Fortress Transportation and Infrastructure Investors LLC (NASDAQ:FTAI) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Joseph Adams: Yes. We do have some leads for some of the opportunities, the investment opportunities are very attractive right now. And we’re looking at several debt financing alternatives of not a huge amount, but some amount. And it may be temporary given the $300 million of potential liquidity we get from the Russia assets and the ship sales. So we’re in good shape. It’s really just potentially timing.

Operator: [Operator Instructions]. Our next question comes from the line of Ken Herbert with RBC Capital Markets.

Kenneth Herbert: Joe, maybe I wanted to see if I could ask a question on an earlier comment you made specifically around just tightness in the CFM56 or more broadly the narrowbody MRO network. Are you starting to see that reflected yet in quotes for sort of extended turn times as we think about turnaround times on the CFM56, sort of where they are now and where they could go into the first part of the next year?

Joseph Adams: Do you want to take that?

Unidentified Company Representative: Sure. So broadly speaking, we are starting to see a longer lead time on piece part repair. So one of the key drivers for our turn time on shop visit is going to be piece part repairs. And what we’re seeing is a delay in that supply chain side of the business. Our position on piece parts is we have a program where we’re able to carry [indiscernible] material. As we’ve discussed, the engines that we’re tearing down the 40 engines this year, a lot of those engines, we can teardown and use and mitigate a lot of those delays on turn times. And that’s also going to drive a lot of demand for modules because modules, in a way, are a replacement of doing a full shop visit. And you can do a lot of these shop visits outside of a traditional overhaul shop.

So the delay in a way is very good for our module program, and we’re mitigated through having piece part repairs in our teardown program. But we are starting to see that delay creep up, and we’re expecting that to continue to creep up as the new technology engines are going to take up more capacity in the OEM and MRO space.

Kenneth Herbert: Great. Helpful. And just one follow-up. Are you expecting any incremental pushback from your airline customers on piece part pricing in 2024? As you sort of think about your ability and the demand for USM and maybe even new parts or PMA parts, how was the pricing dynamic playing out? And is that going to continue to be sort of a nice tailwind for the alternative material marketplace?

Joseph Adams: It’s a great tailwind. I mean the OEMs have taken significant price hikes. And as you — I’m sure you’re aware, it was low double digits in 2022 and that it was a sort of 9% to 10% price hike on parts that was implemented in August of this year, so it wasn’t even a full year. So that’s sort of the pricing umbrella that USM operates under. And so to the extent the OEMs continue to raise prices like that, which I believe they will, we will benefit from that. And it also makes the whole engine worth a lot more as basically, the replacement value of that is it goes up with really in lockstep with the piece part prices.

Operator: I’m showing no further questions in the queue. I would now like to turn the call back over to Alan for closing remarks.

Alan Andreini: Thank you, and thank you all for participating in today’s conference call. We look forward to updating you after Q4.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

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