Aviation experts welcome Avolon’s deal with Boeing

Aviation experts have welcomed Avolon’s deal with Boeing. Irish leasing company Avolon placed a $2.3 billion provisional order for up to 30 Boeing jetliners recently, picking a moment when many airlines are slowing orders and prices are under pressure to expand its own fleet on hopes of an economic recovery. Boeing Co is leading Airbus in deals at Farnborough Airshow, the aerospace industry’s showcase event, where there are signs a faltering global economy is finally catching up with demand for new aircraft. Ray Conner, President and Chief Executive Officer of Boeing Commercial Airplanes and Domhnal Slattery, Chief Executive Officer of Avolon Leasing Group addressed a press conference in Farnborough onWednesday. “It doesn’t feel buzzy, but it is the kind of environment I like to buy planes in,” said Domhnal Slattery, a leasing industry veteran who founded Dublin-based Avolon in 2010. He forecast the economy would recover from Europe’s sovereign debt crisis more quickly than some expect and said Avolon, which buys aircraft and rents them to airlines, based its projections on higher GDP in the decade ahead. “Markets stop panicking when regulators start panicking,” he said. A cyclical boom in aircraft orders, accentuated by a rush among airlines for the latest technology on their jets to help drive down their fuel bills, showed signs of running out of steam this week, although the slowdown had been expected. “This was the right moment to get this deal done. It is the right time to restock,” Slattery said. The order, which Slattery expected to finalise in the next few weeks, includes 15 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft and 10 Boeing 737-800s, the benchmark model currently in service. The deal also includes reconfirmation rights for five more 737 MAX aircraft. It is the latest in a series of deals for the revamped version of Boeing’s narrowbody 737 as it battles to catch up with European rival Airbus’s popular A320neo. “These should be firm orders by the end of August,” Slattery said in an interview. Avolon’s fleet includes 49 of Airbus’s current single-aisle A320, but although Slattery sees the A320neo as part of Avolon’s fleet in future, he has no immediate plans to order the jet. From gulftoday