Can suppliers keep waiting when AirExplore's unpaid bills equal 118 days of revenue?

More cash in a year of deeper losses

AirExplore, s. r. o. is a Bratislava-based aviation company. The s. r. o. is the Slovak form of a limited liability company, and the figures here are the company's own individual statements under Slovak accounting rules, in euros, for calendar years 2024 and 2025.

The year does not add up at first sight. Revenue fell 7.8%, from EUR 118m in 2024 to EUR 109m in 2025. The operating loss widened from EUR 8.5m to EUR 23.5m, and the net loss reached 5.4%. A business that loses money on its operations usually burns cash. Yet cash at the year end rose to EUR 3.2m from EUR 819k, up 286.5%.

The line that moved the other way is trade payables, the unpaid bills from suppliers. They stood at EUR 35.2m at the end of 2025, against EUR 20.0m a year earlier. Measured against sales, those unpaid bills equal 118 days of revenue, up from 62 days. That is 56 days more in a single year. The company sold less, lost more, and owed its suppliers far more relative to what it sold.

One caveat on the measure. Payable days here are calculated against revenue, not against purchases, because that is what the accounts allow. For a loss-making company, purchases can exceed revenue, so the true waiting time for suppliers may be shorter than the headline figure. The direction, though, is not in doubt.

Why unpaid bills become a source of funding

There are only a few ways to pay for losses: the owners put money in, a bank or a parent lends it, assets are sold, or someone else waits longer to be paid. The last one needs no contract, no interest rate and no board approval. It simply happens when invoices sit in the system for longer.

Payable days rise for one of three reasons. The company may have negotiated longer terms, which is a legitimate commercial choice. It may be short of cash and paying late, which is not a choice its suppliers made. Or, when sales fall, payables can lag because bills for earlier purchases are still open. The accounts do not show how much of the balance is overdue, so the split between agreed terms and late payment cannot be settled from the outside. An ageing list of the payables would answer it in one page.

The rest of the balance sheet makes the second explanation harder to dismiss. Equity, what would be left for the owners if every asset were sold at book value and every debt paid, was already negative at EUR -11.1m at the end of 2024. After the 2025 loss it fell to EUR -33.5m. The equity ratio dropped from -25.5% to -87.7%. In plain terms, the company owes considerably more than it owns, and it keeps trading because creditors and backers outside the income statement keep carrying it. Slovak commercial law has specific rules for a company whose equity falls this low relative to its debts, known as a company in crisis, which restrict how owners can be repaid.

Interest tells the same story from another side. The company paid EUR 2.9m in interest in 2025 while losing EUR 23.5m at the operating level. None of that interest was earned by the business. It was paid from somewhere else, and suppliers are one of the obvious places.

Stock points the same way. Inventories rose to EUR 10.5m from EUR 4.2m, from 13 days to 35 days measured against revenue. More goods were bought and held while sales fell. If those purchases were not yet paid for at the year end, they would show up in payables too, which is the third, more innocent, explanation at work.

So the cash pile of EUR 3.2m is not evidence that the business generated cash. Set against an EBITDA, operating profit before depreciation, of EUR -22.2m, it looks much more like money borrowed from the supply chain, interest-free and without a due date anyone signed.

Suppliers are lenders who never agreed to lend

The weakness of this financing is that it can be withdrawn without notice. A supplier who waits too long does not send a covenant breach letter. It shortens terms, asks for a deposit, or moves to payment before delivery. In aviation, where fuel, handling, maintenance and airport charges are paid continuously, a few such decisions at once can drain cash faster than any bank could.

That is the tension at AirExplore. The higher cash balance looks reassuring, but it rests partly on the patience of people with no stake in the company's equity. If even part of the supplier base returned to standard terms, the cash would have to come from somewhere, and with negative equity and an operating loss, the business itself is not the obvious source.

What to check in your own company

You can run the same test on your own books in an afternoon.

First, open your accounts payable ageing report and split it into three columns: not yet due, overdue under a month, overdue longer. If the overdue columns are growing faster than your purchases, your suppliers are financing you whether they agreed to or not.

Second, work out payable days properly: trade payables divided by annual purchases from suppliers, multiplied by the number of days in the year. Compare the result with the terms written in your main supplier contracts. The gap between the two is the credit you are taking rather than being given.

Third, ask your finance team one question: how much cash would we need if our five largest suppliers went back to their standard terms next month? If the answer is more than you hold, you know who your real lenders are.

In finance, almost right does not count, and a cash balance is only as good as the bills behind it. AirExplore ended 2025 with more money in the bank and far more owed to the people who keep its operation running. I would watch the payables line more closely than the cash line, because the second one depends on the first.