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Introduction

Nov. 30, 2014: Airlines now lease about 50% of their aircraft under a variety of mechanisms: operating, finance, leveraged and Islamic leases, just to name a few.

There are operating leasing, special purpose and "house" companies. There are leasing units of investment banks, insurance companies and a host of others.

Ireland is a popular leasing venue because of favorable tax laws.

The Big Four airframe OEMs have long sold aircraft directly to lessors, and the emerging airframe OEMs, COMAC and Irkut, have seen orders placed by emerging lessors in their home countries. ATR, the turbo-prop OEM, also has received orders from lessors.

Today we look at the lessor relationships with Airbus and Boeing.

Summary

• Lessors represent a significant, but still a minority, part of the Airbus and Boeing backlogs.
• Widebody airplanes constitute a small portion of lessor orders.
• Boeing has more widebody lessors orders than Airbus.
• Airbus has a larger lessor order book than Boeing.