Q4 2008 ExpressJet Holdings, Inc. Earnings Conference Call - Final.(Broadcast transcript)

OPERATOR: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the ExpressJet fourth-quarter '08 earnings call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Miss Kristy Nicholas. Miss Nicholas, you may begin.

KRISTY NICHOLAS, DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS, EXPRESSJET HOLDINGS: Thank you, Michelle. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining the ExpressJet Holdings fourth-quarter conference call. On the call we have Jim Ream, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Phung Burns, Chief Financial Officer.

Portions of this call may contain forward-looking statements not limited to historical facts but reflecting our current beliefs, expectations or intentions regarding future events. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning risk factors that could affect our actual results is described in our filings with the SEC, including our 2007 10-K.

During this call certain non-GAAP financial disclosures may be made relating to or performance measures. In accordance with SEC rules, we will provide a reconciliation to our most directly comparable GAAP financial measures on our website at www.ExpressJet.com. Jim will cover the operating and financial results for the quarter, then he will take questions. Now I'd like to introduce Jim Ream.

JIM REAM, PRESIDENT, CEO, EXPRESSJET HOLDINGS: Thanks, Kristy. Good morning, everybody. Reported in the quarter a loss of $30.2 million. We had one big unusual item that I'll spend just a second talking about and then kind of talk about the ongoing business.

We had to take a $22 million tax adjustment related to writing down the deferred tax asset that we had, primarily on the limitations imposed by triggering the change of control provision within Section 382 and all of that kind of driven with the partial redemption of the convertible notes in August. Of the $22 million, we've got $19.3 million, which is a balance sheet entry, it will be a non-cash adjustment to the balance sheet. We had to do a three-year look back and go back and kind of compare the returns now back to '05.

There's a -- we've got a little bit of a cash adjustment that we're going to have to make that makes the balance of that $22 million, but we think we've got the balance sheet now cleaned up, based on a fairly technical interpretation of the tax code and related to the change in control under 382. And obviously, we had a fairly dramatic change to the balance sheet on the convert redemption. And so we've got that kind of done and behind us and we shouldn't have to talk about that going forward.

When you look at the run rate basis on a pretax basis, we ended up with a loss of $14.7 million. That's an improvement year-over-year of $33.7 million. On the revenue side we've got 214 aircraft working for Continental Airlines. Obviously, the utilization on those aircraft is historically low right now just based on the demand levels for travel out there …