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Aircraft Ownership: paradigm shift or more of the same?

Given the dimensions of the past two years’ disaster it is remarkable that so few airlines have fallen by the wayside. But that cannot persist indefinitely. The global traffic forecast, envisaging a 30-40% reduction on 2019 traffic would have been the stuff of nightmares just a couple of years ago.

This could and should have been a time for rethinking the way airlines operate, rather than clamouring for a recovery to the old ways. As Willie Walsh made clear, this leaves the only survival strategy a resort to more government bailouts. As time passes that will in itself force some reimagining of the aviation framework; but in the meantime there is more bad news to come for conventional thinking.

In this session we focus on the nature of the aircraft ownership model. We look to review what’s happened over the last two years at a very high level, both from an airline perspective as well as from a lessor perspective and revisit the perennial “buy vs. lease” question, from a post-pandemic perspective, given the current situation of airlines.

The pandemic has had an incredible effect on the industry. Airlines’ overall financial situation has been greatly impacted and many will have huge debt repayments for a long time whilst they deal with an uneven passenger demand recovery:

  • How is the relationship between airlines and lessors going to evolve against this background?
  • What are airlines looking for in lessors as they begin a slow and uncertain recovery? Similarly, what opportunity do lessors see in this indebted airline industry? Do airlines have to accept a new reality in “owned vs. lease” ratios?
  • How is this landscape affecting aircraft procurement decisions and how long is it likely to last?
  • What are the main factors that airlines should consider in terms of fleet renewal at this time?

Moderator: WestJet, Board Member, Alex Cruz

  • airBaltic, Chairman of the Board & CEO, Martin Gauss
  • BOC Aviation, MD & CEO, Robert Martin
  • Senior Aviation Executive, Lynn Guiney

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