Yes yes yes. How you choose to finance an airlines assets is barely germane to how sound their business plan is. Not to say that Jet2 won't do very nicely. Channex are a well managed company from what I know. Steady measured growth has seen them develop a very nice little business over the years and their pilots seem a happy enough bunch of bunnies.
But.
It matters not if you have borrowed money from the bank to buy an aircraft, whether you lease it from someone else, whether you buy it give it to another part of the group then lease it back, pay for it by the hour, sub-charter, wet lease or dry lease or just turn up with a suitcase full of cash. It doesn't really matter if they are new aircraft that cost a fortune or old aircraft that are worth nothing. The costs all even out and its only accountancy black magic that dictates which way you go.
You could hardly argue that BA has not invested in the industry because it doesn't 'own' its own aircraft for example.
It does seem though that the low cost 737 airline train departed the station in the last century.
The myriad of new starters surely don't envisage growing to be a full size pan European low cost airline... in which case are they going to be niche players for ever? In which case will the large low cost airlines simply buy them out or cripple them at some point in the future when it suits them to do so? Is that the plan?
I don't know. Its interesting to watch though. Why anyone ever decides to get into the airline business though is a mystery to me. It makes politics look straightforward and simple by comparison.
Cheers
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