Wheels Up Stays the Course with Fleet-modernization Plan

Private flight provider Wheels Up said the modernization of its fleet will be largely complete by the end of 2026 as part of a protracted initiative to achieve profitability. Third-quarter financial results announced today showed slightly higher net losses of $83.7 million for three months ending September 30 as the company absorbed non-recurring modernization expenses.

According to the Atlanta-based group, it is set to exceed its early goal for annual cost savings with a new target of $70 million that it aims to achieve by third-quarter 2026. Wheels Up CEO George Mattson said the savings will come from streamlining sales and operations teams, realising efficiencies from a simplified fleet with fewer aircraft types, and cutting overhead costs.

Revenues for the quarter were down 4% at $185.5 million due to the loss of income from its discontinued Connect and Pay-As-You-Fly programs. However, Wheels Up has been encouraged by the early response to the Signature Membership offering it launched on September 3, which represented 20% of block charter sales from then through October 31.

At the end of the quarter, the Wheels Up fleet included 19 Embraer Phenom 300s and five Bombardier Challenger 300s. The jets, which feature renewed cabin interiors and high-speed connectivity, are set to amount to half of the fleet by year-end, rising to 80% by the end of 2026.

More Phenoms and Challengers Coming

“In the year since our fleet modernization plan was announced, these premium aircraft have consistently outperformed the legacy fleet in operational reliability, customer feedback, and profitability—all trends that we expect to accelerate as continued to add to those fleets,” Mattson told AIN. Wheels Up directly owns around half of its fleet, which also consists of some King Air turboprops, and leases the rest.

Signature Membership guarantees U.S. clients access to the Phenoms and Challengers. Under the Dynamic Plan, customers can book with flexible, demand driven pricing, while the Fixed Plan offers predictable hourly rates at all times.

According to Mattson, the new offering has better positioned Wheels Up to offer alternatives to fractional and whole aircraft ownership options for private travelers, including C-suite executives. The company pairs the Signature Membership benefits with access to premium scheduled services provided by its primary shareholder, Delta Air Lines.

Wheels Up said it has seen growth for on-demand private charter bookings. This includes flights arranged outside North America by its Air Partner brokering business unit, which increased its business by 14% in the last quarter.

“The cross-sell growth reflects deeper engagement across our portfolio, while Delta-related growth highlights traction with corporate and travel agency clients,” Mattson commented. “We also continue to see steady growth from new customers, underscoring the expanding appeal of our on-demand offerings in private aviation.”

More Progress Targetted

Speaking at the Corporate Jet Investor conference in Miami on Wednesday, Mattson predicted that the fourth quarter could be the company's best since the transformation process started with a change in leadership team in 2023. "We see the unit economics and operational efficiency of these aircraft [the new Phenoms and Challengers] be a larger proportion of the total," he explained, adding that the positive impact of this change will become more apparent in the closing months of 2025 and into 2026.

According to Mattson, just under half of Wheels Up's business is now based on corporate travel sales, marking a significant departure from the days when the company heavily depended on leisure flights. "We only now, in my opinion, with the launch of the signature membership and the new fleet, have a product that really is in the sweet spot of what the corporate aviation department is flying or wants to fly, and that, it really is the starting point for, I think, a really strong performance we're expecting out of that segment going forward," he commented.

Over the first nine months of of 2025, Wheels Up's gross loss has been reduced to around $300,000 but with a net loss of $265 million, prompting one CJI participant to ask whether Delta might at some point withdraw or scale back support for the business. Mattson, a former senior Delta executive, maintained that the private flight service portfolio has become key element of the U.S. airline's strategy.

"Delta's strategy centers around being the premium commercial airline," he stated. "They view Wheels Up as an extension of what premium means, and we're introducing this to all of their customers. And so the question I would kind of ask back is [why would you want] to want to walk that back with all of your important customers?"

Mattson suggested that the turnaround in the Wheels Up balance sheet could start to gain faster momentum. "The one thing I'll just say on the economics is that these things can flip quicker than you think," he told the conference.

"The unit economics of what we've been doing and the unit economics of what we're going to be doing aren't incrementally percentage points better. They're multiples better," he added. "When you look at the gross profit per aircraft and what we're now flying versus what we were flying. It's multiples. When you run an airline operation, as everybody who's in this room knows, it's a tremendously high fixed cost business, but the flip side of that is when you begin to cover those costs and you start to get the benefit of operating leverage, and those last few hours of flight, those last few hours of utilization, start to start to drop 90 cents on the dollar to the bottom line, it can turn pretty quickly."

This article was updated to include comments made by Wheels Up CEO George Mattson at the Corporate Jet Investor conference on November 5.