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UP, Wheels Up Experience Inc.

Airlines capital-intensive UnprofitableDistress / turnaroundCapital build-out

Wheels Up is a leading global provider of on-demand private aviation with a large, diverse aircraft fleet and a network of safety-vetted charter operators, all committed to safety and service.

Our offering is delivered through a mix of our membership program and charter solutions that strategically utilize our controlled aircraft fleet and charter operators to deliver a greater range of travel alternatives.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

UP · Wheels Up Experience Inc.

The business

What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.

Revenue · FY2025

$736M

−7.0% YoY · 1% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $728M 5-yr avg $1.1B

Gross margin 9% 5-yr avg 6%

Operating margin −24.7% 5-yr avg −29.6%

Owner-earnings margin −38% 5-yr avg −22%

Free cash flow margin −49% 5-yr avg −25%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

Situation: Unprofitable. No sustained operating profit across the record; an earnings multiple has nothing to rest on. What the record does show is revenue, the gross-margin trajectory, and the burn against the cash on hand. Distress / turnaround. Thin interest coverage, or operating cash burned against real debt, across the record. The balance sheet carries this situation; the debt schedule sets the clock. Capital build-out. Capital spending has surged to 13% of sales, today's earnings are charged less depreciation than tomorrow's will be.
What moves the needle: Operating margin has run around −28% through the cycle on a 7.5% gross margin, the operating line deeply negative — so the lever is the path to a margin at all: revenue growth against the cost curve and the cash runway, not the level of a margin that isn't there yet. Read this kind of business on load factor against unit cost, and fuel. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on customer concentration, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2019–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
								Income statement
$385M	$695M	$1.2B	$1.6B	$1.3B	$792M	$736M	$728M	RevenueRevenue
11%	9%	6%	2%	2%	7%	10%	9%	Gross marginGross mgn
7%	9%	9%	12%	12%	17%	20%	16%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
4%	3%	3%	4%	5%	5%	5%	5%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
($78M)	($63M)	($203M)	($560M)	($444M)	($259M)	($203M)	($180M)	Operating incomeOp. inc.
−20.3%	−9.1%	−17.0%	−35.4%	−35.4%	−32.7%	−27.6%	−24.7%	Operating marginOp. mgn
($96M)	($79M)	($190M)	($555M)	($487M)	($340M)	($294M)	($278M)	Net incomeNet inc.
								Cash flow & returns
($25M)	$210M	$126M	($231M)	($665M)	($78M)	($166M)	($218M)	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$38M	$41M	$34M	$44M	$37M	$57M	$61M	$56M	DepreciationDeprec.
$31M	$244M	$233M	$192M	($241M)	$159M	$21M	($40M)	Working capital & otherWC & other
$4M	$7M	$15M	$84M	$20M	$123M	$94M	$141M	CapexCapex
1.1%	1.0%	1.3%	5.3%	1.6%	15.5%	12.7%	19.4%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
($29M)	$203M	$111M	($274M)	($685M)	($134M)	($227M)	($274M)	Owner earningsOwner earn.
−7.5%	29.1%	9.3%	−17.4%	−54.7%	−17.0%	−30.9%	−37.7%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($29M)	$203M	$111M	($314M)	($685M)	($201M)	($260M)	($359M)	Free cash flowFCF
−7.5%	29.1%	9.3%	−19.9%	−54.7%	−25.3%	−35.3%	−49.4%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$28M	$0	$0	$75M	$0	$0	—	$0	AcquisitionsAcquis.
—	$0	$0	$8M	$28K	$485K	$2M	—	BuybacksBuybacks
—	-29%	-26%	-220%	-500%	—	—	—	Return on equityROE
—	−29%	−26%	−220%	−500%	—	—	—	Retained to equityRetained/eq
								Balance sheet
$96M	$313M	$785M	$586M	$264M	$216M	$134M	$54M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
—	$50M	$79M	$112M	$38M	$32M	$24M	$32M	ReceivablesReceiv.
—	$5M	$9M	$29M	$20M	$12M	$12M	$2M	InventoryInvent.
—	$21M	$44M	$43M	$33M	$30M	$20M	$23M	Accounts payablePayables
—	$35M	$45M	$98M	$26M	$15M	$15M	$12M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
—	$396M	$933M	$820M	$434M	$332M	$249M	$165M	Current assetsCur. assets
—	$840M	$1.1B	$1.3B	$908M	$917M	$908M	$854M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
—	0.5×	0.8×	0.6×	0.5×	0.4×	0.3×	0.2×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$4M	$400M	$437M	$348M	$218M	$217M	$210M	$209M	GoodwillGoodwill
—	$1.4B	$2.0B	$1.9B	$1.3B	$1.2B	$969M	$916M	Total assetsAssets
—	$211M	$0	$253M	$259M	$408M	$335M	$422M	Total debtDebt
—	($102M)	($785M)	($333M)	($5M)	$192M	$201M	$368M	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
-2.7×	-2.7×	-21.4×	-74.5×	-10.8×	-4.0×	-2.2×	-1.9×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
($56M)	$268M	$730M	$252M	$97M	($202M)	($392M)	($466M)	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.5%	0.5%	4.2%	5.6%	2.0%	5.8%	6.2%	6.1%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
								Per share
31.1M	48.8M	6.1M	7.4M	6.6M	34.9M	35.3M	36.1M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$12.36	$14.26	$194.40	$214.35	$189.62	$22.71	$20.86	$20.14	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-3.09	$-1.61	$-30.93	$-75.33	$-73.74	$-9.74	$-8.33	$-7.69	EPS (diluted)EPS
$-0.93	$4.15	$18.11	$-37.20	$-103.70	$-3.85	$-6.44	$-7.58	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-0.93	$4.15	$18.11	$-42.64	$-103.70	$-5.75	$-7.36	$-9.94	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.13	$0.15	$2.48	$11.34	$3.05	$3.52	$2.65	$3.91	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$-1.81	$5.49	$118.85	$34.18	$14.74	$-5.79	$-11.11	$-12.88	Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×1.57 into 2020 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×1/7.94 into 2021 — shares retired, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

Share counts before 2023 are restated ×6 for a stock split, so per-share figures sit on one basis.

The diluted share count moved ×5.28 into 2024 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

Share counts before TTM are restated ×1/20 for a stock split, so per-share figures sit on one basis.

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	6-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+9.1%/yr	+7.9%/yr
Capital spending / share	+64.6%/yr	+78.6%/yr

The record, charted

FY2019–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked. Share counts on the current split basis.

Share count

706Mpeak FY2020

Gross margin

10%low FY2023

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

The accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.

($227M)owner earningsvs.($294M)net incomelow FY2023

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2021–FY2025cash-flow statement, SEC EDGAR →

Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.

In fiscal 2025 the business earned ($227M) of owner earnings, the operating cash left after the $61M it takes just to hold its position. It put $32M more into growth; free cash flow, after that spending, was ($260M).

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	($294M)	($340M)	($487M)	($555M)	($190M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$61M	+$57M	+$37M	+$44M	+$34M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$45M	+$46M	+$26M	+$89M	+$50M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$21M	+$159M	−$241M	+$192M	+$233M
Cash from operations	($166M)	($78M)	($665M)	($231M)	$126M
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$61M	−$57M	−$20M	−$44M	−$15M
Owner earnings	($227M)	($134M)	($685M)	($274M)	$111M
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	−$32M	−$66M	—	−$40M	—
Free cash flow	($260M)	($201M)	($685M)	($314M)	$111M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	-31%	-17%	-55%	-17%	9%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position (here about $61M, roughly its depreciation, the rate its assets wear out). The other $32M of its capital spending is growth it chose, not upkeep it owed; charged only with the maintenance it must do, the business earns well more than the year's free cash flow shows. The cash-flow statement also adds stock comp back as non-cash, but it is a real cost paid in shares; counted as the expense it is (less $45M), owner earnings is nearer ($273M).

Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Material weakness in financial controls

“In past periods, we identified material weaknesses in our ICFR and determined that our DCP were not effective during such periods.”

The figures below are only as sound as the controls that produced them. read the note →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? -2.2×

Does not cover its interest

Operating income ($203M) ÷ interest expense $90M

What this means
A full year of operating profit didn't cover the interest bill. This is the zombie zone: the business depends on refinancing, asset sales, or forbearance to service its debt.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $201M

Net debt against an operating loss

Cash $134M − debt $335M

What this means
Netting $134M of cash and short-term investments against $335M of debt leaves $201M owed, with no operating profit this year to measure it against — understand that combination before anything else about the company. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
How long is cash tied up? 7d

Tight

DSO 12 + DIO 6 − DPO 11 days

What this means
Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. Lower is better; a long cycle means growth itself eats cash.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital —

Not meaningful here

Invested capital ($191M) = debt $335M + equity ($392M) − cash

Industry peers: median 5%

What this means
Invested capital is near zero or negative, usually years of buybacks pulling equity down. ROIC explodes or flips sign and stops meaning anything. Judge this one on Owner Earnings instead.
Owner-earnings margin -17%

Consumes cash through the cycle

7-yr median margin, range -55%–29%; latest ($227M) = operating cash ($166M) − maintenance capex $61M

Industry peers: median 10%

What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's -31% of revenue this year, a -17% median across 7 years. It chose to put $32M more into growth, so free cash flow this year was ($260M) — the gap is investment, not weakness. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $45M of SBC) leaves ($273M).
Are earnings backed by cash? ($166M)

Loss, and burning cash

Net income ($294M) · cash from operations ($166M)

In the filing’s words The filing discloses a material weakness in its financial controls — the reported numbers here, and the record built on them, are only as reliable as the controls that produced them.

What this means
The company reported a net loss, so a conversion ratio isn't meaningful. What matters then is whether operations still threw off cash, here, they did not.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? —

No surplus to allocate

What this means
The business didn't generate positive Owner Earnings this year, so any distributions came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not from operations.
Investing or harvesting? 1.53×

Expanding

Capex $94M ÷ depreciation $61M

What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.

Graham’s defensive tests · 0 of 5 met

Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.

Adequate size Miss

Revenue ≥ $2B · $736M

What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
Strong liquidity Miss

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 0.27×

What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
Conservative debt Miss

Debt ≤ working capital · $335M vs ($658M) WC

What this means
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
Earnings stability Miss

A profit every year (7-yr record) · 7 loss years

What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
Dividend record Miss

Uninterrupted dividends · none paid

What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
Earnings growth —

Earnings +33% over the record · —

What this means
Earnings were negative early in the record, a growth rate isn't meaningful.
Moderate price —

P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price

What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $-10.32/share (latest year $-8.12), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $-10.82/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.

Durability & moat, 2019–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

Profitable years 0 of 7

What this means
Lost money in 7 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Operating margin −15% → −32% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words Input costs rose and the filing says it could not fully pass them on — which is where this margin compressed.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about −15% early to −32% lately, median −28% — competition or costs are biting in.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital

What this means
The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.
Worst year 2022 · −35.4% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2022, understand why before trusting the good years.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Low contestability

The moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.

AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat.

Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, Mar 31, 2026

Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.

Current assets$165M

Cash & short-term investments$54M
Receivables$32M
Inventory$2M
Other current assets$76M

Current liabilities$854M

Debt due within a year$22M
Accounts payable$23M
Other current liabilities$810M

Current ratio0.19×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.19×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.06×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital($690M)the cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$22M due · $54M cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Mar 31, 2026 balance sheet

Cash runway0.2 yrsthe business is consuming cash; this is how long the cash on hand lasts at that rate

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago−4.8%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters0.3× → 0.2×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value($744M)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($1.2B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$555M$133M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$688Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

Acquisitions & goodwill

from the balance sheet & the 7-year cash-flow record

Goodwill grows only when a company acquires and falls only when it concedes it overpaid. The size of that bet, the cash put into buying rather than building, and how much has already been written off.

Goodwill & intangibles$285M29% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity—goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$208Mover 7 years buying other businesses, against $347M of capital spent building

$306M written down across 2 years (2022, 2023): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. A write-down costs no cash (the cash went out when the deal was signed), but it is management marking its own past judgment to market.

Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 7-year record, from the company's own filings.

Management, ownership & pay

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid.

Stock-based compensation$45M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 6% of revenue. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →

Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
Management names Revenue recognition, Acquisitions, Stock compensation as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →

The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.

Peers, Airlines

The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.

Company	Revenue	Gross margin	Op. margin	ROIC	Owner earn. margin
ALKAlaska Air	$14.2B	—	6.3%	7%	10%
JBLUJetBlue Airways Corporation	$9.1B	—	-1.9%	-2%	4%
SKYWSkyWest Inc.	$4.1B	12%	11.3%	6%	22%
ULCCFrontier Group Holdings Inc.	$3.7B	—	-1.4%	-24%	-4%
ALGTAllegiant Travel Company	$2.3B	—	12.7%	6%	12%
VTOLBristow Group Inc.	$1.5B	—	2.3%	2%	4%
RJETRepublic Airways Holdings Inc.	$1.3B	—	12.3%	5%	10%
UPWheels Up Experience Inc.	$736M	7%	-27.6%	—	-17%
Group median	—	—	4.3%	—	7%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Wheels Up Experience Inc. is profitable, but owner earnings are negative this year because capital spending currently outruns operating cash, a build-out, so the owner-earnings reverse-DCF has no positive base to grow. We read the price from both ends instead: type a price to see the steady-state profitability it demands, then set the mature margin you would believe and weigh the two against each other. Nothing leaves your browser unless you enter it in your notebook.

Today’s price $

The assumptions Required return 9% Years to get there 10 Revenue growth 0%

Revenue, delivered−3%/yr’20→’25

Mature owner-earnings margin 15%

Enter a price to run it.

Owner earnings it must reach—

Margin the price demands—

Owner-earnings margin today−49%

Two reads of one future. From your price: the owner earnings the company must reach, valued at a mature multiple and discounted back at your rate, expressed as the margin it implies on revenue grown at your rate. From your belief: the mature margin you would credit, set on the dial above. When the margin the price demands runs above the one you would believe, you are paying for a future taken on faith. For a deep cyclical at a trough, normalized through-cycle earnings are the better lens; this mode is for the genuinely unprofitable, and for the profitable business whose capital spending currently outruns its cash.

Weigh UP against another business →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Wheels Up Experience Inc. (UP), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/UP, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← UNTY its page in the Manual UPB →

Industry order: ← ULCC the Airlines chapter VTOL →