Earnings call transcript: FTAI Aviation Q3 2025 results show mixed signals

FTAI Aviation Ltd. reported its third-quarter 2025 earnings, revealing a mixed financial performance that fell short of earnings expectations but slightly surpassed revenue forecasts. The company’s earnings per share (EPS) were $1.10, below the forecasted $1.21, marking a 9.09% miss. Despite this, revenue came in at $667.06 million, narrowly beating the forecast of $665.66 million. The stock responded positively, with a premarket increase of 2.14%, reaching $189.06. According to InvestingPro analysis, FTAI is currently trading above its Fair Value, with a market capitalization of nearly $19 billion. InvestingPro data shows impressive revenue growth of 56% over the last twelve months, suggesting strong operational momentum.

Key Takeaways

• FTAI Aviation’s Q3 EPS missed expectations by 9.09%.
• Revenue slightly exceeded forecasts, contributing to positive stock movement.
• The company increased its quarterly dividend and reported significant EBITDA growth.
• Strategic acquisitions and joint ventures aim to expand market share.
• The stock price rose 1.72% in after-hours trading.

Company Performance

FTAI Aviation demonstrated robust growth in its financial metrics, despite the EPS miss. The company reported a 28% year-over-year increase in adjusted EBITDA to $297.4 million. The Aerospace Products segment saw a remarkable 77% rise in EBITDA, while the Leasing Segment contributed $134.4 million. The company continues to leverage its unique Maintenance Repair Exchange (MRE) business model, targeting a 9% market share in CFM56 and V2500 engines. InvestingPro analysis reveals the company maintains a healthy current ratio of 5.01, indicating strong liquidity, with two additional ProTips available for subscribers regarding the company’s financial health.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $667.06 million, slightly above forecast
• EPS: $1.10, below the forecast of $1.21
• Adjusted EBITDA: $297.4 million, up 28% YoY
• Adjusted Free Cash Flow: $268 million in Q3, $638 million YTD
• Dividend: Increased from $0.30 to $0.35 per share

Earnings vs. Forecast

FTAI Aviation’s EPS of $1.10 fell short of the forecasted $1.21, resulting in a 9.09% negative surprise. However, revenue of $667.06 million exceeded expectations by 0.21%. This mixed performance contrasts with previous quarters, where the company had consistently met or exceeded earnings forecasts.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings release, FTAI Aviation’s stock rose by 1.72% to $189.06 in after-hours trading, reflecting a positive market reaction despite the EPS miss. The stock has been performing well, reaching near its 52-week high of $189.22, indicating investor confidence in the company’s strategic direction and growth potential. InvestingPro data shows impressive momentum with a 55% return over the past six months. The stock’s beta of 1.74 suggests higher volatility compared to the market, presenting both opportunities and risks for investors. Get access to the comprehensive Pro Research Report, part of InvestingPro’s coverage of 1,400+ US equities, for detailed analysis and actionable insights.

Outlook & Guidance

FTAI Aviation provided optimistic guidance for future quarters, projecting an EPS of $1.21 for Q4 2025 and $1.63 for Q1 2026. The company targets a $1 billion adjusted free cash flow in 2026 and aims for 40%+ margins in aerospace products. Strategic initiatives include expanding its module production and repair capabilities and pursuing an asset-light growth model.

Executive Commentary

CEO Joe Adams emphasized the dual nature of the business, stating, "We’re increasingly looking at two businesses: a factory that makes engines, and an asset manager that manages money that owns the aircraft." He also highlighted the company’s problem-solving approach: "We solve problems and save people money. When you solve problems and you save money, that means higher returns for investors and less risk."

Risks and Challenges

• Potential supply chain disruptions could impact production timelines.
• Market saturation in the engine maintenance sector may limit growth.
• Macroeconomic pressures could affect airline spending and demand for maintenance services.
• Competitive pressures from other maintenance providers could challenge market share.
• Regulatory changes in aviation could impact operational costs and strategies.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the Strategic Capital Initiative (SCI) fundraising and investor interest. The company detailed its engine maintenance "spread" business model and outlined growth strategies in module production. Executives also discussed the significance of recent acquisitions and joint ventures in expanding market capabilities.

Full transcript - FTAI Aviation Ltd (FTAI) Q3 2025:

Marvin, Conference Call Operator: Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the FTAI Aviation Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker’s presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during this session, you will need to press 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press 11 again. Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded. I would like to hand the conference over to our first speaker today, Alan Andreini, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Alan Andreini, Head of Investor Relations, FTAI Aviation Ltd.: Thank you, Marvin. I would like to welcome you all to the FTAI Aviation Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. Joining me here today are Joe Adams, our Chief Executive Officer, Angela Nam, our Chief Financial Officer, and David Moreno, our Chief Operating Officer. We have posted an investor presentation and our press release on our website, which we encourage you to download if you have not already done so. Also, please note that this call is open to the public in listen-only mode and is being webcast. In addition, we will be discussing some non-GAAP financial measures during the call today, including EBITDA. The reconciliation of those measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in the earnings supplement. Before I turn the call over to Joe, I would like to point out that certain statements made today will be forward-looking statements, including regarding future earnings.

These statements, by their nature, are uncertain and may differ materially from actual results. We encourage you to review the disclaimers in our press release and investor presentation regarding non-GAAP financial measures and forward-looking statements, and to review the risk factors contained in our quarterly report filed with the SEC. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Joe.

Marvin, Conference Call Operator: Thank you, Alan. Angela will provide a detailed overview of the numbers, but first, I’d like to highlight a few key updates. Number one, we passed a significant milestone this month with a successful close on the final round of equity commitments for SCI, which is Strategic Capital Initiative Number One. We’ve had tremendous interest from institutional investors in the partnership throughout the year, and given this high level of demand, we have upsized the total equity capital of the 2025 partnership to $2 billion. FTAI will co-invest up to approximately $380 million, including the $152 million we have invested year to date, for a 19% minority equity interest compared to our original expectation of 20%.

With a $500 million increase in equity capital, our new target is now to deploy over $6 billion in capital through the 2025 partnership, up from our previous target of $4 billion and double the original goal of $3 billion we announced in December of last year when we launched SCI. This expanded partnership corresponds to a larger total portfolio size of approximately 375 aircraft, with full deployment of capital now anticipated by mid-2026. Today, we now have over 190 aircraft either closed or under LOI commitment and continue to have confidence and visibility from the SCI investments team on sourcing the remaining aircraft through a combination of lessor counterparties and direct sale/lease-back transactions with airlines. The successful $6 billion launch of this partnership creates significant value and positions FTAI for sustained long-term earnings growth.

The MRA agreement, which provides fixed price exchanges for all engines in the SCI portfolio, establishes a multi-year contractual pipeline of demand for rebuild engines within our aerospace product segment. Additionally, our role as servicer and 19% minority equity investment is expected to generate attractive returns within our aviation leasing segment. For our equity partners, SCI represents a compelling opportunity of enhanced returns relative to the traditional leasing business model. Through the MRE, or Maintenance Repair Exchange Agreement, LPs benefit from higher, more predictable cash flows combined with lower residual risk across a highly diversified LSE pool. For our airline counterparties, engine exchanges also provide clear, meaningful value by eliminating the financial and operational risk and burden of managing engine shop visits. With this significant value proposition to all parties, FTAI, our equity LP partners, and airlines, we see strong opportunity to launch additional SCI partnerships each year going forward.

Turning now to Q3 results, aerospace products delivered another strong performance, generating $180 million in adjusted EBITDA at a 35% margin, up approximately 77% year over year. This positive momentum underscores the strong accelerating global demand for pre-built engines and modules in the CFM56 and V2500 aftermarket. We continue to see adoption of our aerospace products expanding across both new and existing customers, supplemented by our MRE agreement with the SCI. Airline operators and asset owners increasingly recognize FTAI as the most flexible, cost-efficient alternative to traditional shop visits, which are more expensive, more complex, and more time-consuming than a simple and cost-effective exchange with FTAI. A recent example of this is Finnair, with whom we announced a multi-year perpetual power program.

Through our scale asset ownership and extensive in-house maintenance capabilities, FTAI’s engine exchanges help Finnair manage their maintenance costs, improve reliability, and ultimately deliver a better service to their passengers. The trend toward longer-term partnerships like Finnair is increasing, and we expect to announce additional new airline perpetual power programs in the future. Overall, we’re confident our differentiated business model and competitive advantage places FTAI to be the long-term leader in engine aftermarket maintenance for these engine types. We’re well-positioned to achieve our goal of reaching 25% market share in the years ahead. Moving over to production, we refurbished 207 CFM56 modules this quarter between our three facilities in Montreal, Miami, and Rome, an increase of 13% versus the last quarter, and we remain on track for our goal of producing 750 modules in 2025.

In Montreal, our recently established training academy has also already enrolled over 100 trainees who are graduating significantly faster than traditional methods, thanks to our technology-driven approach using virtual reality and AI technology protocols. Combined with our emphasis on specialization and operational efficiencies, these initiatives are delivering measurable improvements in throughput and productivity. We remain confident in the trajectory of substantial production growth ahead as we scale the Montreal facility to capacity. In Rome, our operations continue to develop at an impressive pace. We have successfully integrated FTAI’s MRE operations with the facility, and technicians from Rome have conducted extensive training seminars at our Montreal training academy to improve skill development and optimize production efficiency. We’re also actively investing in upgrading Rome’s infrastructure and component repair capability, enabling heavier and more complex module repairs, which will position us to ramp production next year to double our 2025 target.

We’re also pleased to announce an agreement to acquire ATOPS for approximately $15 million, an MRO with extensive CFM56 engine operations, strengthening our presence in Miami. This acquisition will transform our Miami MRE operations by complementing our nearby module and test cell facilities, adding expansion space, and adding experienced technical staff to support increased production next year once the integration into our operation is complete. Additionally, the purchase includes an ATOPS facility in Portugal, which will serve as a logistics and field service hub in coordination with our European operations in Rome. We’ve also made good progress in expanding our component repair capabilities through the launch of a 50/50 joint venture called Prime Engine Accessories with Bauer, Inc. out of Bristol, Connecticut. The Bauer team brings tremendous experience and expertise in accessory test equipment, and together we’re building an industry-leading MRE repair facility for accessory parts.

Once operational, which we expect by the end of this year, this facility is expected to deliver up to $75,000 in average savings per shop visit. Our initial $10 million working capital investment will enable us to redirect FTAI volumes to this facility rather than to outside vendors, driving meaningful cost efficiencies and time savings. This investment, like Pacific Aero, which we did last quarter, further differentiates our offering and aids us in both expanding productivity and expanding margins. With a substantial activity in enhancing our facilities and the broader MRE ecosystem, we are now targeting growth in production next year to 1,000 CFM56 modules, an increase of 33% compared to this year’s production.

We also continue to expect aerospace products margins to grow to 40% plus next year as we optimize our parts procurement and repair strategies, including the approval of PMA Part Number 3, which we continue to expect approval of in the very near term. Next, let’s talk about adjusted free cash flow. In the third quarter, we generated $268 million, which includes $88 million from the sale of the final eight aircraft from the 45 aircraft seed portfolio, which were sold to SCI Number One. Year to date, we have now generated $638 million in positive free cash flow, positioning us on track to our revised goal of $750 million for all of 2025 prior to our expanded contribution to SCI Number One. As FTAI Aviation Ltd.

pivots to an asset-light model focused on aerospace products and strategic capital, we continue to expect substantial growth in free cash flow in the years ahead. Our primary use for available cash is to pursue investments in high-impact growth initiatives, and we’re seeing today a significant number of these opportunities and possibilities. FTAI Aviation Ltd.’s targeted discipline approach is to identify opportunities complementary to our Maintenance Repair Exchange (MRE) operations in areas where we can accelerate production, expand margins, and further differentiate our product offerings to customers worldwide. We do expect surplus cash balance above these investment opportunities, and therefore we are announcing an increase to the dividend this quarter from $0.30 per quarter to $0.35 per share. The dividend of $0.35 per share will be paid on November 19, based on a shareholder record date of November 10.

This marks our 42nd dividend as a public company and our 57th consecutive dividend since inception. Additionally, we will also continue to evaluate future opportunities for capital redistribution to shareholders. Finally, we remain confident in our full-year 2025 estimates of $1.25 to $1.3 billion business segment EBITDA for all of 2025, comprised of aerospace products EBITDA ranging from $650 to $700 million and aviation leasing EBITDA of $600 million. Looking ahead to 2026, for aerospace products, we’re estimating $1 billion in EBITDA for next year, which represents significant further growth versus the $650 to $700 million this year and approximately $380 million, which we generated just recently in 2024. For aviation leasing, we’re estimating $525 million in EBITDA in 2026, which is in line with our expected results for 2025, excluding insurance recoveries and gains on sale.

Within the leasing segment, we estimate the growth in servicing fees, and our 19% minority equity investment will offset the decline in on-balance sheet leasing revenues from the seed portfolio sold to the SCI as we continue to pivot to an asset-light growth model. Overall, we now anticipate total business segment EBITDA in 2026 of $1.525 billion, up from our original estimate of $1.4 billion. Based on these projections, we expect to generate $1 billion in adjusted free cash flow next year, representing a 33% increase over the $750 million we are targeting in 2025 prior to our expanded contribution to SCI One. With that, I’ll hand it over to Angela to talk through the numbers in more detail.

Angela Nam, Chief Financial Officer, FTAI Aviation Ltd.: Thanks, Joe. The key metric for us is adjusted EBITDA. We maintained our strong momentum this quarter with adjusted EBITDA of $297.4 million in Q3 2025, which is up 28% compared to $232 million in Q3 of 2024, and in line with Q2 2025 results after excluding the one-time benefits from insurance recoveries and seed portfolio gains on sale we reported last quarter. During the third quarter, the $297.4 million EBITDA number was comprised of $180.4 million from our aerospace product segment, $134.4 million from our leasing segment, and a -$17.4 million from corporate and other, including inter-segment eliminations. As we have predicted, aerospace EBITDA is now exceeding leasing’s EBITDA.

Aerospace products had yet another great quarter with $180.4 million of EBITDA and an overall EBITDA margin of 35%, which is up 9% compared to $164.9 million in Q2 of 2025 and up 77% compared to $101.8 million in Q3 2024. We continue to see accelerated growth in adoption and usage of our aerospace products and remain focused on ramping up production in each of our facilities in Montreal, Miami, and Rome, as well as expanding component repair operations at our recent acquisition in California and our new joint venture launched in Connecticut. Turning now to leasing, leasing continued to deliver strong results, posting approximately $134 million of adjusted EBITDA.

For gains on sale, we continue the year with $126.8 million of asset sales proceeds, generating a 7% margin gain of $8.3 million as we closed on the final eight aircraft of the seed portfolio to SCI Number One and divested several non-core assets, including several Pratt & Whitney 4000 and CF680 engines. Overall, the total 45 aircraft seed portfolio contributed an aggregate gains on sale of $50.1 million to 2025 leasing EBITDA at a margin of 10%. The pure leasing component of the $134 million of EBITDA came in at $122 million for Q3 versus $152 million in Q2 of 2025, but included in the $152 million last quarter was a $24 million settlement related to Russian assets written off in 2022, as well as leasing revenue generated from seed portfolio, which we have now sold to the SCI.

With that, let me turn the call back over to Alan.

Alan Andreini, Head of Investor Relations, FTAI Aviation Ltd.: Thank you, Angela. Marvin, you may now open the call to Q&A.

Marvin, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. At this time, we’ll conduct the question-and-answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you’ll need to press 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press 11 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Sheila Kayaglu of Jefferies. Your line is now open.

Good morning, guys, and congratulations on upsizing of SCI. It looks like great traction from the investor base in sourcing these aircraft, and I think you have now 375 aircraft targeted or the size of United Airlines CFM seats. Can you maybe walk us through the financial implications of the upsizing, both from a segment EBITDA and free cash flow perspective?

Alan Andreini, Head of Investor Relations, FTAI Aviation Ltd.: Sure. The way I think about it is we’re increasing the number of aircraft that we’ll have in SCI by that amount, going up 33%, 250 up to 375, and we’ll probably do it a little bit faster than we had expected, given the pace of investing activity. Our plan has always been to continue to do additional SCIs every year. I think it really is the main impact is just accelerating the growth under SCI. We originally said we expected SCI business for FTAI Aviation to represent about 20% of the aerospace products volume. Probably with this acceleration of the SCI fundraising, that number might go up to 25%, so 20% to 25% going forward.

The important thing is that that business is 100% of all the engines in those partnerships are dedicated, committed to FTAI Aviation for the duration of the ownership period, which we expect will be five to six years. It’s locked-in volume. We know everything you need to know about the engines we have access to. We can plan our production very efficiently. We can have engines pre-positioned. There are just so many benefits that come out of us being the manager of these capital pools. It also makes us look a lot bigger to the airline customers. When you go into a business in an airline and you own a significant chunk of their fleet as a lessor, the ability to get business from them on other engine products that we offer is higher, is bigger. It has cross-selling opportunities that also will benefit FTAI Aviation.

I think the main thing is just faster, what we’re pushing for overall as a company is really just faster market share gains in the Maintenance Repair Exchange (MRE) business and aerospace products.

Got it. Thank you. If I could ask one on the ATOPS acquisition, if you could give any color on how that came about, how it adds 150 modules’ worth of capacity. Similar to Pacific Dynamic, if you could give color on EBITDA contribution as we think about the savings from that.

David Moreno, Chief Operating Officer, FTAI Aviation Ltd.: Yep. This is David. I’ll take that, Sheila. On our M&A strategy, you’re really seeing two themes play out, right? We’re doing investments to either increase margin or expand our capacity well ahead of our production needs. ATOPS specifically is the latter, where we’re increasing production well ahead of our production needs. ATOPS, as Joe mentioned earlier in the opening remarks, has two facilities. The main facility is in Medley, Florida, which is very close to our test cell today. It immediately creates synergy between our test cell and the facility. It also includes 60 employees, and we have the ability to process 150 modules at a location. Effectively, that raises our overall production at the company from 1,800 modules to 1,950. Additionally, the second facility is located in Lisbon, Portugal. That has a small team that we expect to grow.

Our goal out of that facility is to run our field service, and those are the employees that actually deliver the module exchanges to customers, specifically out of Europe. We expect to grow that facility because we see a lot of local talent that we could recruit from. The ATOPS transaction is mostly focused on increasing capacity. We also did announce the Bauer transaction. That represents the first theme, which is we’re looking to increase margin and looking to continue to vertically integrate. That is a 50/50 joint venture, which we call Prime Engine Accessories, based in Bristol. It is for the engine accessories. That includes fuel pumps, HMUs, actuator, and valves. Those are the components that regulate air, fuel, and oil between the engine and the aircraft. It was a repair that we were lacking that now we’re able to insource.

We’re very happy to partner up with Bauer, which is a leading manufacturer of a lot of this, the test and bench equipment. As Joe mentioned, for that investment specifically, we’re expecting to capture around $75,000 of savings per shop visit. We’re expecting to do about 350 engines per year when that starts ramping in 2026.

Great. Thank you.

Marvin, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Christine Lehwal of Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.

Hey, good morning, everyone. I just want to follow up on SCI. I mean, you guys are significant buyers of aircraft engine assets now in a time where there still seems to be a shortage of assets out there. Can you talk about the availability of assets that you’re able to buy, pricing, expected returns? I mean, ultimately, what were your conversations with investors like? What did they like about SCI, and where are areas of potential concern?

Alan Andreini, Head of Investor Relations, FTAI Aviation Ltd.: Sure. I’ll start on that. If you think about the market, there are two different sellers of these narrow-body current tech aircraft. One is lessors, and they own roughly half of the world’s fleet. If you think about 14,000 aircraft that are, you know, 737 NGs and A320 C/O family aircraft, about 7,000 are owned by lessors. As lessors begin to take delivery of new aircraft into their portfolios, they need to sell off older aged equipment. One of the big drivers of that is just to maintain ratings. Those rating agencies and debt investors and lenders look to that metric of average age of your portfolio as one that they track very carefully. During COVID, I think a lot of lessors were able to hold on to assets longer. They extended the average life of their portfolio maybe, for example, from 12 years to 14 years.

Now people are saying, you know, you got to sell the older stuff. That portion of the market represents north of probably 1,000 aircraft a year that are sold by lessors. We’re buying from that group, and we have a very significant competitive advantage in that we can do engine exchanges. We’re an advantage buyer, and we’re one of the larger pools of capital that are focused really solely on, you know, NGs and C/Os. The second source of deals is airlines. A lot of airlines, you know, had deferred as much of the engine maintenance as possible during COVID. They’ve kicked the can down the road pretty far. There are a lot of shop visits coming up in the near future, and airlines are looking to do sale/lease-backs, which allow them to both raise capital today and avoid a shop visit.

That investment in that shop visit can be a significant amount of their capital for an airline, and they’re looking at alternatives for how to do that. We present the perfect alternative, which is an engine exchange. There’s no downtime, no shop visit, and they’re back in service, and they totally avoid the capital investment in that engine shop visit. It’s a perfect product. Industry sources have all cited that, you know, airlines in the maintenance world, there’s an increasingly heavy orientation on heavier shop visits. The core restorations is the most expensive part. There’s more of that, you know, that’s going to be needed in the next few years, and that plays perfectly into our strengths because that’s what we do in our facilities as we rebuild those. That’s the supply side.

In terms of the investors, when we look at this compared to a traditional approach, what we show the investors is that we solve problems. MRE, Maintenance Repair Exchange, is a better way of doing engine maintenance. We solve problems and save people money. When you solve problems and you save money, that means higher returns for investors and less risk. It’s actually a very simple explanation, and people get it immediately. Who in the credit world doesn’t want higher returns with lower risk? We’re finding a high receptivity to that. It’s predictable cash flows, relatively short duration, and it’s an asset-backed structure that’s uncorrelated to public markets. It really fits in nicely into today’s investment world. We have a terrific group of investors, all of whom, as I say, if we deliver the returns that we show people, then we’ll be able to raise a lot more capital.

That’s a super helpful color, Joe. Maybe a follow-up question. It could be for Angela. When we look at your 19% equity portion of SCI, with the upsized amount, this is a pretty sizable leasing income. How do we think about that portion? Is that going to be reflected in the adjusted EBITDA in the leasing segment? Will this be reported in the other line? Ultimately, what’s the treatment of SCI in your financials?

Angela Nam, Chief Financial Officer, FTAI Aviation Ltd.: Yeah. On that 19% specifically, as you mentioned, yes, it’ll show up in our equity pickup line. You’ll see that as the equity income line pick up for the 19% that we own from SCI’s leasing returns. In addition to that, as Joe mentioned, as we are the servicer, we’ll also pick up servicing revenue, which is currently in other revenue in the leasing segment. That will grow with the asset base also growing. We’ll also see in our aerospace products business the engine exchanges that are coming through for all the engines that are coming up for exchanges with the SCI. That’s the fixed price that we’ve already committed to.

Alan Andreini, Head of Investor Relations, FTAI Aviation Ltd.: We will include that in adjusted EBITDA.

Angela Nam, Chief Financial Officer, FTAI Aviation Ltd.: That’s correct.

Alan Andreini, Head of Investor Relations, FTAI Aviation Ltd.: The 19% will be included in adjusted EBITDA in leasing.

Angela Nam, Chief Financial Officer, FTAI Aviation Ltd.: Yes.

Great. Super helpful. Sorry, there’s just so many things going on. If I could ask a third question here. I want to take a step back on the module facility. I think sometimes we kind of gloss over the success you’ve had the past few years, but ultimately, you’re targeting 750 modules by year-end, and you’ve already gotten 9% of the market share for CFM56 and V2500. Five years ago, you guys were at zero. This has been a fairly astronomical growth and penetration, especially for what was a financing company to really enter into the wrench-turning MRO business. I wanted to ask you, can you share with us some of the secret sauce and how you were able to execute fairly seamlessly with this kind of volume that we’ve never really seen others be able to accomplish?

Alan Andreini, Head of Investor Relations, FTAI Aviation Ltd.: Thank you. I would say two things that we did, I would look back that were important. One was focus, which most people in the business tend to get into this diversification mode where they’re trying to do a Noah’s Ark of aircraft or a fleet of different engine types and diversify, often to people they equate to less risk. We consciously decided that with these engines, that this was the best opportunity in the industry and that we should do nothing else. I would attribute a large part of it was that decision to say, "Let’s get out of the other engine types. Let’s just focus on CFM56 and then ultimately V2500." That was big. The second is really people. You have to attract great people and retain them. We have a terrific team of people across the entire organization. Everybody, it is always ultimately about that.

To do that, you have to sell the vision, and people have to buy into it. I think people have, when you go out to meet with customers, that’s kind of the biggest reinforcement is when people on the buy side are saying, "I really am not that good at doing shop visits. I’ve had bad experiences. I want to do anything to not have to do a shop visit." When you show up and you say, "I can solve your problem," that really invigorates people because they feel like they’re doing something worthwhile.

Thank you very much. I really appreciate the time.

Thanks.

Marvin, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Josh Sullivan of Jones Trading. Your line is now open.

Alan Andreini, Head of Investor Relations, FTAI Aviation Ltd.: Hey, good morning. Congratulations on the quarter. Just on a follow-up on ATOPS. $15 million in equity for 150 modules. Fantastic trade. How do we understand the calculus in module capacity potential here? Just looking at maybe like the FTAI USA as an example. What are the gating factors to finding these relatively small investments for such a big yield on module capacity increase? Is there a lot of runway to do these relatively smaller investments, or do we need a larger investment eventually to drive significant module capacity growth?

No, I think it’s that, you know, there’s a surprising number of what I refer to as almost like empty buildings, that once upon a time, somebody was in the business and they left their tooling, and there’s a building and somebody’s trying to figure out what to do with it. That’s where we have a unique ability to walk in and say, "We can deliver engines immediately." These opportunities do exist. As you mentioned, the math on them, because there is no real vibrant business operating inside of these buildings today, we can acquire them at very low prices and fill them up. The gating factor is the people. It’s the mechanics. That’s why we’ve been talking about the training facility in Montreal as a big initiative because we found we could hire people, but you couldn’t make them productive as fast as we wanted.

Sometimes you have people who don’t actually ever become productive. You have to focus on how you increase your yield and shorten that time to get people into a mode of being a contributor. That’s where a lot of our energy has gone. I think there are more facilities out there that we can find. There doesn’t seem to be a shortage of that. There are people offering in steels all the time now. It’s really going to be trying to find those ones that are the easiest for us to plug in and have the biggest available pool of mechanics in the nearby area.

Got it. I guess similarly, just, you know, on the joint venture with Bauer, you know, $75,000 cost saving per visit. Is the capability more about improving turnaround times for your customers or margin insourcing, you know, at FTAI? I guess, were customers pushing you to add this capability, which might lead to additional new Maintenance Repair Exchange (MRE) customers, or is it just a good asset to have insourced to drive margin?

You are a multiple-choice question. I would choose E. All of the above. I mean, it’s really phenomenal. The engine is so complicated in some ways and so simple in other ways, but these accessories are very complicated, and the know-how that people at Bauer have is phenomenal. They make all the test equipment that everyone uses. We are partnering with them, and we’ve already had interactions with our engineers and their engineers, and there’s a sharing of experiences. We think they’ll make us better, and we hope we can contribute and make them a little better. It’s really just widening, expanding the circle with people that have specialized knowledge and intellectual property in areas that are incredibly expensive to fix, and the engine’s full of them. Every time you look, there’s something else that is also very high cost and very specialized knowledge.

We feel like we found a phenomenal partner, and the math works well for both of us. We think it’s going to continue just to, as you said, it makes our margins better. It makes our people smarter. It shortens the turnaround time. If you send an accessory out now to a third party, you’re beholden upon that third party to get it back to you so you can keep producing. This way, we have more control over the whole process.

Got it. Thank you for the time.

Thanks.

Marvin, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Giuliano Bologna of Compass Point. Your line is now open.

Good morning. Congratulations on the continued great execution on all fronts here. As the first question, you mentioned at several conferences and on some calls that we should think about FTAI Aviation Ltd. as being in the spread business. Can you expand on that, especially as it relates to both weak and strong markets?

Alan Andreini, Head of Investor Relations, FTAI Aviation Ltd.: Yes. When you, you know, I increasingly, we think about our business as being really in two different areas. One is the manufacturing business, where we buy run-out engines, rebuild them, and sell them. The other is the asset management business, which, you know, we raise capital and buy airplanes, and that gets committed volume to FTAI Aviation. If you think about the two businesses, the first business is buying an engine at a price in the market and then rebuilding it. You’re adding basically hours and cycles to that engine, and then you’re selling it for whatever people will pay for hours and cycles on a rebuilt basis. That’s the spread. It’s the buy and then the build, and we can control the cost of the build and then the sell. We’re basically like in a manufacturing business. Isn’t that what Apple does when they make an iPhone?

They buy parts from people, they put them together, and they sell it. That’s our, that’s our, you know, core business. In a soft market, you’re going to buy cheaper on the run-out side, and you’ll maybe sell a little bit cheaper, but, you know, usually not for long. I think of, you know, the market is very strong. The price of a rebuilt engine is driven primarily by the OEM list prices on those parts because that’s your alternative. As long as people are flying aircraft, they’re going to need to replace hours and cycles on those engines. That’s what drives it. If we were to hit a period where there’s excess availability of engines, and that’s happened in the past in other engine types, not this one in recent history, if you go back to COVID.

What happens is, you know, I would look at that as a three to six-month window to accelerate market share gains for us because it always rebounds. If there’s an opportunity to pick up some inventory at a lower price or build our capacity, then when it rebounds, you’ll be in a better position at the end of that. We’ve really done that consistently over our entire careers.

That’s very helpful. I appreciate that. Next question for Angela. I see the new slide on slide 39 of the supplement that details some of the way that the cash flow statement would change and the reporting would change using industrial accounting versus lease accounting. Is the right way to think about it that, effectively, all of the, you know, gains on sale or economics that were flowing through cash provided by investing activities would effectively move into operating cash flow when you change to industrial accounting because of a more streamlined methodology there?

Angela Nam, Chief Financial Officer, FTAI Aviation Ltd.: Yeah. No, that’s right. That’s the right way to think about it. As you mentioned, we did include the performance cash flow statement on slide 39 of our supplement. What you will see is that for nine months ended 9/30, we would essentially be moving about $722 million in cash proceeds from our sales assets from investing to operating activities. We’ve outlined the line items that were specifically changed, but you’ve hit on them where it would include the gain of assets and the proceeds from asset sales. Starting in third quarter, we have classified all of our inventory purchases going through operating. You will see a transition of that aligning with our GAAP cash flow statement going forward.

That is very helpful. I appreciate it. I think that’ll make things a lot simpler and streamlined going forward. Thank you very much. I’ll jump back in the queue.

Marvin, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Hilary Kekkenando of Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open.

Thank you. Thank you for the time. Could you unpack the guidance for 2026? Was the upsell driven by a new customer, existing customers, new contracts from PMA, or the acquisition of ATOPS, and the launch of the joint venture, etc.? I’m assuming it’s a combination of all of those, but if there’s anything that stands out, if you could just kind of detail. Thank you.

Alan Andreini, Head of Investor Relations, FTAI Aviation Ltd.: I think if you break it into two parts, it’s volume and margin. On the volume side, the MRE product, as we mentioned, continues to grow. Our production is expected to grow 33% next year, and it’s a mix of new customers and existing customers. I would also highlight that there’s bigger volumes coming from existing customers. Where we’ve gotten the foot in the door and we’ve enabled people to try the product and say, "This is really how it works. It works, you know, terrifically," and they experience that, we are seeing customers come back with larger orders for their engines going forward. That’s exactly what we hoped would happen with those initial orders. We’re seeing continued adding new customers. We highlighted Finnair last quarter, and we’re seeing existing customers get bigger.

On the margin side, we’ve indicated next year, we expect to see 40% margins, and it’s really driven off of the parts acquisitions strategy that we’ve been implementing and repairs. We’ve highlighted that PMA is one of those contributors where we expect imminently to have approval of the third part. We’ve also had acquisitions of used serviceable material that we’ve been implementing. On the repair side, we’ve highlighted we have capability in Montreal, which we’ve been adding, but we also specifically added Pacific Aerodynamic and now Bauer.

Okay. Thank you. That’s really helpful. Then just on Finnair, how should we think about the margin impact or EBITDA contribution from that contract? I mean, are they market rate or, you know, how should we think about that?

David Moreno, Chief Operating Officer, FTAI Aviation Ltd.: Hey, Hilary. This is David. Yes, they’re in line with a large program that we have with customers. I would say they’re largely in line. To give you a little more flavor on the Finnair program, we’re covering their entire fleet, so 36 engines, and we’re pre-positioning engines ahead of shop visits. We effectively provide them a serviceable engine and then take the unserviceable engines back. It provides cost savings for the airline. It lowers maintenance costs and then provides, more importantly, flexibility for the airline. As Joe mentioned earlier, we’re focused with airlines on winning large programs that cover their entire maintenance. This is an example of one that we want, and we expect others to happen soon after.

Great. Thank you, David and Joe.

Thanks.

Marvin, Conference Call Operator: Okay. Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Brian McKenna of Citizens. Your line is now open.

Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Just one more here on SCI. Have you disclosed what FTAI will be earning in terms of management and performance fees for managing the SCI vehicles? I ask this because leasing assets have declined 30% year to date. That’s really just from one SCI vehicle that’s not even fully deployed yet. With a couple more vehicles, most or all of these assets will likely move into third-party asset management vehicles that you’re managing. Maybe I spent too much time covering alternative asset managers and private credit more broadly, but it would seem like leasing ultimately turns into an asset management business over time. If that’s the case, you have two high multiple earning streams, not one. Any thoughts here would be appreciated.

Alan Andreini, Head of Investor Relations, FTAI Aviation Ltd.: Yes, Ryan, we think alike. I mean, it’s very much what we’ve been, how we’ve been repositioning the business. I would say that, first of all, the fees are market-based. The asset management fee that FTAI Aviation Ltd. earns is on total assets. That would be on the $6 million, and 1% or higher is typically market for that type of structure. The incentive compensation will be low double digits, provided that the returns exceed a hurdle. It’s meaningful. Those numbers, as we’ve mentioned, we always try to have an aspiration, and we initially said, "Why not manage $20 billion in this way at some point?" We started out, we were at three, and now we’re at six. It may not be that crazy that we get there. It is a much better way to own assets in a private capital structure partnership like this than in a public company.

Increasingly, as I said, we look at that we have two businesses. One is a factory that makes engines, and the other is an asset manager that manages the money that owns the aircraft that has the engine on it.

Got it. That’s super helpful. Maybe just a related follow-up. It’s pretty minor, but FTAI’s ownership in the first vehicle, FCI vehicle, came down to 19% from 20%. If demand remains elevated and it feels like it’s pretty robust here, just given the upsized commitments, etc., is there an opportunity for your ownership or essentially the GP stake to decline to something lower than that? Essentially, it creates an even more capital-like model. I’m just trying to think through that a little bit more moving forward.

Yeah, it’s possible. We wanted to make the first, I mean, as you can imagine, one of the concerns that investors always have is, are you aligned? Do you have the same interest that I have as the manager? Obviously, that equity commitment goes a long way to answering that question. Over time, if you demonstrate a track record and you show people repeatedly good numbers, everything’s negotiable.

Okay, that’s helpful. Thanks, Joe.

Yep.

Marvin, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Andre Madrid of BTIG. Your line is now open.

Hi, this is Ned Morgan on for Andre this morning. I just wanted to ask, how should we think about the pace of long-term partnerships to materialize in terms of scale? Will future deals be more in line with the major U.S. carrier deal or the Finnair deal? I guess, and also, if you’re able to comment on the margin impact of these partnerships, what that could look like.

Alan Andreini, Head of Investor Relations, FTAI Aviation Ltd.: The pace of investing, as I said, we’ve started the first partnership really at the beginning of this year, and we have under LOI or closed about $3.5 billion. It’s next week’s November, I guess. Our original thought was we could invest $4 billion in the first year. I expect that will go up as we get, you know, we have more of a backlog than we had when we launched the first partnership. I think the pace of investment, I’m pretty optimistic. This is a $300 billion market that we should be able to deploy that type of capital regularly. The margins, the SCI is treated like any other third-party customer from a pricing point of view. The only difference is it’s contracted, so it is 100% committed. The margins and the profitability from SCI business for FTAI Aviation Ltd. are very similar to the other third-party customers.

As I indicated, next year, we expect an improvement in margins to 40%. We are seeing an increase in larger orders from existing customers. That trend, we expect to continue to get more engines from third-party customers per customer as they experience the benefits of the product.

Got it. Thank you very much.

Yep.

Marvin, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Brandon Oleginski of Barclays. Your line is now open.

David Moreno, Chief Operating Officer, FTAI Aviation Ltd.: Hey, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the question. Joe, I guess can we come back to the $1 billion cash flow outlook for next year? That’s pretty impressive just given where this business has been. How much should M&A factor into your outlook for capital deployment looking forward? I think you got to ask the question a little bit previously, but do you see like long-term needs for build-out of incremental capacity here?

Alan Andreini, Head of Investor Relations, FTAI Aviation Ltd.: I would turn it around a little bit differently. We expect to continue to expand our capacity, but we’re doing so in a way that’s not, you know, it doesn’t cost a lot of money. If you look at the other deals we’ve done in Rome or in Miami, we’re adding a meaningful amount of capacity, but the total investment’s like $20 million or $30 million. I have to apologize that it’s not bigger, but it’s not, we’re not trying to invest more capital. We’re trying to get more capacity at the best price. We will continue to do that. On the M&A, you know, repair side, equally, the deals we’ve done are extremely accretive, and then not a lot of dollars invested to get in the business.

When we look at a part or a repair activity, we try to evaluate all the different ways we could get into that. We look at companies that could be for sale. We look at building it organically in Montreal or Rome. We look at partnering with other people. We’ve done all of the above. We just try to find the best way in and the way that has the most accretive effect on our business. We’re sort of very flexible, but thus far, the opportunities we’ve found have been extremely attractive from a return perspective and not required a lot of capital.

David Moreno, Chief Operating Officer, FTAI Aviation Ltd.: Okay. I appreciate that, Joe. Angela, can you walk us through what you think is the right sustainable level of maintenance CapEx and maybe reinvestment in the leasing business as we look forward?

Angela Nam, Chief Financial Officer, FTAI Aviation Ltd.: As mentioned, as you can see, our maintenance CapEx this year is targeted to about $125 million. Going forward, we expect that it will maintain similar levels. The replacement CapEx, we don’t expect that to increase as well. As we’ve mentioned, most of all of our SCI work that we’ll do with the engines are structured as exchanges where we would give a serviceable engine and get an unserviceable engine back. The replacement CapEx, we don’t expect to be expensive going forward either.

David Moreno, Chief Operating Officer, FTAI Aviation Ltd.: Okay, thank you.

Marvin, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Ken Herbert of RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Alan Andreini, Head of Investor Relations, FTAI Aviation Ltd.: Yeah. Hi, good morning. Joe, maybe to start, can you just provide an update on where you are on the V2500 program? I know you’d initially committed to or procured access to, I think, 100 full performance restoration shop visits. How’s that going? Where are you on that pipeline?

Yeah, we’re about halfway through. What are we? Two years into it now? Two years in of a five-year deal. We’re about halfway in terms of the volume, and it’s going quite well. I mean, that engine is a more expensive engine to do a performance restoration on, as we all know and by design. The demand is incredible because of the continuing saga of the GTF grounding. There’s been a huge life extension. We have a lot of operators that are very eager to avoid the shop visit, and that’s exactly what we deliver to them. We expect that it will continue. At some point in the next couple of years, we’ll talk about an extension or other alternatives, but we’re going to stay in that engine.

Okay. That’s helpful. I know the percentage of work that has flown through or the revenues within aerospace products dedicated to the SCI has bounced around, and I can appreciate timing is a piece of that. As you think out a couple of years and SCI, you know, subsequent versions continue to attract capital, how much of the aerospace products segment or revenue do you think eventually is SCI-related? How do you view sort of a natural cap on that?

The way you have a natural cap is to continue to grow third-party business because the SCI business will grow, but we’re also expanding the third-party business at really a very similar clip. I expect it to be roughly 20% to 25% of, you know, FTAI Aviation’s business for the foreseeable future. The answer is, you know, grow both of them.

Okay, thank you.

Yep.

Marvin, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. This concludes the question and answer session. I’ll now turn it back to Alan Andreini for closing remarks.

Alan Andreini, Head of Investor Relations, FTAI Aviation Ltd.: Thank you, Marvin. Thank you all for participating in today’s conference call. We look forward to updating you after Q4.

Marvin, Conference Call Operator: Thank you for your participation in today’s conference. This concludes the program. You may now disconnect.

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