Engine Leasing
Thanks C_S for the clarification. It reminds me of the mid nineties when QF was negotiating to buy 2 B744's from Malaysian Airlines (now VH-OEC & VH-OED). At the eleventh hour of negotiations, Qantas discovers that the price they were negotiating was "sans engines" as MAS had previously sold all their engines to raise money and were leasing them back on a fee per flight hour basis. Negotiations then went on for another month resulting in Qantas getting ownership of the complete aircraft. With the subsequent fuselage cracking (8 years later) as a result of the paint job that MAS did, I think that QF management would have preferred that the sale had fallen through.