Dublin-based aircraft leasing giant Avolon’s chief commercial officer Paul Geaney said the company may not place additional aircraft orders “for five years,” but remains poised to return to the market each time. once she can buy the “right planesâ€. at the right price â€.
There are many ways to make money in this industry beyond knocking on Toulouse or Seattle and politely asking for slots, â€Geaney told the Independent Irish.
“Too many decent businesses have seen this door open and been sold planes when they shouldn’t have been,” he said.
Avolon, whose managing director is Dómhnal Slattery, is one of the largest aircraft rental companies in the world. It has a fleet of 837 aircraft, of which 520 in its possession, 61 in its management and 256 on order. Much of its fleet includes narrow-body aircraft such as the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 families.
Avolon also placed a $ 2 billion order over the summer for 500 electric air taxis from UK firm Vertical. Avolon agreed this week to sell or lease up to 250 of them to Brazilian low-cost carrier Gol.
Last year, Avolon canceled orders for 102 Boeing Max jets and postponed delivery of more planes as the pandemic hit global aviation.
“We are seeing real pockets of demand for narrow-body aircraft in some parts of the world that are starting to heal,” Geaney said.
“The past 15 to 18 months have been a pretty tasteless history of global demand. As airlines restructure and large domestic markets in particular recover, you are now starting to capture pockets of demand, â€he added.
But he said a new order for the group’s planes could still be a long way off, even though he described 2023 as a “decent target” to consider a recovery of certain passenger segments to activity levels seen in 2019.
When asked when he thinks Avolon should place a new order for planes, Mr Geaney said: I’m alive for this today.
“I may not buy a plane for five years, but until then, I will be mindful of it every day,” he added. “A time will come in this window where we will make one.
“We need to see appropriate momentum in the market where we believe we can deliver appropriate value to our shareholders,†said Mr. Geaney.
“We will always be looking for this opportunity, but we are not going to grow for growth,” he insisted.
“We will focus on getting the right stock performance for our shareholders,†said Mr. Geaney. “When it comes to buying planes again, we will. “
Ryanair recently ended talks with Boeing over a potential multi-billion dollar order for Max10 aircraft.
“Boeing has a more optimistic view of aircraft prices than we do, and we are used to not paying high prices for planes,” Michael O’Leary, CEO of Ryanair, said this month.
But Mr Geaney said he believed Boeing was rightly optimistic about its pricing outlook.
“They have a product to sell and if they have a buyer who will not respect their price, it is probably not the seller who is unrealistic,†he said.
“We have seen Boeing do a very good job of clearing an aircraft backlog in a short period of time and do so through very large transactions with a relatively small number of large operators,” Geaney added. “This is really good news for us. What we didn’t want to see was Boeing in the market offering Max’s at ridiculous prices to several buyers.
“If we see Boeing stiffening its back and being confident about the prices, this is very good news for the leasing companies,” Geaney said.
