Does leasing out aircrafts make money?

[michaeldeg]

Hi everyone,

If I would buy an aircraft and then lease it out, would this make money for my airline?

Thanks!

[Runner]

Well... you also bought the aircraft, which cost you a lot of money. So it will take a while before you make money of it.

[Maarten Otto]

What I do:

Buy an aircraft.
Keep it in my own fleet and use it till D checks.
By that time the AC would have paid back itself in comparison to a 7 year lease.
Now I have written it off (financially)

Two options:

Keep it and use it at a super low operational cost (3 million a year or so)
Lease it out for another 7 years so it pays back it's value once more.

[swiftus27]

I have made TONS leasing out planes.

In fact, there is a point when you can lease out planes and make more money.    you just need to own a ton of planes.   Fire all of your staff and just buy and lease planes.  Sure, you wont be moving pax but you will be making money. 

[Curse]

Leasing out has one big problem; somebody must lease them.

Mostly you won't lease out aircraft 100% of the time, lessors go bankrupt and you must set the aircraft back to the market, you must maintain them etc.

In my opinion it's not worth the effort.

[swiftus27]

Curse, I must disagree.  With the current ordering system, you can really supplement your income in mid game this way.  While you are waiting years for new planes to come in for your own fleet, you can order a second fleet (must purchase) and lease it out.  For me, if I fly MD, I will order 737s for my lease fleet. 

They have a 100% ROI in only a few years time.  So, when you get the plane dumped back on you ready for a D Check, you will have already made an additional 100% on the plane. 

[schro]

Here's the obligatory reference to my leasing expirament from earlier this year in the jet age: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,18774.0.html

In summary, Swiftus and Curse are both right.  You make more money by flying the planes than you do leasing them, but if you don't have the option to fly them, leasing is your only option for profit growth.

Once you hit about mid-game in a game world, the used market is a bit better stocked and you'll be more likely to have planes just sitting out there - the epilogue to that thread is I ended the game with over 100 722's on the used market without any takers :-)