Bert Subin: So maybe just to clarify there, and one last question. In terms of the clarification, I know there is a lot of uncertainty, but if I just look at the assets you have for sale and the things that are happening in the MRO and USM side of things, is there a plausible outcome where your EBITDA could look like ’22 in ’24?
Nicolas Finazzo: I don’t even — I’m not going to answer that. I don’t know. Martin, do you have an answer?
Martin Garmendia: Yeah. I mean, I think, Bert, I think the best place to note, and we’ve noted this in all the calls, is to look at that inventory balance, it’s $329 million, that’s almost twice what we had at the beginning of last year overall. That’s going to give us opportunities to do several things. Not only can we support the USM side, of which demand is robust, but we can also look in putting assets back on the leasing pool, specifically on the engine leasing side of which, with the issues on the geared turbofan, there’s very high demand overall. So we’re going to have an opportunity to deploy capital and start making revenue in that side. And as always, we’ll continue to see opportunities to do whole asset trading as it’s opportunistic and as that becomes the highest use of the overall asset.
The real challenge that we have from forecasting is we have all of these great avenues to monetize these assets. And sometimes we need to make a determination on, hey, based on the current factors, this is really the best approach from a long-term return aspect. That’s what really gives us difficulty in trying to forecast specific overall numbers to give you the analysts and the investors. But pointing at that amount of capital deployment in a market where this material is in high demand, I think gives us some pretty good confidence and belief that we’ll be able to improve our performance in 2024.
Bert Subin: Got it. Just my last question on the AerAware side. Nick, you said there was five proposals out there. Can you just tell us what that means? And is your expectation that revenues may be more a $25 million plus set up?
Nicolas Finazzo: Okay. So we have demonstrated our system, whether it be through live flights or through looking at our video or in-person meetings and giving them a good explanation to five different airlines. And all five of those and made a written proposal as to, here is how we would go about, here is the pricing, and here’s what we could do for delivery. And we’re negotiating with those. And one continues to be the big boy airline that we’ve been talking to from the very beginning.
Bert Subin: Got it. Thank you.
Nicolas Finazzo: You’re welcome.
Operator: The next question comes from Gautam Khanna of TD Cowen. Please go ahead.
Gautam Khanna: Hey, guys, how are you doing?
Martin Garmendia: Good afternoon.
Nicolas Finazzo: Good.
Gautam Khanna: So I was curious if you could talk about the AerAware customer traction. At one point, I know it was a while ago, we were talking about maybe a 250-unit order from one of the customers that was deeply involved in your development of the product. I was just curious, like is that — within your five proposals that you have out there, are there any like big kind of elephant orders that are part of that five? And maybe what is kind of the status of that one launch — potential launch customer we thought we had? What’s the hold-up at all?
Nicolas Finazzo: Okay. This is Gautam, right?
Gautam Khanna: Correct. Yeah.
Nicolas Finazzo: Okay, good. I had thought so. Okay. So, yes, the customer that I referred to as our big boy that has a lot of 737NGs, is we are still talking to, and we’re working them. We’ve given them more than one proposal. We’re getting feedback from them on what they need. We’re trying to get to a point at which we can figure out how they can integrate this in their system, the fastest and most economical way. Not there yet, but that’s what it takes. When you get to a point where customers indicated that they want the system, it’s one thing to say you want it, but it’s another thing to actually place an order. So we’ve heard that they want it. All five of these, by the way, have indicated they want this system. And one’s the big boy, one is another relatively large international airline, and then there are some smaller ones.
So we’re still working with them. We’re still trying to help them figure out how they’re going to get their simulators modified. We know how to do that now, get our flight training manual in their hands, so that they can do their own flight training program, which will come from, basically flow from our flight training program. And then the delivery schedule it’s going to meet and how are they going to put them in the airplanes? Is it going to do it while the airplanes are in a maintenance check? Are they going to bring them to our facilities? Are we going to go to their facilities? So all of these are details that have to be worked out as we get to the point before we get a firm order.
Gautam Khanna: Interesting.
Nicolas Finazzo: We’re working on all of those.
Gautam Khanna: It is that same — I mean, I imagine that same process applies to even some of the smaller potential customers, right? I mean, they’re going to have to figure out how to get the simulators and all that. So is it a similar lead time, do you think, in terms of closing on some of these orders, whether it’s a larger airline or a smaller one, or is it just a lot simpler with the smaller airline?
