Leasing giant Avolon has signed up with Airbus today for a total of 20 A330neos. At present, the order is a memorandum of understanding (MoU) and all for the more popular variant, the A330-900. Deliveries will begin in 2026 and are forecast to be complete by 2028.
As with yesterday's order over at Boeing for the 737 MAX, attending today's announcement were Andy Cronin, CEO of Avolon, and Chief Commercial Officer, Paul Geaney. Avolon already has some 25 A330-900s in its portfolio, with an average age of just 3.3 years. However, it has been a popular buyer of the A330 series in the past, with 51 in the portfolio, split between the A330-200 and the A330-300.
Speaking at this morning's order announcement, Cronin commented,
"Avolon is one of the largest leasing companies in the world. In fact, as the largest manager of A330ceos in the world, we have an enormous span across the market reaching close to 150 airlines around the world. We are genuinely excited by the demand that we see for aircraft in general, but also more significantly for this order as it pertains to the replacement pathway for the A330ceo and the huge increase in interest that we're seeing right across the globe for the A330neo over the past months and quarters."
Christian Scherer, Chief Commercial Officer and Head of International at Airbus, was also at the announcement. He noted,
“It’s fantastic to see Avolon once again commit additional investment in the A330neo aircraft and lead the lessor market reordering widebody aircraft. Avolon’s vision and timing could not be better with this commitment for a further 20 aircraft to its portfolio. Avolon will benefit from the strong wave of growth and replacements that we currently observe across all markets.”
All widebody orders already placed
The resurgence in aviation has seen lessors incredibly busy, offering airlines a more financially manageable means to renew their fleets. Avolon is no exception, and as Cronin mentioned today, its current widebody orderbook is already all placed with airlines. According to data from ch-aviation, this includes two 787-9 and four A330neo on order, as well as the 124 widebodies already in its portfolio.
While some of the lessor's orders are destined for replacement aircraft, others are considered to be for growth. Cronin commented,
"In general, we see almost half of the production over the next 20 years is going to replace the existing fleet and embedded fleet. With the A330, we see quite a significant opportunity - it has proven to be one of the workhorses of the industry, particularly in Asia and is effectively been operating across multiple very large operator bases for many, many years since its entry into service in the 1990s.
"Some of those aircraft are now coming due for replacement. I think they're getting to some 20, 25 years old vintage. We're seeing more and more acceleration of the interest and engagement in airlines who are existing A330ceo operators looking for the next logical step, which is what do they replace it with? The same proven model that has been working so well for them for the past decades, but with the modern engines, more fuel efficient, more environmentally friendly."
Airbus is happier selling a -900
The question was asked, why did Avolon secure this order for the -900 with no consideration to the smaller -800? While the -800 hasn't been a big seller, and is drastically eclipsed in terms of orders by its bigger brother - 12 sales vs 277 - Avolon's executives noted that they did think the -800 was a great airplane. It indicated that it has some flexibility to request the smaller variant as part of this order, and that if the market demand existed, it would look to do so.
For Airbus, on the other hand, an order for the -900 is a winner, as Scherer explained,
"We like selling large airplanes rather than small airplanes, so we're happier selling a -900 than an -800."
Scherer further noted that Avolon is already switching some of its existing order book for narrowbodies from smaller models to larger models, reflecting the trend for airlines to target flying bigger planes overall.