Robert J. Simmons
Today, we reported a second quarter GAAP net income of $120 million or $2.91 earnings per share. Q2 pretax income was $163 million. Our weighted average share count for Q2 was 41.4 million, and our effective tax rate was 26%. First, let's talk about revenue. Total Q2 revenue of $1 billion is up 9% from $948 million in Q1 2025 and up 19% from $867 million in Q2 2024. Q2 revenue breaks down with contract revenue at $842 million, up from $785 million in Q1 and up from $731 million in Q2 2024. Prorate and charter revenue was $145 million in Q2, up from $131 million in Q1 and up from $107 million in Q2 2024. Leasing and other revenue was $47 million in Q2, up from $32 million in Q1 2025 and up from $29 million in Q2 2024. These Q2 GAAP results include the effect of recognizing $23 million of previously deferred revenue this quarter, up from the $13 million recognized in Q1 2025. As of the end of Q2, we have $286 million of cumulative deferred revenue that will be recognized in future periods. We anticipate recognizing approximately $10 million to $20 million of previously deferred revenue per quarter over the remainder of 2025, subject to production levels and other factors. For modeling purposes, our EPS for the quarter included approximately $0.20 from discrete nonoperating gains, primarily consisting of a mark-to-market gain on our equity investments and sale of fixed assets. Let me move to the balance sheet. We ended the quarter with cash of $727 million down from $751 million last quarter and $834 million at Q2 2024. The decrease in cash during the quarter included the accretive actions of: one, repaying $111 million in debt; two, buying back 195,000 shares of SkyWest stock in Q2 for $17.3 million. With the volatility in the equity markets in Q2, we opportunistically repurchased 39% more shares than we bought in Q1. As of June 30, we had $267 million remaining under our current share repurchase authorization updated in May 2025. And three, investing $169 million in CapEx, including the purchase of 2 new E175s, 4 additional CRJ900s, investment in our expanding CRJ550 fleet, spare engines and other fixed assets. We ended Q2 with debt of $2.5 billion, down from $2.7 billion as of 12/31/2024. Cash flow is an important component of our shareholder value creation calculus. We generated approximately $500 million in free cash flow in 2024 and deployed it primarily to delever and derisk the balance sheet to the benefit of our partners, our employees and our shareholders. We generated over $200 million in free cash flow in the first half of 2025, including $68 million in Q2. Our strong balance sheet and well-grounded liquidity are powerful tools as we pursue a variety of growth opportunities, including acquiring and financing 30 additional 175s by the end of 2028, repaying approximately $490 million in debt in 2025 and continuing to execute opportunistically on our newly reauthorized share repurchase program. As we remain focused on improving our return on invested capital, we'd like to highlight the following. Both our debt net of cash and leverage ratios continue at favorable levels at their lowest point in over a decade. We anticipate that total 2025 capital expenditures funding our growth initiatives will be approximately $575 million to $625 million, including the purchase of 8 new E175s, CRJ900 airframes as announced last quarter and aircraft and engines supporting our CRJ550 opportunity. The remaining 6 175s are scheduled for delivery in late 2025 and could possibly slip into 2026 without any impact on 2025 production. Consistent with our policy and practice, we are not giving any specific EPS guidance at this time. But let me give you a little additional color on 2025. As Wade will discuss in a minute, we now anticipate our 2025 block hours to be up approximately 14% over 2024. The improved outlook in our 2025 block hours is driven primarily by improving fleet utilization and availability and ongoing strong demand for our production. We now expect our 2025 GAAP EPS could be in the $10 per share area if we are successful in executing on the opportunities in front of us. We continue to expect to deliver solid operating leverage with 14% year-over-year production growth translating into a roughly 28% increase in EPS in 2025. For modeling purposes, we anticipate our maintenance activity will continue at Q2 levels adjusted for production. We also anticipate our effective tax rate will be approximately 26% to 27% for the remaining 2 quarters of 2025. We are optimistic about our growth possibilities going into 2026, including the following 3 focus areas: first, growth in our ability to increase service to underserved communities, driven partially by the deployment of over 30 additional CRJ550 aircraft; second, improved aircraft utilization and availability on our ERJ and CRJ fleets; and third, placing 14 new E175s into service for United and Alaska by the end of 2026 and 16 new E175s for Delta in 2027 and 2028. We believe that our strong balance sheet, operating leverage, free cash flow and liquidity and the actions we will be taking to deploy our capital against a variety of accretive opportunities will position us well to drive total shareholder returns. Wade?