Aircraft leasing in India: opportunity knocks for an Indian lessor

There are 652 commercial aircraft with operators in India at 17-Oct-2018 (including 34 in storage), according to the CAPA Fleet Database. Of these, 531 aircraft are leased, which is 81% of the total. This compares with a leased aircraft share of 52% in Asia overall and 53% globally. Indian airlines' leasing dependency reflects their relative youth and/or financial fragility.

However, there are no indigenous Indian lessors and many of the world's biggest aircraft leasing companies have only small fleets with the country's airlines. Available data on aircraft orders for Indian operators show that only a very small percentage are currently through lessors. Nevertheless, leasing looks likely to continue to dominate aircraft financing in India and this share of orders will rise, for example through sale and leaseback.

CAPA India published a report in Sep-2018 examining the prospects for an Indian Aircraft Leasing Sector, noting Indian government initiatives to explore ways to stimulate the creation of resident aircraft leasing in the country. Building on that report, this report provides data from the CAPA Fleet Database to put some parameters around the scale of the opportunity for lessors in India, whether home-grown or offshore.