Last year when AIN took a close look at the aviation finance industry, the prevailing sentiment among industry insiders was that if you were looking for money to finance a business jet, the money would find you. At the time, many of the aircraft finance divisions still felt they were relatively insulated from their mortgage brethren, even within the same company.
At the same time, the price of oil, hovering above $100 a barrel on its way to a peak of nearly $150, was beginning to have an effect on the number of flight hours, as operators felt the pain of paying $8 or more for a gallon of jet fuel. A recent report from UBS Investment Research found 2008’s business jet flight activity was down 9 percent through the end of October as compared with last year, with declines of 18 percent in August and 13 percent in September.
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