Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Bombardier Third Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. Please be advised that this call is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the discussion over to Mr. Francis Richer de la Flèche, Vice President, FP&A and Investor Relations for Bombardier. Please go ahead, Mr. Richer de la Flèche.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Bombardier's earnings call for the third quarter ended September 30, 2021. I wish to remind you that during the course of this call, we may make projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or the financial performance of the corporation. There are risks that actual events or results may differ materially from these statements. For additional information on forward-looking statements and underlying assumptions, please refer to the MD&A. I am making this cautionary statement on behalf of each speaker on this call. With me today is our President and Chief Executive Officer, Éric Martel, and our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Bart Demosky, to review our operations and financial results for the third quarter of 2021. I would now like to turn over the discussion to Éric.
Alors merci beaucoup, Francis. Bonjour et bienvenue à tous. Thank you for joining us this morning. I am delighted to share that the Bombardier team once again delivered a solid quarter. The team executed our plan very well and delivered on our commitment across the board. When we last spoke three months ago, we raised guidance based on our solid execution to date and favorable market conditions. Today, we are well on track to meet that raised guidance. Before Bart and I go into Bombardier's financial details, I wanna take a moment to congratulate and thank the National Business Aviation Association for bringing our industry back together in person earlier this month. Bombardier was proud to attend and witness firsthand the industry's enthusiasm.
Most importantly, our new Challenger 3500 jet was very well received, and this comes at great moment in time. This plane is a clear example of how our investment in product development can bring significant value to customers in a measured and disciplined way. Our order book is filling up fast for the Challenger 3500. Its strong value proposition and market-leading status was cemented by a 20-aircraft firm order closed in Q3. Our unit book-to-bill ratio remains very healthy, having reached approximately 1.7 this past quarter. That contributed to our backlog increasing by approximately $500 million to $11.2 billion. This momentum also translated to a 17% year-over-year increase in business jet related revenue, reaching $1.4 billion in Q3. Flying hours in the industry continue to trend positively.
Toward the end of the summer, we observed levels surpassing 2019. This has also led to an increased top-line contribution from our higher-margin service business. On services, our infrastructure expansion is progressing well, smoothly. We are also looking beyond brick-and-mortar solution to diversify and grow. Digital application like Smart Link Plus and our recently signed MoU with Signature Aviation all will play a part in maximizing our earnings potential and meeting our long-term service revenue objectives. That growth is also occurring with sustainability top of mind. Sustainable aviation fuels, for example, are a significant factor in our collaboration with Signature, but our approach will go well beyond that. In fact, it has been detailed in our newest Environmental, Social, and Governance report we published just yesterday.
The report charts our path to emission reduction and best practices to ensure we lead all facets of sustainability by example, locally and within our industry at large. Communities in which we operate are a key focus. Staying on the topic of our service growth, we are hiring technicians via relationship we have with many technical college across the world. We are also seizing opportunities to retrain and redeploy staff as we are doing in Wichita, for example. Wichita has been a strong aviation ecosystem, and we will continue to contribute to its health. Beyond giving production staff new career opportunities in our service network, the site has also been selected to serve as our main hub or center of excellence for our special mission modification offering. We will leverage our engineering talent to deliver more success stories similar to the BACN program with the U.S. Air Force.
Turning back to our overall business, I can tell you today that we are in the right place. We are delivering consistently on what we set out to do, especially when it comes to deleveraging the balance sheet. Bart will detail our specific actions in his remarks in a few minutes. For now, I would like to simply express how pleased I am with the team behind this. We cleared the debt maturity runway on plan and with meaningful cash interest savings. We had a very positive response on the market and have given ourselves flexibility to manage our business. As we continue on to the next phase of our capital structure plan, we will remain opportunistic. We are working toward our 2025 objective to reach a net debt leverage ratio of approximately 3x.
We are confident in getting to these levels while remaining disciplined and strategic with our product investment. We have done well in cascading technology from programs like the Global 7500 to the entire Global family, and now the Challenger 3500. This type of ingenuity will further help maintain our product portfolio at the top of a very competitive landscape. Flexibility and focus are really key going forward. Flexibility will also come into play as we monitor the worldwide supply chain. It is clear the world is facing pressure when it comes to transportation of goods or securing labor, not to mention fluctuating costs and availability of raw materials. I can happily report we have not seen any assembly line interruptions, but this is not by luck. It is hard work.
Today, we are deploying more staff to suppliers' sites to maintain clear visibility as far up our supply chain as possible. We are not waiting for issues to reach us, and the team is extremely proactive and vigilant. We see a lot of tension in the system that does not seem to go away. We will remain very cautious and conservative throughout 2022. With regards to the short term, the good news is we are largely sold out and have everything we need in stock through to next year. The people I mentioned we are sending into the regions will help us deal with any longer-term threat. Again, vigilant and a proactive approach are key. When it comes to production, ultimately, we need to keep the right balance. We want to avoid adding too much backlog on certain programs.
That's really the equation it comes down to, pricing, supply chain, and backlog. The plan we build is based on stability and consistency, not having to bank on the large market upswing to meet our numbers, whether it's this year or our 2025 objective. We are in a sweet spot right now and continue to benefit from a better pricing environment. Short term, we will not overreact to one market indicator alone or precipitate a major change that would create unnecessary pressure on logistics or the bottom line. When it comes to profitability, we have seen a good acceleration on the Global 7500. The team is doing an excellent job driving the learning curve down, and we have strong visibility on the unit cost of aircraft that will be delivered well into next year. We are very focused on driving what we control.
We have good tailwind on the 75 Global 7,500 learning curve, and we are bringing equal energy and focus to our $400 million recurring saving objective. The last 20% or so of the plan really focuses on productivity gains and our operational excellence program. On that front, we are delighted to welcome back David Murray. His track record and deep understanding of Bombardier will ensure we cement our productivity efforts in a thoughtful and cohesive manner. David will be looking at all facets of our technology infrastructure and company-wide processes to ensure we unlock the most value from lean operating principle. Through this, we will further our continuous improvement mindset, and I look forward to sharing more on this next year. With that, I'll turn it over to Bart to dive deeper into our key performance indicator and balance sheet. Bart?
Thank you, Éric, and good morning, everyone. The last three months have certainly been a very exciting period for Bombardier as we continued to demonstrate solid operational execution, while at the same time making considerable progress towards our strategic objectives. In short, our path forward is clearer than ever. Financially, we had another solid performance, including free cash flow generation of $100 million and sequential EBITDA margin expansion. On the back of this, we are well positioned to meet our 2021 revised guidance on both revenues and profitability. We are already within our objective of better than $300 million free cash flow usage with one quarter to go. Q3 also saw us achieve a major milestone in our deleveraging plan with the clearing of debt maturities through to December of 2024.
We have also made considerable progress on our other key strategic initiatives, which are the building blocks of our 2025 financial objectives. It's important to emphasize that much of our year-over-year margin expansion is the result of our focus on the things we control and not market momentum. We are pleased with our execution to date, and our team remains focused on the work ahead. In particular, the Global 7500 learning curve continues to perform to plan. We remain on track to our objective of 20% unit cost reduction between the 50th and 100th aircraft. In fact, the 100th aircraft, Global 7500, is currently going through interior completion, which means we have excellent visibility on the cost of this aircraft.
Our $400 million cost reduction initiative continues to track ahead of our initial plan, and we are incorporating the remaining transformative initiatives within our ongoing budget and strategic planning process. On services, as flight hours begin to exceed those of 2019, our aftermarket business is reacting as we expected. Our facilities, including the additional footprint we've added, are filling up fast, and our parts and pay-per-hour revenue streams are picking up momentum. We expect aftermarket growth in the coming quarters will continue to be progressive as new facilities become operational. Finally, we have achieved a major milestone in our deleveraging plan with the clearing of debt maturities through to December 2024. Here is where our key debt capital metrics stand today. Gross debt now stands at $7 billion, which represents a full $3 billion reduction since February of this year.
We have increased our average debt years to maturity by approximately 50% from 3.4 years in December 2020 to 5.2 years currently. Annual interest costs have been reduced by more than $225 million on a go-forward basis. Our liquidity position is strong with approximately $1.9 billion of pro forma liquidity at our disposal. Now, while we are very pleased with the steps we have taken to date, we know there is more work to do on our capital structure going forward. That's why we will remain vigilant in our tracking of changing market conditions and be opportunistic in our future capital market transactions. With that, let's move on to our Q3 results, which continued to build on our strong first half performance.
First, total revenues for the quarter reached $1.4 billion, resulting from 27 aircraft deliveries and $310 million in aftermarket revenues. This represents a year-over-year improvement of 17% when adjusting for the impact of the divestitures we made in commercial aviation and aerostructures. Our business aircraft manufacturing year-over-year revenue growth was a result of 3 incremental deliveries and better mix. Large cabin aircraft accounted for a higher content of deliveries, going from 13 in 2020 to 15 in 2021, including 9 Global 7500 aircraft, which puts us on pace for 35 to 40 deliveries for the full year. For the aftermarket business, revenues continued their quarter-over-quarter uptrend, increasing from $295 million in Q2 of last year to $310 million in Q3 of this year. Year-over-year revenues increased by $76 million or 32%.
As flight hours have now recovered from last year's lows, we are seeing activity ramp up across our aftermarket revenue streams in line with our expectations. Divestitures did have an impact when comparing year-over-year reported results. Revenues from aerostructures and commercial aviation accounted for approximately $160 million year-over-year reduction in revenues in Q3, and approximately $740 million year to date. Because the sale of the aerostructures business was concluded in October of last year, we will see a much smaller year-over-year impact in Q4. Moving to earnings, total adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $142 million, representing an EBITDA margin of 9.8%. Adjusted EBIT was $49 million for an EBIT margin of 3.3%.
Our adjusted EBITDA increased $58 million year-over-year, and our EBITDA margins have improved by 380 basis points to 9.8% versus 6% in the same quarter of last year. The year-over-year improvement is attributable to the following factors. First, we have delivered more aircraft with a better delivery mix than last year. On top of this, the Global 7500 aircraft margin contribution, as well as our cost reduction efforts, continue to be a significant tailwind versus 2020. In addition, our aftermarket business contributed to a larger portion of the total revenue, having increased from 17% in Q3 of 2020 to 21% this year. Moving on to free cash flow, we saw a consolidated cash generation of $100 million in Q3.
Inventory levels reduced by approximately $100 million versus the previous quarter, partly offset by lower accounts payable. Advances levels were up $50 million as our unit book-to-bill reached approximately 1.7 x, and our overall backlog grew by $500 million to $11.2 billion. We have also seen meaningful reductions to our interest costs as we started to benefit from the deleveraging actions we have taken. Our cash interest costs, which stood at $101 million, represent a year-over-year improvement of 28% or $39 million for the quarter. As we enter the final stretch of 2021, we are very well positioned to meet our revised full-year guidance. Planned deliveries will increase in Q4 to reach approximately 120 aircraft for the full year, driving incremental revenues and margin conversion.
The Global 7500 learning curve and our cost reduction actions will also continue to contribute incrementally, further expanding our margins versus Q3. Turning to cash flow, our year-to-date performance already meets our full-year guidance. Our focus will continue to be centered on building backlog, so at a minimum, we replenish the advances associated with Q4 aircraft deliveries. Should we see continued strong demand, we will be well positioned to capture it. Cash interest expense will increase in Q4 versus Q3, but will be well below last year's levels given all of the debt repayment actions taken this year. We also do not expect any significant non-recurring expenses. Overall, we are on our way to deliver another positive free cash flow quarter and meet our free cash flow guidance.
In conclusion, we have achieved a great deal so far in 2021 and are confident in maintaining our strong performance through the end of this year as we head into 2022. The longer-term plan we have shared in early March remains on track, and we continue to focus on becoming a more predictable, profitable, and resilient business aviation company. With that, thank you very much, and let me turn it back over to Francis to begin the Q&A session.
Thanks, Bart. I'd like to remind everyone that the Bombardier Investor Relations team is available following the call and in the coming days to answer any questions you may have. With that, we'll open up for questions on the call. Operator?
Thank you. If you have a question, please press star one on your touchtone telephone. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift your handset and then press star one. Should you wish to cancel your question, please press star two. To allocate time for all participants, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Our first question is from Benoit Poirier from Desjardins Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you very much, and good morning, everyone. Could you maybe provide some color about the context of a potential increase in production rate, where we are right now, and maybe talk about the ability for the supply chain to handle a production increase in the current context of global supply chain?
Okay.
Bon matin, Benoit. Good morning, Benoit. Thanks for the question. Clearly, I think we've laid this out clearly at the beginning of the year. Our main objective this year was to rebuild backlog. This is clearly progressing extremely well. We will be remaining prudent, as I just mentioned, and clearly vigilant in our evaluation. I said this is a bit of an equation. You need to consider your backlog. We need to consider what will be the impact on pricing if we increase the rate, and we need to, of course, assess properly the supply chain. We're taking measures on the supply chain, as I mentioned. We are redeploying extra resources right now in order to be proactive. So far, the team has done an amazing job.
We don't have impact right now or minimal impact, so we're feeling pretty good about where we are. This is all about anticipating, you know, issue early in the supply chain that we can resolve today. We're working with our supplier also, we're of course very closely. Of course, we will have, I think, Benoit, in terms of our decision here, further color when I think we provide you with our 2022 guidance in a few months from now, early next year.
Okay. Just for the follow-up, obviously, strong free cash flow performance after nine months versus your current guidance for the year. Just wondering what could maybe drive down free cash flow a bit in Q4, even if it's in the positive territory? Or is the guidance for the year on the free cash flow side overly conservative?
Yeah. Thanks, Benoit. It's Bart here, and good morning. Just a couple of metrics to help kind of shape up the picture. Our year-to-date usage has been $214 million versus our guidance of free cash flow usage of better than $300 million. We're already in a place where we're probably a bit ahead of where we thought we would be. We are staying with guidance. There's obviously still a lot of time to go here in the fourth quarter, but we do tend to see higher new order activity and deliveries in the fourth quarter than we do in the third quarter, typically, at least in past years. This quarter we saw strong new order momentum.
That obviously helped us perform very well on free cash flow. To answer your question on, you know, what might be helpful in the fourth quarter, if we do see another strong quarter of order activity, certainly that would have an impact in a positive direction, as could order mix, if we are selling more of our large aircraft. On the contrary, cash interest cost in Q4 will be higher. That's simply a timing thing on our coupons. We do expect to have a little bit higher CapEx in Q4 than we did in Q3. Hopefully that helps to give a little bit of color, Manuel.
That's great color. Thank you very much for the time.
Merci. Thank you.
Thank you. Our following question is from Myles Walton from UBS. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning, Bart, Éric. Maybe to talk a bit about the Global 7500 margins. Have they turned the corner now in the fourth quarter where we are that they're accretive to the overall EBITDA margins of the enterprise?
Yeah. I can. Right now we are exactly on the right path. As we suggested, you know, early this year, we are seeing our learning curve improving and getting better exactly on plan. Clearly, you know, we had some loss. Now we are in the positive territory, you know, in Q3, and we will be also in Q4. We expect, of course, this to carry on. There's two phenomena. We're getting the learning curve and also launch customer. Also pricing is gonna be improving. All these impact is exactly in line with what we were anticipating earlier this year when we had the Investor Day. Right on track and clearly, we've turned in Q3 as we were expecting on the positive side. Of course that is gonna become more and more positive as we progress.
Okay. Any offsets to that looking to 2022? Obviously, that should be a pretty material margin expander. Any other offsets you'd throw out there?
No, not in this case, Myles. With the 7,500, the visibility that we have on the margin improvement, largely due to the learning curve, is very clear to us. I think as Éric and I both said in our comments, we have great visibility on the 100th aircraft, which is very near the end of its build cycle. We're in a great position, and we see continued steady and progressive margin expansion on the platform.
Okay. I'll leave it at one. Thank you.
Okay. Perfect.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our following question is from Ronald Epstein from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hey. Yeah. Good morning, guys.
Good morning.
Just following up on a couple points. What are you seeing in terms of supply chain, raw materials, labor, that kind of thing? I mean, across industries, those have been factors. Just curious what you're seeing now and how you're thinking about managing that into next year.
We see a couple of things. Clearly there is pressure right now on the logistics. As I mentioned earlier, our guys here have done a fantastic job in, you know, getting through the different port and transportation and everything to get the parts on dock on time here. We're pleased with that, but this is an everyday battle, as you can imagine. Logistics, you know, we will continue to do what we've done. So far we're seeing some small improvement in some area. After, clearly there is availability of raw material and pricing of raw material is also, you know, of course, has an impact and will have an impact. I think it's everybody is facing that right now.
You know, we're well positioned there. We are redeploying extra resources, you know, in the field right now to work with not just the tier one supplier, but also the tier two and tier three supplier by region to make sure. Because one of the the phenomenon also that we are seeing is some of our tier two and tier three supplier are facing, you know, manpower shortages and and challenge to bring people in. We are working with them to make sure that this, in the long run, will not affect our our supply chain. Clearly we are in a very competitive market right now on the supply chain side, you know, not just amongst ourselves in the aerospace industry, with everybody.
Clearly, you know, we have also the majority of our supply chain is based here in North America and Europe, which is probably helpful right now for us, as you know, logistics are a little bit less complex since the beginning of the pandemic, in that regard. We'll be working closely with our supplier and we are already, but we will even beef up our team right now to have better visibility of course into 2022. As I said earlier, so far, you know, we have parts on the dock. We know exactly where this is going in Q4, and we're gonna continue to monitor that situation closely.
Yeah, Ron, it's Bart here. Just one point to maybe build on Éric's response. In addition to all of the work that is being done to address the supply chain challenges, we are seeing as well very constructive pricing on new aircraft orders as well. If we see a situation where higher costs are coming into our supply chain, on the revenue side, things are progressing well.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. Our following question is from Chris Murray from ATB Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Mr. Murray, your line is open. You may proceed with your question. Mr. Murray, we cannot hear you at this time. If you are on a speakerphone, can you pick up the handset or unmute your line?
We'll move to the next question, Monique, and see if Mr. Murray comes back in queue.
Certainly. Our next question will be from Cameron Doerksen from National Bank Financial. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much. Good morning.
Good morning, Cameron.
Just wondered if you could talk a little bit more about the order activity in Q3. Obviously a pretty good book-to-bill. Can you just maybe, you know, touch on, you know, model type, where you're seeing the strongest demand, and also geographically, where you're seeing the demand?
Yeah. That's a very good question. The activity level has been extremely great in North America since the beginning of the year. The positive news here is we've seen and it was fairly slow, I would say, in Q1 and Q2 in Europe, but we've seen a major rebound in Europe in the third quarter. This is positive. We see, you know, basically, North America keeping momentum. We see Europe now since Q3 coming back and Asia remains a little slower. You know, there is activity, but it's been slower than you know, clearly the rest of the world. Clearly related to the borders and restrictions, you know, that they are facing right now that are probably a little bit more strict. We've seen that.
In terms of the order activity, you know, as we were, I would say, readjusting our backlog, you know, rebuilding backlog on some of the program, and you know, we've seen good level activity, to be honest, across the board. For us, Bombardier too, we are seeing good activity level with the fleet operators since the beginning of the year and even late last year it started, which is a positive for us, you know. Because a lot of people coming and using business jet today for the first time or starting to are very often going to the fleet operator. You know that we are, Bombardier extremely well-positioned with the fleet operator.
This is, you know, we're clearly gaining there, in terms of, you know, being able to capitalize on this phenomenon that's happening during the pandemic. We are in a good place. You know, for us, delivering airplane to the fleet operator also is a great news for our service business. You know, an airplane delivered to a fleet operator will fly, I don't know, call it 1,000 hour a year, versus a regular operator will fly 200 hours a year. Of course generating more revenue, for our service business.
Okay. No, that's very helpful. Just if I could just squeeze one very quick one in for Bart. Maybe you can just update us with all the, you know, the various actions you've taken on the balance sheet here, what the run rate interest expense expectation is at this point.
Yeah. By all means, Cameron. We've actually, well, obviously been very, very busy over the last six months. In total, we've repaid or retired approximately $5.2 billion of debt. Debt reduction on a gross basis is down, or is $3 billion in total. We're now sitting at $7 billion of gross debt, with $1.9 billion of pro forma cash on hand. We're in a very good position, that, in that respect as well. Interest run rate interest cost savings from now going forward are going to be about $220, just over $225 million per annum. Hopefully that helps with the question there, Cameron.
Okay. No, that's very helpful. Thanks very much.
Okay, perfect. Thank you.
Thank you. Our following question is from Chris Murray from ATB Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks folks. Apologies earlier. Just looking at the aftermarket business, I was wondering if you could walk through the progression of the development of your facilities and just trying to get a gauge on, you know, your thoughts around your ability to continue to grow the business as we go into next year and in the through 2025.
Yeah. A great question, Chris. Thanks. Clearly, you know, we have a strategy right now of putting in place the capability and capacity, which is not just the brick-and-mortar, but it's also, you know, having the right skill set at the facility. We are ramping up. Our facilities are extremely busy right now. The flying hours are rising across the world, you know, and clearly in the U.S. and even in Europe, it's actually ahead of 2019. The Bombardier planes are flying, our almost 5,000 airplanes flying in the world are pretty busy, which brings work to our facility, which, you know, right now we are looking to grow that capability. As you know, we're building our new facility in Biggin Hill.
We're already there, but we're moving on the other side of the runway with a bigger facility because the business is super busy. We've done the same thing in Singapore. Singapore was actually built like 6 to 7 years ago. Right now we are growing, like, by about 3 to 4 x our square footage over there to be able to accommodate. Clearly the customer wants to come back to the OEM with their airplane. If you're not there, then they can't. If you're around, they will clearly go to our facility. Miami also and the Opa-locka facility in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area is coming together. We should get this up and running sometime next year, which also again will generate new demand for us.
This is amazing, you know, what's happening right now in terms of having that capability available right on time, because we believe that the market, you know, is gonna be flying a lot again next year, and those facilities are coming and becoming available right at the right time for us.
All right. That's helpful. Just one follow-up question. I was wondering if you could just give us a bit of an update on the Learjet program. Appreciating that it's probably winding down, but I'm trying to maybe gauge, you know, should production be complete this year, or should we be expecting some production a little bit into next year?
There will be a few airplanes remaining to deliver in the first quarter next year. That's been the plan. Those airplanes will deliver in Q1. We are you know clearly burning down our work in process right now and the team is fully engaged, the team working on the line right now. We are gonna be redeploying these people you know within the Wichita facility on the service business. Again, our timing is great here because we're you know we're reducing the rate. We're stopping the production and you know the need for you know the right skill set is a challenge right now across the world in a lot of fields.
For us to have the ability to redeploy these employees into our service center in Wichita. Also, as you know, I've mentioned that earlier, we're growing our missionized business quite significantly. I've mentioned as an example, the BACN program from the U.S. Air Force that is in Wichita right now. We are, of course, redeploying people, very capable and talented people we have in Wichita on these programs, which as you know are good revenue generator and EBIT creation for us.
All right. That's helpful. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The following question is from Tim James from TD Securities. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning. Éric, I'm wondering if you could give us your kind of updated thoughts on the long-term earnings volatility of the business. You've talked about this in the past, some of the kind of revenue initiatives and your view of the cycle and how the business is positioned. I'm just wondering if you can maybe again kind of update us on how you think about that going forward and what you can do with the business to never take away, but limit the earnings volatility over the long term.
Mm-hmm. First of all, you know, we've highlighted, I think, a very detailed plan. Our Global 7500 right now is clearly the biggest earnings driver contributor for us. You know, we've mentioned somewhere around or maybe a little bit more than $400 million. We also have our $400 million cost reduction plan, which will be fully recurring by 2023, which, you know, we are making great progress there, again. This is also gonna be another one that, you know, will stabilize and will be a lever for our earnings growth that we are expecting. The other one is the growth of our aftermarket business.
You know, we've laid out a plan where we wanna grow our business from $1.2 billion to about $2 billion of revenue. So we'll basically bring the revenue portion of the full company on the service from about 17% to 18% to about 27% by getting to about $2 billion. So a revenue from the services group. And that business is of course you know bring a good margin for us. That's why you know I was answering a question earlier that we're growing our capability so that we can attract actually our you know our customer back into into our service facility. So clearly reducing our costs brings less volatility. And that's important because you know there's piece that we don't fully control.
That one, we do control it, and we're in a good place right now with our plan. The other piece also is having backlog bring stability. This is why, you know, having a bit ahead. We're pretty, you know, disciplined about this. We like, for every program, we have a target of minimum backlog and maximum backlog because having too much backlog is not good either. Having too low of a backlog is not good. We have clear target for every program in terms of where we are, and we feel pretty good about our situation today. That will also bring predictability and stability moving forward in our earnings.
Great. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Our next question is from Noah Poponak from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, everybody.
Yeah, good morning.
Good morning.
When we're looking at next year, what makes the margin progression towards the 2025 target, you know, better than linear or worse than linear, next year as you move to the out year target?
Thanks, Noah. It's Bart here. I'll maybe start. The margin expansion for us in our plan going out to 2025 is more concentrated in the early years. 2021, 2022 and 2023. That's when we see the largest benefits from the learning curve on the Global 7500. We expect to deliver our full $400 million of cost reduction activities during that time period as well. The full run rate, we've you know, consistently been saying we'll achieve that by 2023.
As we move forward beyond that, we do anticipate or have modeled in for ourselves at least modest growth in new order activity, you know, going from 115, 120 aircraft to something more like 135-ish towards the back end of our program. We do expect and with the, with growth across the platforms in new orders, we benefit from spreading fixed costs across more airplanes, which gives us some margin expansion as well. We will slow down. It's almost three times 2020 EBITDA in 2021, which is very, very significant growth. That pace will slow down.
A major contributor in the back half of the planning period will be the continued growth in our aftermarket business as it starts to make up more and more of the revenues of the business. We anticipate growing from 17%, I think, of revenues in 2020 to 27% by 2025. It is a bit skewed. It's not linear in the first or over the entire five years, more concentrated through 2023 and then a slower growth in the back half of the plan.
Excellent. That is helpful. Just to follow up quickly on the services plan that you've mentioned a few times now and is pretty ambitious. I guess maybe what are the next steps you're rolling out there that we can follow? Is that easier or harder given the current environment? Is there, you know, overflow that sort of easily comes to you, or are things just so busy that it makes it tougher to make those inroads?
I think it's very busy right now. Airplanes are flying, so this is always the first leading indicator that we looked at. Airplanes are flying a lot, especially in North America and Europe right now, actually over the level of 2019, which is very encouraging for us. Because, you know, our profitability come from, you know, different fields, but one is our Smart Parts program. The more airplane flying, then the more revenue and profit we can make on this program. Also the availability. Having people coming with their jet home at the OEM and making this possible right now is clearly, you know, a good place to be. I also mentioned, I think earlier that it's not just, you know, putting the service center.
Our strategy is also a bit more, you know, elaborate than that. We also have, you know, the Smart Link Plus program, you know. Those are new technology that we're putting out there to bring revenue. We just signed a detailed agreement with Signature also to help us in that regard. All these things cumulative, you know, bring more revenue and more profit to the aftermarket expansion.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our following question is from George Shapiro from Shapiro Research. Please go ahead.
Hi, this is Ed in for George.
Good morning.
I was noticing that R&D, gross R&D has ticked up just a little bit this quarter. While it's still insignificant, net of what's capitalized, I was wondering if you wanted to comment on the competitive climate in terms of the new product offerings that have been announced and whether or not that's impacted your long-term development plans and investment. Thank you.
Okay. You know, we feel pretty good about where we are right now. You know, the Global 7500 is a brand new airplane performing extremely well in service, well received also from the customer base. You know, we always made the assumption that we were gonna have competitors. You know, there's been launch of new product, you know, which were, to be honest, exactly what we were anticipating, so there was no surprise for us. You know, some of the platform are derivative of a new platform. We'll see how, you know, they are being received by the market base. Clearly, our Global 7500 today remains the flagship airplane from us and from the whole industry.
You know, we are consistently delivering airplanes. We have 80%, 80 airplanes delivered today. We're gonna deliver 100 airplanes sometime in Q1. Clearly this is heading for us in the right direction. We feel pretty solid about our offering today. Of course, we are always reevaluating, you know, mainly what our customers are saying. You know, what our customer needs, you know, are we okay with what we're offering or is there any new needs out there? And we will readjust accordingly. Our CapEx envelope and same thing, you know, I can say the same thing across all the platforms. No surprises. We feel pretty strong about our product offering today. Yes, we're thinking about what we are doing next based on the current market environment.
We promise to be very disciplined with our CapEx level, and we feel that we can manage the business extremely well with this envelope. Eventually, you know, there'll be a day where we're gonna think about a new program, but we're not there yet. We're thinking about it. We're looking at when, what technology, and we'll do it. Today, we have a very comprehensive portfolio of product, and they are competing extremely well in the market.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our following question is from Konark Gupta from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.
Thanks, good morning, everyone. Good results. Maybe just to follow up on the previous question on you know, new products and competition. Like, I think clearly General Dynamics is kind of talking about you know, the kind of good amount of interest they are seeing in the new products they are bringing out. Dassault obviously has another 2 products out in the market over the next 3 or 4 years or so. Like, a lot of new products coming out, and I understand, like you said, you had anticipated some competition clearly, which is kind of the norm in the industry.
I'm just kinda curious as to, you know, like if you are kind of, you know, keeping your portfolio kind of as is with 7500 obviously being the best in class right now, and these new products come out and the customer interest kind of suggests that maybe you need to invest some money into a new model or something. What's sort of your preferred course of action? I'm like, would you prefer to go the path of new clean sheet design, or are you looking at more sort of, you know, refreshes to keep the CapEx intensity low?
I think every platform is different. You know, I think we just clearly with the 3,500 right now, and if I'm looking at the customer base reaction, which is very positive. You know, this is basically refreshing our cabin, adding some new feature, which was exactly what the customer base was looking for. I think when you're listening carefully to your customer base and you respond to their needs and demand, then you get the type of reaction we got on the Challenger 3500 right now, which is extremely strong and positive. You know, sometimes other platforms will probably maybe require a bigger. Could be a clean sheet.
Today, you know, despite everything going on and our competitors move, I feel. I still feel pretty good about our Challenger 650. First of all, this is still the biggest cabin in that category of airplane. This is the lowest, you know, cost operating airplane. If you look at the DOC at about $2,100 compared to everybody else we're competing with, which could be up to $3,000, we feel pretty strong. The airplane is about $10 million less than the last one that just got announced, you know, from our competitor. You know, you have to look at it. This is, as an example, the medium market segment is a big segment.
You know, I think our competitor now just positioned themselves right at the top of that segment, leaving a lot of room in the mid-size segment, you know, for us to be. We feel pretty good about the actual airplane, and we'll see what we do moving forward. Again, on the global and the large segment, you know, on a regular basis, we are discussing with our customer, you know, what they need. The need right now for a long-range airplane, you know, at four zone is what the customer base is saying. A three zone to me is a question mark. You know, because if you fly for 17, 18 hours, you're gonna need a second crew of pilot.
You're gonna need, you know, more flight attendant, meaning that you're gonna give one of your three zone to your crew. Making the case for a four zone. Clearly, you know, this is what the customer base is telling us, and this is what we're thinking today is the right solution.
That's very helpful. Thanks so much. Bart, maybe if I can squeeze a quick one for you. On free cash, I'm like, we've seen you guys beat expectations last two quarters, and maybe perhaps your own expectations as well, given you have seasonality in Q2 and Q3. I'm just kind of curious, like where you already saw order activity was kind of strong momentum heading into Q3. Where, if any, you know, surprises to you on the positive side came from in Q3 on free cash? What kind of, you know, keeps you basically from raising guidance on free cash, given Q4 is usually positive?
Yeah, sure, Konark. Thanks very much. Obviously, with year-to-date usage of $214 million, we're already within our free cash flow guidance for the year of usage of $300 million. Yes, we've seen a very positive momentum on the free cash flow side. The third quarter, as we saw with the second quarter, we had more orders than we would have planned for, which were quite helpful. There's a little bit of a mixed benefit as well. If we continue to see the same kind of order activity, given the fact that we've you know had strong customer deposits on the aircraft that we've been selling, that would definitely be upside for us.
To you know, address your question about why we haven't raised guidance, I think we've said from day one that we want to stay focused on delivering the performance of the business and use conservative assumptions to make our decisions when it comes to deploying CapEx, when it comes to our forecasts and guidance for the year. We made a major upside revision to all of our guidance metrics at the end of Q2. We're very comfortable obviously with the guidance that we have now and our ability to achieve it across the board in Q4. If it was you know, just me sitting here, I would say, yes, there's probably upside to what the guidance is on free cash flow.
As I said, in response to a question earlier on the call, it's the first month of the quarter, and there's a long way to go. We'll stick with our conservative approach for the time being. Hopefully, that helps.
That's very helpful, and that's the right approach for sure. Thanks. Thanks so much.
Okay. Terrific. Thanks, Konark. Have a good day.
Thank you. Our following question is from Stephen Trent from Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Good morning, gentlemen, and thanks for taking my question. Just out of curiosity, when we think about how the pandemic, you know, may have shifted aviation, it certainly seems that the dearth of premium cabin and commercial aviation has really given a nice leg up to business jets. Do you see any of this as structural as we come out of the pandemic? To what degree do you also think about the rollout of electric air taxis as a threat, let's say, to the small cabin side? Thank you.
Yeah. I'll answer both questions if you know, Stephen. First of all, to your first question, clearly the pandemic has been an accelerator for us. I think that things that could have happened in five to ten years down the road, having more people, you know, leaving commercial aircraft and coming to business jet, and either via the fleet operator or buying their first airplane, has been accelerated by the pandemic. You know, there was no flight available either in commercial or people started to realize that there was a premium to pay to come to business jet, but maybe it was not as significant between flying a premium on a commercial aircraft than they thought. The second thing is, of course, safety.
The obvious is, you know, you can fly with, I don't know, your family on the airplane, and you feel safer. For all these reasons, there was an acceleration of people, I will say it this way, coming our way. I think the second question will be, is how sticky will that be? You know, when things come back to a more normal will they stay? We do believe that there will be some leakage, but we do believe that the majority will continue to fly business aircraft. That's your question number one. Question number two about the taxi. I think it's a very different market than you know what we're not competing in that market today.
You know, we are a long range and you know, but the taxi market can also be of interest, you know, for us as we can probably team up with these people. You know, when somebody land at an FBO, you know, they're not always at the exact destination they need to be. Those possibility will actually probably make even business jet more more attractive.
Oh, okay. Very helpful. Thanks very much for the color.
Thank you.
Operator, we have time for one last question.
Certainly. Our last question is from Jack Ayers from Cowen and Company. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Good morning. This is Jack on for Cai today. I guess just a quick question around pricing. You know, obviously you alluded to biz jet being very strong, deliveries going up. I just wanted to maybe get your take on the pricing environment. You know, our checks are, you know, used biz jet available for sale are, you know, extremely low. And just maybe you know, get your perspective on what you see on pricing going forward. Thanks.
Yeah. As we said, clearly pricing has improved, you know, significantly through the year. You know, the fact that the pre-owned airplane availability is at the lowest level that, you know, we've seen in this industry, clearly, you know, people are looking for solution. Yes, the fleet operator are one solution, but even themselves right now you've heard them quoting, very often 30%, 40% more customer on their list. Of course there is need, also from these guys. We believe right now with what I just said also previously that if the new, you know, customer base, you know, stick to, business jet aviation, clearly, you know, this is gonna change the infrastructure and the way we're doing it, and will clearly require more airplane.
We said earlier, it's a balance between, you know, do we wanna accelerate rate? Right now, what's gonna be the impact on pricing? Can the supply chain follow? What kind of backlog are we targeting? This is always a bit of a complex situation. As you know, we're in an industry where, you know, when we make a decision to accelerate rate, you know, It's not happening the next day, you know? It takes a little bit of time as the supply chain needs to react. It's all this that we are thinking right now and make sure that, you know, we can achieve our plan. We can keep the pricing that we see right now without, you know, affecting the pricing because we've increased the rate and then maybe the supply chain cannot follow.
All these questions are on the table. Clearly, we foresee right now pricing. We see better pricing. Low pre-owned inventory is clearly a driver for us in terms of demand. The pricing improvement will also help us to offset cost inflation pressure we see right now clearly on the bill of material, as I'm sure you would imagine in raw material. We're focused right now on building the backlog at the right price, basically.
Perfect. Thank you.
Okay. Thanks, Jack.
Thank you. That's all the time we have for questions. Back to you, Mr. Martel.
Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you again, everyone, for joining us this morning. I am very encouraged by the market, our team's performance, and also the quality of our product offering. We will carefully manage any obstacle that come up, but we've set the right fundamentals so far, and I am pleased to say that our consistent performance is reflected. We have a busy few weeks remaining ahead of us to close out this year, and I look forward to sharing what's next when we meet again in the new year. In the meantime, please stay safe and stay healthy. Thank you.
Thank you. The conference has now ended. Please disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.