By Cirium2021-04-15T09:04:00+01:00
Major rating agencies do not expect the AerCap-GECAS merger and the sale of FLY Leasing to Carlyle Aviation Partners will lead to much further consolidation among larger rated lessors.
They opined that AerCap was driven not to build scale but because it could acquire aircraft assets at a good price, during a panel discussion at the Airline Economics Virtual Growth Frontiers Tokyo conference on 15 April.
“There are benefits to scale, but arguably AerCap was already on sufficient scale to have those benefits,” Mark Wasden, senior analyst at Moody’s Investors Service said.
“I don’t see that combination as having to do with scale, per se. There may be incremental benefits to do with scale. The company itself has said, ‘We’ll have a more granular customer base and fleet, etc.’, but I think this had more to do with [AerCap being an opportunist] in terms of acquiring aircraft at a good price. It was a pure economic analysis: ‘Does t