Lufthansa: Airline operating leasing companies are 'fundamentally different businesses'

Lufthansa head of finance Markus Ott, speaking at CAPA's Airline Fleet & Finance Summit Asia, said (02-Mar-2015) his opinion on airlines operating leasing companies to be "fundamentally different businesses" and noted: "Whether you are well advised as an airline to enter the leasing business remains open." Mr Ott explained leasing a few surplus aircraft you cannot or do not want to sell is different to regularly leasing aircraft, noting: "To do that on a regular basis and to do that as a new business model I think you need different talents, different experience, different knowledge to do the operating lease business successfully and I doubt that many airlines can do that immediately. That would be astonishing."