A question for you: How do you finance pre-delivery payments on a Boeing aircraft going into Iran when you have no export credit backing on the aircraft or engines and the banks are too worried to come forward in a substantial form? What do you do? I believe you all know the answer to that one: fall back on the Chinese. They have the ability to loan money to Iran for PDPs in US dollars but of course they would want something in return.
For example, let’s say an aircraft manufacturer agrees to invest in one of China’s new high profile flotations and in return China assists with the Iranian problem. As the headline suggests, I am thinking hypothetically today but I find it a coincidence that Boeing is back in the frame for an Iranair deal right now.
It might be that Tim Myers at Boeing Capital, who is widely credited in the market for forcing through the BOC Aviation investment, will have a windfall coming for Boeing shareholders fairly soon.
While we are on the matter of hypothetical scenarios maybe we should consider why an aircraft lessor would want have an MRO under its wing. For some, such as CALC, this is highly logical, but for those outside of China what is the point? After all it seems very clear that there are no end-to-end investor relations benefits to be had – AerCap is getting a better deal at GA Telesis for its work over its own captive MRO, AeroTurbine, and we know of other lessors in the USA that also passed up “sister companies” or owned entities for other players because they got a better deal on teardown, MRO services etc. In one instance, AeroTurbine was the beneficiary of such a move by a US lessor, so their rates are obviously not that bad. Maybe Aercap shareholders should wonder if it is time to sell of AeroTurbine and, as a warning to other lessors, if AerCap is unable or unwilling to give its in-house teardown shop consistent predictable flow of volume over the long haul, then no lessor can.