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Air Transport Services Group Inc (ATSG 0.24%)
Q3Â 2019 Earnings Call
Nov 7, 2019, 10:00 a.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Welcome to the Q3 2019 Air Transport Services Group Inc. Earnings Conference Call. My name is John and I'll be your operator for today's call. [Operator Instructions]
And now I will turn the call over to Joe Hete Chief Executive Officer ATSG. Mr. Hete you may begin.
Joe Hete -- Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, John. Good morning and welcome to our third quarter 2019 earnings conference call. With me today is Quint Turner our Chief Financial Officer. Rich Corrado who became President of ATSG in September is traveling overseas today. We issued our earnings release yesterday after the market closed. It's on our website atsginc.com. We will file our Form 10-Q later this week. Once again I'm pleased to report to you that this year we are performing at levels consistent with the adjusted EBITDA guidance we have shared and exceeding our targets for adjusted EPS. Our business strategy of investing in and leasing midsize aircraft to major express and e-commerce customers and combining those assets with crew maintenance and insurance services for those who require them continues to be a winning formula. Our purchase of Omni a year ago has continued to provide accretive contributions to our operating results. For the third quarter we again substantially outperformed our prior year results. Our revenues are up 79% to $366 million. Our adjusted earnings are up 10% to $21 million or $0.31 per share and our adjusted EBITDA rose 47% to $109 million. Our airline operations are expanding and our leased aircraft fleet is growing. Our air network services for the Department of Defense and Amazon are up versus the prior year and we have 19 more aircraft in our operating fleet than a year ago. These results plus significant increases in scheduled peak-season flying support my confidence in our ability to achieve our $450 million target for full year adjusted EBITDA despite a few headwinds to our plan. Quint is ready to review our consolidated results including the release we also issued yesterday about a new amendment to our senior credit facility. I'll close with comments on our outlook. Quint?
Thanks, Joe. Good morning to all of you on the call right now and to those who will listen on replay. As always I'll start by saying that during the course of this call we will make projections or other forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Our actual results and other future events may differ materially from those we describe here. These forward-looking statements are based on information plans and estimates as of the date of this call and Air Transport Services Group undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect changes in underlying assumptions factors new information or other changes. These factors include but are not limited to changes in market demand for our assets and services; our operating airline's ability to maintain on-time service and control costs; the cost and timing with respect to which we are able to purchase and modify aircraft to a cargo configuration; fluctuations in ATSG's traded share price and in interest rates which may result in mark-to-market charges on certain financial instruments; the number timing and scheduled routes of our aircraft deployments to customers; our ability to remain in compliance with our agreements with key customers and lenders; and other factors as contained from time to time in our filings with the SEC including the Form 10-Q we will file this week. We will also refer to non-GAAP financial measures from continuing operations including adjusted earnings adjusted earnings per share adjusted pre-tax earnings and adjusted EBITDA. Management believes these metrics are useful to investors in assessing ATSG's financial position and results. These non-GAAP measures are not meant to be a substitute for our GAAP financials. We advise you to refer to reconciliations to GAAP measures which are included in our earnings release and on our website. As Joe said our third quarter results compare very favorably with our results from a year ago and show sequential improvement from results for this year's second quarter. Our revenues again rose sharply this time by $161.2 million or 79% from the prior year. Once again a solid contribution from Omni was a principal positive factor. Our work for the Department of Defense with contributions from all 3 of our airlines make it ATSG's largest customer representing 34% of our revenues in the third quarter. 26% of revenues came from Amazon and 13% from DHL. Once again our GAAP earnings include large unrealized effects of quarterly revaluations of several financial instruments. These are mainly the effects of revaluing interest rate hedges on our bank debt plus the noncash effects of changes in the value of the warrants we have issued to Amazon which this time was positive due to a reduction in the value of our warrant liability. Those factors contributed to a tripling of our GAAP third quarter earnings from continuing operations to $105.1 million this year compared with $32.9 million a year ago. Diluted GAAP earnings per share for the third quarter were $0.19 versus $0.24 a year ago. Warrant accounting excludes from GAAP earnings the per-share effects of mark-to-market changes in warrant liabilities when they are accretive. The adjusted earnings EPS and adjusted EBITDA we reported this quarter exclude those warrant-related gains as well as amortization of warrant incentives for Amazon affiliate losses reflecting our share of Airbus A321 development costs and the non-service-related costs of our retiree benefit plans. As a result our adjusted EPS for the third quarter was $0.31 as Joe mentioned a moment ago versus $0.28 in the third quarter of 2018. Our third quarter adjusted EBITDA increased by $35 million to $109.2 million and we are at $328 million through nine months up 52% over the first nine months of 2018. Operating income for the quarter also rose 52% to $40.8 million. Operating expenses increased to $325.3 million with significant increases in fuel depreciation and amortization and salaries and benefits. The increases are primarily related to Omni and expanded operations for Amazon. Quarterly interest expense increased from $5.6 million to $16.7 million which includes the effect of higher borrowings for the Omni acquisition and aircraft investments. Our capital spending was $336.9 million through nine months of 2019. We have acquired 9 Boeing 767 aircraft to date and placed 4 767s into service through September. Our projection for full year capex is now $460 million down $15 million from our August forecast. Joe will talk more about our fleet development plan shortly. You probably saw last night that we also completed another amendment to our senior credit facility. The principal changes increased our revolver capacity by $105 million consolidate our 2 term loans into 1 and reduced our interest rates at a given level of borrowing from the prior pricing schedule. We estimate that these favorable changes will cut our interest costs by approximately $4.7 million per year at our current borrowing level. On the operating side our principal aircraft leasing and airline businesses continued to improve our bottom line as they expand their top line business volume. ACMI Services on a pre-tax basis earned $4.4 million in the third quarter compared with a loss a year ago and earnings of $1 million in the prior quarter. We had advised you in August that third quarter ramp-up costs for expanded second half flight operations for Amazon would be about $4 million which was roughly where we wound up. We're now expecting another couple of million of those costs in the fourth quarter as the updated flight schedules we received from Amazon in September require more crews than we had projected. That includes the effect of 2 more aircraft we will operate on a CMI basis for them. CAM our leasing business performed as expected. Revenues net of warrant-related lease incentives increased 21% due mainly to 17 more aircraft in service versus a year ago including 11 from Omni. CAM's pre-tax earnings were $17.4 million down from a year ago and flat with the second quarter. That's net of $4.8 million more in allocated interest expense and $7.7 million more for depreciation than a year ago much of it related to the addition of Omni's owned passenger fleet. Costs and revenue shortfalls from delays in leasing newly converted aircraft and from aircraft transitioning between lessees were also factors. External customer revenues from other activities for the third quarter increased $4.6 million primarily due to additional revenue for ground services and fuel sales. That was offset by the termination of sort facility management services for the U.S. Postal Service in the third quarter of last year. Pretax earnings from our other businesses were flat for the third quarter. The loss of business with the U.S. Postal Service was offset by additional revenues to support Amazon's expansion including gateway and aircraft fuel services and sort equipment maintenance. That completes the summary of our operations for the quarter. Joe?
Thanks Quint. ATSG looks substantially different today than it did a year ago. On November 8 last year we acquired Omni Air. Before the year ended we won rights to acquire 20 more 767 feedstock aircraft and agreed with Amazon on leases for 10 more 76 freighters and extensions on 20 others we lease and operate for them. Last spring we added three years to our freighter leases and operating agreements with DHL. We are a bigger company now and we'll keep growing over the next several years as we meet increased demand for our freighters and now the passenger 767s and 777s that Omni operates. We have also diversified our revenue stream with the Defense Department now representing 1/3 of our revenues. Our growth is exceptional in comparison to the overall air cargo industry. Our operating fleet will reach 100 aircraft by the end of the year up 19 from this date last year and all our available freighters will be flying during peak. We're growing because we principally serve the North American domestic express and integrated market which is driven by e-commerce demand that is growing rapidly year-over-year. We're also growing because we have in Omni the passenger assets and reliable earnings stream on another market largely insulated from economic volatility specifically transported military personnel. Omni's leadership in that arena continues. As we look back on a year's worth of results from Omni since we acquired it we can tell you that it has performed just as we expected and is poised to do well again in 2020. While others faced strong headwinds from slowing economies abroad and tariffs our U.S.-based operations are moving forward. The evidence of that trend is easy to find. DHL reports that its Americas market continues to outgrow its other global regions. UPS recently said that its second quarter overnight growth was up 30% and third quarter was up 24% year-over-year. E-commerce volume is being driven by the convenience of mobile technology and the integration of transaction platforms with social media. The projections we follow call for 20% growth in e-commerce worldwide and 15% growth in the U.S.A. through 2021. Anticipating that trend our 767 freighter growth pipeline is in good shape. We will convert and to deliver to awaiting customers 8 to 10 767s next year the majority of which are under agreement. Our growth opportunities are primarily in the Americas but also in Southeast Asia and the Mideast. In addition to our agreement a year ago with Jetran for 20 ex-American Airlines 767s we have been acquiring feedstock from other sources to meet specific customer requirements and market demand through 2021. To date we have purchased 3 of the 767s in our Jetran allotment. In short we have largely locked up the feedstock we expect to require for the next two years. This puts us in excellent position to service customer demand as the feedstock market remains tight. Even as we manage significant growth in our airline operations we are leading the way in providing safe reliable on-time service to our customers every day. Both the words and actions of our customers affirm our performance quality. Our freighter deliveries are backloaded this year as we told you would be the case. From late June through the end of the year we will put 8 767 freighters into service for Amazon. That's 6 that CAM is leasing them and 2 others Amazon has shifted to ATI from another carrier. We are also dry leasing 4 converted 767s to UPS plus a fifth in January. We expect to end 2019 with 5 767s and we're awaiting modification. Given the short 2019 lease and operating periods for these new assets they will deliver much greater cash flow in 2020 than in the fourth quarter when we will also absorb their start-up costs. So our guidance remains unchanged from the $450 million we gave you in August. Our fleet growth profile for next year is shaping up to look much like this year as well: a full year of contributions from the aircraft we are placing now plus cash flow mainly in the second half from deliveries of 2020 aircraft. Quint mentioned that we have just amended our credit facility in ways that add flexibility and reduce our interest costs. That's a strong endorsement from our banks of our ability to generate exceptional cash flow to fund most of our growth while we continue to operate at comfortable or even decreasing debt leverage. We're aware that many investors have turned away from the air cargo sector because of the macro factors we're all aware of. Certainly our stock price is reflecting a lot of that skepticism. Those who look closely at ATSG however will find a company with almost no fuel price or payload risk reliable performance and in-demand assets. We are looking forward to years of strong cash flow without federal tax cash obligations generated from long-term lease and operating contracts. Some of those leases extend late into the next decade. That's the performance we have been saying for years that our business model can and does deliver. We expect to moderate our fleet investments next year and do so further if e-commerce and other long-term trends driving our growth subside. We would instead use more cash to pay down debt and return some to shareholders but we have no intention of forfeiting today's growth opportunities to competitors because they drive the shareholder value we are generating today. That concludes our prepared remarks John. We're ready for the first question.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
[Operator Instructions] And our first question is from Jack Atkins from Stephens.
Wade Schaller -- Stephens -- Analyst
Hey, good morning, guys. You've got Wade on for Jack. Congratulations on the quarter. So to start when we think about the puts and takes of your guidance it sounds like there are some increased customer demand in the fourth quarter but also some ramp-up costs related to that and then some timing issues related to some aircraft deliveries. So first are we reading that correctly? And while this might mute some upside this year does that provide some greater visibility into additional growth for next year?
Joe Hete -- Chief Executive Officer
Well I think the upside for peak season is just strictly related to peak in terms of demand for the assets that we normally have tied up in maintenance etc. so we've got increased demand there in terms of its utilization. And as we mentioned in addition to that we've got 2 aircraft that weren't originally part of our plan that were transferred over from another operator that we had to gear up for. So we're going to see costs associated with that. And then when you look forward going into 2020 one of the things you run into is all training for example seasons for line crew members other than the upgrade side in the fourth quarter and then it picks back up again in the first. So we continue to have to add people into the mix to accommodate the existing lift and then be able to transition into the first of the year to keep the aircraft going.
Wade Schaller -- Stephens -- Analyst
Okay. That makes sense. And so when we think about the goal for 10 deployments in FY '20 with 5 already under contract and sounds like strong demand for the other 5 could that plan for 10 move any higher?
Joe Hete -- Chief Executive Officer
No. I think we're constricted by the production lines from a conversion standpoint and that's why we usually say it's 8 to 10 because you can always run into an issue where you can't get the airplanes out as quickly as you would like to. We pretty much occupy all the modification lines at IAI from a conversion standpoint. There's another airplane or 2 from other operators in there but we pretty much monopolize them. So the ability to kick that up is -- will be extremely difficult and most likely wouldn't happen.
Wade Schaller -- Stephens -- Analyst
Okay. And then last one and I'll hand it off. Can we talk preliminary capex outlook for 2020? Do you guys have that yet?
Quint Turner -- Chief Financial Officer
Yes. We -- this is Quint. We would foresee some reduction certainly from 2019's level which we've guided for this year at $460 million. I think you would see us more closer to the $400 million type level somewhere in that vicinity. Obviously we're not -- we haven't totally finalized all that and we hope to give more guidance on that of course the next time we talk. But it is a -- we foresee a lower capex requirement certainly as we go into 2020.
Wade Schaller -- Stephens -- Analyst
All right, awesome. Thank you all.
Operator
Our next question is from Helane Becker from Cowen.
Conor Cunningham -- Cowen -- Analyst
It's actually Conor Cunningham on for Helene. Just on -- maybe coming at 2020 a little bit different I mean for the EBITDA outlook. I know you don't -- you aren't giving formal guidance and I think you spoke to a little bit today. But when we think about 2020 is it -- should we be thinking about it in the context of EBITDA growth of at least the growth in your fleet? I mean just given what you did this year I realize there are some start-up costs. Maybe you can give a little -- some puts and takes on what you're expecting maybe on the cost side and maybe on revenues if you have any visibility there.
Quint Turner -- Chief Financial Officer
Yes Conor. As you say we of course will give the guidance when we -- as we always do in February when we come out with the end of the year. But because of the timing of the aircraft entrants this year you're right that full year contribution next year will be evident. We've got I believe 6 -- well 8 counting the 2 that came in from Amazon from a different carrier but we have 6 that CAM will be leasing that will be starting in the fourth quarter. And so you're going to see a full year contribution from those. And we sort of -- I think -- the analysts that follow us kind of know roughly what we expect to see in terms of contributions from the lease for those as we look forward. And we've also had a lot of start-up costs in 2019 given the growth the number of aircraft that we brought on so we would hope to see some efficiency there although there'll be more new aircraft coming online next year. Certainly it doesn't appear to be the number that we've had to gear up for this year. We also had to gear up for a heavier flight schedule in the second half and that was a pretty significant driver of the start-up costs that we've talked about this year. So having that behind us we would expect to see some efficiencies in our airline ACMI operations next year once they've cleared those start-up costs. So I do think that we'll have a tailwind on our EBITDA going into next year and we expect a double-digit-type growth rate for next year.
Conor Cunningham -- Cowen -- Analyst
Great. And then just on maybe on the DoD business. So how was that looking into 2020? Are you expecting it kind of to remain at a very robust level that you're seeing now?
Joe Hete -- Chief Executive Officer
Yes. From a DoD perspective we don't anticipate that we're going to see any reduction in that. As the -- if you look out from a military perspective as we said on previous calls one of the things they're trying to do is minimize somewhat the utilization of the military's own assets which means anything that can and could be done by the commercial sector will drive some of that. It's not going to be a significant growth number. But on a year-over-year basis we expect to see growth.
Conor Cunningham -- Cowen -- Analyst
Great. And maybe one on the A321 conversion, So you're targeting certification in mid-2020. When do you expect to start looking for feedstock for that aircraft? And have you already started to have some discussions with customers on that plane? And does it actually open you up to additional customers that you don't actually have right now? Just curious on your thoughts there.
Joe Hete -- Chief Executive Officer
Yes. The 321 right now the target is to get the certification call it in the latter part of the second quarter of next year. The aircraft from a conversion standpoint is down off jacks. It's sitting on its own landing gear. We're still doing some testing expect to start test flying in the first part of the year going forward. As far as the aircraft itself feedstock we're always on the lookout for feedstock if the right opportunity would come along. But right now when you think about things like the 737 MAX being grounded etc. a 321 is an equivalent lift actually a little bit more but that's going to hold feedstock availability down. But we're talking to a number of customers both ourselves and Precision. Obviously we can leverage the 321 from the perspective of buying aircraft converting them and leasing them out ourselves. We can leverage it from the standpoint that we're part owner of the ultimate STC that would come out and so we'd share in those proceeds as well. Really from a production standpoint if you're talking about a second quarter certification of the aircraft you might get a couple more aircraft into the mix in the latter part of 2020. And from a full production standpoint I don't see it being a big production line going forward until probably the latter part of '21 and '22.
Conor Cunningham -- Cowen -- Analyst
Okay. In terms of like the actual conversion is it a similar time frame as the other aircraft that you normally do? Or is there any I don't know...
Joe Hete -- Chief Executive Officer
Are you talking about the elapsed time to converting an aircraft?
Conor Cunningham -- Cowen -- Analyst
Yes.
Joe Hete -- Chief Executive Officer
Yes. That's difficult to say at this point. It is a fairly extensive mod although you are actually obviously talking about a smaller airframe than the 767 is. But until we get through the certification process itself and understand all the piece parts. As you can imagine during the certification there's a lot of form and fit issues that you have to deal with but in no way shape or form should it be any longer than what the 767 is which right now is call it 120 days.
Conor Cunningham -- Cowen -- Analyst
Okay. Great. Thank you.
Operator
Our next question is from David Ross from Stifel.
David Ross -- Stifel -- Analyst
Yes Good morning. It's actually me. A question on the -- yes I guess on Omni first. It's been almost exactly a year. So what's the post-deal postmortem in your analysis after having Omni as part of ATSG for the last year? Is it better than expected worse than expected? How is it different?
Quint Turner -- Chief Financial Officer
Dave, it's Quint. And we are honored that you actually joined us on the call today so. Yes. It's a good -- great question Omni. As Joe said in his remarks earlier it's performing as expected and I would say better in some respects certainly than expected. So we're-- as far as the postmortem it was accretive from the beginning and has remained so to our earnings. We talked about what our assumptions were when we purchased it about its trailing 12-month EBITDA and cash flow production. And I would -- we've -- as you know we've taken the 11 owned aircraft and they're part of CAM's portfolio. So part of that EBITDA manifests itself with CAM. But in total if you look at it I think it is -- it has met and/or exceeded what our expectations were for cash flow production. And moreover in terms of I think putting us -- putting our revenue book in a place where it's less exposed to volatility from things like the general cargo market it really was a game changer for us. And I think given all the growth opportunities that remain with us in the e-commerce space it's going to provide a nice balancing immunization impact on our exposures to the broad economy.
Joe Hete -- Chief Executive Officer
David if you look at it from a utilization standpoint obviously mix comes into play if you're talking about 777s versus 767s. But if you look at third quarter for example on a year-over-year basis Omni's block hours were up 16% versus third quarter last year. So it's growing in addition to what we expected to get from a baseline perspective over the long term. And of course as we've mentioned I think on the last call we've given them an additional 767-300 out of the American fleet to operate in the -- not the military sector but commercial sector. And it's -- right now as Quint mentioned it's doing everything we expected it to.
David Ross -- Stifel -- Analyst
But the block hours are up mostly on an apples-to-apples basis but there's one more plane in there?
Joe Hete -- Chief Executive Officer
No; Because the one more plane isn't going to drive a 16% increase in block hours on a year-over-year basis. If you look at that from a raw numbers perspective in terms of the -- if you look at it there was 9000 block hours flown by Omni in the third quarter of this year versus about 7800 the prior year. So you're not going to get that kind of utilization out of one aircraft. So everything in total is growing.
David Ross -- Stifel -- Analyst
Okay. And Omni did also bring some charter business to you although it's not the long-haul cargo charter that's exposed to the air freight market and what's going on with trade and tariff issues? How do you think about the charter business as part of ACMI? Does it change the profile of the earnings longer term? Is it more volatile? Is there something about the passenger charter market that's more stable than the cargo charter market?
Joe Hete -- Chief Executive Officer
No. I wouldn't say it's more stable. I mean charter is what it is. I mean think about Omni in total. Remember if you look at the book of business they had it was 70% DoD; 15% government; and 15% commercial. And one of the commercial -- on the commercial side they had one long-term customer. They had a dedicated aircraft to it. So it's not going to be a huge driver of revenue for us from a charter standpoint in terms of -- in comparison to the total book of revenue that we have. But certainly if you can put hours on an asset that otherwise might be sitting on the deck it certainly helps the bottom line.
David Ross -- Stifel -- Analyst
And then when we're looking at the fourth quarter and maintaining EBITDA guidance for the year do you expect ACMI margins given the puts and takes with the more aircraft more hours but somewhat increased training costs should ACMI margins be up year-over-year or flat or a little bit down?
Joe Hete -- Chief Executive Officer
No. It should be up on a year-over-year basis just because the number of additional assets we have flying out there. But as Quint mentioned we've incurred a significant amount of investment and training costs for crews and that will roll into the fourth quarter as well. We've had about $4 million to this past quarter third quarter in terms of just training costs associated with bringing crews online. And that will continue not to that degree in the fourth quarter so margins should improve as we go through the fourth and start off the year.
Quint Turner -- Chief Financial Officer
And remember Dave we only had Omni for a partial quarter a year ago right? So that will have -- that will help margins having them for a full quarter this year.
David Ross -- Stifel -- Analyst
And last question Quint on the interest expense. I don't know if I was writing too fast or what. But did you say that with the new credit agreement that interest expense is going to be down $4.7 million a year so more like $15 million a quarter?
Quint Turner -- Chief Financial Officer
Yes. At the current -- right. At the current borrowing level we essentially were able to achieve a lower pricing in terms of the spreads based on the pricing grid that the banks charge interest to us on. And so I think at our -- at current pricing level immediately it would drop 37.5 basis points which is you just take that across our secured debt at the current level it equates to about $4.7 million per year of lower interest costs.
David Ross -- Stifel -- Analyst
Okay, thank you.
Operator
[Operator Instructions] And our next question is from Steve O'Hara from Sidoti & Company.
Steve O'Hara -- Sidoti & Company. -- Analyst
I guess just first on the start-up costs and things like that for the -- I assume it's just Amazon. But can you just -- I mean I think the total is something in the neighborhood of $13 million or something. Is that kind of a -- I mean that should be a tailwind for next year. And then I assume this is kind of ramping up faster than expected. But the way Amazon utilizes the aircraft is that turning to sort of having extra crews maybe not as heavily utilized in 1Q and 2Q? Does that turn into more of a headwind having extra crews? Or how does that work?
Joe Hete -- Chief Executive Officer
From a crew costs or training standpoint Steve the number isn't quite as high as $13 million for the year on a forecasted basis. But as I said we still will incur some in the fourth quarter as well. As we transition into the next year obviously we have to again start people running through their recurrent training cycles which they haven't had as well as open up vacations again for folks. So you need people to backfill or otherwise they would -- we're not in a training mode and you're gearing up for a regular utilization of the aircraft themselves. So it will be a tailwind for us in the first part of the year. But then again it all depends on what the demand is in terms of the flying. We came into this year with -- expecting less than half of what we think we're going to incur this year from training costs but that changed pretty quickly when the aircraft utilization changed which primarily driven by Amazon is going to a 1-day delivery service.
Steve O'Hara -- Sidoti & Company. -- Analyst
Okay. All right. That's helpful. And then in terms of the impact on the MAX grounding do you know kind of roughly what that impact is maybe so far this year and then maybe what you expect it to be for full year assuming that plane eventually starts flying again?
Joe Hete -- Chief Executive Officer
Well from the MAX standpoint I'm not sure what you mean by the impact. Now we are flying one aircraft for Air Canada to cover for their MAX being grounded so we're getting utilization out of one aircraft for that. As I mentioned earlier it does have some impact from a feedstock standpoint particularly on a light kind of asset basis the A321. There may be some folks out there that are holding on to a 767 for example to cover for a MAX that may be grounded. But outside of that there's really no direct impact to us today other than the fact that we are operating that one additional aircraft for Air Canada.
Steve O'Hara -- Sidoti & Company. -- Analyst
Okay. So I guess that was the impact I was talking about. So it's really just one aircraft and probably not a huge driver of anything or negative when it goes away?
Joe Hete -- Chief Executive Officer
No it won't be.
Steve O'Hara -- Sidoti & Company. -- Analyst
Okay. And then maybe just lastly in terms of the -- did you say kind of what the expected EBITDA run rate was at the end of the year?
Quint Turner -- Chief Financial Officer
We didn't. We didn't a give a number for that Steve. And of course we'll give that guidance in February. So I think you know it's certainly north of $460 million and less than $500 million. How about that? So somewhere in between.
Steve O'Hara -- Sidoti & Company. -- Analyst
Okay. All right. Thank you very much.
Operator
Our next question is from Chris Stathoulopoulos from Susquehanna.
Chris Stathoulopoulos -- Susquehanna -- Analyst
Thanks for taking my question. I was wondering if you could talk about given all the changes in ACMI over the last two, three years with Amazon certainly Omni how we should think about pre-tax margins on a steady-state basis assuming that there aren't any other significant acquisitions and perhaps in the kind of 2% to 3% GDP backdrop?
Quint Turner -- Chief Financial Officer
Yes. I mean Steve -- or Chris we've always I think said that the ACMI Services margin is a single-digit-type margin. It has more volatility associated with it because the changes in customer demand such as we've had this year where you're ramping up operations can impact it. Omni if you look back at our historic ACMI margins you'll note that there's been improvement certainly with the addition of Omni and with their customer base and the nature of their contracts. So I still believe we are looking longer term at a single-digit margin target for that. It's -- certainly Omni has helped move that a little higher if that helps.
Chris Stathoulopoulos -- Susquehanna -- Analyst
Okay. That's helpful. In the release you talked about lower capex in the out-years and reducing leverage. And Joe's prepared remarks said that you have visibility into your feedstock I think for the next two, three years. So putting all that all together are you suggesting that beyond 2020 or so we could see free cash flow positive free cash flow on a sustained basis which I know is kind of contrary to the way the model works with an aircraft to grow etc.? But I was just curious how to reconcile that versus what you called out in the release.
Quint Turner -- Chief Financial Officer
I think that certainly we've been in an investment cycle given the growth opportunities that were in front of us. And as Joe said when good growth opportunities are there we like to pursue those because that produces the best value long term. I do think that we're in a great position in that our maintenance capex needs are pretty low. We said only about $100 million. We were proactive in securing feedstock when we bought the 20 aircraft fleet ex-American fleet and it's fit well into this investment cycle. But if you look beyond that I mean I think you'll see plenty of opportunity for free cash flows deleveraging and free cash flows. And there's a lot of capital allocation option certainly that we'll have at our disposal if you look out. Really you don't even have to look that far for that.
Chris Stathoulopoulos -- Susquehanna -- Analyst
Okay. And then just one follow-up here, so how dynamic the peak season has been over the last few years looking specifically at the integrators and all the changes investments they're making in their network to handle volumes. I'm curious as a lessor you operate some of these planes how you've seen the peak shape? What's perhaps easier today as an operator? Or more challenging how are you balancing utilization and on-time performance for a business that continues to grow in the double digits?
Quint Turner -- Chief Financial Officer
Chris Mike Berger happens to be sitting here with us. And since Rich Corrado usually fields those kind of questions but he's traveling. We're going to bring Mike our Chief Commercial Officer into play here, so Mike?
Mike Berger -- Chief Commercial Officer
We'll have all our aircraft flying during peak this year and we've been committed to that for a number of weeks now. So we saw extremely strong demand early on from some of our customers so we'll get full utilization out of our fleet this year. It's also a little bit more condensed this year with Thanksgiving falling in the last week of November. So that will make crunch time so to speak even more important in terms of on-time performance. But as Joe stated in his remarks -- earlier remarks we continue to see all of our airlines performing at very high on-time performance levels. So peak this year shorter, in terms of a condensed standpoint and full utilization of all of our aircraft in our fleet so very good season for us.
Joe Hete -- Chief Executive Officer
One of the challenges going forward Chris from the industry's perspective is there's very few assets that are already dedicated to utilization on a 12-month-a-year basis. And when you start talking about peak assets you have to have something that either has some book of business that occupies it for 10.5 or 11 months out of the year and then freeze it up which those are -- just really aren't out there to any great degree at all. So it's going to be a challenge for the industry as a whole from a service perspective to deal with peak volumes as the e-commerce sector of the business continues to grow and stuff has to move by air versus service movements.
Chris Stathoulopoulos -- Susquehanna -- Analyst
Okay. Last one you say Rich is overseas and Joe you talked about e-commerce potential overseas. Outside of Amazon flying in say Europe I'm just curious what other e-tailers or operators are out there that you can point to that might look to supplement their existing air capacity or perhaps start up a dedicated fleet?
Joe Hete -- Chief Executive Officer
Yes. I mean there's not a lot out there in terms of that have the bandwidth to. I mean people always talk about Walmart for example but Walmart has such an expansive service distribution network that it'd be difficult. And as far as I know they don't do a darn thing by air today. I think you have to start looking around the globe to find other opportunities. Certainly Amazon as you mentioned in Europe could be one. You could get into Asia for example but our ability to operate there is pretty limited. But certainly it would be a potential outlet for leasing aircraft in there especially when you start talking about something like the 321. One of the reasons we like that airplane is great cubic capacity much better than the 737-800. So we see potential markets in the long pool if for example an Alibaba or something like that sets up a network in the Asian sector. That would certainly be a great location for the 321 because right now a bunch of the things that they do in China for example is point-to-point as opposed to hub-and-spoke.
Chris Stathoulopoulos -- Susquehanna -- Analyst
Thank you.
Joe Hete -- Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, Chris.
Operator
Our next question is from Christopher Hillary from Roubaix.
Christopher Hillary -- Roubaix -- Analyst
All right. Good morning, everyone. Just a quick question, i know there's a lot of differences but do you have any observations on the acquisition of Aircastle? As earlier you kind of commented on how the stock price might have reacted to some negative trends in the freight market? I was curious if you thought there was any read-acrosses from what happened with Aircastle.
Joe Hete -- Chief Executive Officer
No. Nothing we can see. I mean generally your larger leasing companies are focused more on new -- buying new assets primarily focused on the passenger market. We're -- as we're on converted assets in the cargo market so I don't think there's much overlap there.
Christopher Hillary -- Roubaix -- Analyst
Okay, thank you.
Operator
We did have another question queue up from Chris Stathoulopoulos from Susquehanna.
Chris Stathoulopoulos -- Susquehanna -- Analyst
Thanks for taking me again.Just on -- I don't think anyone's asked about labor but the open CBA with one of the subsidiaries. I think it's ATI, and then also given all the aircraft additions for this year and next year how we should think about headcount and maybe if you could split that between pilot and crew versus corporate.
Joe Hete -- Chief Executive Officer
Well I think from -- it's actually ABX that has the open collective bargaining agreement not ATI. They're still under the auspices of the National Mediation Board. They met for 3 or 4 days last week with the federal mediator so negotiations continue. Now that we're heading into peak season you probably won't see any additional mediated discussions until after the -- after we get through the first of the year. But like I said from our perspective even though we've got this collective bargaining agreement that's open the crews continue to move the airplanes on an on-time basis. Their performance remains at the usual high level. So things are on an even keel there. And second part of your question Chris was?
Chris Stathoulopoulos -- Susquehanna -- Analyst
Just with all the aircraft additions how we should think about headcount growth for 2020 and if you could maybe split that between pilot and crew versus corporate.
Joe Hete -- Chief Executive Officer
Well it's difficult to say until we know what the schedules would be from a pilot standpoint. Like I said 4 of the aircraft go to Amazon 1 to UPS and 10 of the 5 that we have firm commits on. As they add aircraft into the network it could lower the utilization on other assets as they add those in. So it's difficult to say what the actual number would be until we receive schedules for that. As far as the let's call it the admin side of the equation it's a pretty small number overall that you have to add in order to support the growth of the airlines themselves. Probably the bigger driver is on the maintenance side of the equation as you have to add technicians depending upon whether you're using an existing location to run that airplane through or a new location. And all the talk you hear out there in the industry about pilot shortages I'm here to tell you that I think there's a much more acute shortage of qualified maintenance technicians than there is pilots. And of course if we can't fix the airplane you don't need a pilot to fly it. So we've had no difficulty attracting pilots to date with ATI because of the great opportunities so it's -- we're able to put butts in the seats so to speak.
Chris Stathoulopoulos -- Susquehanna -- Analyst
Okay. And then last one on the Amazon warrants. Have any been exercised? And just remind us again when the 2016 and 2018 tranches expire.
Quint Turner -- Chief Financial Officer
Yes Chris nothing exercised as of yet. The first warrant tranche which we issued in what March of 2016 was a 5-year exercise period so March of 2021. And then last December we issued the other tranche associated with the lease extensions on the 20 aircraft the additional 10 leases in the CMI agreement 5-year extension. Those warrants have an exercise period of seven years from that date. So that would be what 2025 late 2025.
Chris Stathoulopoulos -- Susquehanna -- Analyst
Okay, thanks for the time today. Thank you.
Operator
And we have no further questions at this time.
Joe Hete -- Chief Executive Officer
Well thanks John. On behalf of the Board of Directors I want to thank those of you on the call today who shared their thoughts last month about the factors affecting our stock price. We appreciate all the ideas about how we can make ATSG a stronger more profitable and more shareholder-focused company. Thank you for your continuing support and have a quality day.
Operator
[Operator Closing Remarks]
Duration: 48 minutes
Call participants:
Joe Hete -- Chief Executive Officer
Quint Turner -- Chief Financial Officer
Mike Berger -- Chief Commercial Officer
Wade Schaller -- Stephens -- Analyst
Conor Cunningham -- Cowen -- Analyst
David Ross -- Stifel -- Analyst
Steve O'Hara -- Sidoti & Company. -- Analyst
Chris Stathoulopoulos -- Susquehanna -- Analyst
Christopher Hillary -- Roubaix -- Analyst
