All right, I think we're gonna go ahead and get started. I'm Stephen Ju with the UBS Internet Equity Research Team. I'm joined on the stage by Rob Wiesenthal, who's the founder and CEO of Blade Air Mobility. So welcome back. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Is this our third year in a row, second year in a row? I think it's the third year in a row. Yeah, I see Will in the audience as well. Yeah So just like he doesn't feel left out, but, He doesn't Welcome back, Will. So all right, so let's start. I thank for all of you who fought for a seat today, too, so thank you. Awesome. I know, it was a battle. So at any rate, let's start at the top. I mean, Blade today is very much a different company versus the one that went public, you know, several years ago, right? So can you briefly provide an overview of where you are now, and how the portfolio of businesses you have today have evolved over time? Yeah. Well, I think the portfolio of businesses definitely has changed, but the strategy hasn't. Yeah ... we when we started the company in 2014, it really was to build the ecosystem for what we saw was really coming quick, which was electric vertical aircraft. So the same battle that was happening on the ground was clearly gonna move to the sky, and that goes back to my days when I was head of corporate development globally for Sony, and did a lot of work with lithium-ion battery procurement strategies and such. And, like, it was. They were getting cheaper and lighter and more powerful. So we knew that those batteries were gonna get to the point where they could not only roll wheels on the ground, but you know, provide enough power to provide lift to for aviation. Yeah. So the idea was that there were a lot of companies out there that were pouring billions of dollars into actually building aircraft, but no one was building the ecosystem that was really required in order to make these services a reality. So that required infrastructure that we now have to facilitate passengers, that are all largely exclusive and proprietary. We have multiple terminals in the Northeast and the New York area. We have it in western Canada, and we also have it in Southern Europe. So these are places where if you need to have a real large business, you need to aggregate passengers, do baggage assessment, you need to make sure people are getting on the right flights, and it has to be just for you. You can't have multiple operators doing it. It's clear that the places that we all land now are private airports and private heliports that used to only deal with, frankly, owned and operated aircraft by individuals or corporations, but not scheduled service like the kinds that we do right now- Yeah ... in all three of these big locations. So that was really important, and allows us what we call turn times, to get people on and off, on and off aircraft quickly, because, you know, we're moving tens of thousands of people, you know, to the airport, a year. You know, you've got flights going on a Friday every five minutes or such, to various destinations, especially, in the Northeast or during events like the Monaco Grand Prix, in, southern Europe, things like that. Yeah. You know, you need that surge capacity. The second part was a technology stack that goes from consumer to cockpit. So that's everything from the consumer-facing app, where you can essentially book a helicopter 20 minutes before a flight, and see your schedule. That works in Canada, Europe, U.S., and their each experience is slightly different. Everything from processing the currencies and doing the transactions. And then you have in-cockpit, where pilots can actually help use tools that compute weight and balance, which is really important because before Blade, you'd really need the manifest of who's gonna be on the aircraft, sometimes even a day before- Yeah ... because weight and balance in terms of fueling and such, aircraft are sensitive to that. You really need to know how you fuel before your mission. So one of the things that we solve there. And then finally, the third pillar really is this incredible brand. I think we're the largest operating urban air mobility company in the world. Blade is a verb in the markets we serve. You know, you Blade to the airport, you Blade to Monaco. We have routes, and we have hundreds of thousands of flyers at this point. You know, those were the numbers, you know, pre-pandemic, and now, you know, we're kind of moving back into that, you know, numbers that are approaching that. Most of our areas in the Northeast, we're bigger- Yep ... than we were before the pandemic. So those are the three pillars, and we do this on an asset-light basis. We neither own or operate any aircraft, and that's to help facilitate that transition from conventional rotorcraft- Yep ... to what we call EVA or electric vertical aircraft. Yeah. So the analogy that you and I have talked about in the past was very much, you know, the analogy of Netflix back in the day, you know, sending DVDs around, but calling their company Netflix. Yeah. We don't call our company Blade Helicopter for a reason, but they were waiting for streaming to get to the point where it was viable. That's where we are right now. We have the ecosystem. We're flying people on the routes that'll be essentially roughly the same cost and the same time for the distance, but we'll be able to do that hopefully in, you know, by 2026 at a certain point on an emission-free and quiet basis, and that's a game changer, and we're a one of one. We're the only company doing that. Yeah. Along the way, this is what you're alluding to. Since we've been public, we saw a tremendous opportunity in using our logistics platform and the people that are working 24 hours a day to use the same aircraft that we use for passengers, for medical. Yeah. Today, we're now the largest air transporter of human organs in the United States. It's a terrific business. It's growing incredibly, rapidly, rapidly, you know, very strong margins, and but it also allows our operator partners and us to enjoy better economies of scales, because the same aircraft that are flying people during the day are flying organ missions at night, which means an operator can amortize his fixed costs or her fixed costs on hangars, insurance, annual salaries for pilots, maintenance people over a 24-hour period as opposed to a 12-hour period. Yeah. That reduced their hourly costs dramatically. Good for us, good for them. So there really is a symbiotic relationship. And also the same people, the terminals are also used as check-in points for doctors and organs, and we're saving lives and improving outcomes. Before Blade, you know, our first client, Langone Hospital, when they would do a mission to Philadelphia Hospital, that could be $60,000 for the ambulances and a G4 jet. We now can do that with a helicopter from hospital to hospital- Yeah ... in the $4,000+ range. Yeah. So, it's been terrific, and I think the two businesses fit together really nicely and have really accelerated our path to profitability. And as you know, we had our first adjusted EBITDA positive quarter this past quarter, so I think we're on the right track. Yeah. Speaking of that, I mean, I think the third quarter results were better than expected, and yeah, as you mentioned, both on a top and bottom line, and a return to profitability. So are there any sort of key highlights that you want to bring up, for investors in terms of what drove that positive result? Well, I think there was some skepticism- Yeah ... on our ability to essentially beat Uber prices on our Blade Airport product and be profitable, and we've proven this past quarter that it's a profitable business. But the JFK and Newark, you know, as a whole, this, the airport product is a profitable business now, and a lot of that was done by add-ons, things like excess luggage, a car that meets you on the way- Yeah ... once you arrive, but also dynamic pricing and fare classes. So, you know, you have three different fare classes. One is you can't get a refund. One is you can get credits back. One you can get cash back. Yeah. I think that all those things together got us to the point where our average seat price is now north of $300, despite the fact that you can fly for as little as $95 with the purchase of an airport pass, or $195 without. Yeah. It's clear that of the 27 million people who are going between the New York area airports and Manhattan, that the ones that are trying our service tend to be on the higher demographic, despite the fact there are lots of people that can afford that. That's just the natural curve and flow of early adoption versus mass adoption. Yeah. I think we're really enjoying that right now because people do have the choice for lower cost, lower priced airport seats, but they want to take the add-ons, and that really has accelerated our path to profitability or accelerated us into profitability for airport. Yeah. So I think that's that. Also, dynamic pricing. I think that was a, you know, a big driver. Then, we also have, you know, the performance of the medical business- Yeah ... which is really continued to grow and adding hospitals and margins are improving, which were already pretty strong. I think we're now at the point where we said in our last earnings call that we are comfortable enough with where we are on this, you know, that profitability is in sight, and that we will be giving guidance for the first time for 2024 and 2025 at the end of our next quarter. Gotcha. All right. Well, I think, also in the third quarter, I think, you announced, TOPS with Trinity Organ Placement Services- Yeah ... is the full name. And that is set to, I think that went live, it's going live on December first, and you've already onboarded two key customers. Mm-hmm. That said, you already have about 70+ customers, existing contracts. So, you know, what needs to happen to onboard these customers to the new service? And, are they waiting to see the ROI, or what are some of the key KPIs that you're monitoring for that? Well, like, I think that it's clear that each of the hospitals are now realizing that we're 24/7- Yeah ... that we have the ability to do logistics and, you know, quite well, and, you know, would like us to be more involved in that entire process. Yeah. So, the organ procurement organizations that are ones that get an organ, and then UNOS, which is a massive organization, that is the one that actually maintains the list of organ donors, looks at the list and decides what hospital is going to be assigned to it, and they have some basic specifications. So what we do is come in and actually figure out if it really is a match based on the specifications required by that hospital. Yeah. Now, usually, that happens in the middle of the night. Surgeons are sleeping. We're now doing that for them. Yeah. That actually is a job they really would like to give to us, and they trust us to do it. I think it's terrific that they do trust us to do it. We always, as you mentioned, we already have two contracts. These are gonna be $500,000-$1.5 million per hospital. You know, very strong margins, but it also gets us into the process earlier. Yeah. That allows us to make sure that we are best positioned to do the transportation of that organ. Yeah. It's gonna be a better service for them. It's going to be, we're gonna be much more involved earlier, more time to scramble the aircraft, know what's going on, know what time they're hitting the OR. We're gonna have a lot more information to provide a much better, even better service- Yeah ... for our customers. I think it's gonna give us a real edge versus, you know, competitors that we have. Gotcha. I think, you mentioned, you know, $500,000-$1.5 million, I mean, at the midpoint... you know, TOPS could be theoretically growth segment revenue contributions by 50%, right? So, you know, is this how we should think about the upside potential for this new segment? And I guess, what are some of the puts and takes? Well, I think, you know, look, we're always trying to add more hospitals. Yeah. Some of these hospitals will be using the service, some, you know, may not. Yeah. But I definitely think I'm looking at it as, you know, supercharging our medical business with brand-new lines. And so when we take a look at, you know, how do we grow, there's a lot of opportunity for organic growth, despite the fact that we have, you know, $174 million of cash on our balance sheet, approximately, and no debt. We're looking opportunistically at acquisitions that are accretive day one- Yeah ... and that are snap-on and that are low risk with respect to integration. But when we see something like this, here's a great way to grow, frankly, with minimal investment. Yeah. There are other parts of this value chain in terms of the transplant business that we're evaluating now, that I think can be as much, if not, you know- Yeah ... more interesting and more compelling economically than even TOPS. Gotcha. With that being said, I think, we might have talked about this before, where, you know, the amount of transplants that you're even currently handling versus the entirety of what's been done in the United States or happening in the United States, I mean, it's a small sliver. So, feels like there's a very significant opportunity to expand your addressable market. Well, it's a business of mom-and-pops- Yeah ... for the most part. And so, and organs, the aperture of what organ an organ is suitable for transplant is increasing, and organs are now able to travel longer time, longer distances and longer times out of the body with- Yeah ... perfusion technology. We actually work with a company called Paragonix, and we did the world's longest organ mission, from Boston to Alaska. Yeah. Now, that's something that a couple of years ago was unheard of. So I think a lot of the growth is coming from some of these longer distance flights. And also, as I said before, just the medical technology in terms of, you know, what is an organ that's suitable for transplant? So we expect this to, you know, this to really continue high growth. Okay, so it sounds like technology is your friend, your competitors are subscale mom-and-pops, and you're- For the most part, yeah. ... gonna go out there and consolidate the industry. Well, yeah. Yeah. I think that, you know, in terms of consolidation, I think, you know, when we look at opportunities, you know, you know, the team is very confident, and I think they look at growth in terms of, you know, a contract-by-contract basis with a hospital, you know, as opposed to necessarily buying someone who's in this business who has contracts. Yeah. I think, you know, our legacy and our performance, you know, I think we like to compete in those contracts. Yeah. We don't necessarily see all the time, you know, an acquisition of someone who has contracts is the most efficient use of capital. I hear you. Okay. Why, yeah, why pay the equity holders of that said business- Yeah ... when you can go out and get the business? Sometimes, yeah. Yeah. Got it. Mentioned the EVA earlier. So I think EVA testing is underway in Canada. And your first test in New York City is set for the first quarter, if I remember correctly? No, yeah, we actually did a test- In- ... last year. That's right. First quarter. Yeah. The first test in, you know, there it is on the screen. Mm-hmm. The first test of EVA in the greater New York City area with a company called Beta. Yeah. That was the very first test. It was, you know, obviously successful. It's a terrific aircraft. It was a test of two other aircraft, both Joby and Volocopter. We're very excited about that. We talk to these companies every day. Yeah. It's great for the industry. They did it out of the Wall Street Heliport. And I think it, you know, and we work very closely with Mayor Adams' office and the EDC and the HRPT. I don't need to tell you what those acronyms are, but they're basically organizations that handle all the heliports in the New York City area, and they're very excited because they see Blade as being a huge catalyst of getting those operators that are entrenched in Blade as our- Yeah ... you know, our partners. Because we're not a marketplace. People should know that. It's not like Uber. You can't just get us to take a phone, download an app, put a suction cup on a windshield of a helicopter and fly for us for a day. These are, you know, relatively large operators, who go through our massive due diligence, use our branding, use our technology. And the catalyst for those operators flying helicopters to make the shift into EVA, or some of you guys may call it eVTOL- Yeah ... is gonna be Blade. Yeah. Because we have the hours, we have the passengers, we have that throughput where they can finance against that, those hours, to make that transition- Yeah ... quite rapidly. You mentioned Mayor Adams. The other stakeholder in this equation is, of course, the government, right? So, how does regulation for EVAs or eVTOLs differ from, you know, the current existing aircraft? And, you know, what are some of the friction points that you think you might need to know? Well, I think it's... Yeah, you're 100% correct. You know, the big what's standing in between us and EVA adoption is certification, and I think people are moving very quickly with certification. Some people are, you know, saying, you know, 2025, we're probably more about 2026. Yeah. It will probably be, you know, very few aircraft in the beginning. You know, because we're so big and do so many kind of diverse routes, we need a portfolio of different types of EVA, because the same aircraft that has an organ mission is different than one that goes to the hospital. It's different than one that goes to, say, Washington, D.C.- Yeah ... or even, you know, flying in, you know, in between, you know, Nice and Monaco in Europe or, you know, Vancouver and Victoria in Canada. So we need a portfolio. So I think that the start for Blade will be, you know, using them where we can move people between helicopters and EVA. It's clear from our own research that it's gonna be much easier to get someone to go from a helicopter to an EVA than, say, from a car to an EVA- Yeah But they may want to see how it is. It's the new type of propulsion. It's kind of aircraft and aerodynamics people haven't seen before. Yeah. There may be some, you know, concerns, but we know that our passengers are quite excited, you know, about it. Yeah. But I think kind of in 2026, you'll start seeing them. So the real gating factor is that. But this government, especially under Secretary Buttigieg, you know, because it's green, that is a very big deal. So I think they've really accelerated that adoption process and feel the pressure, you know, to just as you feel to see the pressure on the ground moving to EVs and hybrids- Yeah To do the same thing in the sky. So I think they're moving as fast as they can on a prudent level. Obviously, safety is the number one paramount concern. Yeah. The great news about Blade is that, you know, if it's late, we still have a great business that can be profitable. Yeah. We just grow that much more, have that many more terminals, that many more routes, passengers, oh, you know, revenues. If it comes when it's supposed to come, great too, but we're, you know, there's no waiting for Godot. Right. You know, we're here and running a great business today with conventional aircraft. I think it's also important to know is that the price of the aircraft really, in the beginning, is not going to be that much different. Yeah. The experience for the customer is going to be pretty much, especially if you think about like an airport flight, exactly the same. You know, 5 minutes to the air, 4 minutes to the Newark, you know, 8 minutes to Kennedy, same basic price, but it will be quiet and emission-free. And what that does, is it gives you the great unlock of opening more landing zones. Yeah. Any pair of landing zones is a business that can grow you exponentially. Right now, the only thing that stops us from opening new landing zones is noise. Yeah. All right? So what's going to happen is, you're going to have EVA come into play, but we are the incumbent in terms of having these exclusive terminals. Then it probably could be 3 years, maybe 5 years before you actually get these new landing zones, because that's when you get into the real regulatory on the local level- Yeah ... of whether people will not want this technology in their backyard. Yeah. But luckily, we can use our existing network to start, and eventually, it's gonna—it's clearly going to happen. I mean, even one new landing zone, say, for example, in Manhattan, south of Central Park, you know, north of Forty-second Street, could give an exponential rise in terms of the kind of revenues we would have in the Northeast, just because of the interconnectivity and network effects of- Yeah Blade West, Blade East, Wall Street. You know, so not only having airport routes, but having routes that are intra-Manhattan, that sometimes, say, this time of year, it could take you over an hour to get from Hudson Yards to, you know, mid, you know, the mid, you know, upper Midtown- Yeah -third Fifties. Yeah. And you mentioned green, mentioned noise, right? So the other place where you have a footprint is, of course, in Europe. And, you know, I think, the regulatory backdrop there, I think there's stricter, I guess, parameters with carbon and noise emissions. So, you know, theoretically, the eventual rollout of, you know, EVAs and that becoming more commonplace should help ease some of those concerns. So you should theoretically be, perfectly aligned with what the government, wants to do there. So, you know, should we look for the same set of catalysts, for both passenger as well as the medical business in Europe as well? Well, it's interesting. You know, I think now we're actually seeing a lot of interest from European investors, too- Yeah ... because of the ESG element. There is much more focus on emissions. I would say the U.S. is focused on noise, and Europe is focused on emissions. Yeah. There is also focus on, noise in certain parts of Southern Europe, some of the resort areas and such. But I think that EASA, which is the European version of the FAA, is very much focused on accelerating this as quickly as possible. And the good thing about EASA is that they haven't constrained us in terms of the existing rotorcraft operators and where we operate, ahead of the deployment of this, because they know this is the path. Yeah. So, you know, I think it is a great opportunity and it is gonna be enjoying acceleration there for sure, and has a nice balancing effect from what we have in the US. But right now, our medical business is strictly in the US. Yeah. That's where we see the opportunity. You know, it's a very different type of organ procurement process in Europe. It's more country by country. Yeah. Very, very different, and something that we're probably, I think we see so much opportunity in the U.S., I'm gonna keep focused on that in terms of medical. Understood. Now, without, you know, EVA and waiting for 2026, I guess, should we be thinking about any other potential flight corridors you see opportunities in, domestically or internationally? Well, I think one thing I'll say is that, you know, part of the reason for the success and the fact that we're around now and, you know, we're able to go public when others couldn't, is that you're never gonna see a map of the globe with Blade, with dots all over the place. Yeah. You know, with the landing zones you have right now, we are on the three largest markets in the world, period. Because it's all about where you can land. If I can land, you know, a block from your house, that's a lot more valuable than you having to spend 40 minutes getting in a car just to save 20 minutes. That doesn't make any sense. And so we... You know, our view is we wanna, instead of being an inch wide, we want to go a mile deep. There's so much penetration to be had. We talked about the Northeast, 28 million people going between the airports in Manhattan, and we're in the, you know, tens of thousands. And so there's so much more to go there. Same thing in Europe. Europe, during COVID, they stopped by-the-seat service between Nice and Monaco. We restarted that. Great opportunity. We're now—we've been looking at Milan because our partner, RedBird Capital Partners, who owns a stake in Blade, you know, recently purchased the AC Milan football team, and we noticed there's a lot of traffic between Monaco and Milan. So we're really trying to go deeper in the areas that we are. That's the best opportunity for investors. It's the lowest risk, quickest return, as opposed to, you know, what you hear from other companies, where they're saying, "Well, let's fly from, you know, the Orlando Airport to downtown Orlando." You have an eight-lane superhighway that was built 20 years ago and no traffic, and it just doesn't make sense. You have to either be geographically contested, like you have in Europe, we got mountains that have to go over and through, and sometimes, or you have to be highly congested, like a New York City. Yeah. and so that's really where we see the opportunity. Once EVA's here, and we have new landing zones, then you're gonna have the opportunities for new routes. Now, we've done some experimentation in on the West Coast- Yeah ... as we've talked about before, but the landing zones just aren't there. Yeah. It isn't a compelling product. We need a compelling product. They have to be priced right, save time, provide a good experience. Gotcha. Now, seats flown grew sequentially as well as year-over-year, and in line with sort of historical trends, but marketing dollars remained relatively consistent. So, you know, is this... You know, has the increase in seats flown, has that been driven by existing customers or new users? Or anything you can share in terms of the rate of repeat customers, and how has this been trending over time for you? Well, I think, we're very, very happy about new customers, especially on products like the airport product- Yeah ... where it's not a mature product, like some of our leisure routes, where we've, you know, now are close to 100% market share in some of our leisure routes. And I think you'll see, you know, marketing dollars, I think they have come down a bit- Yeah ... because now that the, you know, top-level awareness is there, it's much less expensive to get someone who has flown before to fly again- Yeah ... than to get someone brand new to jump in. That, that's a process of getting awareness and then convincing them to fly. So offering new products for people to fly, showing them the way they can use it, bringing companions to go into different places, that we've been very, very effective, you know, with that. And I think the good news is, you know, I think, too, post-pandemic, we really made a huge push once we turned the airport back on after the pandemic. Yeah. It required a lot of marketing dollars. I think those marketing dollars, you know, we now can spend those and, you know, be much more conservative in terms of that spending, which should enhance, you know, our margins going forward. Gotcha. Speaking of margins, is there a meaningful difference in flight margin for passenger versus vertical? Uh ... passenger versus medical? Yeah, the medical is slightly less- Okay ... than the passenger- Yeah ... business. And I think that, you know, the mature routes on passengers can be, you know, you know, 30% plus. Yeah. But on a blended basis, you're in the kind of like 16% range on passenger, and maybe 18, 18% probably by passenger, excuse me. Yeah. So I think 18%, maybe a little bit more, and then you're slightly less than that on the medical side. But medical, you're not taking risk- Yeah ... right? Because as opposed, you don't have any utilization risk. Right. It actually is a smart margin- Yeah ... in the sense that, it's much more, it's less prone to volatility, since every time- Yeah ... we do a mission, we know we're being paid for it, we know what it costs, that margin's kind of built in. Right. Whereas you do have vagaries of seasonality in passenger, we're much less seasonal in the medical business. Gotcha. So it's not an either/or, it's both? Yeah. Yeah. The blend is great. Yeah. You know, you wanna have that blend between the, you know, having those contracts and having- Yeah ... the utilization risk, and it's a great balance between that and the passenger side, where while you do have charter, you do have the ability to have that great TAM, really, is in the buy-to-seat business- Yeah ... because it makes it, we make it affordable. You know, we're beating Uber Black every day. We're beating UberX during a lot of, you know, during prime times, and we're handily beating it for people who are purchasing airport passes, say, in the Northeast. And in Europe, it's a very compelling product as well. Yeah. In Canada, you know, as much as people think that helicopters are kind of this high-end product, it's mostly government employees and government lobbyists, people who do work with the government, who are flying between Vancouver and Victoria. Victoria's kind of like the Washington, D.C.- Yeah ... you know, Western Canada. So it's not considered... It's considered a mode of transportation. Yeah. We're almost out of time, so let's fast-forward a year from now. We're sitting here once again at the UBS Tech Conference, and, you know, what do you think we'll be talking about at that point in terms of what you've been able to accomplish in the prior 12 months? Well, I think, you know, hopefully, you'll, you know... I'll say you will see, hopefully be quite pleased with, you know, our financial performance and the progress that we've made. Yeah. I think, you know, TOPS is gonna be, you know, really hopefully showing its colors- Yeah … a year from now, that people will feel, you know, comfortable that this is a nice, new leg, you know, kind of leg in the stool. In terms of medical, we'll continue that growth in medical. We'll continue going deeper in the core products that we have on passengers. And also, you know, I think, you know, we definitely are really working on a hell of a lot more, you know, as much efficiency as possible to get out of our business, especially when it comes to operating expenses and corporate overhead. And I think if you take a look at our expenses that are non-flight expenses as a percentage of revenues, we're consistently, you know, pushing that down. Yeah. That's the process, and that proves to investors this really is a platform. When you see increasing revenues, and you're seeing your percentage of costs declining as a percentage of revenues, that's showing people the platform's working, and that's- Yeah ... you know, our continued focus and goal. Gotcha. Rob, thanks so much for joining us once again. Thank you. And- Always a pleasure. ... look forward to watching your progress. Great. Thank you. Thank you.