Leasing firms buy more planes than ailing airlines for first time

Aircraft leasing companies are for the first time buying more of the world's passenger planes than airlines after the pandemic clobbered carriers around the world, senior industry executives said on Monday. The historic shift, following decades of gradual growth, is down to leasing giants being able to access cheaper financing than carriers in another sign of the financial woes facing much of the airline industry, they said. Aircraft lessors, who buy planes from manufacturers like Airbus SE (AIR.PA) and Boeing Co (BA.N) and lease them on to airlines, had accounted for around 40-45% of aircraft deliveries before the pandemic, said industry pioneer Steven Udvar-Hazy. "Leased content has grown to around 60% of deliveries," Udvar-Hazy, executive chairman of lessor Air Lease Corp, told the Airline Economics conference in London. Udvar-Hazy, who said he remembered the sector providing finance for just 1% of deliveries when he helped pioneer the industry in the early 1970s, said it was hard to say if the number could go higher.<br/>