Astronics Corporation (NASDAQ:ATRO) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Jon Tanwanteng with CJS Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Jon Tanwanteng: Hi, thanks for taking the follow-up. I just wanted to follow-up actually on the widebody topic. How much widebody revenue do you have in the forecast this year? Or how much was in the revenue last year and kind of what was the prior peak, I guess, and do you think you get back there if ever or is it 50% or 75% of where it used to be? And does it take two years or three years to get there maybe?

Pete Gundermann: It’s a very good question. Those are numbers that are really hard to €“ we have some products and product lines, which are used exclusively on widebody. And we have some that are used exclusively on narrowbody. We have some that are used on both. So it’s really hard to kind of figure out definitively where they’re going. But I can tell you that I would say, just from what I understand to the business that widebody revenue last year was probably running in the neighborhood of 10% or 15% of where it used to be. And we’re probably going to move closer to 30% or 40% this year. From what I can tell, we’re just get €“ we’re taking a lot of orders in that are widebody specific. And I think what’s interesting to me is you follow the experts in the industry and whereas six months or a year ago, they were all predicting widebody return and global airline traffic getting back to 2019 levels sometime in the 2024, 2025 timeframe.

More and more voices are now expecting or predicting that’s going to happen in mid-2023 or late 2023. Again, a lot of that depends on what happens in China I suppose. But we would expect demand for our widebody products roughly to track with what demand is like for air travel in those kinds of airplanes. So if we see a recovery, mid-year I think that’s probably a little optimistic, but mid-year or second half of 2023, I guess I’d expect our ordering patterns to be pretty much back to normal by then also. And by the way, we’re not that far off. I mean, we did $780 million, $770 million in 2019. We just booked $690 million in 2022. So it’s not that far from here to there before we’re kind of back at pre-COVID levels of ordering anyway, and then it’s up to the supply chain to allow us to execute on it.

Jon Tanwanteng: Got it. That’s very helpful. Could you just give us a little more color on the expectations for FLRAA and the Army radio test program? When they do actually start up and get going, what are the run rates you expect out of there? Is it consistent or is it lumpy? Just help us understand what the contributions are going to look like.

Pete Gundermann: Sure. Recognize that we know not much at this point. The 4549, the radio test program, we expect the initial award to be in the next €“ I would say between the $150 million to $200 million. We think it’s going to be towards the high end of that. The timing on it is a little bit of a wild card at this point. There’s going to be a low rate initial production. There’s going to be some qual testing involved and then eventually there’s going to be a production turn on. And if all that happens sequentially, then the major impact in our production, theoretically, depending on lead times may not happen till late 2024. If we can stack those things or do them concurrently then I think it becomes probably not a late 2023 thing, but probably an early 2024 thing.