AAR Corp. (NYSE:AIR) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Michael Ciarmoli: Got it. Okay. And then last one for me and I’ll jump off here. Just I guess as you go out there and look for some of that new material and the parts supply, the USM, what do you see in terms of profitability? And I guess maybe that kind of leads into what is the market looking like? I mean, is it pretty active to get your hands on that material? Are you having to pay higher prices than normal? Can you kind of protect your kind of historical returns? If you would, or maybe just any color there?

John Holmes: Yes, great question. So I would say, yes, we absolutely, for the asset types in which we are most active are paying higher prices, but we’re also able to charge higher prices. So we are able to maintain our spreads. You’re going to see some fluctuation as you did in this quarter in any one quarter just based on the mix of assets that we sell, whether they’re whole engines or parts, et cetera, it’ll move margins around a little bit. But generally speaking, the spread that we’ve had for years, we’re able to maintain, if not grow. And once again, I just want to highlight the efforts of the team there, it is a really tight market. We’re the largest in the world in terms of going out there and sourcing material. And that’s one of the reasons that we’re so focused on maintaining balance sheet flexibility to the extent that we have the opportunity to [indiscernible] and capital to get our hands on some great material, as we did this quarter, for example, that we’re in a position to do that.

Michael Ciarmoli: Got it and helpful. Thanks, guys. I’ll jump back in the queue.

John Holmes: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Please standby for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Ken Herbert with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Unidentified Analyst: Hey, John and Sean, congrats on the nice sales growth in the quarter. This is Keith [indiscernible] on for Ken Herbert. First wanted to just talk about the pricing in the aftermarket in what you guys are kind of seeing there. Presumably, it’s going to be some strong pricing. So maybe you could just kind of walk us through that.

John Holmes: Yes, I think similar to what I just mentioned, we are absolutely able to command strong pricing in the aftermarket. But also, particularly in the use parts business, we’re having to pay higher prices, because material is in such demand. We haven’t talked too much about pricing in the hangars. And as you know, the last couple of years, we’ve seen a pretty meaningful rise in our labor costs. But we’ve received great support and cooperation from our MRO customer base about making pricing adjustments, oftentimes off cycle from contract renewal period in order to make sure that we can maintain our profitability to continue to provide them great support.

Unidentified Analyst: Sounds good. And maybe just one more for me. I think at the Investor Day, you had talked about the maturity cycle being very robust on something with the CFM56, with the [indiscernible]. With the [indiscernible] engines and the issues at Pratt for the turbofan just how do you think about shop visits in that going forward?

John Holmes: Yes, we remain very bullish on that. The engine shops and you bring up a great point, we sell parts to airlines, but some of our biggest parts — our biggest customers in the parts business on the engine shop themselves and we received forecasts based on their expected inputs. So over a year or longer and they are all very full for those engine types that you mentioned. And so we expect a strong demand there for some time to come.

Unidentified Analyst: All right. Thanks so much. I will jump back in the queue.

John Holmes: Great, thank you.

Operator: Please stand by for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Josh Sullivan with Benchmark. Your line is open.