Hundreds of planes are stranded in Russia. They may never be recovered.
Hope has faded quickly for a handful of Western companies eager to recover planes leased to airlines in Russia, with the authorities there intent on keeping foreign-registered aircraft within the country and President Vladimir V. Putin openly discussing nationalizing the assets of foreign businesses. As of Thursday, there were 523 aircraft leased to Russian carriers by companies outside the country, according to IBA, a consulting firm. Of those, 101 are on lease to S7 Airlines and 89 to Aeroflot. Both airlines have stopped flying internationally, eliminating any chance of repossessing the planes on foreign soil. “The general consensus is: That’s it, we will not be able to recover them,” said Vitaly Guzhva, a finance professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Dr. Guzhva and others who attended a recent industry conference in San Diego said the predicament for the leasing companies was the talk of the event, held by the International Society of Transport Aircraft Trading. Experts there generally aligned around the view that the companies were facing the possibility of huge losses, they said. All told, the planes are worth as much as $12b, according to Ishka, an aviation consulting firm. AerCap, the world’s largest leasing company for commercial aircraft, has 142 leased planes in Russia, more than any other company, according to IBA. AerCap declined to comment, but said in a recent financial disclosure that its aircraft in Russia account for about 5% of its fleet. SMBC Aviation Capital, which did not respond to a request for comment, is the second-most exposed business, with 35 leased planes in Russia. Under European sanctions, lessors such as AerCap and SMBC, which are based in Ireland, have until March 28 to terminate contracts with the Russian airlines and get their planes back. On Thursday, David Walton, the COO of BOC Aviation, a leasing company based in Singapore, said the March 28 deadline was “frankly an unrealistic timetable” to get hundreds of planes out of the country. As of late February, Russian airlines were using 18 BOC-owned aircraft, or about 4.8% of the company’s fleet. Story has more.<br/>
https://portal.staralliance.com/cms/news/hot-topics/2022-03-14/general/hundreds-of-planes-are-stranded-in-russia-they-may-never-be-recovered
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Hundreds of planes are stranded in Russia. They may never be recovered.
Hope has faded quickly for a handful of Western companies eager to recover planes leased to airlines in Russia, with the authorities there intent on keeping foreign-registered aircraft within the country and President Vladimir V. Putin openly discussing nationalizing the assets of foreign businesses. As of Thursday, there were 523 aircraft leased to Russian carriers by companies outside the country, according to IBA, a consulting firm. Of those, 101 are on lease to S7 Airlines and 89 to Aeroflot. Both airlines have stopped flying internationally, eliminating any chance of repossessing the planes on foreign soil. “The general consensus is: That’s it, we will not be able to recover them,” said Vitaly Guzhva, a finance professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Dr. Guzhva and others who attended a recent industry conference in San Diego said the predicament for the leasing companies was the talk of the event, held by the International Society of Transport Aircraft Trading. Experts there generally aligned around the view that the companies were facing the possibility of huge losses, they said. All told, the planes are worth as much as $12b, according to Ishka, an aviation consulting firm. AerCap, the world’s largest leasing company for commercial aircraft, has 142 leased planes in Russia, more than any other company, according to IBA. AerCap declined to comment, but said in a recent financial disclosure that its aircraft in Russia account for about 5% of its fleet. SMBC Aviation Capital, which did not respond to a request for comment, is the second-most exposed business, with 35 leased planes in Russia. Under European sanctions, lessors such as AerCap and SMBC, which are based in Ireland, have until March 28 to terminate contracts with the Russian airlines and get their planes back. On Thursday, David Walton, the COO of BOC Aviation, a leasing company based in Singapore, said the March 28 deadline was “frankly an unrealistic timetable” to get hundreds of planes out of the country. As of late February, Russian airlines were using 18 BOC-owned aircraft, or about 4.8% of the company’s fleet. Story has more.<br/>
