FLYEXCLUSIVE INC. (FLYX) stock intrinsic value fair value estimate & owner earnings analysis

flyExclusive runs a private-jet business out of Kinston, North Carolina. It sells prepaid jet club memberships, fractional shares of Citation CJ3+ and Challenger 350 aircraft, and charter flights. It also does maintenance work and has managed Volato's HondaJet fleet since September 2024. Revenue grew from $315 million in 2023 to $376 million in 2025. The company has lost money every year since then: $55 million in 2023, $101 million in 2024 and $67 million in 2025. It lost another $25 million in the first half of 2026. How we measured earnings. Operating cash flow looks better than the losses: $6.7 million in 2025. But most of that cash comes from customers paying in advance. Deferred revenue for prepaid flights grew $46 million in 2024 and $9 million in 2025. Fractional-owner deposits grew $14 million and $17 million. The company itself calls this deferred revenue one of its main sources of cash. That money is owed back to customers as flight hours, so we do not count it as earnings. Rent on leased aircraft is treated as a normal operating cost. Engine overhauls, about $25 million a year, are real upkeep, so we charge them against earnings. We credit aircraft sale proceeds against aircraft purchases. The one exception is 2025, when the company sold $103 million of aircraft mainly to pay down $139 million of debt. Shrinking the fleet to repay lenders is not earnings, so we gave no credit for that year's net sales. On this basis, the cash left for owners was about -$92 million in 2023, -$98 million in 2024 and -$62 million in 2025. Before interest, the business burned about $80 million, $78 million and $45 million in those years. Per share, we count both the public Class A shares and the Class B units held by the founder's family, because they share equally in the business. That is about 104 million shares today. What it owes. We count $104 million of borrowings and $29 million of finance leases. We also count the Series A preferred, about $32 million with dividends compounding, which ranks ahead of common holders. On top of that we add about $10 million for above-market financing costs. The preferred dividend rises to 16% in March 2027, and holders can demand redemption from March 2029. The ETG senior secured note, extended to January 2028, carries 13-15%. After small outside ownership stakes, net debt is about $179 million. Cash of $14 million at June 30, 2026 sits against more than $200 million of customer deposits and deferred revenue, so we treat none of it as spare. Base case. The loss narrowed sharply in 2025, from a $78 million burn before interest to $45 million. The first half of 2026 improved again: the operating loss was $15 million, against $27 million a year earlier. We use the current run rate of about a $38 million annual burn before interest. That is a smaller improvement than 2025 delivered, and it is backed by two quarters of results. Nothing in the filings shows the business reaching positive owner earnings. Management's savings from updating the fleet are a target, not a result. The company already had to sell stock at $6.65 in January 2026 and set up a share-sale program. So we assume the losses continue until the 2028-2029 debt deadlines force a refinancing or restructuring. We give no value beyond that point. The business is worth about -$102 million. Subtracting $179 million of net debt leaves about -$281 million, or -$2.70 per share. Bear case. The burn stays at the 2025 level of $45 million a year. Prepaid-customer money also starts to shrink as new sales slow. Deposits and deferred revenue total over $200 million, so a 20% run-off would consume roughly $40 million more. The business is worth about -$157 million, leaving about -$336 million after debt, or -$3.24 per share. Bull case. The company's own measures keep working as they did in the first half of 2026: exiting older aircraft, growing the fractional fleet and adding Volato management fees. The burn falls to $25 million next year and $10 million the year after. After that the business earns a modest $5 million a year before interest through year ten. We do not credit anything larger, because the company has never shown sustained positive owner earnings. The business is worth about -$5 million, leaving about -$184 million after debt, or -$1.77 per share. What it means. In every case, the company appears to owe more than the business is worth: by roughly $185 million in the bull case and $280-335 million in the base and bear cases. The balance sheet agrees. At June 30, 2026, total liabilities of $523 million plus the preferred were well above total assets of $439 million. The shares have value only if flyExclusive can show it earns real cash after overhauls and aircraft spending, not just cash from customer prepayments. The margin-of-safety price applies only once that has happened for two years and the 2028-2029 debt and preferred are refinanced or retired. Even then, what is left for shareholders after debt would be small, so the margin-of-safety price carries a very large margin of safety. The pending acquisition of Jet.AI's aviation business, and any new share issuance tied to it, is not included. The filings do not yet show what it earns.