AviTrader Weekly News 2018-01-15

WEEKLY AVIATION HEADLINES
5
AIRCRAFT & ENGINE NEWS
First BelugaXL transporter rolls off assembly line
MSN 29217 was performed at HAECO Xiamen
in China, and conversion of MSN 27260 was
performed in AMECO’s Chengdu base.
International aircraft leasing company
Avolon issues update for 2017 fourth
quarter
Avolon, the international aircraft leasing company,
has issued an update for the 2017 fourth
quarter. The aircraft leasing company delivered
45 new aircraft and sold 44 owned and
managed aircraft in the fourth quarter 2017.
The company completed the US$10.4bn acquisition
and integration of CIT’s aircraft leasing
business. Avolon has increased its owned,
managed and committed fleet by 109% to 908
aircraft and has raised US$14.9bn of new capital
in the fourth quarter 2017.
TrueNoord closes sale-and-leaseback
with Air Astana for Embraer E190 aircraft
TrueNoord, the regional aircraft lessor, has
concluded the increase of an existing term financing
facility with DVB bank for the purchase
of a 2012 vintage Embraer E190 aircraft from
Air Astana, which will continue to be operated
by the airline under the terms of a sale-andleaseback
transaction. This aircraft increases
TrueNoord’s Embraer portfolio to seven globally
operated E190s, with further acquisitions
to be announced shortly. TrueNoord’s focused
on-going development strategy for its regional
aircraft fleet under lease, is supported by investments
from private equity firms Bregal
Freshstream, BlackRock and Aberdeen Asset
Management.
Dubai Aerospace Enterprise reports
2017 key strategic and operational
highlights
Dubai Aerospace Enterprise (DAE) has released
that it has completed the acquisition of AWAS,
catapulting DAE into the top tier of global lessors.
The company launched its inaugural ABS
‘Falcon 2017-1’ in February 2017 and sold the
E notes to sophisticated US capital market investors.
DAE has issued its inaugural US$2.3bn
benchmark bond in the US capital markets.
The company has also purchased a portfolio
of 14 ATR72-600 aircraft from GECAS, further
solidifying DAE’s position as one of the leading
lessors in the ATR space. DAE said that
the number of aircraft purchased came to 25,
the number of leasing transactions to 78. The
The first structurally complete airframe for the new BelugaXL rolled out from its assembly hangar in Toulouse, France
Photo: Airbus
The first structurally complete airframe for the new BelugaXL rolled out from its assembly
hangar in Toulouse, France this month. Once operational, a fleet of these next-generation
airlifters will be used to transport completed sections of Airbus aircraft among the company’s
European production sites and to its final assembly lines in France, Germany and
Spain. The BelugaXL is one of the most voluminous aircraft in existence, and everything
about it speaks to that fact. With a bulging upper forward fuselage and enormous cargo
area, the BelugaXL is hardly recognizable as the outsized airlifter version of the Airbus
A330-200 jetliner from which it is derived. “We have the A330 as a foundation,” said Bertrand
George, head of the BelugaXL program, “but many changes have been successfully
designed, introduced into the aircraft and tested. Transforming an existing product into
a super transporter is not a simple task.” This initial BelugaXL is expected to be flying by
mid-2018.
number of owned, managed and committed
aircraft in its fleet came to 383 while the number
of customers rose to 109, in 55 countries.
The average age of its owned fleet came to 5.7
years and the average lease term remaining on
its own fleet was 6.1 year.
Falko adds 10 ATR72-500 aircraft to
portfolio
Falko Regional Aircraft (Falko), an aircraft operating,
leasing, and asset management company
focused on the regional aircraft sector,
has added ten ATR 72-500 aircraft to its portfolio.
The aircraft will be operated by PT Wings
Abadi, the regional airline part of the Lion Air
Group (Lion) in Indonesia. “We are delighted
to have completed this deal which marks a
significant expansion in our ATR manufactured
turboprop portfolio,” said Mark Hughes, Chief
Commercial Officer, Falko Regional Aircraft
Limited. “We are very pleased to add Lion to
our lessee portfolio as Lion is one of Asia’s
fastest growing airlines and one of the world’s
largest ATR operators.”
Boeing unveils new unmanned cargo air
vehicle prototype
Boeing has unveiled a new unmanned electric
vertical-takeoff-and-landing (eVTOL)
cargo air vehicle (CAV) prototype, that will be
used to test and evolve Boeing’s autonomy
technology for future aerospace vehicles. It
is designed to transport a payload up to 500
pounds for possible future cargo and logistics
applications. In less than three months,
a team of engineers and technicians across
the company designed and built the CAV prototype.
It successfully completed initial flight
tests at Boeing Research & Technology’s Collaborative
Autonomous Systems Laboratory
in Missouri. Boeing researchers will use the
prototype as a flying test bed to mature the