Operator
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Chorus Aviation Inc. fourth quarter and year-end 2025 financial results conference call.
At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session.
If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press *0 for the operator. This call is being recorded on Friday, February 13th, 2026.
I would now like to turn the conference over to Matt LaPierre. Please go ahead.
Matt LaPierre
Thank you, operator. Hello, and thank you for joining us today.
With me today from Chorus are Colin Copp, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Gary Osborne, Chief Financial Officer. We will begin today's call with a brief summary of the results, followed by questions from the analyst community.
As there may be some forward-looking discussion during this call, I ask that you refer to the caution regarding forward-looking statements and information found in our MD&A. This pertains specifically to the results and operations of Chorus Aviation Inc.
for the year ended December 31st, 2025, as well as the outlook section and other sections of our MD&A where such statements appear. Finally, some of the following discussion involves non-GAAP financial measures, including references to adjusted net income, adjusted EBT, adjusted EBITDA, leverage ratio, and free cash flow.
Please refer to our MD&A for further information relating to the use of such non-GAAP measures. I'll now turn the call over to Colin Copp.
Colin Copp
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. 2025 was a pivotal year for Chorus, with significant progress, one in which we meaningfully reduced our overhead costs, initiated a quarterly dividend, optimized our capital structure, completed two SIBs in combination with our NCIB, substantially reduced our corporate debt, executed agreements to sell nine Q400 aircraft, acquired Elisen & Associates, a leading engineering firm based in Montreal, and ended the year with adjusted earnings available to common shareholders of $2.27, up from 97 cents the previous year, representing a 134% increase over last year.
With our foundation firmly in place, we are well positioned in the marketplace as a world leader and trusted Canadian partner of a growing diversified portfolio of businesses with deep expertise and experience in aviation, aerospace, and defense. Along with our fourth-quarter results, we made three additional announcements in support of our plan to build long-term value, strong free cash flow, and provide value creation for our shareholders.
First, I was very happy to announce that we concluded an agreement to acquire CADEX Aero Supply, a complementary OEM aviation parts, repair, and overhaul platform that strengthens our position in the aviation, aerospace, and defense business. CADEX broadens our bench strength with OEM parts distribution for many well-established aircraft platforms, such as Beechcraft, Cessna, Hawker, and Piper, as well they distribute a wide range of consumable products of well-known brands, such as Shell, Goodyear, Michelin, Champion, and many others to the commercial, business, and general aviation operators of both fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft.
CADEX complements our existing USM business at Voyageur and is well aligned with our strategy of acquiring growth businesses that combine their strengths to accelerate shared success across our group of companies. They're a highly respected company with strong OEM and customer relationships, have a proven operating model and a growing revenue stream that supports our objective on strong free cash flow generation.
CADEX is headed by two industry leaders who come with many years of experience and expertise, John Lavery and Ken Blow, who we are very excited to have join our team and our growing portfolio of industry experts within the Chorus family. The acquisition is expected to close during the second quarter of 2026, and we look forward to welcoming the entire CADEX team to Chorus.
Second, we announced that we are increasing our annual dividend from 32 cents annually to 44 cents. This reflects our ability to execute on our plan, driving growth in our free cash flow, as well as our ongoing commitment to returning capital to our shareholders in a disciplined manner.
Third, consistent with our capital allocation strategy, we will continue to buy back shares and have also announced an NCIB. For the past two years, share repurchases have been an important part of how we create value for our shareholders, and in 2025, we bought back $85.2 million in shares, and we will continue to take a disciplined approach to share buybacks.
Turning to our operating businesses for 2025, that year marked a consistent execution. Doug and the Jazz team delivered strong performance with steady contracted earnings and solid operational results under the CPA with Air Canada.
The team has also made good progress on their cabin refurbishment program, which significantly enhances the customer experience on the Air Canada Express fleet operated by Jazz. In October, Jazz and Air Canada celebrated a landmark announcement with the expansion of flying to four new US destinations from Billy Bishop Toronto Airport, which is anticipated to ramp up starting in late March of this year.
Also in this quarter, Jazz successfully concluded an agreement with AMFA, the union representing its maintenance employees, for a new five-year collective agreement. As always, Jazz remains very focused on safety, their operational performance, and securing a strong supply of qualified pilots from both Cygnet and throughout the industry.
Cory and the Voyageur team are busy focusing on growing opportunities and delivering another strong year while continuing to shift their business mix towards higher-margin opportunities in the defense, specialty MRO, and parts space. We see strong upside in the parts business as Voyageur continues its expansion into new platforms such as ATR.
Over the past several months, they've acquired two ATR aircraft, which are now undergoing part out, and a third ATR is in progress. While their Q4 part sales were slightly down from plan, this was directly a result of two significant part sales packages moving from December into 2026.
These sales are both expected to come through in Q1 of this year. On the defense side, Voyageur is now fully supporting Canada's MAISR operation with their engineering expertise and integrating key modifications across the fleet.
They're fully staffed, providing frontline in-service support through a team of 20 embedded specialists working alongside DND personnel in Trenton and on deployments. They're also set to provide in-service support to DND's Aerospace Engineering Test Establishment, known as AETE, supplying an aircraft and maintaining an on-site Voyageur presence with AETE's Ottawa DND facility.
We see Voyageur as well positioned to further support Canada's expanding defense needs, including major capital commitments in aerospace platforms and the long-term in-service support that they require. Faith and Stéphane and the Elisen team, who joined us this past year, have been off to a great start, working closely with Voyageur to grow their respective businesses.
We were happy to see Elisen awarded the contract by the Quebec Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility to configure a Bombardier Challenger 650 for medical emergency air transport. This marks Elisen's first significant contract since joining Chorus in September.
Elisen will lead as the primary contractor and engineering expertise, while Voyageur will provide the maintenance expertise for the reconfiguration. Lynn and the team at Cygnet have also had a very strong year of growth and expansion, and recently kicked off their largest cohort of 18 new students.
They've been expanding the business with new candidates in their free agent program and the Destination Porter cadet program, in addition to the Jazz Approach cadet program. The work with Canadore College on a new pilot program and the expansion of Cygnet into North Bay continues to progress well.
As our business continues to grow, both organically and with new acquisitions, our team of industry experts broaden. Both Elisen and CADEX are great examples of industry-leading businesses, which will be leveraged across the Chorus group of companies to accelerate revenue growth.
Today, we are focused on driving long-term value for our shareholders by building a powerful cash-generating portfolio of aviation, aerospace, and defense companies while taking a disciplined capital allocation approach, targeting mid-teen returns. Thanks to a great team at Chorus, we're commencing 2026 with momentum, a stronger portfolio of businesses, and a culture focused on performance.
In closing, I'd like to thank our employees across Jazz, Voyageur, Cygnet, and Elisen for their commitment and performance throughout the year, and welcome CADEX to the family. Lastly, I will thank our board of directors and shareholders for their continued support.
With that, I'll hand it over to Gary for the financials.
Gary Osborne
Thank you, Colin, and good morning. We are pleased to report on our fourth-quarter and annual 2025 results that continue to generate strong earnings and free cash flows, as well as our capital allocation that is focused on growing shareholder value.
As Colin noted, we have announced an agreement to acquire CADEX for total consideration of approximately $50 million. Of this total, $43 million will be funded on closing through the use of Chorus's operating credit facility and cash on hand.
The remainder of the purchase price will be payable over the next two years, subject to meeting certain performance targets. I join Colin in welcoming the CADEX team to our family.
CADEX's total estimated purchase price of $50 million comes in at approximately 7.5 times EBIT multiple. EBIT was used given CADEX is a parts supply company, which has little to no capital requirements.
The purchase multiple is below Chorus's most recent enterprise value to EBIT trading range of approximately 9 to 9.5 times. All said, we expect the transaction to be immediately accretive to Chorus's earnings and free cash flow from the date of closing.
Today, we also provided information on our capital allocation priorities over the next four years. Our capital allocation provides for an anticipated generation of between $500 and $550 million in free cash flow and net proceeds on asset sales over the next four fiscal years.
With this, we announced our quarterly dividend will be increasing to 11 cents per share, up 38% from our previous 8 cents per share. This is consistent with our previously announced plan to distribute approximately 25% of free cash flow after payment of amortizing term loans.
We also announced our commitment to purchase up to $100 million in shares over the next four years, subject to required TSX approvals and the share trading price. This reflects our view that Chorus's shares continue to be undervalued, and consistent with this, we are implementing a normal course issuer bid with authorization to purchase up to approximately 2 million shares over the next year.
This further commitment to buy shares builds on the $124 million spent on share buybacks since 2022, where we bought back approximately 19% of the company's outstanding shares. Our announcement includes a flexible capital allocation over the next four years of between $170 and $220 million, allowing for optimization of shareholder returns through organic growth, acquisitions, further share buybacks or dividends, debt repayments, and working capital investment.
Our capital allocation also highlights our scheduled paydown of $190 million of amortizing term loans over the next four years. It's important to note these debt repayments reduce significantly in 2028 and 2029, as 18 aircraft leased under the CPA have their debt fully repaid by the end of 2028.
Further information on our capital allocation is contained in our investor relations presentation available on Chorus's website. We also provide consolidated guidance for the 2026 fiscal year in our MD&A, including adjusted EBITDA anticipated in the range of $170 to $185 million, and free cash flow of $100 million to $110 million.
Now turning to our Q4 2025 results. For the quarter, Chorus generated adjusted earnings available to common shareholders per share of 57 cents, a 23-cent or 68% increase over last year, primarily driven by lower net interest expense.
For the year, Chorus generated adjusted earnings available to common shareholders of $2.27 per common share basic, which is a $1.30 or 134% increase over 2024. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $47.1 million, compared to $51 million in Q4 2024, with the decrease primarily attributable to lower aircraft leasing revenue under the CPA.
Free cash flow for the quarter was $27 million, consistent with Q4 2024. Finally, our year-end leverage ratio was 1.7, compared to 1.4 in the prior year, primarily due to the excess cash held at the end of 2024 and the investment in our SIB in Q4.
Our liquidity remains strong, with $169 million available at year-end. We expect it to remain strong as we generate free cash flow and realize net proceeds of approximately $56 million US, or about $78 million Canadian, from the sales of the remaining eight Dash 8-400s expected to close between February and July of this year.
As Colin noted, Voyageur continues to perform well, generating $135 million of revenue for 2025, inclusive of intercompany revenues, about $5 million lower than our projections, primarily due to the timing of certain larger aircraft part sales that were delayed from the fourth quarter of 2025 and the spooling down of the UN and World Food Programme missions. Voyageur expects to conclude most of the part sales from Q4 in the first quarter of 2026.
We are now ready to take questions.
Operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to ask a question, please press *1 on your touch-tone phone.
If you'd like to withdraw your question, press *2. One moment, please, for your first question.
Your first question comes from James McGarragle from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
James McGarragle
Hey, thanks for having me on, and I like the new disclosure you're given here. Just on that, one of the slides in your deck kind of pointed to some pretty meaningful amounts of what we call flexible capital allocation.
Can you just kind of comment on where you see the best opportunities here, and any line of sight to something we could see a little bit more imminently, and just kind of how you're thinking about spending that pretty meaningful amount of money over the next couple years?
Colin Copp
Hi, James. It's Colin.
Look, I can't give you any specifics on where we're going to put it. That's for sure.
That's why we call it flexible. I think Gary's outlined fairly well in the MD&A and or the investor deck there clearly where we plan to put it.
There're very specific areas, whether it could be greater share buyback, it could be dividend, it could be certainly into growth, whether that's organic or whether that's acquisition, or debt repayment in the future as we kind of look forward. We've kept it fairly flexible.
I don't really have any specifics to give you. There's lots in the pipeline that we're looking at.
We've been talking about that for a while. We've executed on two two acquisitions here.
Hopefully we'll close this other one very very soon. There's lots more to look at on that side, and there certainly is organic growth that we're working on in various other areas, whether you think about defense or some of the other stuff that Voyageur is working on.
Lots of opportunity. We've just got to be disciplined about where we deploy it, and we're very focused on making sure that we are in the mid-teen IRR range with anything that we're doing.
James McGarragle
Hey, thanks for the color. Just on the margin profile of the CADEX business, can you provide any color there?
Just kind of beyond the stand-alone performance of that company, can you just kind of elaborate on some of the synergies that you think that brings to your existing operations kind of maybe particularly regarding parts supply optimization and utilization across your current business? After that, I can turn the line over.
Thank you.
Gary Osborne
Okay. Thanks, James.
On my comments there, I kind of gave a range of where it is on an EBIT basis, and we used that because obviously they don't have really any capex compared to an airline. If you certainly take the $50 million we've disclosed in payments divided into the 7.5, you'll get a pretty good idea of where the EBIT is.
That's as far as we'll go with margin, but you're getting a good idea of what this business produces. It's a pretty consistent business as far as that goes, and it's got a decent growth profile.
As far as the synergies go, Colin can talk a bit more about it, but we look at the businesses operating separately. All our businesses is operating separately.
You'll see in our investor deck we talk about really businesses that come together to produce more together, as opposed to a synergy type of argument. We're very pleased with the CADEX purchase.
We think it's good, and it's a nice stand-alone business, offers more breadth as far as parts go. You're getting now into new parts with OEMs, and it's been talked about there with various OEMs.
We think it's a nice piece to add on. Then if you look at it, it also builds up that book of business.
If you look at our financials in our new disclosures in the revenues, you'll see we're just short of $60 million in part sales for this year at Air Part. You combine this $60 million with that roughly $60 million, you got about $120 million-plus part sales business.
It's quite significant, and it's a nice diversification away from aircraft flying.
Colin Copp
Just to clarify a little bit on the acquisition itself as far as structure goes, James. Our view is really been on all of these new businesses, specifically CADEX's acquisition, is it's decentralized, right?
We're looking at opportunities across the organization to create value and revenue growth opportunities. CADEX brings a ton of parts and consumables in the aviation industry that we currently are not in.
Voyageur is not in that business. They're very much different businesses, there's a lot of different areas that we can leverage across the group of companies that CADEX brings in with it.
We're excited about it and see some good growth for sure.
James McGarragle
Thank you.
Operator
Your next question comes from Cameron Doerksen from National Bank. Please go ahead.
Cameron Doerksen
Thanks. Good morning.
Just wanted to follow up on the question around the CADEX. Just wondering if you can describe how that business has been growing in recent years.
It sounds like an interesting business, but just wondering sort of what the growth profile has been and I guess, what you see in the next couple years for growth.
Gary Osborne
Yeah. Cameron, it's Gary here.
They've been growing quite nicely, somewhere in the 5% to 10% per year on the revenue line, they've been doing quite well on that side. We're pleased to bring them along, we see a lot of growth from that piece.
We'd expect that to kind of continue into the future. As far as their product base, it's pretty diversified.
I think you can see that but from a little bit of disclosure and same as their customers. We're expecting at least 5%, so.
Colin Copp
Cameron, I'll just add to that a little on the product side. They're in, as I think I mentioned in the script there, you might've caught, was they're in both the rotary-wing and fixed-wing, and they have quite a broad spectrum of parts as well as consumables that they sell across all spaces in the aviation industry.
They're touching both general aviation, business aviation, and commercial aviation with a lot of the consumables that they sell. It's a very broad spectrum of parts and consumables that they're selling.
We see quite a bit of growth, and so do they, in various areas. As Gary said, we've kind of got a bit of a plan around a 5% range, but we're pretty optimistic about it for sure.
Cameron Doerksen
Okay. No, that's helpful.
It looks like maybe they do some repair and overhaul. I don't know if that's the case or not, but if that is the case, then I guess how much of that is the business versus the parts and consumables?
Colin Copp
I can't give you a comment on the percentage, but I can tell you it's smaller, for sure. They do repair and overhaul that's complementary to our existing platforms, we're pretty excited about that.
I don't think we've provided anything on the percentage
Gary Osborne
breakdown. No, we haven't.
Cameron Doerksen
Okay. Fair enough.
I guess you mentioned that you're seeing lots of opportunities for Voyageur and the defense and other areas. I guess any color you can provide on that, and has the opportunity set, I guess, improved or increased in the last three months since we last spoke?
Gary Osborne
I think it has, for sure. We've been more and more engaged with the government in various levels on these opportunities.
There's more and more requests for information out there. There's a whole host of things that the government's looking at and DND's working on that we're kind of involved in at various levels.
It's like everything. I think when we bought Voyageur and we were first starting to talk about the defense business, it's incredibly lumpy the revenue growth is because these contracts take time to establish and work on, and then they come through, and then they're very sticky, and they last for a long time with lots of upside.
We're heavy into, and Voyageur's heavy into looking at opportunities and working on them. There's been a lot of interest.
They've secured and got the MAISR program running well. They've expanded that a little bit in the last year, so.
AETE is up and running. They've got a couple other contracts there that are defense-related that they're working through.
Most of the infrastructure and the facility work that they're doing today is specialty MRO. They have very little standard MRO work, low-margin work going through their facility.
We see that continuing to expand and grow over time. The exact timing of it and what we see is very hard to predict, but there's no question there's enough activity out there that something's going to happen here soon, for sure.
Cameron Doerksen
Okay. No, that's good to hear.
I'll pass the line. Thanks very much.
Operator
Your next question comes from Konark Gupta from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.
Alexander Augimeri
Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my question.
I was just hoping you give some color on how you think about the cadence of the NCIB over the 4 years. Would you sort of front-load it, evenly spread?
Gary Osborne
It it's Gary here. I think right now we're flexible on that piece.
I think, for your modeling you can you can spread it out or or or whatever. We're really monitoring a bit the the share price and and where our capital allocation priorities are.
There's no question we don't like where the shares shares are trading today. We're leaving some optionality around that.
Yeah.
Alexander Augimeri
Okay. Makes sense.
If I can ask, what leverage ceiling are you comfortable with while executing the repurchase plan and maybe tackling that M&A pipeline you have there?
Gary Osborne
Yeah. We've given out a range in a 1 to 2 times on our leverage, which is adjusted EBITDA to net debt.
We're not moving from that right now. We're at 1.7 in the quarter, or ending the year, actually.
That's going to have a downward profile as we sit here. As we've disclosed, a lot of amortizing debt sitting in under the CPA aircraft leasing side, so that's coming down.
We do have over $70 million Canadian coming in with the aircraft sales coming up. That'll pretty much extinguish the 50 million we have on our line at the end of the year.
We feel really good. The profile 1 to 2 is a nice range for us.
It allows us a lot of flexibility as we move ahead, keeps our servicing down, and I think it's something that as we proceed ahead here, I think for shareholders will be good too because it'll ensure that our free cash flows and other things are doing quite well.
Alexander Augimeri
That all makes sense. Thanks for taking my questions.
I can pass it back.
Gary Osborne
Yeah.
Operator
Your next question comes from Tim James from TD Cowen. Please go ahead.
Tim James
Thanks very much. Good morning, everyone.
Gary Osborne
Morning.
Tim James
My first question's the nice 38% increase in the dividend and its relationship to free cash flow, which was down in '25 versus '24. Now, I realize there's a lot of sort of moving parts in there, but I'm just trying to think about the significant increase in the dividend then.
Is that more of a reflection of kind of your forward-looking growth opportunity in free cash flow? Is the plan to adjust the dividend annually or maybe less frequently with larger step-ups?
I'm just trying to think about how we take our own view on sort of future free cash flow and then connect the dots to kind of a dividend expectation.
Gary Osborne
Sure. Thanks, Tim.
If you go to the outlook section, you'll see we've given free cash flow expectations. Also, we've shown the scheduled debt payments.
If you look at the 44 cents annually, 11 cents per quarter, it's pretty much right smack-dab in the middle of the range of free cash flow less debt payments. When you look at it, 25% is 44 cents a share annually.
We are fairly disciplined with that. We're going to have to always continue to look forward and backwards because you could have a lumpy years and that.
We're committed to 25% after free cash flow after debt payments. As you go forward and you model, that is how we're going to approach the dividend.
That should tell the market and our commitment is we're trying to grow it. We would revisit that annually.
Tim James
Okay. That's helpful.
Just turning to the CADEX acquisition, how should we think sort of strategically about the approach to purchasing parts and consumables? Does that business take on much price or volume risk holding sort of assets, holding parts, and what have you on the balance sheet, or how do you kind of minimize the risk there in the marketplace for trading those parts?
Gary Osborne
Tim, it's Gary again. When we look at CADEX, they have a relatively small inventory amount versus their sales.
Colin Copp
Their inventory turns over 2 to 3 times a year on average. They don't really have a lot of risk on that side, they've got good efficiency with their inventory, they've got good sales relationship both with the customers and OEMs.
I don't see a lot of risk on that side. It's fairly fast-moving inventory, and remember also, it's a little different than the Avparts business because the Avparts business tears down aircraft, it's on older aircraft.
These are new parts, new type of equipment, oils, greases, stuff like that. They're moving new parts in equipment.
I was just going to clarify that the consumable side of the business is really a just-in-time kind of business to some degree. Of course, they look at margins and pricing and all that and determine exactly what kind of volume they carry, but it is a very different business than what Voyageur runs with regards to part out.
Voyageur is a business where you're parting out an airplane, you're sitting on inventory for a period of time, knowing that, where these guys are very much focused on new parts, all of their stuff is all brand new stuff, OEM stuff, and it's being turned at a very rapid rate. They're very focused on just-in-time inventory and managing their inventory levels down as low as they have to.
They don't carry a lot of extra inventory just for the sake of carrying it.
Tim James
I got it. That's helpful.
Thank you very much.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press *1. Your next question comes from Konark Gupta from Scotiabank.
Please go ahead.
Konark Gupta
Thanks, and morning. I echo great work on the presentation deck to highlight some of the things.
Maybe first one on CADEX. On the acquisition, was it a bidding process, or did you approach them?
How did the acquisition come about?
Colin Copp
Hi, Konark. It's Colin.
Yeah. Look, I think I've talked a little bit about this in the past, maybe not that much, but we've very very much focused on going in and building relationships with these companies.
This company was not for sale. This was a acquisition that was a privately owned company that we had a relationship with over a period of time, and we built the relationship to get to this point where we could acquire it.
Most of what we're looking at today, not all of it, but I'd say the majority, the vast majority are acquisitions like that that are relationship-based that are not on the market for sale. It's not a competitive process.
It was exclusive with us that we worked through and came to a agreeable price and a process. As well, the management team is intact, right?
The expertise remains, and that's one of the biggest things that we're focused on is making sure that we, as we acquire these opportunities, we also have the right expertise that are building the Chorus group of companies.
Konark Gupta
That's great color. Thanks, Colin.
In terms of the pipeline on the M&A side, do you guys see very similar opportunities as CADEX and Elisen fitting in the Voyageur sort of wheelhouse, or are there other sort of parallels that you are exploring in addition?
Colin Copp
On the pipeline, we're looking quite broad, but we're sticking to those core areas. If you look at the investor deck, there's a pretty clear view of the kind of the core areas that were staying focused on, and we're not deviating out of those areas.
When you look at those five, I think it's five core areas we've listed in there, all of our businesses fit into them. It's quite broad.
It gives us a lot of flexibility to consider things, but they're areas that we know well, that we have experience with generally, and then we can build out the verticals or adjacencies in some cases like this, where we're going into OEM and consumable parts. I guess I would characterize it as it's got lots of opportunity.
There's lots of things in there that we're working on. We have a very big list.
It takes time. Not all of them are opportunities that would be considered on the market by others.
They're certainly a lot of them in there that we know well and we're in talking to, and they take time to work through, for sure. We're pretty excited about what we see in the pipeline.
Konark Gupta
Thanks. On the free cash and capital allocation, I see the $500 to $550 million range is predicated on, I think, $422 to $472 free cash.
The free cash range, is that a range because of certain market factors, or is it a range because of some assumptions around CPA leasing, or what's the variability driver there?
Gary Osborne
Yeah. The asset sales, I think, are self-explanatory.
In the free cash flow range, just we pick a range to make sure that we have a good bottom and a good top. I think a couple things.
In that deck there, we did assume that the aircraft leases under the CPA that expire in '27 and '28 get extended out to the end of '29, and I think that's a pretty fair representation. We're comfortable with that.
All that being said, we don't have the leases in hand yet. Certainly, in the worst-case scenario if it didn't, we would sell the aircraft and our capital allocation would have more cash available to it.
We picked a range on the free cash flow that we felt comfortable with moving ahead, made some reasonable assumptions around it, and I don't feel very exposed on it, but I think it's a good range.
Konark Gupta
Right. Gary, is it fair to assume that if the FX remains where it is, which is above your assumptions for CPA, the range could have upside just from FX alone?
Gary Osborne
I think it could. If you look there, we have $1.35, I think, for this year, $1.30 moving ahead.
I wish I could say I could predict the US dollar to Canadian dollar rate moving forward. I think I would be one of the richest men around here if I could do it.
I think we have a conservative rate that we published there. I think it's very deliverable.
We have some upside on it, hopefully. Look, I think it's a good range, and we would hope there's a bit of upside to it,
Konark Gupta
yeah. That makes sense.
Thanks. Last one for me before I turn over.
On CPA, from the deck at least, it sounds like there's no changes and no amendments [clears throat] at this point, sorry. The fixed fee is running flat at $44 million, I think, through 2035, and then I think you guys are assuming that the leased aircraft count remains at 39 through 2029.
Is there anything I'm missing in these numbers? What's that window between '29 and '35 looks like for CPA leasing?
Gary Osborne
No, you're not missing anything. We just went out 4 years, Konark, because we wanted to make sure that we gave some good guidance over the next 4-year period.
Also in there, I think what you should take away, very very predictable earnings, $43.9 million in fixed fee runs out to 2035. We have some aircraft leases under the CPA that expire technically in '27 and '28, which we believe will get renewed, but it's an assumption we're making.
The other thing I would highlight there is, and I think sometimes it gets missed, is when you look at the debt profile, it is dropping very rapidly within the CPA. If you then go back to our free cash flow less scheduled debt payments work piece, If you start to model leases being extended out and essentially no debt against it, you realize that there's a very strong free cash flow less debt payment profile over the next 4 years.
I think that's what we're trying to highlight is we have room to grow the company, we have room to grow the dividend, we have room to buy back more shares, we have a very significant amount of cash available to us. In the $500 to $550 million range in free cash flow, that is essentially our market cap today also.
We're just highlighting there's a lot of cash coming off this, and we have flexibility, and we have the ability to deploy it in a way that is accretive and beneficial to shareholders.
Konark Gupta
Yep. No, that makes sense.
Thanks, and all the best with the process. Thank you.
Gary Osborne
Thanks. Thanks, Konark.
Operator
There are no further questions at this time. I will turn the call back over to Matt for closing remarks.
Matt LaPierre
That concludes today's call, everyone. Thank you for joining, and please have a great day.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.
Thank you.
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