Azul S.A. (NYSE:AZUL) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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So looking at overall industry capacity, I think it’s going to be about 8% to 10% above 2019 levels, which I think is pretty decent overall given the level of demand that we’re seeing.

John Rodgerson: Victor, I just want to highlight another thing, too, I just want to remind everybody that our capacity, 75% of it now and 80% of it going forward is on next-gen aircraft, A320neos and E2s, right. And so I think that’s an important distinction. And the other thing that you highlighted, Azul is not going anywhere, Go is not going anywhere, LatAm is not going anywhere, right. And so it makes sense for us to all act rationally in the market and price according to the cost structure that exists in Brazil today and I think that’s the big message, right. And so again, we have more ASKs on next-gen aircraft by a wide margin compared to our competitors, all right. So when you talk about the cost structure in Brazil, we have the lowest cost in Brazil, flying A320neos.

We have the lowest cost in Brazil flying E2s, and so I think we’re very well positioned and I think the market will be very disciplined. In the exit financing of our competitors is high cost of capital, right and everybody needs to earn a return to pay for that cost of capital.

Alex Malfitani: Yeah. And on the OEMs Victor, very similar concept to the lessors, we started with the lessors, right, because the lessors as we mentioned represent almost 80% of our cash commitments and we started talking to the OEM’s about two weeks after the lessors. So, the OEMs are maybe two weeks behind on the sequencing, and similarly to what we mentioned on the lessors, once we are done with the negotiations with the OEMs, we’ll be happy to provide additional information. But the concept, you can already, rest assured that, it’s the same 2030 note, same calculation for the dilution, so very similar concept and will provide that detail in due time.

John Rodgerson: Hey, Victor. One of the things to highlight is the OEMs are our partners, specifically Embraer here in Brazil as well as GE where we overhaul all of our engines in Brazil, had we decided to overhaul our engines outside of Brazil we’d have XM financing and so one of the big things that we’re pushing jointly with our OEM partners is, if I’m going to overhaul engines in Brazil, I should get access to financing of that, right. And so that’s something that we’re working jointly with the new government on, we’re working with our partners at GE and Embraer and I think that that’s good for everybody. And so the OEM relationship is a little different than the lessors, right, it’s a little bit more complex because of the different negotiations we have ongoing with Embraer and GE and Pratt & Whitney and Airbus and ATR, but they’ve been very constructive and very supportive, why because we have a fantastic business and they see that.

Victor Mizusaki: Thank you.

John Rodgerson: Thanks, Victor.

Operator: Okay. So the next question comes now from Michael Linenberg, sell-side analyst, Deutsche Bank. Michael we will open your audio so that you can ask your question, please proceed.

Michael Linenberg: Okay. Hey. Can you guys hear me okay?

David Neeleman: Yeah. We can hear you good from Deutsche Bank.

Michael Linenberg: That darn auto spell or auto populate. Anyway, hey, congrats on the news, obviously. Just a couple of questions here, as best as you can sort of give us on some of the numbers. Maybe, Alex, when we think about your interest expense this last year it was BRL4.6 billion and when I look forward at least with the charts that you’ve provided, does that as a result of these restructured deals, does that come down, like what’s the appropriate interest expense that we should think about going forward?

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