Speaking at a recent CAPA Live event, Executive Chairman of Air Lease Corporation (ALC) Steve Udvar-Hazy commented on the impact that COVID has had on the industry. //

“The airline industry as a whole on a global level has lost everything they’ve earned since World War II. I mean, everything, all the profits that were hard-earned are gone.

“If it was not for government support, either in the forms of guarantees, equity, loans, all kinds of medicine government agencies have put forth, the airline industry would have been crippled.” //

IATA estimates that the industry’s debt burden as a whole has ballooned by $220 billion to a total of $651 billion. //

“The balance sheets of airlines today compared to where they were, say, 18 months ago is vastly different. And many, many airlines have mortgaged everything, their planes, their slots, their airport terminals, their ground facilities, their frequent flyer programs. They’ve borrowed against every possible asset or even virtual assets that they don’t even have.” //

“At the end of last year, we crossed that threshold where more than 50% of the aircraft are leased, either on an operating lease or a finance lease or on a sale-leaseback. That is a huge change from where we were even five years ago,” said the ALC boss.