AAR Corp. (NYSE:AIR) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Operator: Thank you. Please standby for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Ciarmoli with Truist. Your line is open.

Michael Ciarmoli: Hey. Good evening, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. John, just on the — into the fourth quarter, I mean it’s usually seasonally your strongest quarter, but I think you called for flattish revenues. I mean is this just still the dynamic of coming off the COVID recovery or is there any reason why we should think kind of the airlines prepping for the summer flying season wouldn’t be as strong as kind of pre-COVID conditions or just what’s kind of going on with the dynamic there?

John Holmes: Yeah. Really two elements in both commercial and government. In Commercial, we do for all the reasons you just mentioned, we expect continued growth sequentially in Q4. The parts businesses remain strong. MRO remains strong, and we expect continued growth in commercial. What’s partially offsetting that is the government side. We’ve mentioned this a few quarters ago, as we saw the wind down of certain long-term government contracts, we have been able to offset a fair bit of that wind down with shorter-term government activities. We were successful in doing that in Q3, which accounted for the strong government program performance in Q3. However, we don’t expect that same level of activity on the government side in Q4, which net-net leads us to a, I would say, similar to slightly better overall Q4 in revenue and EPS than what we delivered in Q3.

Michael Ciarmoli: Okay. Can you elaborate on what that short-term activity is? I mean, is that just picking up ad-hoc, logistics, repair work or maybe elaborate kind of what you’re doing there?

John Holmes: Some of it is the tempo and individual programs that we see and other of it is more transactional parts of activity with the government.

Michael Ciarmoli: Got it. Okay. And then just back to Trax, I mean just having that asset in-house, you’re mentioning all the customers, all the aircraft, does (ph) this gives you better intelligence on what type of material might be in higher demand? Does it give you a little bit of an advantage in terms of buying USM or feedstock that’s out there?

John Holmes: Ultimately, Trax manages a tremendous amount of data for its customer base. and that is Trax data and owned by Trax customers. Over time, we want to work with Trax and their customers, many of whom are our customers to see how in partnership with everybody, we might be able to use that to offer more parts and solutions, more parts availability to the Trax customer base. So yes, over time, we believe that will be an accelerant to our traditional businesses.

Michael Ciarmoli: Got it. Okay. And then just the last one. On the JV with Fortress, I mean they’re out there kind of they’re telling a pretty good story. I mean they’re obviously going after the CFM 56 is. But are they going to be I guess I’m trying to think about the dynamic of you guys trying to. You have access to some of that engine material, but it sounds like they also are focused on ramping up their USM. I mean, is that contract in that JV playing out as expected or are there any sort of competitive dynamics there in terms of going after similar material or just maybe a little bit more color on kind of the workings of that relationship?

John Holmes: Yeah. Good question. So the JV that we have with them and the overall relationship is going as well, if not better than we expected when we originally outlined it. I think possibly what you’re hearing there is just different activity on different platforms. So the platforms in which we’re covering with Fortress there’s a lot of respect and again, a lot of good momentum around that relationship. Fortress has got a broad engine port portfolio, and they’re talking about other areas, not the areas where we’re in partnership with them.

Michael Ciarmoli: Got it. Okay. Perfect. I’ll jump back in the queue.

John Holmes: Thank you.