Originally Posted by
Mr Proach
At the CAPA conference one of the presenters stated that the aircraft leasing companies experienced increased profitability during the Covid period. Does anyone have any evidence to support or refute that claim? If the leasing companies did experience an upswing in profits, how did that eventuate?
Additionally, another piece of fact or fiction I came across suggests that aircraft leasing companies own approximately 50% of airline operators. This was in the context of the driving influence behind the increasing demand for narrow body versus wide body airliners.
If you possess a sound knowledge on these matters, much appreciate if you would share.
If they did it was a pretty massaged way of doing it, methinks. Some of the major lessors trimmed their fleet or took large impairments at the start of the pandemic, which led to big losses in one period, but cleared the decks for greater profitability in future quarters/periods. On the flipside, the world's largest lessor of regional aircraft, Nordic Aviation Capital, filed for restructuring in Ireland and is not trying to tie up Chapter 11 restructuring in the USA, so it hasn't been a bed of roses for everyone.
As for the 50% of airline operators, I think what you may be thinking of is 50% of the in-service fleet of aircraft, which is about correct. Pre-pandemic it was between 43-48%, depending whose metric you looked at. Now I think the consensus is that it is just over 50% as more airlines moved to sale-and-leaseback financing to boost their liquidity. With most reserve banks printing money and sending interest rates to 0%, there has been a lot of cash looking for homes, and aircraft are one of the destinations that cash has ended up.