Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Alliance Aviation Services Ltd. June 2024 Results. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation, followed by a question-and-answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Stewart Tully, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.
Good morning, all. I'm Stewart Tully, CEO of Alliance Aviation Services. Welcome to our results presentation today for FY 2024. Today, with me in the room is our Managing Director, Scott McMillan, our CFO, Marc Devine, and our CFO, who will be starting with Alliance. He's with Alliance now, but will be moving into the CFO role, Andrew Evans. So each of us will talk today or answer questions. Today, we'll walk through the pack that's on the screen. And at the end of it, we'll have some questions and answers. Thank you for attending today. It's extremely pleasing to have the result that Alliance has had, and we'll step that through today, starting with the highlights slide at page number two. So page two, highlights.
Our revenue this year was AUD 646.8 million, a significant increase from the previous year. EBITDA, AUD 178.4 million. Our PBT was slightly above consensus at AUD 86.3 million. Operating cash flows, AUD 109.3 million. Our flight hours, a significant uplift in flight hours, 39% to 104,545 hours. Our operating fleet today, with a mix of Embraer and Fokker aircraft, is 72 aircraft in service today. Moving on to page three, the operational snapshot. So Alliance has been in operation. We're in our 23rd year of operation. We're an Australian-owned company, 98% Australasian-owned company, and our on-time performance for the last financial year was 94%.
Within our fleet, while we mentioned on the first slide, we have 72 operating aircraft, we have 86 aircraft in the fleet. Seven of those 86 are undergoing part-out, as we've advised to the Market. They are E190s in part-out, and seven further aircraft are waiting entry into service. That is where aircraft go through maintenance before they enter service, after we've bought them. We now have 1,413 employees. That's an uplift from last year to undertake that increased activity, predominantly undertaken with operational staff, pilots, cabin crew, engineers. Our Market capitalization as of the 27 of August was AUD 473 million. Moving on to page number four. Our revenue streams. As you will see from the revenue streams on the page, four primary revenue streams.
Contract charter revenue, that is, those flights are operated on behalf of the resource sector, and the important thing to note with these contracts and all of these flying contracts, they're all operated under long-term contracts. It's a real strength of Alliance that our contracts are long-term, and we'll see that in further slides, in the pack. With our charter revenue, we did see growth in revenue of 4% and an increase in flight hours of 5% compared to FY 2023. The charter Market is strong, and we added one new client during 2024. A very pleasing outcome of last year was seven major contract renewals were completed during 2024. Wet lease revenue, this is where Alliance provides services to major airlines in Australia.
Alliance provide the aircraft, crew, the maintenance, and the insurance. Our wet lease revenue grew by AUD 102 million to AUD 266 million or up 62%. Flying hours were 73,116 in 2024. The revenue from wet lease included 26 E190s, operating on contracted wet lease operations for Qantas. With the Qantas contract, we expect four additional aircraft to come into service in the first half of this year. Other contracted wet lease hours also increased during the year. Ad hoc charter, which is another important revenue stream for Alliance, continued to be stable in 2024. However, we did have a reduction in available capacity due to the demand for contract and wet lease services.
As we continue to add aircraft into our fleet, we will have available capacity to drive additional ad hoc charter. Another part of our business, Alliance Aviation Services, reported increased revenues during 2024 to AUD 29.4 million. Aviation Services is a combination of areas such as airport management, ground handling services, and parts sales. The parts sales Market was extremely active during last year, particularly for engine sales, which we capitalized on and we have announced during the year. Moving on to page five, Operational Metrics. This page here outlines a little bit more detail on what we just spoke about in regard to our increased activity. So moving through from the top, Fokker aircraft continue to be in service as of June 2024, 37 aircraft.
The aircraft in service from Embraer is 35 aircraft, up four from last year, and an important point to note, while it's only four aircraft in service from Embraer from last year, the activity increases in the wet lease that we can see there on the flight hours, is where we've driven that growth. Our RPT flight hours, they have reduced slightly, which we are fine with, because we do want to focus on the contracted and wet lease operations, along with ad hoc charter. Flight hours for maintenance, those hours are simply aircraft being delivered from the U.S. as part of our aircraft transactions. As you can see, our total flying hours increased significantly from 75,000 hours to 104,000 hours, which is a great achievement for Alliance.
Our staff numbers, up from twelve hundred to fourteen hundred staff. On the right-hand side of that presentation, that gives a bit of a visual cue on the change in the contracted revenue as a total percentage of revenue and income for, moved up from... Sorry, moved down. Contract revenue went from 58% to conversely, on the bottom part of the slide, wet lease jumped up from 32% to 41%. I'll hand over to Marc now, our CFO, to talk about the financial summary.
Thanks, Stewart. Good morning, everybody. I will just run through the highlights of the various statements in the account, so we'll start on slide seven on the income statement. I'll probably just call out the main items. Obviously, the biggest mover on the revenue side, as Stewart's alluded to, was the wet lease revenue, up 63%, from the previous year as additional aircraft were deployed in the fleet as a whole, and more aircraft were added to the Qantas flying, which is at a high utilization, thus bringing in more revenue.
In the contract spaces, we mentioned we added one new client in the year, and we had an uplift of annualized impacts of previous years of both additional clients and margins from that, rollovers of contracts in the period, up by 4%, but still a good outcome. Charter revenue remains consistent, in as per the previous year, again, as capacity restraints are still with us, and we hope to be able to bring some further capacity in the future years for that. Dry lease revenue, again, just to note, it's a bit of an accounting standard oddity that the dry lease revenue is actually recognized as other income, not as revenue, and that was AUD 8.9 million for the year, with 3 aircraft still deployed on dry lease.
Finance costs have increased, obviously, as we've drawn down debt to fund the AerCap and Azorra aircraft transactions. Depreciation obviously will increase as we've moved to high utilization and more flight hours and additional aircraft come into the fleet. We do, pardon me, recognize the tax expense, even though we're still forecasting the tax payable, mainly due to our maintenance programs and how that works from a tax perspective. It won't be payable until 2026. I'll move over to the statement of financial position on slide eight. Again, just a few things to call out here.
The first one we've tried to make very clear through the whole document is that we have and did identify initially 11 of the AerCap aircraft as part-out aircraft, and we reduced that to seven during the year. Those seven aircraft are treated as inventory for accounting purposes. So therefore, in inventory and subsequently, operating cash flow, we have AUD 84.5 million of aircraft that have been purchased for the sole purpose of part-out, parts sales, engine sales, or consumption as parts. So that explains a lot of the inventory increase during the year, and obviously, offsetting that is, you know, where we've sold parts and consumed ourselves.
Likewise, the PP&E increase for the year is a result of the acquisition of seven aircraft as part of the AerCap growth program we've got going. And in addition to that, again, the movement of engines, particularly from inventory to the operating fleet, as and when we've needed to use those. Trade payables are up slightly in the half, and it's really to do with the timing thing around thirty June, which was a Sunday this year. So we held a lot of accruals for payroll and other things that normally would have been paid in the month, but that's dropped off from July onwards.
Just the leave liabilities have increased, mainly as a result of CPI increases that get passed through in our EAs once a year to pilots, cabin crew, engineers, and others. The borrowings for the year increased from—or the non-current borrowings increased from AUD 227 million to AUD 329 million in the year as a result of paying for 14 additional aircraft and the deposit on a hangar here at Brisbane Airport. Pleasingly, the net debt as at June 30 was AUD 305.9 million, which I think is a bit lower than expectation. We'll move on to slide nine, which is the cash flow statement.
So again, as per my previous comment on the balance sheet, in operating cash flows, and we've actually separated it out as a line item in this presentation, AUD 84.5 million are spent on part-out aircraft. So if you add that back to the net cash inflow from operating activities, the underlying result, if you like, is AUD 110 million of operating cash flow, which is a fantastic result for the business. Not really much else to talk about in the cash flow statement. Obviously, PP&E has gone up, as a result of paying for both fleet expansion aircraft, maintenance on the existing Fokker fleet and Embraer fleet, as well as AUD 23.2 million on the Rolls-Royce engine program.
And pleasingly, the Rockhampton hangar facility has completed construction during the year, with AUD 1.7 million got spent on that, and that'll be all that's required there for the future. So it's very, very happy to have that facility completed. And then the only other call-out is the proceeds from borrowings. So in the half, we borrowed AUD 59 million to fund those aircraft and ferry flights and maintenance costs, to get those aircraft as quickly as we can in the fleet. We'll continue on to slide 10, please. So the capital expenditure program, obviously, it's still very significant with acquiring aircraft and getting them into service. But during the year, we had 15 maintenance events on the Fokker fleet and seven on the current E190 fleet.
As far as base maintenance checks are concerned, I think that was at the end of the year, and the result was as per forecast at the half year. Obviously, as more aircraft are added to the fleet and utilization increases, checks are gonna be required sooner, which is definitely, I think, what we've seen in FY 2024, especially with the Fokker fleet, you know, being utilized more on the wet lease services. Now, the Rolls-Royce Tay 650 program costs increased as a result of utilization, so they're on the engines on the F100 frames. So again, you know, a lot of work this year, so that utilization increased, but again, in line with expectations at the half year.
And that'll continue for the first half of this year, and the program ceases from 1 January 2025. We do have some, in the future, some engine shop visits for some of the 620s, plus a contingency there for some of the 650s, if required. And then we've got the growth CapEx program, which on this slide, I've actually brought in, as opposed to previous versions of this, previous rounds, I've brought in the acquisition costs of the E190 program, so they're all on one page now. So you can see there for FY 2024, the Embraer program, being Azorra and AerCap, was an AUD 56.3 million cost, and forecasting out in FY 2025 to AUD 351 million.
But that'll be 12 E190s acquired during that year. And the gross capital expenditure also includes the additional cost of acquiring hangars here at Brisbane Airport, which will future-proof the operation, as they can take E190s, whereas our existing hangar can't at the moment. So that's in there at AUD 10 million for the next. Sorry, AUD 15 million for the next financial year. If we just pop over the page to slide 11, please. So slide 11 is just a summary of our approved debt funding facilities. I think at the half year, we sort of mentioned that the aircraft acquisition program had a cost range of between AUD 300 million and AUD 336 million for the final 28 aircraft.
The current average cost per aircraft is at the top of that range, and obviously, you know, we continue to reiterate that the higher the cost equals more value to the business, either in dollar value from a resale perspective or longer-term utilization perspective. Post 30 June, we increased our available facilities by AUD 150 million to fund aircraft and other capital acquisitions, mainly being the hangar. AUD 50 million will be drawn down in August to fund aircraft as and when required, and then the balance of AUD 100 million can be utilized for aircraft settlements as we go along. If there's a need to draw down, we can.
If we've got operating cash flow that's coming through the business that can, you know, sustain paying for an aircraft, then we'll use that and leave the draw down for a later time. Very flexible arrangement. The current E190 acquisition program, for aircraft only is expected to be AUD 140 million in FY 2025, and AUD 90 million in FY 2026, and then it stops from there, thereon. The leverage ratio, post AASB 16, is forecast to peak at 2.4 x in December 2024, and then will reduce from that point forward. Total facility limits available to us will be AUD 487 million as of the 28th of August, and that's very important to have that. That's the top of the range, the amount that is there if we need to utilize it.
If we don't need to utilize it, it'll just sit there as an untapped facility. And then the last one, net debt to reduce once aircraft purchases have been completed and operating cash flows continue to increase. And I think that's me done. I'll hand over to Scott McMillan to talk about the growth.
Thanks, Marc. Good morning, everyone. We're now up to page 13. As Marc said, it is that we continue on with our E190 fleet expansion. There's four aircraft to be called up by Qantas between now and December. And those aircraft are coming into the fleet. At the close of the financial year, we had 20 aircraft left to settle. That's now, as of last night, was 19, and as of tonight, will be 17. So we're settling two aircraft today. As those of you were around at the half year will know, the aviation Market worldwide is very, very bullish in terms of companies out looking for capacity.
So we committed, obviously, early last year to purchase the thirty aircraft from AerCap. It's a decision that with the benefit of hindsight is looking better and better every month. We did in the aviation services part of the business sell five engines during the year. And again, those that follow aviation will know that there is a significant shortage of engines worldwide. Alliance has obviously benefited from that and will benefit from that in the new financial year. So looking at that table, which we think is pretty self-explanatory, and we can answer questions shortly on all of that. The goal is to have all thirty aircraft from AerCap delivered by June of 2026.
As Marc said earlier, seven of those will be parked out and will come through the books, in inventory and give us inventory to sell to other Embraer operators to consume ourselves, either in line operations or in base maintenance and engines, which will be a very important part of our aviation services business going forward. That's the E190 fleet expansion. Now, in terms of strategy and outlook, we've worked really, really diligently here to. Sorry, that's on page 14. We've worked very diligently here over the last six months to get those new debt funding facilities in place. Puts the company in a very, very strong position. We've solved for the future funding with plenty of headroom.
Well, obviously, we don't release our covenants, but all of our forecasts show us very in a very, very conservative position with our debt, which we'll, again, we can talk to shortly, if you wish. So our strategy here is very much unchanged. We've got significant growth. We are turning away business here and there. We are moving fleet from Queensland to Western Australia. We'll be building up our Embraer operations here in Queensland and strengthening our Fokker operations in Western Australia. And we'll be growing again with those four additional aircraft going into Qantas. We do also have a number of people looking at buying some aircraft from us, which will be Embraers, not Fokkers.
We're very close to finalizing the dry lease of the two additional E190s. Our goal is to be boring. As always, we think we run a pretty simple business. We've seen a whole lot of turmoil in aviation, not only just here in Australia, but around the world. We think our business model has been well-tested over the last 23 years. We don't see any change to any need to change that. We'll just be doing what we're doing, growing our fleet, growing our earnings, cash flow, and then ultimately reducing our debt very, very quickly. That's really the strategy and outlook.
If we, if we just go to the sort of last few pages, we won't spend a lot of time on this, so going to page 16 . They're all of our FIFO routes that we operate. For those that don't know us, one of the great advantages that Alliance has over any other FIFO operator is that we've never been scared of geography. So we have operating bases in Cairns, Townsville, Rockhampton, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, and up in Darwin. In terms of page seventeen, moving on to the flights we operate for other people, which obviously is predominantly Qantas and Virgin. There's a map there. I don't need to explain that to you, but there'll be more routes added to that, obviously, during the course of the next four months.
If we go to page 18, again, just referring back to a comment that Stewart made earlier. We did renew seven of our major contracts during the course of the year, and in this current financial year, FY25, we only have one contract running to expiry, which we're very confident of retaining, and again, for those that haven't been following us for a long period of time, it's the best forward commitments that we've ever had, so it's put us in the strongest position. All those contracts have been tested. They were all renewed on better terms, and with some of the world's number one mining company with BHP, and all the top shelf mining organizations.
In that space, there's still plenty of room for us to grow. As Marc said, we picked up one new fairly significant contract during the year. You haven't seen the full year effect of that yet, but you will in FY 2025. And the relationship that we have with all of our customers, some go back to the start, even the start of the business, back 23 years ago. So it's a, it's a, that's probably in the pack we've put up today, that's a very, very significant achievement. Moving on to page 19. We've put our commodity exposure graph back in at the request of a number of you. The... and I'll just talk to a couple of points on there.
It's well chronicled that nickel's in decline. We have a very large nickel customer in Nickel West. We've flagged to the Market already what that means to us. We obviously have a very close relationship with BHP. Their advice to us is that that will continue to fly to the Nickel West operations in Western Australia for a very long time to come, as those mines are put into care and maintenance. With the demand we've got in Western Australia, we already have a number of non-customers knocking on our door to see whether we can have that capacity available to them.
And we have other parts of BHP asking whether we can transfer some of that capacity across. I think it's worth noting that with BHP releasing their results earlier in the week, they well flagged what they regard the future as. And you can see that copper has a very, very significant part to play in BHP's future. We, of course, fly to the largest copper mine in the country being Olympic Dam. And we're already seeing demand for increased services out of Adelaide over to Olympic Dam. So that's the contract exposure. Our largest exposure now is gold, as you from a commodity expo.
If we move over to page 20, I'll just come back to Stewart, from an operational perspective in terms of our OTP and safety.
Okay. On-time performance has been a strength of Alliance for many years, and we're very proud of that. During FY 2024, I think we dropped a small percentage point there, which with the increase in utilization of additional 25,000 hours put some challenges among us. But we are well on the way to putting steps in place to get back to where we need to be. On the safety certification side, we continue to hold both our BARS certification, gold standard, and the highest standard in the aviation, the IOSA IATA Operational Safety Audit, and we're very proud to hold that. I think we're Australia's only regional airline to hold that safety certification. I think that's it.
Yep. So, I'm open to any questions for the moderator there.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star, then one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star, then two. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. The first question today comes from Phil Chippindale with Ord Minnett. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, gentlemen. Thanks for your time. Firstly, just on aircraft deployment over the next sort of 6- 12 months, obviously you've highlighted that Qantas will take the next four aircraft, I think, this half. Can you just tell us, you know, what the timeframe for when those go to Qantas? And then secondly, just bringing aircraft from inventory into the active fleet, especially over this next six months. Can you just walk us through when those are likely to happen, please?
So for the deployment of the Qantas aircraft, we will see two aircraft go to Qantas in mid-September. We'll see a further one to Qantas towards the back end of October, and the final thirtieth aircraft to Qantas in mid-December. What was the second one?
Second question, was just wondering when inventory aircraft are gonna become active?
I think, Phil. Additionally, aircraft closure sending aircraft across to Qantas will probably happen towards the second half to the latter end of the financial year. And the reason on the face, it might look like it's a slower deployment, but also at the same time, we are actually shuffling out our dry lease aircraft around. So the three aircraft that are currently on dry lease to Airn orth, we need those back to give to Qantas, and then we need to give Airn orth their three aircraft back for dry lease.
So there is a shuffle that we are doing, which basically takes, you know, an aircraft or three aircraft out of service or out of being able to go into service at a point in time, because, you know, you've got to take one out, repaint it, do a small maintenance check on it, then send it out. So, I think any additional, you know, any real additional increase in the fleet, will sort of be weighted towards the second half of the year.
Okay, thanks. Scott, you mentioned earlier the potential sale of a few Embraers. Can you tell us, you know, how many you'd be looking to transact in, and when would you be in a position to perhaps update us on this?
Oh, I think that's imminent, Phil. Look, it's. I think we, and if we go back to comments Stewart made earlier, and it is, and sort of flows through the financial statements, we were going to part out 11 of these aircraft. It should be remembered, too, that the reason we, the main reason we did this transaction with AerCap is that the engines on these aircraft are in very, very good order and come straight out of a General Electric program. So when we looked at our future engine requirements, it made a lot of sense to go for all 30.
When the demand for aircraft both for our own use and use elsewhere in the world became more apparent, we changed the number of aircraft from part-out from 11 down to seven, so it's narrowed it, obviously, another four aircraft. We do have people knocking on the door all the time wanting to buy either engines or airframes or both from us. A number of these aircraft are lower serial numbers, and it does make sense for us to sell the airframes and retain the engines. We do have a number of organizations talking to us at the moment, but we're getting to the pointy end of that. You can expect something fairly soon.
Okay, thanks. I noticed you picked up another Fokker that's looking to go to the active fleet. Where are you looking to deploy that aircraft?
That aircraft we bought from Virgin. It's still in Virgin colors, strangely, Phil. And it's gonna be deployed here in Brisbane, in Queensland, on Virgin services.
Okay, thanks.
So they'll effectively be wet leasing it back from us.
Right. Just on the debt facility, and congratulations on the expanded facility. Can you just talk us through the pricing of that compared to the existing setup?
Marc?
Yeah. So I think we probably alluded to it in the ASX release. Obviously, back in April, we announced the standby facility with AerCap. That was at a higher cost, which is why we sort of thought, you know, better outcome is to go back to our existing financiers and see what we could do with them, which we did, and we're very happy that we did that. On the cost side of things, there's not a real great difference in cost. So the ANZ is at the same cost, same margin levels for the whole lot. There's no real or there's no increase there.
And the Pricoa amount is sort of, you know, we've had chunks in the past that are a little bit lower, and we've had chunks in the past a little bit higher. So averaged overall, there, I don't think there's gonna be any increase in the cost of that debt, compared to what we're sort of currently carrying.
Okay, thanks. I'll jump back in the queue.
Thanks, Phil.
The next question comes from Wayne Arthur, a private investor. Please go ahead.
Good morning. At the last AGM, the chair said that the board would be continuing to monitor the company's capital position, but recognizes that dividends are a key component of shareholder ongoing investment and interest in the company. Now, to me, that statement seemed like a pretty big hint. Now, this year, the company's earned a very decent profit, and congratulations on all of that. But what happened to the dividend? And if not now, when?
That's Marc Devine here. Thanks, Wayne. I think as far as dividends go, we've still got this, which I alluded to earlier, in a capital program that could be up to AUD 338 million. To fund that, and we have gotten the highest level of cost per aircraft in all our modeling, just to make sure we don't have to go back to a financier, and, you know, we're at the top end of it. We have to settle those commitments first, and that is adding more capital value to the company and Market value, rather than dividends. We understand that.
However, it is still the board's intention that once we are through the capital program, that the capital gets distributed to where, you know, to where it should rightly go, post that, and they're still very keen on dividends, but it won't be for 12 or 18 months at this stage.
Okay, thanks.
The next question comes from Jarrod Lucas with ABC News. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning. Just touching on the Nickel West contract, you indicated it could be ahead of AUD 8-9 million in earnings over the next two financial years. Just wanted to confirm that's still the, still the case, given it's well over a month since the news of the care and maintenance hit. And just wanted to ask on how many flights you're likely to reduce to, given it's 24 round trips currently to Mount Keith and Leinster, once that care and maintenance period takes effect from October?
Thanks for that. Look, we're still yet to hear confirmed details from BHP Nickel West on what their plans are. We are very much aware of what we've released so far, but there will be a reduction in the BHP Nickel West, but what that looks like and the actual timings are yet to be confirmed from BHP Nickel West.
I think, Jarrod, to Marc here, as well, I think in that number you quoted, I think that was our worst case. If they pulled all the flights, that would be what the impact was. But I think we alluded to in the presentation, you know, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursdays in WA are still the busiest flying days over there, and we have clients that would absorb any of that capacity that was reduced if Nickel West did cancel flights. So we are confident. You know, these things don't happen overnight, and you can't, you know, stop one day and start another day on short notice.
But, we think Nickel West will wind down a few flights, and then we'll be able to just distribute those to other clients, or new clients that may want those services.
Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
The next question comes from Declan Carroll with Wilsons Advisory. Please go ahead.
Morning, guys. Just a question on D&A for Marc, maybe. Just going forward, how much are you expecting D&A to go up for the group? And then, if possible, are you able to quantify how much you're expecting to allocate to the Rockhampton and Brisbane hangar over FY 2025 and FY 2026?
Thanks, Declan. Good question. I think D&A moving forward, I think where we're sitting today on a per average, you know, if you did it over per aircraft in service, type scenario, I think you'll probably have a small increase, you know, on that maybe 5%, moving forward as utilization increases. As far as Rocky goes, it's a question I actually have to. We'll have to get back to you on.
It'll depreciate it over the period of the lease, which is-
Yeah.
30 years.
Thirty years. Over 30 years.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay. Yeah, so quite a while.
Net, net, net AUD 21 million, Declan, over 30 years.
Yeah.
Yeah. No, that's good. Thanks for that.
Just whilst we're on hangars, Declan, the hangar that we're talking to you from now, which is in our books, fully depreciated. It is actually on the Market, and I think we've flagged that as well. We had a number of people come through interested in purchasing it. And we've made a commitment to Airbus to buy their two hangars here at Brisbane Airport, which were previously used for helicopter manufacture or assembly. And they're next door to us. So we've had this great opportunity to put a smaller hangar on the Market and buy two larger hangars that are actually next door. So that gives us great flexibility from now right out into the future.
Yeah. No, that's good color. And then maybe just more broadly, just sort of your thoughts on what you guys are seeing in the industry in general. Like we've seen, obviously, the news flow, Rex going into administration. We've seen Virgin take delivery of some Embraer jets to replace their aging Fokkers. So yeah, maybe just some color on what you guys are seeing in the industry and sort of your thoughts on the recent news flow.
Yeah. On Rex, obviously, we don't operate regular public transport apart from four flights a week between Brisbane and Moranbah. If we didn't have to do them for a customer commitment, we wouldn't. So RPT, regular public transport, is not our game. That's why we've had, you know, we've had such good financial results over the years. We stay away from anything that has load factor risk. Rex got themselves into a whole bunch of bother. I think very clearly from our read, their intercity business with Boeing 737s was predicated on Virgin not being there. And of course, Virgin survived and came out of administration under the Bain ownership, and the result is history.
Their regional services, which are being continued to operate with Saab aircraft. They've got 60 Saabs, only 30 of which are serviceable. It's not something we're remotely interested in, despite media comment to the contrary. So yeah, Rex, yep, you know, we can sit here and predict that. In terms of Virgin announcing that they may acquire the E190-E2s. If that does eventuate, that will be a something that will come to fruition in early 2026. I think it's worth noting that if you wind the clock back, pre-administration, Virgin had 14 Fokker 100s in service. They've now got three. So they've actually reduced their fleet very substantially in Western Australia.
And if they proceed with these aircraft, that's something that they will use for FIFO and RPT in Western Australia. So we're not remotely concerned by that. And the other thing worth noting is the E190-E2 is a very, very significant capital cost differential between our F100s and E190s, which will eventually replace Fokkers in Western Australia, but not before 2030. So it's a very, very high capital cost aircraft, so not quite sure how the operating economics work. But then in terms of the industry generally, you know, I think that from our perspective, in terms of supply lines and so on, it's slowly getting better. Lead times on getting components back from overseas are shortening.
So I think it's fair to say we're probably 95% recovered from the COVID era, and by the next time we report the half year, I'd say we'd be almost at 100%.
Yeah. No, that's good color. I'll hop back in the queue. Thanks, guys.
Okay. Thanks, Declan.
Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star then one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. The next question comes from Billy Bolton with Morgans. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Appreciate all the color you've given on your debt profile, but do you mind just speaking about how you expect the business to deleverage from there, just broadly over 2025, 2026 and 2027?
Yeah, Billy, it's Marc here. Again, and I'm gonna keep reiterating this because I think it's important. You know, we you know heard the feedback at the half year, obviously. And I think as we've ended up today, are in a really good spot. Again, we've gone and obtained facilities for the maximum amount that these aircraft could cost us. As we sit today, as I said in my presentation, they're are still at the higher end of that range. But I would suggest, and this is based on probably a bit of gut alone, that as we get to the back end of the aircraft settlements, there's gonna be some there that are less valuable, so cheaper in cost.
So again, you know, as far as the debt profile goes, we've gone facilities at the higher end. We think we'll come in under that, just due to the profile of the cost of the aircraft changing. And then obviously what happens with, I guess, in the main aviation services, you know, if we do a couple of big things there, that'll also reduce the debt profile quite quickly. Let's go the other case, say we do utilize the whole of the facility. Come that last delivery, the cash flow then stops going out to fund growth and fund acquisitions and instead just comes back, straight back into the bank account.
So I think in FY 2027, the company will be well positioned to be sitting on cash that, you know, it then decides what it needs to do, whether it's, you know, debt reduction or dividends or a bit of both, or one or the other. So I think, you know, I think everyone that knows Alliance can see that the growth is there, the growth is coming, the growth is now returning, operating cash flow. We're currently using that operating cash flow to fund some of the aircraft transactions as well, but once it stops, the cash flow coming in will be substantial, and then it's up to the board to decide, you know, whether they want to deliver or deliver quickly or pay dividends and deliver a little bit.
And I think at that time, you know, there was a discussion yesterday at the board meeting around what's the ideal, you know, debt limit and leverage sort of aspect. And obviously, you know, we want to get under those two as quickly as we can, but sort of, you know, somewhere between one point seven five and two is probably a fairly, you know, good range moving forward, so.
No, that's great. And yeah, your cash flows, they're improving nicely, obviously, as your earnings grow. But you know, there's still a bit of a working capital drag, I assume, as you bring on these new aircraft. Do you expect that sort of to improve going forward as well?
I think it's a working capital drag. I mean, to get the aircraft in, we obviously, you know, do spend the maintenance to get them in, the ferry flights, the painting the aircraft, which is all bundled into that capital commitment. I think from an operating cash flow and working capital perspective, you know, once we get these last four aircraft in at Qantas, we really do move into a business-as-usual type regime for adding an aircraft in and getting crew to flight and all the rest of it.
So I think the working capital side of it, which has been there in the past, sort of, you know, two or two and a bit years, will sort of drop away from, you know, from sort of now onwards, with aircraft coming in, last four aircraft coming in for Qantas. So I think all in all, you know, where we sit today with the facilities that we've got available, the working cash, the operating cash flow coming through now that can help fund some of these assets to, you know, keep a lid on the debt, you know, is a pretty positive outcome for the capital growth of the company in the future.
Okay. That's perfect. Thanks, guys.
Thanks, Billy.
Thanks, Billy.
There are no further questions at this time, and I'll hand the call back to Mr. Tully for closing remarks.
Great. Thank you all for attending today's results presentation. It was great that you could all come along. I do want to note a special thanks to all of our staff, suppliers, and customers for all their efforts to get to this result for Alliance Aviation Services, and a special thank you to all of our shareholders for your support. Have a great day.
Thank you.
Thank you all.
Thank you.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.