Revelation wrote:Tim Clark said his lease payments fully pay off the A380 in 12 years so they can all just get scrapped and become parts donors. I would suggest that he knows more about what the purchase price is and what EK's lease payments are than most of us. On the other hand he has a lot to lose if the A380 market collapses.
All the A380 fleet is leased, some with external published parties, some external unpublished, and the balance internally through subsidiaries.
For the internal and unpublished external, we have no data, so must assume TC is correct., though I'm sure scrap value, and a forgiven final balloon payment are included (pro-rata cost of inspections accrued, interior refurbishment, etc). For external published leases, the value of the junior loan, is the value the leasor still has in the game, but again deduct scrap value and final balloon payment.
These are all sale/leaseback. EK buys the aircraft. The price paid by the leasor isn't necessarily the purchase price.
Also, is there an Airbus buyback or residual value guarantee at the end of the lease? And finally, does EK already have a buyback agreement in place? In other words a sale/leaseback/sale.
If the leases are as above, it's win win for all. Only risk for the leasor is attracting syndicate participants, which hasn't been a problem to-date. They don't share in losses/gains post end of lease, so 10-12 years is nice and clean.
As others have stated, in a normal market lease, for aircraft not in demand, lease rates for new aircraft of the same model would increase (assuming all other factors like cost of money, country risk, customer risk, etc are unchanged), as residual values fall, and in turn used lease rates fall.
But on VLA's, there is a new normal. The final balloon payment on an A380 could be USD20m or more, almost the remaining residual value on the books. Would you rather invest USD10m (less Airbus contribution) on fitting out a factory fresh, bare interior in a new A380 you would use for 12 years, or USD15m removing an old interior, then fitting new on an old aircraft you would use for 6 years?