Good times ahead for aviation’s lessors

During the pandemic, aircraft and engine lessors trod a tricky path with their loss-making and debt-ridden airline customers. Now the COVID crisis has passed, is the sector set for a golden era in the region? Associate editor and chief correspondent, Tom Ballantyne, reports.

June 1st 2023

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Their forecasts about the direction of aviation leasing may differ, but analysts universally agree on one thing: the only way is up. Read More »

Recovery from the pandemic is well underway. Airlines are putting planes back in the air and placing orders for thousands of new jets of which a huge percentage of them will be leased or acquired under sale and lease back arrangements.

Following are random examples of the positive trend. ResearchAndMarkets.com forecasts the global aircraft leasing market will reach $266.71 billion in 2027, recording annual growth of 7.8%. Statista Research projects the market will be worth $295.2 billion in 2029. A recent market report by Technavio predicts even faster growth, at 8.6% annually, adding $15.5 billion to the value of the market between 2021 and 2026.

Plenty of evidence suggests the expectations of significant growth are accurate. Lessors are reporting healthy profits as their existing customers emerge from the COVID crisis and new customers join the queue to expand their fleets with new technology aircraft.

The world’s biggest lessor as a result of its acquisition of GECAS in 2021, Dublin-based AerCap has a portfolio of more than 3,500 aircraft. It reported a net profit of $566 million in the first quarter of the year.

It executed 252 transactions in the three months, including 155 lease agreements, 56 purchases and 41 sales. Majority China-owned Avolon, also headquartered in Dublin, brought in $599 million in lease revenue and a net income of $56 million in the same quarter. It executed 31 lease transactions in the period, made up of new aircraft leases, follow-on leases and lease extensions.

In Asia, BOC Aviation reported a core net profit after tax of $527 million for the 12 months to December 31, 2022, although the result excluded a write-down of aircraft in Russia, which negatively impacted net profit after tax by $507 million.

Nevertheless, 2023 started on a strong note for Hong Kong listed BOC. Managing director and CEO, Robert Martin, has said the first quarter of 2023 was a successful period. “At the end of the quarter, we had placed all new aircraft scheduled for delivery in 2023 and had lease commitments signed for all but one aircraft with leases expiring this year. It reflects the strong demand among the world’s airlines for modern technology aircraft. Our collection rate was 103% for the quarter, demonstrating the improving financial health of our airline customers and the speed with which they are recovering from the pandemic.”

At AerCap, chief executive Aengus Kelly said strong earnings and robust cash flows for the first quarter of 2023 reflect the ongoing normalization of air travel and a return to business as usual for the aviation leasing industry. “We continue to experience strong demand for our aviation assets. Our confidence in the future is demonstrated by our new $500 million share repurchase program.”

Avolon chief executive, Andy Cronin, said the lessor benefitted from rising lease rates in the first quarter of this year as global passenger traffic continued to grow and the reopening of the Chinese market provided an important catalyst for increased travel in the region.

“Demand for aircraft remains strong, with high levels of leasing activity and a continued shortage of aircraft. This is supporting residual values and driving lease extensions from airlines unable to access new deliveries. Our commitment with Boeing for 40 new B737 MAXs reflects our confidence in the long-term outlook for the aviation sector,” Cronin said.

“With our low leverage and high levels of liquidity, we are well positioned to take advantage of future opportunities.”

There is universal agreement the Asia-Pacific will be at the heart of growth trends. Researchers DataIntelo said the region is expected have the highest annual growth to 2030. “It can be attributed to increasing demand for air travel in emerging economies such as India, China and Japan,” the data analyst wrote.

In addition, increasing disposable income, coupled with a rise in consumer preference for luxury travel, is forecast to fuel regional market growth over the forecast period, it said.

ResearchAndMarkets.com agrees the largest share of the market will be captured by the Asia-Pacific, followed by North America, Europe, the Middle East & Africa and Latin America.

Clearly, the leasing market will be underpinned by the large numbers of new aircraft being ordered, particularly by Asia-Pacific airlines. Boeing’s Commercial Market Outlook (CMO) forecasts a market value of $7.2 trillion for new airplane deliveries worldwide, with the global fleet increasing by 80% to 2041 compared with 2019 pre-pandemic levels.

Approximately 50% of passenger jet deliveries will replace today’s models, improving the global fleet’s fuel efficiency and sustainability, the Boeing CMO said. Continuing their strong growth story, Asian markets account for roughly 40% of long-term global demand for new airplanes, the CMO predicted. About 17,080 new planes will be delivered to customers in the region and 8,485 of them will be to China.

With more than half the global fleet leased or operating under sale and leaseback arrangements, a more than healthy financial future appears to be ahead. There may be, however, some short-term challenges for lessors.

In a March webinar organized by Cirium, its Senior Valuations Consultant, Thomas Kaplan, when presenting his assessment of the values and lease rates landscape, highlighted that lease rates are comparatively lagging behind values, particularly for single-aisle aircraft.

“Lessor competition is very intense in the single-aisle fleet sector, driving prices down. We have not been able to see the interest rate and inflation filter through to get those lease rates up,” he said.

“There is still an overhang of aircraft from lessor fleets idle during the pandemic when demand was very low. So with that supply still higher than regular levels, it increases competition and keeps the lease rates down. But we may see continued improvement and the trend is for improvement.”

The global economic situation, with rising interest rates and inflation, also was a subject for discussion during the webinar. Deucalion Aviation senior vice president & head of lessor origination, pricing & structuring, Sarah Conway, told participants inflation is certainly having an impact on the leasing sector.

She pointed to a readjustment among lessors from a financing perspective. “Over the last few weeks, we have seen rates move again. That volatility is what all of us are trying to get our heads around when we are looking at buying and selling aircraft today and understanding if it works from a financing perspective, ” she said.

Why haven’t aircraft lease rates risen with interest rates? “The industry is a bit like a drug addict that’s been addicted to low interest rates for 20 years or more and now is going a bit cold turkey” said Cirium’s Head of Valuations, George Dimitroff. “I think the industry can adjust to the new interest rate environment. It just takes a bit of time to pass some of that onto customers and to adjust.”

Conway pointed to demand among airlines to extend their leases on aircraft due to be parted-out, that is the process of retiring an aircraft and selling their parts. “Obviously, that is an easy decision as a servicer in many cases, especially if you are looking at a 20-year-old asset to extend for one more summer,” she said.

“The cycle will change. It is just nobody would have modelled an extension at that 20-year point when that deal was being considered. In the last six to 12 months, that has become an opportunity, but I believe it is a short window.”

Despite big numbers of aircraft in storage, retirements have remained low during COVID with the annual total failing to reach 2019 levels every year since the pandemic’s outbreak. The result has been a weak part-out market.

“The owners of aircraft have choices: permanently retire their aircraft, tear it down or let it sit. They would rather not tear down during a weak economic environment where they will get less money for the engines and airframes and there is less demand for spare parts,” Kaplan said.

Another area yet to reach pre-pandemic levels of activity is lessor trading, swaps of aircraft between lessors with a lease attached. Trades have halved from more than 600 in 2019 to 300 in 2020 and have remained stubbornly below 400 every year since then. Conway indicated the longer time frames now required to close deals are inhibiting trades, with more opportunities for deals to fall through.

However, she has noted increased talk of deals at recent industry events and the return of wide-bodies as tradable assets as the key changes in recent months.

“It’s a higher interest rate environment where financing has allowed for break gains and potentially a positive impact, given where book values have been sitting and how valuations have been effected in the last few years” she said.

“Wide-bodies were the trickier asset class to consider, especially standalone assets not packaged with a portfolio of narrow-bodies, so the wide-body trading side should continue to increase as we go through the year.”

Dimitroff added many leases restructured in 2020 have been paid back with lease contract volatility decreasing. “You have a bit more predictability about your revenue streams, cost of borrowing and cost of funds, although it is volatile on a day-to-day basis. Some of the key dynamics you need to trade aircraft with leases attached are starting to stabilize and that should open the door for more trading,” he said.