highlighted in our performance and reinforce the strength of our platform. In fact, in the last two months, we won competitive RRPs for two new high volume transplant centers that we expect to begin flying for in early 2025. Importantly, over the last year, we have not lost a single contracted customer, a testament to the service and value that we're providing.

綜觀季度與季度的波動，我們的市佔率持續成長在我們的業績中凸顯出來，並增強了我們平台的實力。事實上，在過去兩個月中，我們為兩個新的高容量移植中心贏得了具有競爭力的建議零售價，我們預計將於 2025 年初開始飛行。重要的是，在過去的一年裡，我們沒有失去任何一個簽約客戶，這證明了我們所提供的服務和價值。

Turning to our medical aircraft strategy. 7 of the 8 previously announced aircraft acquisitions were operational in the quarter, with the 8th aircraft entering service in the last week of September after significant entry into service delay. We signed agreements to acquire two additional aircraft during Q3 that are expected to enter service by early 2025 and increase our own fleet size to 10 aircraft.

轉向我們的醫療飛機策略。先前宣布的 8 架飛機採購中，有 7 架已於本季度投入運營，其中第 8 架飛機在大幅延遲投入運營後於 9 月最後一周投入使用。我們在第三季簽署了額外購買兩架飛機的協議，預計這些飛機將於 2025 年初投入使用，並將我們自己的機隊規模增加到 10 架。

This strategy is already bearing fruit, enabling us to win new medical contracts in recent months that required aircraft ownership. It's important to note that at a fleet size of 10, our own fleet will only represent approximately one-third of our medical flying hours with a majority remaining on third-party aircraft.

這項策略已經取得成果，使我們在近幾個月贏得了需要擁有飛機的新醫療合約。值得注意的是，在機隊規模為 10 人的情況下，我們自己的機隊僅占我們醫療飛行時間的約三分之一，其中大部分仍使用第三方飛機。

We remain focused on maintaining a strong balance sheet of Blade and our capital allocation priorities remain unchanged, prioritizing low risk, financially accretive investments in medical aircraft, ground vehicles, as well as bolt-on acquisitions in medical that enhance our competitive posture or enable the expansion to other timed critical logistics verticals that include industrial manufacturing, parts for grounded aircraft or other medical cargo use cases.

我們仍然專注於維持Blade 強大的資產負債表，我們的資本配置優先事項保持不變，優先考慮對醫療飛機、地面車輛的低風險、財務增值投資，以及醫療領域的補強收購，以增強我們的競爭地位或實現擴展到其他時間關鍵的物流垂直領域，包括工業製造、停飛飛機零件或其他醫療貨物用例。

During Q3, we completed a tuck-in acquisition in medical to geographically expand our captive network of ground vehicles. We will continue to weigh these acquisition priorities relative to opportunistic share repurchases as well.

在第三季度，我們完成了醫療領域的收購，以在地理上擴大我們的地面車輛專屬網路。我們將繼續權衡這些收購優先事項與機會性股票回購的關係。

With that, I'll turn it over to Will.

有了這個，我會把它交給威爾。

Thank you, Rob. I'll now walk through the financial highlights from the quarter starting with passenger. Short Distance revenue for Q3 2024 increased 6.5% year over year or 9.8% excluding Canada, as we formally exited the Western Canada market at the end of August. In jet and other, revenues declined 15% year over year, driven primarily by lower revenue per flight given softer jet charter industry pricing.

謝謝你，羅布。現在，我將從乘客開始介紹本季的財務亮點。隨著我們在 8 月底正式退出加拿大西部市場，2024 年第三季的短距離營收年增 6.5%，不包括加拿大則成長 9.8%。在噴射機和其他領域，營收年減 15%，這主要是由於噴射機包機行業定價疲軟導致每次航班收入下降。

As Rob mentioned, we saw significant margin improvement in passenger this quarter as passenger flight margin and adjusted EBITDA margin expanded by approximately 700 basis points year over year. The profitability improvement in passenger was driven by several factors including strength in our Northeast Leisure routes, improved pricing, higher load factor in New York airport transfers and early benefits from our European restructuring.

正如 Rob 所提到的，我們看到本季客運利潤率顯著改善，客運航班利潤率和調整後 EBITDA 利潤率同比增長約 700 個基點。客運獲利能力的提高是由多個因素推動的，包括東北休閒航線的實力、定價的改善、紐約機場接送的載客率提高以及歐洲重組的早期效益。

Turning now to our medical business. Medical revenue rose 7.8% year over year to $36.1 million. On a sequential basis, medical revenue fell 5.9% first Q2 2024. Blade's air trip volumes declined in line with industry heart, liver, lung transplant volumes in Q3 versus Q2 2024, though our sequential revenue decline was slightly higher than the industry given a reduction in empty lag aircraft repositioning.

現在轉向我們的醫療業務。醫療收入年增 7.8% 至 3,610 萬美元。2024 年第一季醫療收入季減 5.9%。與 2024 年第二季度相比，Blade 的航空旅行量下降，與行業心臟、肝臟、肺移植量一致，儘管考慮到空滯飛機重新定位的減少，我們的連續收入下降幅度略高於行業水平。

As we've increased the size of our dedicated aircraft fleet and may face more aircraft at the home airports of our customers, we're able to significantly reduce empty aircraft repositioning time and costs, fortifying our value proposition to hospitals and making many other operators uncompetitive in these regions. This had a discrete impact on revenue in Q3, but it is the right decision for us and for our customers.

由於我們擴大了專用飛機機隊的規模，並且可能會在客戶的本土機場面臨更多的飛機，因此我們能夠顯著減少空飛機重新定位的時間和成本，強化我們對醫院的價值主張，並使許多其他業者在這些地區缺乏競爭力。這對第三季的收入產生了離散影響，但對於我們和我們的客戶來說，這是正確的決定。

Long term, this is a win-win, saving money for our customers, enabling shorter call-out times and longer trips while at the same time, these well positioned dedicated aircraft generate more flight profit dollars per hour and per trip.

從長遠來看，這是雙贏的，為我們的客戶節省了資金，縮短了呼叫時間並延長了行程，同時，這些定位良好的專用飛機每小時和每次行程產生更多的飛行利潤。

For example, even in Q3 2024, a quarter with unusually high owned aircraft-related expenses and lower-than-expected volumes, we saw a nearly 20% increase in flight profit per flight hour and an approximately 10% increase in average flight profit per air trip despite only a low single digit increase in flight revenue per hour flown, which is consistent with our contractual annual escalators with customers.

例如，即使在2024 年第三季度，自有飛機相關費用異常高且數量低於預期的季度，我們也看到每飛行小時的飛行利潤增長了近20%，每飛行小時的平均飛行利潤增長了約10%。

Medical segment profitability metrics continue to improve on a year-over-year basis but declined sequentially in the quarter. Medical flight margin expanded 240 basis points year over year to 20.8% in Q3 2024, up from 18.4% in the year ago period. On a sequential basis, medical flight margin declined by 280 basis points. Medical segment adjusted EBITDA margin increased by 70 basis points year over year to 10.7% in Q3 2024, up from 10% in Q3 2023 but declined 370 basis points sequentially.

醫療部門的獲利指標較去年同期持續改善，但本季季減。2024 年第三季度，醫療飛行利潤率年增 240 個基點至 20.8%，高於去年同期的 18.4%。醫療航班利潤率較上月下降 280 個基點。2024 年第三季度，醫療部門調整後 EBITDA 利潤率年增 70 個基點至 10.7%，高於 2023 年第三季的 10%，但較上季下降 370 個基點。

Several factors contributed to the sequential medical margin decline in the quarter, the majority of which are timing related and set to improve from here. The lower revenue sequentially drove negative fixed cost leverage in the quarter. In addition, above average maintenance downtime and owned fleet expenses also contributed to the sequential margin decline, including startup costs and delays in aircraft onboarding for the owned fleet.

有幾個因素導致了本季度醫療利潤率的連續下降，其中大部分與時間相關，並且將從這裡開始改善。收入下降導致本季固定成本槓桿為負。此外，高於平均的維護停機時間和自有機隊費用也導致利潤率環比下降，包括自有機隊的啟動成本和飛機登機延遲。

The good news is we've seen a quick rebound in industry volumes and medical segment revenue, and we expect to see a meaningful improvement in margins and our own fleet performance in Q4 2024 relative to Q4 2023, driven by increased volumes, a normalization and maintenance downtime, the entry into service of our eighth aircraft, and a normalization of other owned fleet costs. This outlook is consistent with our actual financial performance in the month of October.

好消息是，我們看到行業銷售和醫療部門收入快速反彈，並且預計在銷量增加、正常化和維護停機、我們的第八架飛機投入使用以及其他自有機隊成本的正常化。這項展望與我們 10 月的實際財務表現一致。

Moving forward, we think it's reasonable to expect quarter-to-quarter variability in our medical business given the nonlinear growth of organ transplant volumes in our own fleet that brings with us some unpredictability with respect to timing of certain expenses and maintenance downtime.

展望未來，我們認為，考慮到我們自己的機隊中器官移植量的非線性增長，這給我們帶來了某些費用和維護停機時間的一些不可預測性，我們認為我們的醫療業務出現季度與季度變化是合理的。

As Rob mentioned, in Q3, we completed a small tuck in acquisition of one of our ground organ transportation providers at approximately 4 times normalized cash flow. We'll continue to look for creative opportunities like this to deploy our significant cash position. Before moving off medical, I'd also like to highlight some data around an exciting industry trend poised to drive even faster growth and availability of donor organs, normothermic regional perfusion or NRP.

正如羅布所提到的，在第三季度，我們以大約 4 倍正常現金流量的價格完成了對一家地面器官運輸提供商的小額收購。我們將繼續尋找這樣的創意機會來部署我們大量的現金部位。在結束醫療之前，我還想強調一些有關令人興奮的行業趨勢的數據，該趨勢有望推動捐贈器官、常溫局部灌注或 NRP 的更快成長和可用性。

We're seeing higher adoption of this technique which improves transplant outcomes and yields, meaning the total number of usable organs recovered from one donor and recoveries from donors that have undergone cardiac death.

我們看到這種技術得到了越來越多的採用，它改善了移植結果和產量，這意味著從一名捐贈者身上恢復的可用器官總數以及從經歷過心源性死亡的捐贈者身上恢復的可用器官總數。

Hospitals and organ procurement organizations can often utilize off the shelf equipment to perform this technique at low cost and we've seen a more than threefold increase in the number of NRP recoveries performed by our transplant center customers year to date in 2024 versus 2023. NRP is still a low single digit percentage of our total recoveries. And based on our conversations with customers, we believe it's still early days for this exciting growth driver.

醫院和器官採購組織通常可以利用現成的設備以低成本執行此技術，我們發現，迄今為止，我們的移植中心客戶在 2024 年執行的 NRP 回收數量比 2023 年增加了三倍多。NRP 占我們總康復率的百分比仍然很低。根據我們與客戶的對話，我們認為這個令人興奮的成長動力還處於早期階段。

Moving to unallocated corporate expenses. We continue to focus on controlling these overhead costs which declined 1.3% year over year in Q3 2024 and shrunk 50 basis points as a percentage of revenues to 7%. On the cash flow front, the difference between our adjusted EBITDA of $4.2 million and cash from operations of $6.4 million in the quarter was primarily driven by cash inflow from working capital.

轉向未分配的公司支出。我們繼續專注於控制這些間接費用，該費用在 2024 年第三季年減 1.3%，佔營收的比例下降 50 個基點至 7%。在現金流方面，本季調整後 EBITDA 為 420 萬美元，營運現金為 640 萬美元，兩者之間的差異主要是由營運資本現金流入所造成的。

Our capital expenditures inclusive of software development costs were $9.9 million in the quarter and driven primarily by $7.3 million of aircraft acquisition payments. While capitalized aircraft maintenance was approximately $900,000. This aircraft acquisition amount includes payments for our 8th aircraft delivered in the last week of the quarter along with two additional aircraft that we purchased during the quarter, but it did not begin flying. We have approximately $1.9 million of remaining payments on the 10 aircraft that we expect to pay in Q4 2024.

本季我們的資本支出（包括軟體開發成本）為 990 萬美元，主要由 730 萬美元的飛機採購付款推動。飛機維修資本化約 90 萬美元。該飛機採購金額包括本季最後一周交付的第 8 架飛機以及我們在本季度購買的另外兩架飛機的付款，但該飛機尚未開始飛行。我們預計在 2024 年第四季支付 10 架飛機的剩餘付款約 190 萬美元。

Beyond the 10 aircraft acquisitions previously discussed, we do not have any other aircraft purchases in process currently and our focus right now is on onboarding the final two planes and optimizing the financial performance of the current fleet.

除了先前討論的 10 架飛機採購之外，我們目前沒有任何其他飛機採購正在進行中，我們現在的重點是安裝最後兩架飛機並優化當前機隊的財務績效。

However, given the significant strategic and financial benefits of our own aircraft, we will opportunistically consider adding a low single digit number of similarly priced aircraft to the fleet over the next 9 to 12 months. We ended the quarter with no debt and $136 million of cash and short-term investments, providing flexibility for strategic investments in aircraft, acquisitions in medical and opportunistic share repurchases.

然而，鑑於我們自己的飛機具有重大的戰略和財務效益，我們將機會主義地考慮在未來 9 至 12 個月內向機隊中添加少量類似價格的飛機。截至本季末，我們沒有任何債務，擁有 1.36 億美元的現金和短期投資，為飛機戰略投資、醫療收購和機會性股票回購提供了靈活性。

Turning to the outlook, we are reiterating our 2024 revenue guidance for between $240 million and $250 million and our guide for positive 2024 adjusted EBITDA. For 2024, while stronger passenger segment adjusted EBITDA performance in Q3 was partially offset by a lower medical segment adjusted EBITDA in Q3, we expect Q4 to land on plan leading to a reiteration of prior guidance.

談到展望，我們重申 2024 年營收指引為 2.4 億至 2.5 億美元之間，以及 2024 年調整後 EBITDA 為正值的指引。2024 年，雖然第三季客運部門調整後 EBITDA 表現強勁被第三季醫療部門調整後 EBITDA 較低所部分抵消，但我們預計第四季度將按計劃實施，從而重申先前的指導。

In medical, we expect revenue to grow a low single digit percentage sequentially in Q4 2024 versus Q3. We expect medical slight margin to rebound in Q4 2024 to be low- to mid-20% range versus our prior expectation to exit the year at 25%. This is largely driven by the ramp up of our top service offering that currently has a lower than segment average margin as we rapidly scale the business along with an assumption that owned fleet costs could remain elevated in Q4 as we work to onboard two recently acquired aircraft that are not yet performing revenue flights.

在醫療領域，我們預計 2024 年第四季的營收將比第三季低個位數成長。我們預計 2024 年第四季醫療利潤率將小幅反彈至 20% 的中低水平，而我們先前的預期為 25%。這主要是由於我們的頂級服務產品的成長所推動的，由於我們迅速擴大業務規模，並且假設隨著我們努力搭載兩架最近購買的飛機，自有機隊成本可能在第四季度繼續上升，因此目前該服務的利潤率低於細分市場平均尚未執行收入航班的航班。

Going forward, we are shifting our medical segment profitability guidance from flight profit to adjusted EBITDA in order to provide a more comprehensive view of our profitability expectations for the segment. We expect medical segment adjusted EBITDA margins to rebound in Q4 2024 versus Q3 2024 levels.

展望未來，我們將把醫療部門的獲利指引從航班利潤轉變為調整後的 EBITDA，以便更全面地了解我們對該部門的獲利預期。我們預計醫療部門調整後的 EBITDA 利潤率將在 2024 年第四季較 2024 年第三季水準反彈。

For 2025, we expect medical segment adjusted EBITDA margins of approximately 15%. While we don't expect to provide medical flight margin guidance moving forward, this 2025 medical segment adjusted EBITDA margin implies a mid-20% medical flight margin. Over the next few years, we expect medical segment adjusted EBITDA margins to rise towards that high teens.

到 2025 年，我們預計醫療部門調整後 EBITDA 利潤率約為 15%。雖然我們預計不會提供未來的醫療飛行利潤率指引，但 2025 年醫療部門調整後的 EBITDA 利潤率意味著醫療飛行利潤率為 20% 左右。在接下來的幾年裡，我們預計醫療部門調整後的 EBITDA 利潤率將升至十幾歲。

And passenger, we expect revenue of approximately $13 million in Q4 2024, reflecting a $3 million year-over-year impact from our Western Canada exit, low-single digit year-over-year growth in short distance and jet and other revenue that is about flat compared to the prior year. Lastly, we expect adjusted unallocated corporate expenses to be flexed down in Q4 2024 versus last year.

在客運方面，我們預計 2024 年第四季的收入約為 1,300 萬美元，反映出我們退出加拿大西部、短途和噴射機以及其他收入同比低個位數增長帶來的 300 萬美元的同比影響，與上年相比基本持平。最後，我們預計 2024 年第四季調整後的未分配企業支出將比去年下降。

For 2025, we are reiterating our expectation of double digit adjusted EBITDA. We expect medical revenue to grow double digits year over year. And in passenger, we expect revenue of $85 million to $95 million in 2025, reflecting an approximate $7 million impact from our exit in Canada, low single digit revenue growth in our core short distance business, and flat to down jet and other revenue. In 2025, we expect to generate positive free cash flow before aircraft acquisitions, barring any large unforeseen non-recurring items.

對於 2025 年，我們重申調整後 EBITDA 達到兩位數的預期。我們預計醫療收入將年增兩位數。在客運方面，我們預計2025 年收入將達到8500 萬至9500 萬美元，反映出我們退出加拿大、我們核心短途業務的低個位數收入增長以及持平到下降的噴氣機和其他收入帶來的約700萬美元的影響。到 2025 年，我們預計在飛機收購之前將產生正的自由現金流，除非出現任何大型不可預見的非經常性項目。

With that. I'll turn it back over to Matt for Q&A.

就這樣。我會將其轉回給馬特進行問答。

Thanks, Will. We'll start by taking questions from the analyst community and then we'll follow with questions from the Say Q&A platform. I'll now turn it over to the operator for analyst questions.

謝謝，威爾。我們將先回答分析師社群的問題，然後回答來自 Say 問答平台的問題。我現在將把它轉交給操作員詢問分析師問題。

(Operator Instructions)

（操作員說明）

Jason Helfstein, Oppenheimer.

賈森·赫夫斯坦，奧本海默。

Thanks. Good morning, everybody. So just first some questions on medical. So just to elaborate a bit more. Obviously, there were some factors that went on in the quarter in the industry, transmedic you talked about. It just -- but broadly talk about why the industry had had kind of headwinds in the quarter. And ultimately, again, kind of why you see those headwinds abating.

謝謝。大家早安。首先是一些關於醫學的問題。所以只是想詳細說明一下。顯然，本季度該行業發生了一些因素，您談到的跨醫療行業。它只是——但廣泛地討論了為什麼該行業在本季度遇到了一些阻力。最終，這也是你看到這些阻力減弱的原因。

And then it also seemed like on both, there was general, I guess more downtime of the planes like you cited that and transmedic side of it. And so I'm just curious, like, was there something going on with just getting kind of, I don't know, necessary maintenance work, et cetera. But just why, why were there more planes down on average this quarter?

然後，似乎在這兩架飛機上，都有一般性的，我猜飛機的停機時間更長，就像你提到的那樣，以及它的跨醫學方面。所以我只是好奇，就像，是否發生了一些事情，我不知道，必要的維護工作等等。但到底為什麼，為什麼本季平均有更多飛機墜毀呢？

And then with the higher fleet ownership, is there a way to leverage potentially any downtime in those planes for passengers or any synergies there? And then I might have one follow up, but let's just start with that and medical. Thank you.

然後，隨著機隊所有權的增加，是否有辦法利用這些飛機的潛在停機時間來運送乘客或產生協同效應？然後我可能會進行一次跟進，但讓我們從醫療開始。謝謝。

Thanks. Jason, Will here. We'll start on the Q3. Look, what I would say is that you look at Q1 and Q2 for us, our sequential trip growth was well ahead of the industry volume growth. And then in Q3, if you look at our trip volumes, we were right in line with the industry volume decline. So there's always going to be some lumpiness. It has to do with a lot of different factors. It can be vacation schedules for individual surgeons. It can just be ebbs and flows of the availability of donors.

謝謝。傑森，威爾在這裡。我們將從第三季開始。看，我想說的是，你看看我們的第一季和第二季度，我們的連續旅行成長遠遠領先於產業數量成長。然後在第三季度，如果你看看我們的旅行量，你會發現我們與產業數量的下降是一致的。所以總是會有一些疙瘩。這與許多不同的因素有關。它可以是個別外科醫生的假期安排。這可能只是捐助者可用性的潮起潮落。

But what we're really confident in is that we're going to continue to outperform the market in the long term for two simple reasons: we continue to take market share; we're winning new customers; and we're not losing any customers. So you might see some quarter-to-quarter volatility, but because of that fact, we feel really good that we're going to keep outpacing the market, a lot like we did in the beginning of the year.

但我們真正有信心的是，從長遠來看，我們將繼續跑贏市場，原因有二：我們繼續佔據市場份額；我們正在贏得新客戶；我們不會失去任何客戶。因此，您可能會看到一些季度與季度之間的波動，但正因為如此，我們感覺非常好，因為我們將繼續超越市場，就像我們在今年年初所做的那樣。

Moving over to your question around the downtime of aircraft. This is a new program for us. But let's sort of just put the strategy in broader context. There's always going to be some quarter-to-quarter unexpected maintenance. But if you look at the trend of the strategy and you look year over year at Q3 this year versus Q3 last year, we're seeing growth in our flight profit per flight hour flown. That's up 18% year over year.

轉向關於飛機停機時間的問題。這對我們來說是一個新計劃。但讓我們將該策略放在更廣泛的背景下。每個季度總是會有一些意外的維護。但如果你觀察該策略的趨勢，並逐年觀察今年第三季與去年第三季的情況，我們會發現每飛行小時的航班利潤有所增長。較去年同期成長 18%。

We're seeing growth in the average flight profit generated per trip. That's up about 11% year over year. And we're doing that without having to take price beyond the built-in revenue growth that's in our contractual escalators in our contracts.

我們看到每次旅行產生的平均航班利潤有所增加。年增約 11%。我們正在這樣做，而不必讓價格超出我們合約中的合約自動扶梯中的內建收入成長。

So I think looking at the overall trend, we're happy that things are going in the right direction. And then you look to October, we've seen a bounce back not only in the overall volumes that we're performing for our customers, but also in the performance of the fleet.

因此，我認為從整體趨勢來看，我們很高興事情正在朝著正確的方向發展。然後你看看 10 月份，我們不僅看到我們為客戶執行的整體銷售的反彈，而且還看到機隊性能的反彈。

So I don't think there's anything industry wide, Jason, to your question that's causing the downtime, but we're happy to see that things are bouncing back to the level that we expected. And Q2, of course, was an exceptionally great performance, both on the volume side and we got the fixed-cost leverage there but also just not having much maintenance downtime at all.

Jason，對於您的問題，我認為整個行業沒有任何問題導致了停機，但我們很高興看到事情正在反彈到我們預期的水平。當然，第二季的表現非常出色，無論是在銷售方面還是在我們獲得固定成本槓桿的同時，也根本沒有太多的維護停機時間。

And Jason, I would just add, despite any month-to-month vagaries in terms of when you own the aircraft, whether it be unscheduled maintenance or any kind of lumpiness that you would see, the margins from owning these aircraft, even in this kind of quarter versus on the margins on a non-owned aircraft are far superior.

傑森，我想補充一點，儘管你擁有飛機的時間每個月都有變幻莫測的情況，無論是計劃外的維護還是你會看到的任何類型的混亂，擁有這些飛機的利潤，即使在這種情況下與非自有飛機的邊緣相比，這種季度要好得多。

At the same time, we're trying to strike a balance between owned and dedicated aircraft versus non-dedicated the aircraft. And it's still a minority of our trips that are done on the dedicated aircraft.

同時，我們正在努力在自有飛機和專用飛機與非專用飛機之間取得平衡。我們的旅行中仍然只有一小部分是使用專用飛機完成的。

Also, if you -- as I said -- or earlier, if you take a look at October, I mean, October was an incredibly strong performance. So I think you're going to continue to see this kind of thing. And obviously Q3, as Will said, because of the summer services on vacation, I mean, there are a whole bunch of reasons why Q3 historically has been soft versus other quarters.

另外，如果你——正如我所說的——或者早些時候，如果你看看十月份，我的意思是，十月份的表現非常強勁。所以我認為你會繼續看到這種事。顯然第三季度，正如威爾所說，由於夏季服務休假，我的意思是，有很多原因導致第三季度歷史上與其他季度相比一直疲軟。

And I think your last question was around just opportunities to leverage the fleet for other business lines. Certainly, there's some incremental capacity on those aircraft and we're exploring opportunities to use, for example, empty legs to move passengers and also exploring that same opportunity within other time critical cargo.

我認為你的最後一個問題只是關於將機隊用於其他業務線的機會。當然，這些飛機上有一些增量運力，我們正在探索利用空航段來運送乘客的機會，並在其他時間關鍵的貨物中探索相同的機會。

So we definitely see that as an opportunity. It's -- fortunately we've been blessed that we have so much demand on the medical side that these planes are flying quite a bit. But that's definitely something we'll look to leverage more as the fleet gets to kind of the steady state size we wanted to.

所以我們絕對認為這是一個機會。幸運的是，我們很幸運，我們對醫療方面的需求如此之大，以至於這些飛機的飛行次數相當多。但隨著機隊達到我們想要的穩定狀態規模，我們肯定會更多地利用這一點。

And Jason, as you would know very well, when you think even about the largest charter corridor in the world, which is New York to South Florida having planes in Teterboro. If you had a situation where there might not be enough cushion of duty hours for a medical mission, that plane could easily go down into a passenger mission for Florida, Southern Florida under certain circumstances.

傑森，正如您所熟悉的那樣，當您想到世界上最大的包機走廊時，即從紐約到南佛羅裡達州，在泰特波羅有飛機。如果您遇到可能沒有足夠的值班時間來執行醫療任務的情況，那麼在某些情況下，該飛機可能很容易執行前往佛羅裡達州和南佛羅裡達州的客運任務。

And, Rob, just a bigger picture question. So with the kind of a Republican kind of sweep of the election, how do you think about that impacting potential expansion of the short -- of the passenger business on the traditional side? So you did highlight you think it would accelerate eVTOL to kind of potential approval, et cetera. But do you think you get more reprieve around helicopter access or really this is still --

羅布，這是一個更大的問題。那麼，隨著共和黨在選舉中大獲全勝，您如何看待這對傳統客運業務空頭擴張的潛在影響？所以你確實強調你認為這會加速 eVTOL 的潛在批准，等等。但你認為直升機進入可以讓你得到更多的緩刑還是真的這仍然是--

Yeah, that's a very good question. I think -- as you know, there's been a fair amount of discussion about existing heliports and airports curfews, issues on fueling, types of fuel, a lot -- a whole bunch of things. And I think that it's clear that this administration and even a lot of the local representatives that were elected this time are very pro-urban air mobility, whether it be with helicopters today or electric vertical aircraft tomorrow. So we definitely are looking forward to a bit of a reprieve.

是的，這是一個很好的問題。我認為——正如你所知，對於現有的直升機場和機場宵禁、加油問題、燃料類型等等——很多事情，已經進行了大量的討論。我認為很明顯，本屆政府甚至這次當選的許多地方代表都非常支持城市空中機動，無論是今天的直升機還是明天的電動垂直飛機。因此，我們絕對期待能得到一點緩刑。

And I really think that the people who I've spoken to who are amidst this current in this incoming administration, understand the importance of the infrastructure we have now because when the electric vertical aircraft are here, they'll be using our infrastructure to start, or the infrastructure that we use. And then clearly our proprietary terminals and such are going to be critical for that early period before new infrastructure is built. So I agree with the statement you said.

我真的認為，在即將上任的政府中與我交談過的人都了解我們現在擁有的基礎設施的重要性，因為當電動垂直飛機在這裡時，他們將使用我們的基礎設施來啟動，或我們使用的基礎設施。顯然，我們的專有終端等在新基礎設施建成之前的早期階段將至關重要。所以我同意你所說的說法。

Thank you.

謝謝。

Lauren Lee, Deutsche Bank.

勞倫李，德意志銀行。

Hey. Thank you for taking my question and congratulations on a great quarter. So my first question is about the passenger segment about like what's your thoughts on 2025? I think the guidance is around $85 million to $95 million. So, the midpoint should be down to flight year on year. Just want to make sure, are there any other factors we should consider except the Canada exit?

嘿。感謝您提出我的問題，並祝賀您度過了一個美好的季度。我的第一個問題是關於客運領域的，您對 2025 年有何看法？我認為指導價約為 8500 萬至 9500 萬美元。因此，中點應該是逐年下降的航班。只是想確定一下，除了加拿大退出之外，我們還應該考慮其他因素嗎？

The biggest factor on the top line for passenger is just as part of our overall drive towards profitability. We decided to exit the Western Canada market which was not giving us the strategic advantage we thought, and we didn't believe it had the growth or profitability potential that we were looking for in the near term. So that's why you're seeing the new guidance on passenger.

乘客收入的最大因素是我們整體獲利能力的一部分。我們決定退出加拿大西部市場，該市場並沒有為我們帶來我們認為的戰略優勢，我們不相信它具有我們在短期內尋求的成長或獲利潛力。這就是您看到新的乘客指南的原因。

For the remainder of the short distance business, we continue to expect single digit revenue growth and we're very enthusiastic about continued performance improvements we're seeing for growing products like our airport transfer products here in New York City and also profitability improvements that come along with that.

對於短途業務的其餘部分，我們繼續預計個位數的收入增長，並且我們對不斷增長的產品（例如紐約市的機場接送產品）的持續性能改進以及隨之而來的盈利能力提高感到非常熱衷與同時。

Yeah. Just a couple things I would add. We're in this period right now since in many markets we're one of one without competition. So there's been definitely a focus. It's not growth at all costs, it's smart growth and being profitable which we've accelerated through our restructuring in Europe which is just completed. And by getting out of Western Canada, which we just didn't see the short to midterm opportunity there.

是的。我想補充幾件事。我們現在正處於這個時期，因為在許多市場中我們是沒有競爭的市場之一。所以肯定有一個焦點。這不是不惜一切代價的成長，而是明智的成長和獲利，我們透過剛剛完成的歐洲重組加速了這一點。透過退出加拿大西部，我們只是沒有看到那裡的短期到中期機會。

And as Will said on airport in October, just as an example, we had a record passenger count, monthly passenger count this past October. So you're going to -- I would call it considered growth is what our strategy is to ensure that we have a continued profitability in passenger.

正如威爾十月份在機場所說的那樣，舉個例子，去年十月份我們的乘客數量、月度乘客數量創下了紀錄。因此，我將其稱為“深思熟慮的成長”，這是我們的策略，以確保我們在客運方面擁有持續的獲利能力。

As you saw, we originally said in our last couple of calls when we put out guidance on passenger that we'd be profitable in 2025. And we've actually achieved that over a year early the last 12 months and obviously for all of '24. So I think the strategy is working.

正如您所看到的，我們最初在最近幾次電話會議中表示，當我們發布乘客指南時，我們將在 2025 年實現盈利。事實上，我們在過去 12 個月裡提前一年多就實現了這一目標，顯然在整個 24 年裡都是如此。所以我認為這個策略正在發揮作用。

Okay. Appreciate that. Also, I get a question about the medical segment. I think you mentioned there is for this quarter, there's a reduction in block hours for trips, something like that. Just curious, think about your strategy of moving the fleet closer to the large hospital clients. Does that make like economic sense for Blade or it's mainly for pushing out the competitors?

好的。很欣賞這一點。另外，我還有一個關於醫療領域的問題。我想你提到過這個季度，旅行的阻塞時間減少了，類似的事情。只是好奇，請考慮您將車隊移近大型醫院客戶的策略。這對 Blade 來說是否具有經濟意義，或者主要是為了趕走競爭對手？

It does make economic sense for Blade because our margins on a per hour and per trip basis, the flight profit dollars that we make are higher with dedicated aircraft. And then by moving the aircraft closer to our customers, we get a number of advantages for our customer and for us, most importantly, we don't have to bill our customers for repositioning.

這對 Blade 來說確實具有經濟意義，因為我們每小時和每次行程的利潤，我們使用專用飛機獲得的飛行利潤更高。然後，透過將飛機移至離客戶更近的位置，我們可以為客戶和我們自己帶來許多優勢，最重要的是，我們不必向客戶收取重新定位的費用。

And still on average, we're making more dollars of flight profit per trip. So that's a win-win there. But also operationally, when your aircraft is based near your customer, you have more time to go pick up an organ because you're not burning crew duty to reposition that aircraft then.

平均而言，我們每次旅行都能賺取更多的航班利潤。所以這是雙贏的。但從操作上來說，當你的飛機停在客戶附近時，你就有更多時間去領取器官，因為那時你就不用再浪費機組人員的責任來重新定位飛機了。

So it gives our customers more flexibility and it increases the aperture of how far they could fly and how long they can afford to wait to pick up an organ. And also reduces the call out time. If something comes in very last minute and the aircraft is already sitting right next to your customer, you have a much better chance of being able to go right away.

因此，它為我們的客戶提供了更大的靈活性，並增加了他們可以飛行多遠以及他們可以等待拿起器官的時間範圍。並且還減少了通話時間。如果在最後一刻有事情發生，而飛機已經停在您的客戶旁邊，那麼您有更好的機會立即出發。

So strategically, we think it's absolutely the right move. To your point, it does help us competitively as well because that's difficult to compete with. If we built a strategy around that and financially it still makes sense. But most important to us is it gives us the strategic advantage that we think is leading to us continuing to win new customers and not losing our existing customers.

因此，從策略上講，我們認為這絕對是正確的舉措。就你的觀點而言，它確實也有助於我們提高競爭力，因為這是很難與之競爭的。如果我們圍繞這一點制定策略，那麼從財務角度來看，它仍然有意義。但對我們來說最重要的是，它為我們提供了戰略優勢，我們認為這種優勢使我們能夠繼續贏得新客戶而不失去現有客戶。

Laura, I would say put it in three things. Better economics on a per trip basis for these kind of trips. Strategic in terms of really improving outcomes, which is the most important thing because we're getting to do the mission faster, thus the transplant happening faster, and then versus our competition.

蘿拉，我想說要把它分成三件事。對於此類旅行，每次旅行都具有更好的經濟性。就真正改善結果而言，策略是最重要的，因為我們能夠更快地完成任務，從而更快地進行移植，然後與我們的競爭對手相比。

If you're competing for a contract versus Blade and you have just, you know, aircraft all over the place or where your home base is and you're not going to be at the hospital, you're going to, you know, you're not going to be competitive. So that helps getting new customers. And the fact that we have owned aircraft now has also been extremely important in getting those new customers as well.

如果你正在與 Blade 競爭合同，並且你知道，飛機遍布各處或你的基地所在，而你不會去醫院，你就會，你知道，你不會有競爭力。這有助於吸引新客戶。事實上，我們現在擁有飛機對於吸引這些新客戶也極為重要。

Okay. Got you. That's helpful. Thank you.

好的。明白你了。這很有幫助。謝謝。

Bill Peterson, JP Morgan.

比爾彼得森，摩根大通。

Hi, this is Mahima Kakani on for Bill. Thanks so much for sharing more about the partnership with OrganOx. Can you maybe elaborate on what share of the market that metra perfusion currently accounts for? And was this sort of incremental market opportunity on top of what you were already expecting to support medical growth. And then maybe as a follow up, it sounds like OrganOx's technology is supply constrained rather than demand constrained. Does that give you additional pricing power on that share of trips? Thanks.

大家好，我是 Bill 的 Mahima Kakani。非常感謝您分享有關與 OrganOx 合作的更多資訊。您能否詳細說明一下 metra 灌注目前佔據的市場份額是多少？除了您已經期望支持醫療成長之外，這種增量市場機會是否會出現？也許作為後續行動，聽起來 OrganOx 的技術是供應受限而不是需求受限。這是否會讓您對該部分行程擁有額外的定價權？謝謝。

Hey, Mahima. Thanks for the questions. Look, we don't have market share data across the country for OrganOx specifically, but what we can tell you is from talking to our customers, there is more demand for this machine than the current available supply. We talked about that a little bit in the press release.

嘿，瑪希瑪。感謝您的提問。看，我們沒有專門針對 OrganOx 的全國市場份額數據，但我們可以透過與客戶的交談告訴您，對該機器的需求超過了當前的供應量。我們在新聞稿中對此進行了一些討論。

And so what we're going to do with them is take extra machines that will be around the country and rather than have them sit at one customer for the occasional use, if that's a low volume customer, we'll fly or drive the machine to folks that need them on a one-off basis and then fly them over to the next customer.

因此，我們要對它們做的就是在全國各地購買額外的機器，而不是讓它們坐在一個客戶那裡偶爾使用，如果客戶數量較少，我們將駕駛或駕駛機器一次性提供給需要它們的人，然後將它們飛給下一個客戶。

So, we expect to be able to significantly increase the utilization of those machines and help OrganOx get greater market penetration there. One of the reasons from talking to our customers that we think they're really interested in this machine is just it's really economical relative to some of the alternatives that are out there.

因此，我們希望能夠顯著提高這些機器的利用率，並幫助 OrganOx 獲得更大的市場滲透率。透過與客戶交談，我們認為他們對這台機器真正感興趣的原因之一是，相對於現有的一些替代品來說，它確實非常經濟。

And that's going to allow them to allocate their dollars towards more organs by using a machine like this. And all sorts of benefits in terms of giving centers additional time to evaluate if a liver is a good fit for the recipient, extending the amount of time that it can travel.

這將使他們能夠透過使用這樣的機器將資金分配給更多的器官。各種好處包括讓中心有更多的時間來評估肝臟是否適合接受者，從而延長了它的運輸時間。

So hard to put sort of firm numbers around what the market share is today and what it's going to be in the future. But really this is an example of us hearing from our customers that this is something that they want greater access to and then working directly with the manufacturer to come up with a win-win strategic alliance to make that possible.

很難給出當前市場份額和未來市場份額的確切數字。但這實際上是我們從客戶那裡聽到的一個例子，他們希望獲得更多的機會，然後直接與製造商合作，建立一個雙贏的策略聯盟，使之成為可能。

Okay. Thank you, that's helpful. And then passenger margins really outpaced this quarter, you know, with optimizations made in Europe with the restructuring and the exit from Canada. Can you touch on your steady state assumptions for this business, and do you see further sort of pricing power from the tiered pricing that you guys have used or have seen kind of in the past?

好的。謝謝，這很有幫助。你知道，隨著歐洲的重組和退出加拿大的優化，乘客利潤率確實超過了本季。您能否談談對這項業務的穩態假設，您是否從您過去使用或見過的分級定價中看到了進一步的定價能力？

Yeah. I think one of the more underappreciated benefits that we've seen in the passenger business is just increasing the load factor and products like our New York Airport transfer service. If you rewind the clock, that was really almost at breakeven flight profit a year ago and now it's starting to get closer to where we'd like it to be targeted.

是的。我認為我們在客運業務中看到的最被低估的好處之一就是增加載客率和產品，例如我們的紐約機場接送服務。如果你倒回時鐘，一年前的飛行利潤實際上幾乎達到盈虧平衡，而現在它開始接近我們希望的目標。

Still not at our overall target margins for the passenger business. So we have some room to continue there, particularly using strategies like the one you just described of having folks pick a higher priced fare class for more flexibility. So I think that there's definitely an opportunity to see continued margin expansion in passenger.

仍然沒有達到我們客運業務的整體目標利潤率。因此，我們還有繼續的空間，特別是使用您剛才描述的策略，讓人們選擇價格更高的票價類別以獲得更大的靈活性。因此，我認為客運利潤絕對有機會持續擴大。

And also, remember we've just completed our restructuring in Europe which we think is going to improve the profitability of that business. And we've just exited the Western Canada market which was drag on our overall profitability. So it's pretty exciting to me that in Q3 when you really aren't seeing the full benefit of either of those things that we had such a fantastic performance in passenger. And I do think the best is yet to come.

另外，請記住，我們剛剛完成了歐洲的重組，我們認為這將提高該業務的獲利能力。我們剛剛退出加拿大西部市場，這拖累了我們的整體獲利能力。因此，對我來說，在第三季度，當你確實沒有看到這些事情的全部好處時，我們在乘客方面取得瞭如此出色的表現，這讓我非常興奮。我確實認為最好的尚未到來。

One last thing on what your point about different fare classes and upgrades and things like that. We've consistently added more fare classes with more benefits for our passenger, more add-ons. And what you find is when this business started, when it was $195 a sit, I think now we're well north of $300 on an average checkout.

最後一件事是關於您對不同票價艙等和升等問題的看法。我們不斷增加更多票價艙位，為乘客提供更多優惠和更多附加服務。你會發現，當這項業務開始時，每次坐席費用為 195 美元，我想現在我們的平均結帳費用已經遠遠超過了 300 美元。

But the important thing is it's giving passengers the ability to play the spectrum. They want something that's kind of low cost and low flexibility with a lot of perks, they can purchase that. Or if they want something where they have flexibility in changing their fare, they have extra luggage, they want a car on the other end when they arrive. People are opting for that.

但重要的是它讓乘客能夠發揮頻譜的能力。他們想要一些低成本、低靈活性和很多福利的東西，他們可以購買。或者，如果他們想要可以靈活更改票價的東西，他們有額外的行李，他們希望在到達時在另一端有一輛車。人們正在選擇這樣做。

And that has helped, you know, over the past year kind of supercharge those average checkout prices which ultimately ends up with higher margins for us. So, we're pretty happy with that performance.

你知道，這在過去的一年裡幫助提高了平均結帳價格，最終為我們帶來了更高的利潤。所以，我們對這樣的表現非常滿意。

Okay. Thank you so much. I'll hop back in the queue.

好的。太感謝了。我會跳回到隊列中。

Jon Hickman, Ladenburg Thalmann.

喬恩希克曼，拉登堡塔爾曼。

Hi. Can you hear me?

你好。你聽得到我嗎？

We can hear you now.

我們現在可以聽到你的聲音了。

Okay, thanks. Sorry. Well, I'm. My questions have actually been answered. I was just about to de-raise my hand, but could you go over your guidance for the -- I couldn't write down fast enough, but could you have your guidance for the passenger side for Q4?

好的，謝謝。對不起。嗯，我是。我的疑問其實已經得到解答了。我正要舉手，但你能回顧一下你對--我寫得不夠快，但你能給第四季度乘客方面的指導嗎？

Sure. For Q4 and passenger we suspect about $13 million of top-line revenue. And that reflects the Canadian business being discontinued. And then we expect to see roughly flat jet and other revenue year over year and continued single digits year-over-year growth in the short distance business, Jon.

當然。對於第四季和客運，我們預計營收約 1300 萬美元。這反映了加拿大業務的終止。然後，我們預計飛機和其他收入將同比增長，並且短途業務將繼續實現個位數同比增長，喬恩。

Okay. Thank you so much. That's helpful. I got it down this time. Appreciate it. And congratulations on the quarter.

好的。太感謝了。這很有幫助。這次我記下來了欣賞它。恭喜這個季度。

Thanks, John.

謝謝，約翰。

Thank you. I'm showing no further questions. I'd like to turn it back to Matt Schneider.

謝謝。我沒有再提出任何問題。我想把它轉回給馬特·施奈德。

Great. So we're going to take a few questions from our Say Q&A platform. We're going to start with a few questions for Rob on eVTOL or EVA. First question is, do we believe the manufacturers are going to work with Blade as they kind of expand their fleet of aircraft over time? And which manufacturers are we most excited about?

偉大的。因此，我們將從 Say 問答平台回答一些問題。我們首先要問 Rob 關於 eVTOL 或 EVA 的幾個問題。第一個問題是，我們是否相信製造商會與 Blade 合作，因為隨著時間的推移，他們會擴大其飛機機隊？我們最感興趣的是哪些製造商？

I think we have great relationships with all the manufacturers now. We speak to them extremely often, almost every week, I would say at this point. They're very excited about working with Blade given the fact that we are flying more people by vertical transportation than any other company in the world and have more proprietary infrastructure than any other company.

我認為我們現在與所有製造商都建立了良好的關係。我想說，我們非常頻繁地與他們交談，幾乎每週一次。他們對與 Blade 合作感到非常興奮，因為我們透過垂直運輸運送的乘客比世界上任何其他公司都多，並且比任何其他公司都擁有更多的專有基礎設施。

I think that I'm very excited about what Joby and Archer are doing, especially in terms of how far along the process they are in terms of certification and what their plans are. I think that they're definitely in a position, especially given the current administration to try to expedite their time to market.

我認為我對 Joby 和 Archer 所做的事情感到非常興奮，特別是他們在認證過程中所取得的進展以及他們的計劃。我認為他們絕對處於有利位置，特別是考慮到現任政府試圖加快上市時間。

I think that really will help them remain on time here in the US from the years that they've put out there. But also, I think that there are others out there as well that we've had -- we have relationships within terms of, Beta, Hyundai, Eve, Wisk and everybody else. And I think, look, they're all doing a great job and we're looking forward to them getting a certification. It's only going to help supercharge Blade's business.

我認為這確實有助於他們在美國停留的這些年裡保持準時。而且，我認為我們還有其他人——我們與 Beta、Hyundai、Eve、Wisk 和其他所有人都有關係。我認為，看，他們都做得很好，我們期待他們獲得認證。這只會有助於增強 Blade 的業務。

Great. Our next question is for Will on flight margin, and the question is generally what's the path for flight margin expansion from here?

偉大的。我們的下一個問題是關於飛行利潤率的威爾，問題通常是從這裡開始飛行利潤率擴張的路徑是什麼？

Thanks for the question. I think we talked about some of the great levers that we've already started to pull in the passenger business, including the restructuring in Europe and our exit of the Western Canada market and then some continued pricing and growth in products like airport that's going to drive that passenger flight margin up.

謝謝你的提問。我認為我們討論了我們已經開始拉動客運業務的一些重要槓桿，包括歐洲的重組和我們退出加拿大西部市場，然後是機場等產品的持續定價和增長提高客運航班利潤。

On the medical side, we're fortunate that now we're going to get a lot more fixed cost leverage as we grow, and as we add flight hours. That's one of the big benefits of having the owned fleet. We're in the middle of onboarding more aircraft, which does create some near-term lumpiness for us. And there could be a little bit more of that as we just announced that we'll be buying two more aircraft that are not yet producing revenue flights for us.

在醫療方面，我們很幸運，隨著我們的發展和飛行時間的增加，我們現在將獲得更多的固定成本槓桿。這是擁有自有車隊的一大好處。我們正在引進更多飛機，這確實給我們帶來了一些近期的困難。可能還會有更多這樣的事情，因為我們剛剛宣布，我們將再購買兩架尚未為我們帶來收入的航班的飛機。

But in the long-term, the more we fly now, the less it costs. Every hour costs a little bit less to fly. So that's how you're going to start to get that adjusted EBITDA margin on segment adjusted medical EBITDA to the high teens over the next few years and we think there's a really clear path to that.

但從長遠來看，我們現在飛行的次數越多，成本就越低。每小時的飛行成本會稍微降低一點。因此，這就是未來幾年您將開始將細分市場調整後的醫療 EBITDA 調整後的 EBITDA 利潤率提高到十幾歲的方式，我們認為有一條非常明確的路徑。

Great. Why don't you take one more Will just on medical competition and NRP. So the question is -- I heard the question is how are you thinking about the competitive landscape evolving as different devices and methods like NRP become more popular?

偉大的。為什麼不再就醫療競賽和 NRP 寫一份遺囑呢？所以問題是——我聽說問題是，隨著不同的設備和方法（如 NRP）變得越來越流行，您如何看待競爭格局的演變？

Yeah, look, we've been getting a lot of questions about this. It's a really exciting new therapy, normothermic regional perfusion. As we said in the script, we've seen year to date about 3 times as many volumes of cases where transplant centers are performing NRP year-to-date 2024 versus year-to-date 2023. So that's really interesting and exciting to see. It's still about a low single digit percentage of our overall cases.

是的，看，我們收到了很多關於此的問題。這是一種非常令人興奮的新療法，常溫局部灌注。正如我們在腳本中所說，今年迄今為止，我們發現移植中心在 2024 年迄今執行 NRP 的病例數是 2023 年迄今的 3 倍。所以這真的很有趣而且令人興奮。在我們的總體病例中，這仍然是一個較低的個位數百分比。

The other thing we're seeing that's kind of exciting is more and more we see OPO, organ procurement organization led NRP. So rather than the transplant center being the driver of selecting the use of NRP for a donor, circulatory death donor, we're seeing the OPO choose to do it. And then what happens is maybe they thought they were only going to match a kidney for that particular donor and then after being on NRP for a bit of time, they re-offer the liver to a few other centers, and it gets accepted.

我們看到的另一件令人興奮的事情是我們越來越多地看到 OPO（器官獲取組織）領導的 NRP。因此，我們看到 OPO 選擇這樣做，而不是移植中心為循環死亡捐贈者選擇使用 NRP。然後發生的事情可能是他們認為他們只會為那個特定的捐贈者匹配一個腎臟，然後在接受 NRP 一段時間後，他們將肝臟重新提供給其他幾個中心，並且它被接受了。

And so when we talk to some of the OPOs we work with, we have heard from a few folks that it is their goal to try to use NRP for the largest percentage of their donors as they possibly can simply because they see it as increasing the yields that they are going to get from those donors. So it's early days for this, certainly. You know, there's a number of third-party service providers that are trying to make this easier and put a bow around it to help both the OPOs and the transplant centers.

因此，當我們與一些與我們合作的OPO 交談時，我們從一些人那裡得知，他們的目標是盡其所能地為最大比例的捐贈者使用NRP，因為他們認為這會增加捐贈者的收入。當然，現在還為時過早。您知道，有許多第三方服務提供者正在努力讓這一切變得更容易，並為 OPO 和移植中心提供協助。

And like we've always said, we're agnostic and we'll work with our customers with whatever device, procedure, therapy they want to use. We're there to support them no matter what. So really excited about the future and definitely will be a growing driver of more supply of donor organs becoming available.

就像我們一直說的那樣，我們是不可知論者，我們將與客戶合作，使用他們想要使用的任何設備、程序、療法。無論如何，我們都會支持他們。對未來感到非常興奮，並且肯定會成為更多捐贈器官供應的成長動力。

So to -- just add to that, in terms of the hospitals that our medical team talks to, NRP has often been described as a game changer and I think that we can we only believe that this is going to help our business going forward on the medical side.

因此，補充一點，就我們的醫療團隊與之交談的醫院而言，NRP 經常被描述為遊戲規則的改變者，我認為我們只能相信這將有助於我們的業務向前發展醫療方面。

Great. Should be exciting to watch this play out over the next few years Rob. The last question we're going to take is on capital allocation. The question is just an update on how we're thinking about capital allocation and use of cash.

偉大的。羅佈在接下來的幾年裡看到這場比賽應該會令人興奮。我們要討論的最後一個問題是關於資本配置。這個問題只是我們如何考慮資本配置和現金使用的最新情況。

Sure. We're continuing to be prudent, smart, but yet aggressive in terms of uncovering the opportunities that we see here. You saw that we did a very quick tuck in, single digit, multiple creative day one acquisition. As I like to say in the medical side, with respect to Graham Transportation, we're looking at things every day, both large and small.

當然。在發現我們在這裡看到的機會方面，我們將繼續保持謹慎、聰明但又積極進取的態度。你看到我們在第一天就進行了非常快速的、個位數的、多個創意的收購。正如我在醫療方面想說的那樣，就格雷厄姆運輸公司而言，我們每天都在關注大大小小的事情。

And we're happy to have the size balance sheet that we have and being debt free in order to achieve those goals. Excuse me. And so there'll be a lot more to come. So we're excited about the future with respect to the opportunities that we see. And again, the focus will be on the medical side on M&A.

我們很高興擁有規模龐大的資產負債表，並且沒有債務，以實現這些目標。打擾一下。因此，還會有更多的事情發生。因此，我們對未來所看到的機會感到興奮。同樣，重點將放在併購的醫療方面。

Great. So that's the end of our Say Q&A questions. Operator, we'll turn it back over to you.

偉大的。我們的 Say 問答問題到此結束。接線員，我們會將其回饋給您。

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.

謝謝。今天的電話會議到此結束。感謝您的參與，您現在可以斷開連接。