Annual report pursuant to Section 13 and 15(d)

Right-of-Use Asset and Operating Lease Liability

v3.22.4
Right-of-Use Asset and Operating Lease Liability
12 Months Ended
Dec. 31, 2022
Leases [Abstract]  
Right-of-Use Asset and Operating Lease Liability Right-of-Use Asset and Operating Lease Liability
Blade’s operating leases consist of airport and heliport terminals, offices and aircraft leases that are embedded within certain capacity purchase agreements (“CPAs”). Upon meeting certain criteria as stated in ASC 842 Leases, the lease component of a capacity purchase agreement would be accounted for as an embedded lease, with a corresponding balance included in the operating right-of-use (“ROU”) asset and lease liability.
As of December 31, 2022, the Company has three significant leases: an operating lease for office space located at 55 Hudson Yards in New York, New York for an initial term of 2.5 years, signed in May 2022; and aircraft leases that are embedded within two of our capacity purchase agreements, one restated and amended in December 2022 for a three-year term for 6 aircraft and the other signed in September 2022 (the “Europe AOA”, see Note 4 for additional information). The Europe AOA was signed simultaneously with the acquisition of Blade Europe and is for an initial ten-year term for 14 aircraft. The Company allocated the consideration in the capacity purchase agreements to the lease and non-lease components based on their relative standalone value. The non-lease components for these agreements primarily consist of the costs associated with flight operations. The Company determined its best estimate of the standalone value of the individual components by considering observable information from publicly available market rates.

Under the restated and amended December 2022 capacity purchase agreement, Blade has the right to terminate the agreement without cause upon 60 days’ written notice, upon such termination the flight hour guarantee will be pro-rated to
the date of the termination and the operator will be entitled to retain any unapplied deposit paid by Blade at the time of such termination, in addition, Blade has the right for immediate termination with no penalty if a government authority enacts travel restrictions.

Under the Europe AOA, the number of aircraft available to Blade and the corresponding number of minimum flight hours guaranteed to the operators by Blade, could be adjusted at the beginning of each calendar year upon reaching a mutual agreement.

See Note 13, “Commitments and Contingencies”, for additional information about our capacity purchase agreements.
Balance sheet information related to the Company’s leases is presented below:
Operating leases: December 31, 2022 December 31, 2021
Operating right-of-use asset $ 17,692  $ 713 
Operating lease liability, current 3,362  438 
Operating lease liability, long-term 14,970  278 

As of December 31, 2022, included in the table above is $14,916, $1,748 and $13,705 of operating right-of-use asset, current operating lease liability, and long-term operating lease liability, respectively, under aircraft leases that are embedded within the capacity purchase agreements. As of December 31, 2021 there were no aircraft leases embedded within a capacity purchase agreement.

The following provides details of the Company’s lease expense:
For the Years Ended
Lease cost: December 31,
2022
September 30,
2021
October 1, 2021 - December 31, 2021 (Transition Period)
Short-term lease cost
$ 304  $ 161  $ 65 
Operating lease cost
1,196  455  144 
Operating lease cost - Cost of revenue
1,379  —  — 
Total $ 2,879  $ 616  $ 209 
Operating lease costs related to aircraft leases that are embedded within a capacity purchase agreements are reported as part of Cost of revenue.

Other information related to leases is presented below:
December 31, 2022
Weighted-average discount rate – operating lease
8.50  %
Weighted-average remaining lease term – operating lease (in years)
7.7
As of December 31, 2022, the expected annual minimum lease payments of the Company’s operating lease liabilities were as follows:
For the Year Ended December 31
2023 $ 4,811 
2024 4,492 
2025 2,357 
2026 2,016 
2027 2,006 
Thereafter 10,028 
Total future minimum lease payments, undiscounted
25,710 
Less: Imputed interest for leases in excess of one year
(7,378)
Present value of future minimum lease payments
$ 18,332