Astronics Corporation (ATRO)
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Earnings Call: Q1 2022

May 6, 2022

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the Astronics Corporation first quarter fiscal year 2022 financial results. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during this conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to our host, Deborah Pawlowski, Investor Relations for Astronics Corporation. Thank you. You may begin.

Deborah Pawlowski
Head of Investor Relations, Astronics Corporation

Thanks, Diego, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate your joining us here today. On the call with me are Pete Gundermann, our Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, and Dave Burney, our Chief Financial Officer. You should have a copy of our first quarter 2022 financial results, which we released earlier this morning. If not, you can find the release on our website at astronics.com. As you are likely aware, we may make some forward-looking statements during the formal discussion as well as during the Q&A session. These statements apply to future events that are subject to risks and uncertainties as well as other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from what is stated here today. These risks and uncertainties and other factors are provided in the release as well as with other documents filed with Securities and Exchange Commission.

You can find the documents on our website or at sec.gov. During today's call, we will also discuss some non-GAAP financial measures. We believe these will be useful in evaluating our performance. You should not consider the presentation of this additional information in isolation or as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with GAAP. We have provided reconciliations of non-GAAP measures with comparable GAAP measures in the tables that accompany today's release. With that, let me turn it over to Pete to begin. Peter?

Pete Gundermann
Chairman, President, and CEO, Astronics Corporation

Thank you, Debbie, and good morning, everybody. Thanks for tuning in for our call here. Our agenda is as follows. I'm gonna start by talking about a couple of prominent forces which have been affecting our company for some time, but have really come to a head here in the first quarter. Then I'm gonna turn it over to Dave to talk through our financials, including some pretty strong cash results over the course of the quarter. I'll take it back, and we will talk about a forward look for the remainder of 2022 and revisit our guidance and some of the issues affecting that and then go to Q&A at the end. The two prominent forces affecting our company, one negative, one positive, if you read our press release, you've seen them both pretty prominently displayed.

The negative one is supply chain struggles. We're not unique here, and I don't intend to present a thesis, but I do wanna describe how the supply chain is affecting our performance. It was pretty significant in the first quarter, and it's something that's been growing. The positive force is continued strong demand from the market for our products and for our services. Bookings were really strong. The backlog set another record, and it's setting up for what will undoubtedly be a pretty exciting second half of 2022. The supply chain. This is something that's become more and more of an issue over the last six to nine months. Basically, as demand started picking up for us, that's when supply chain struggles became more and more apparent. In the first quarter, it was, you know, as bad as ever.

We went into the quarter thinking that we would have revenue somewhere north of $130 million. We ended up at $116 million, and the reduction occurred kind of steadily over the course of the quarter when we realized that some necessary components that we needed to build our products were not coming in as expected or as really agreed to by our suppliers. It's a very unpredictable situation. Products that we buy and have bought forever that have pretty standard and stable lead times of maybe three or four or six weeks or whatever the case may be, all of a sudden can turn into 20 or 30 or even longer. It's really kind of across the board, although the worst situations for us are in the area of electronics.

A large percentage of what we build and produce for customers involves electronic components, and electronic components seem to be the sweet spot of the worldwide supply chain shortage. That is the case with us. I think it's the kind of thing that affects pretty much everybody in business these days who produces a product. You know, it's especially bad for companies that have to buy chips and other electronic components which are designed in the products that you produce. Again, I don't want to turn it into a thesis, but I do have to say that as far as we can tell, the situation is not really improving. I keep asking our people that every time I can, and nobody's willing to step forward and say that the situation in general is getting better.

We've gotten a lot better at identifying problems early and responding to them as proactively as possible. Sometimes that involves spot buys and special purchase techniques, which can be expensive. There's always a little bit of a reality check as to when a problem pops up, what are the possible solutions and how expensive will it get? It's obviously a worldwide problem. It's affecting a lot of companies, and it got us in the first quarter. We'll talk about the rest of 2022 later. We have incorporated what we know as best we can with reasonable buffers into our revenue guidance going forward. We are sticking with our revenue guidance that we issued in our last call. In there is some margin for, you know, supply chain problems which may raise their head.

That being the case, however, these things are unpredictable. It's a little bit difficult to know for sure how things are gonna work out with any particular product or any particular period, but more on that later. The positive force that continues to drive our business is bookings. We had bookings of $175 million in the first quarter. That's a book-to-bill of over 1.5, and it's our second quarter in a row. In the fourth quarter last year, we had a book-to-bill of 1.53, so two very strong booking quarters in a row have left us with a record backlog. For the last 12 months, bookings have totaled $633 million. That's over sales of $455 million, so for a rolling 12-month interval, our book-to-bill has been 1.39.

It's important to note that in these bookings totals, there's really nothing special in terms of new, significant, big chunks of business so far. It's really been kind of a groundswell of orders from across our product line, which is especially encouraging. It means our markets are coming back, and the demand that used to exist for our products pre-pandemic is increasingly, you know, back in play. Aerospace, in particular, has been really strong. Our aerospace book-to-bill in the first quarter was 1.59. Aerospace amounted to 90% of our bookings over the last year, and if you look at the rolling 12 months, the book-to-bill is 1.48 for our aerospace business. All these numbers, by the way, are being taken off the table on the back of our press release, the last page of our press release.

I should have mentioned that earlier. For aerospace, again, very strong turns quarter to quarter over that rolling 12-month period. Basically, bookings quarter by quarter went from $118 million to $142 million to $148 million, and now to $161 million. So aerospace bookings are definitely going the right way. One of the interesting observations in the bookings is that we are seeing some evidence of wide-body resurrection, I guess I would call it, some kind of resumption of wide-body orders. Some of our products are specific to narrow-body applications, and some of them are specific to wide-body applications. We're seeing early signs of some kind of rebirth of wide-body demand, which has really been dormant for most of the time of the pandemic.

Our test business demand has been a little bit weaker, with lower bookings in early 2021 resulting in low sales now. Our quarter one backlog consolidated, as I mentioned, is a new record of $475 million. That's an increase from early 2021 when our backlog was at $283 million. Obviously the bookings have positioned us well in terms of work to be executed. We need to have our supply chain cooperate so we can do the work and turn the backlog into revenue. Last time we had a backlog anywhere near current levels was really late 2018. At that time, our annual sales level was running at around $800 million a year.

Those are the two big forces that I think about when I think of our first quarter, supply chain struggles and strong demand from the market. I'm gonna pass it over to Dave now to talk to you about the specifics of our income statement, and I'll take it back, and we'll talk about our forecast for the rest of 2022 at the end here.

Dave Burney
CFO, Astronics Corporation

Right. Thanks, Pete. Consolidated revenue was $116 million in the quarter, up almost 10% from last year's first quarter, flat sequentially from the fourth quarter of 2021. It's still not where we need to be to get to breakeven, which is around $160 million per quarter in revenue to hit GAAP breakeven. We don't expect to get to breakeven until the second half of the year. As Pete mentioned, we're expecting some significant growth on the top line in the third and fourth quarter this year, as well as improved top-line growth in the second quarter, although not expected to get to the point where we'll be GAAP breakeven in the second quarter. Aerospace revenue was $101 million, and test revenue was $15 million for the quarter.

Consolidated gross margin was $19.9 million or 17.2%, with a loss from operations of $4.2 million. A slight adjusted EBITDA loss of $353,000 after removing the impacts of the AMJP grant and the gain from the earn-out for the sale of the semiconductor business. Margins continued to be compressed as a result of the low revenue in the quarter and increased cost of raw materials. Roughly $3 million of raw material cost in the quarter relates to what we call spot buys, as we source materials outside of our typical supply contracts to meet customer demand. Outside of the spot buys, we've experienced general inflation relating to our materials and labor of between 5% and 10%.

As Pete mentioned, supply chain continues to be our biggest challenge as lead times are continually moving around, making planning a challenge and limiting our ability to book and ship orders quickly. We're managing through it. We've had about $140 million of backlog scheduled for delivery in the second quarter, but we anticipate some of that may push out into the second half of the year. We have about $220 million in the backlog scheduled right now for the second half of the year. As Pete mentioned, we'll need to get some book and ship orders, which are within our typical range for the second half of the year. Quarter was not as noisy as the fourth quarter of last year, but we did have some atypical income and expense items.

We recognized $6 million of the AMJP grant as a reduction of cost of goods sold. We recognized and received earn-out income, which is below operations, of $11.3 million for the 2021 earn-out period. We also received $10.7 million for the 2020 earn-out period, which was recognized in the fourth quarter of 2020. We have a bit of an odd income tax expense rate, which reflects new tax treatment for R&D expenses that requires these expenses to be amortized over a five-year period rather than expensed as incurred, and this is part of the Tax Reform Act of 2017. This would typically create a deferred tax asset as it's just a timing difference and has no impact on the tax rate.

Because we have a cumulative trailing three-year loss, we fully reserve our deferred tax assets at this point. This will reverse when we produce cumulative trailing three-year income in the future. There's a lot of speculation regarding this treatment of the R&D tax expense that and it may be rolled back or pushed out later this year. If that happens, again, we'll reverse the impact of this. Bookings and backlog continue to be strong. Bookings for the quarter were $176 million and a book-to-bill ratio of 1.5 x, with $161 million in aerospace and a book-to-bill of 1.59 in aerospace. Test bookings were $15 million and a book-to-bill about 1 x.

The backlog at the end of the quarter, again, as Pete mentioned, was a record of $475 million. Turning to the segments. The aerospace segment, while not profitable, absent the impact of the AMJP program, shows measurable improvement compared to the first quarter of 2021. Sales were up significantly, as were bookings, backlog, and our pipeline of opportunities. The segment's operating margin benefited from $6 million relating to the AMJP grant program, which is an offset in operating costs and cost of goods sold. It offsets higher wages and benefits and costs of materials that we experienced in the quarter compared to the first quarter of last year. Commercial transport market continues to strengthen for us, and sales were up $64 million, up 10% sequentially from the fourth quarter and up 68% from last year's first quarter.

Military market and business jet markets remain sequentially steady. The test segment continues to be somewhat sluggish, with sales down $9.7 million from last year's first quarter, resulting in an operating loss of $1.8 million. The sales drop was primarily in the military market. Orders continued to be light in the segment, but there are several large opportunities that we're pursuing in it, in both the transit area and the military area in the test segment. Turning to the cash and our balance sheet and debt. We had a strong quarter with respect to cash, taking in $36.4 million, and $5.2 million of that was related to the AMJP grant. $9.2 million was from tax refunds, and $22 million were from earn-out payments.

Our net debt is now $113 million, down from $133 million at the end of the 2021 fiscal year. Cash flow from operations was slightly positive at $316,000. Cash used by operations reflects increases in net working capital assets that were offset by the tax refunds of $9.2 million and the second AMJP grant installment of $5.2 million. Proceeds from the earn-out of $22 million were received in the quarter and reflected in cash flows from investing activities. At the end of the quarter, we were compliant with our debt covenants, with our leverage ratio calculated in accordance with the credit agreement of 3.78 x adjusted EBITDA versus a maximum leverage limit of 4.75 x.

The maximum leverage covenant will remain at 4.75 x through the second quarter, then drop to 3.75 x going forward. We continue to forecast compliance even as our maximum leverage covenant drops to 3.75 x in the third and fourth quarter, and we're forecasting profitability to increase as we move through the year. Our revolving credit facility expires in May of 2023, and we're working to replace the revolver over the next few months with the goal of having a new long-term facility in place before we report in the second quarter. Pete?

Pete Gundermann
Chairman, President, and CEO, Astronics Corporation

Okay, looking ahead, we are maintaining our revenue guidance for the rest of 2022, which calls for revenues of between $550 million and $600 million. We have an internal forecast that actually exceeds that range slightly, so you can see what kind of margin we're building in for potential supply chain disruption. Supply chain, as I said earlier, is likely to remain a factor as we move through the remainder of 2022. The midpoint of that range, $550 million-$600 million, would represent about 30% growth over 2021, when we had sales of about $450 million. The high end would represent growth of about 35%. Are those numbers realistic? That's a big step forward. We think so, of course.

A reminder, I talked earlier that the trailing twelve months of bookings were $632 million. A forecast of $550 million-$600 million seems to jibe with that number pretty well. Also, our first quarter backlog was a record $475 million, with $364 million scheduled to ship in the remainder of 2022. That would suggest we need another approximately $100 million of kind of book and ship business, which in the normal course should be pretty achievable for our business. We expect the second quarter to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $125 million-$135 million.

If you run the numbers and add it to the midpoint for the first quarter, that would show 40%+, 42% of 2022 volume in the first half and much more, maybe 58%, 60% in the second half. We're obviously expecting a ramp. Again, if you use midpoints and make some assumptions, this implies quarterly revenue of about $165 million on average in the third quarter and the fourth quarter, although we expect the third quarter to be a little bit lower and the fourth quarter to be a little bit higher. Some big ramps, some real accelerations compared to where we've been. Our backlog demands it. If supply chain holds up and performs, the second half should be, you know, much more positive from a financial perspective than the first half.

We'll also continue to watch demand in the second half. I described earlier that the big amount of our bookings so far in recent times has really been from a groundswell of business kind of across the business without any kind of real big special items in there. But I also wanna tell you that we are pursuing a number of significant pieces of business which collectively will drive us, not necessarily in 2022, but we're, you know, if you look at the calendar, already almost halfway through, now is the time where we start building our business activity list for 2023 and beyond. Over the next few months and over the rest of this year, I am hopeful that we're gonna have some pretty significant new wins to talk about.

I've been with this company for many, many years. Dave and I were talking last night. I don't think we've had a time in this business where we've had such a wide array of significant opportunities in both segments near term playing out. Many of them are, you know, undisclosed at this point. I can't talk about them in detail too much. Some of them, maybe a couple of them I will. A significant opportunity for us has to do with the Army's Future Lift competition, which is playing out right now in FLRAA. Many of you know what that is. It's a competition between a team led by Bell and a team led by Sikorsky. We are a solid member of the Bell team, playing a significant role.

That down select is supposed to happen late summer, early fall. We're doing the electrical power generation distribution system for that airplane for Bell. It's a franchise or a product line which we trademarked something called CorePower. It's flight-critical electrical power for small aircraft primarily. I'm not gonna go into too much detail about it, but it's a franchise that I think will become a very prominent part of our business going forward. Certainly, if Bell wins FLRAA, that'll be a big deal for our company immediately.

Also, we did a press release this morning, again, back to CorePower and flight critical electrical power, and the position that we have developed with respect to electrical power distribution, flight critical electrical power distribution on small aircraft, and the advent of electric aircraft, which is happening in various parts of the industry. Many of you know that more electric is becoming a big deal in aerospace in an effort to reduce carbon footprint, noise pollution, and create new business models. One of the terms being thrown a lot is Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing, eVTOL. We have found that our CorePower expertise applies very well to this emerging eVTOL market.

The eVTOL market is something that's getting a lot of attention, not only from the main OEM airframe businesses that exist in the world today, but also a bunch of entrepreneurial startups that have raised significant amounts of money in the stock market, primarily, also in the public debt market. There are some pretty wild forecasts out there. Reasonable people can support those forecasts or disagree with them. The important thing for today, for this group, is that our CorePower franchise has been or is being adapted to address the needs of the eVTOL market. We are having pretty interesting and fruitful discussions with a wide range of participants. I expect that we will play a role in this market of some significance going forward.

You can expect, though we don't have specific announcements to make today, I expect that we will over the course of the next six to 12 months. You know, we'll see how all this plays out in the future. I've seen some of the aircraft. I've talked to some of the companies doing this kind of work, and it's I think pretty interesting to be a part of. We're excited to be a part of it. I think that ends our prepared remarks. Diego will open it up for questions at this point.

Operator

Thank you. At this time, we'll conduct our question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the question queue. You may press the star key followed by the number two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Our first question comes from Pete Osterland with Truist. Please state your question.

Pete Osterland
Equity Research Associate, Truist

Hey, good morning. This is Pete on for Mike Ciarmoli this morning. Thanks for taking our questions. First I just-

Pete Gundermann
Chairman, President, and CEO, Astronics Corporation

Sure.

Pete Osterland
Equity Research Associate, Truist

Wanted to ask, on the 737 MAX, what monthly rate are you currently producing to? Are you aligned with the underlying production rates at Boeing, or are there any differences in your rates, whether driven by inventories or availability of materials?

Pete Gundermann
Chairman, President, and CEO, Astronics Corporation

Well, we've seen it bounces around a little bit, but we are, as best we can tell, pretty well aligned with what Boeing's doing. We think we had an inventory buildup that happened when the thing, you know, shut down. But they've pretty much chewed through that. They've got us at the same rate that they're producing at this point, which is, you know, high 20s trending to 30.

Pete Osterland
Equity Research Associate, Truist

Okay, great. Just a follow-up on aero. You mentioned in your release that you're seeing signs of a pickup on the wide-body market as well. Could you give a little color on the main improvements you're seeing there? You know, maybe whether you're seeing any incremental headwinds from the delays on the 787. You know, if you could, just as a reminder, what about is your revenue mix currently in terms of wide-body versus narrow-body?

Pete Gundermann
Chairman, President, and CEO, Astronics Corporation

Lot of questions there. I'd say the 787 slowdown has kind of flown through the system already. You know, we're not hurting any more there. It's all upside from here, I would say. As far as products, I can tell you that there are certain types of in-flight entertainment systems which are standard in wide-body and not so present in narrow-body. We make components that go into those systems, and we've noticed an increase in orders for some of those products. They only go on wide-bodies, so wide-body demand must be improving, maybe not on the production line because, as you point out, 787, for example, is not increasing at this point, but maybe more on an aftermarket, maybe pulling airplanes out of storage and getting them ready to fly.

Our business mix in our commercial transport business before the pandemic was pretty evenly divided. We were, you know, for practical purposes, 50/50 wide body, narrow body, and 50/50 line fit and aftermarket. That has skewed heavily, especially when the MAX was shut down, towards narrow body aftermarket. You know, wide body was kind of down on both sides, aftermarket and line fit, and narrow body line fit was way down with the MAX being down. The MAX coming back has really helped us a lot, and it's a big part of why we think we're gonna, you know, 2022 will be a significant year of improvement for us. We're not counting on wide body production rates coming back in the near-term future. I mean, Boeing can't comment on that very, you know, accurately. We're not gonna comment on it.

We have noticed these increases in sales. Another product to give you an idea, we make motion systems for high-end aircraft seating, typically found in long haul, wide body, first and business class sections. We've noticed an uptick in orders for those kinds of programs too. Again, that's, for the most part, those products don't find a place on narrow body airplanes. It's early, and it's not real significant, but you know, there's a lot of industry prediction that wide body recovery will happen over the course of 2023 and 2024. Just like we're seeing strong demand and growing demand over the last 12 months, it's primarily been narrow body driven as narrow body airplanes have resumed flying. It's interesting to me to watch the beginnings of wide body ordering also.

Hopefully, that's a sign that the wide bodies are gonna be, you know, if production rates don't increase, the ones that are in storage are gonna be brought out, and maybe airlines are starting to think about what they wanna do with them in terms of fleet upgrades or refurbishment or recovery, in advance of increased flying, you know, as early maybe as this summer. Did that answer your question?

Pete Osterland
Equity Research Associate, Truist

Yes, it does. Thanks a lot for the color. I'll jump back in the queue.

Pete Gundermann
Chairman, President, and CEO, Astronics Corporation

Okay, thanks.

Operator

Thank you. Once again, to ask a question, press star one. Our next question comes from Jon Tanwanteng with CJS Securities. Please state your question.

Jon Tanwanteng
Managing Director, CJS Securities

Hey, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. My first one to you is, if you're not seeing so much improvement in the supply chain, what's really giving you the confidence that you can actually increase sales, you know, to the guided levels through the second quarter and second half? Are your suppliers telling you they can meet those volumes? You know, what's the track record of them being able to do that at this point?

Pete Gundermann
Chairman, President, and CEO, Astronics Corporation

Well, it's a very fair question. You know, it is a little bit tricky to explain what we went through in the first quarter and then talk about that kind of ramp in the second half. The reality is that we have that work scheduled, and we've gone out and sourced those components, and we have them on order. You know, if the supply chain performs, we should see a ramp. The question is, will we continue to see surprises and slips? We think we will, but we don't know exactly which parts are gonna slip, and we don't know cumulatively what the effect's gonna be.

The overall velocity is gonna increase no matter what, you know, unless the world falls apart, because we have these orders, and we've gone out and put the orders on our supply chain. We can accommodate a reasonable amount of slippage, so to speak, and still have significant ramps in the second half. That's how we've constructed that revenue guidance, that revenue forecast. That make sense? We can withstand quite a bit of slippage and still be in that range.

Jon Tanwanteng
Managing Director, CJS Securities

Yes, it does. Thanks for clarifying that. Second, just in terms of your own internal capacity, have you made progress at all in closing that labor gap that you've been talking about in prior quarters, and can you meet that production level internally?

Pete Gundermann
Chairman, President, and CEO, Astronics Corporation

It's another good question. The reality is, if our supply chain snapped to right now, I'd probably be telling you about a labor shortage because I think I talked on the last call that we were couple hundred people below where we wanted to be. We were at 2,200, I think, at that time, and we wanted to be at 2,400. We're making pretty good progress, though, on the labor side. I mean, it's not, you know, the pressures aren't gone, for sure, but we are seeing a little bit of improvement in various markets that we operate in. Not all markets and not all positions, but the production ramp that we're talking about is really production floor kind of labor where we need it. We are seeing a general loosening there.

We're seeing more applicant flow, for example, for new positions. You know, it's possible that that becomes more and more of a pressure point as we start to ramp up volume in the second half. At this point, we're more concerned about supply chain than about labor.

Jon Tanwanteng
Managing Director, CJS Securities

Okay, great. That makes sense. If I could slip in one more, just you talked about these touch projects that could be awarded midyear. What's the relative scale of those, and what would that mean for your growth as you head into 2023 if you landed those?

Pete Gundermann
Chairman, President, and CEO, Astronics Corporation

It's significant, Jon. I mean, the programs are over the life of the programs, very easily over $500 million. I mean, I'm just running numbers in my head. I'm looking at David, but there are probably six, seven, eight of them in both segments. Of course, FLRAA, if we were to be successful, that's gonna run for 20 years, who knows, and be a couple thousand airplanes. I mean, you could easily stretch those numbers to, if you include that one especially, well over $1 billion, frankly.

Jon Tanwanteng
Managing Director, CJS Securities

Got it. No, that seems like a big opportunity. Good, good luck there.

Pete Gundermann
Chairman, President, and CEO, Astronics Corporation

Well, thank you. Good luck to Bell.

Operator

Thank you. Once again, to ask a question, press star one. Our next question comes from Pete Osterland with Truist. Please go ahead.

Pete Osterland
Equity Research Associate, Truist

Hey guys, thanks for taking the follow-up. I just had one note, a quick one. On cash flow generation, just, with the guidance for sales to improve sequentially through year-end, do you think it's feasible that you'd be able to get to break even on a free cash flow basis over the course of the year? Or are there any other, you know, working capital or other considerations that might, keep free cash flow negative even as the top line improves?

Dave Burney
CFO, Astronics Corporation

Yeah, you know, I don't think we'll create significant free cash flow as we ramp through the second half of the year. You know, the inventory component of working capital is kinda where we're most inefficient right now. On one hand, you know, we have more inventory than we would typically have if you go back to the pre-pandemic days, maybe as much as $40 million more inventory than we have with the sales level we're at right now. You can't turn around inventory either. You don't wanna slow that down. I expect we'll kind of tread water as we move through the year in terms of free cash flow there.

I think as our margin picks up, I think what we'll see is, you know, increased working capital components there. At some point, it'll flip around to be a tailwind as we move through a normal supply chain environment into next year. As I said, our inventory is turning much slower than it used to turn prior to the pandemic. It's because of these supply chain challenges where, you know, you can have 99 out of 100 parts that you need to ship something and you're missing a washer and you can't ship it. It affects everything. I think you know, cash flow wise, I think we should be able to, depending on where the working capital and the inventory goes, be able to kind of tread water on that.

Pete Osterland
Equity Research Associate, Truist

Great. Thanks a lot.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Jon Tanwanteng with CJS Securities. Please go ahead.

Jon Tanwanteng
Managing Director, CJS Securities

Hi. Yes, thanks for the follow-up. Just one on pricing. I was wondering, because we've seen a lot of companies do this, in the quarter, if you've been able to pass on some of the more extraordinary inflationary costs that you've been seeing, you know, that $3 million excess spot cost that you talked about in the first quarter, if your customers have been amenable to that. I think, you know, being transparent with that has helped a lot of other companies that we've covered, and I'm wondering, if you've seen any receptivity at all.

Pete Gundermann
Chairman, President, and CEO, Astronics Corporation

We have seen that. Yes, we've been passing on price increases, where we can, when we can. Frankly, for the most part, we're pretty surprised with how cooperative everybody is about it. I think, you know, everybody's experiencing the same thing, so it never comes as a surprise. That doesn't mean that customers are happy to pay more, but for the most part, we have seen and taken advantage of that ability to the extent that we can. At the same time, we do have long-term contracts on certain things where that's not as easy to do. Even in those cases, we are initiating conversations occasionally and, you know, trying to keep the situation from spiraling out of control. At this point, you know, we don't view that as our biggest headache.

Our bigger headache is just getting parts in here in the first place and executing the demands the customers are placing on us.

Jon Tanwanteng
Managing Director, CJS Securities

Got it. One more follow-up. Just, you mentioned the big projects that were in the pipeline, but I was wondering if there's actually any general thoughts on military spending, you know, just given the higher security concerns that we're seeing throughout the world, not on new programs, but existing programs and kind of how that might filter through you guys.

Pete Gundermann
Chairman, President, and CEO, Astronics Corporation

Well, I think the Army's Future Lift initiative's probably become more of a priority, right? That's one thing I would say. You know, not too long ago, people were saying there was never gonna be another ground war, so why do we need a ground force? I think the recent events have probably changed the thinking on that significantly. I expect spending there to be up. I'm not sure that translates much to an increase in, you know, Joint Strike Fighter funding, for example, or most other aerospace applications. But I think the helicopter programs probably become more important, not less important, with the Army's version of the future battlefield.

Jon Tanwanteng
Managing Director, CJS Securities

Understood. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll hand the floor back to management for closing remarks.

Pete Gundermann
Chairman, President, and CEO, Astronics Corporation

Well, thank you for your attention and time today. Obviously, interesting times for our company, and we look forward to reporting second quarter results probably early August. Thanks for your time. Have a good day. Bye.

Operator

Thank you. That concludes today's conference. All parties may disconnect. Have a good day.

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