AerCap Holdings N.V. (AER)

AerCap leases aircraft, engines and helicopters to airlines and other operators rather than selling them. Its portfolio at the end of 2025 was 3,500 aircraft, engines and helicopters owned, on order or managed, and during the year it executed 705 aviation asset transactions. The company was incorporated in the Netherlands as a public limited liability company under Dutch law in July 2006, is headquartered in Dublin and keeps offices in Shannon, Memphis, Singapore, Miami, London, Dubai, Shanghai and Amsterdam. It reports in US dollars and its ordinary shares trade on the NYSE.

The aircraft

At the end of 2025 AerCap owned 1,501 aircraft, managed 148 and had 283 new aircraft on order, spanning narrowbody and widebody aircraft, regional jets and freighters. Both the fleet age and the utilisation rate are weighted by net book value. On that basis the owned passenger fleet averaged 7.3 years old, and the weighted average utilisation rate for owned aircraft over the year was 99%, counted by the days each aircraft was on lease. In 2025 the company bought 71 new technology aircraft and sold 108 older ones with an average age of 15 years. It also agreed to buy 52 A320neo Family aircraft from Airbus that had been part of the Spirit Airlines order book, with options for up to 45 more.

Engines and helicopters

AerCap Cargo runs a fleet of approximately 120 aircraft owned, serviced or committed for conversion, offering 11 types of modern narrowbody and widebody cargo aircraft to approximately 25 e-commerce, express delivery and general cargo operators; its largest customers are Kalitta Air and Amazon. In spare engines it holds over 1,200 owned, managed and on order, including those of Shannon Engine Support Ltd, its joint venture with Safran Aircraft Engines, mostly new technology engines built by General Electric and CFM International. It has contractual commitments with approximately 150 engine customers, among them GE Aerospace and CFMI themselves, supplying spare engines to their airline customers. The Milestone Aviation Group held 335 helicopters owned or on order and supports approximately 50 customers in over 35 countries, across offshore oil and gas, offshore wind, search and rescue, emergency medical services and police surveillance.

How a lease works

Most flight equipment goes out under operating leases, where the lessee maintains and services the equipment during the term and AerCap takes both the benefit and the risk of what the asset is worth at the end. Current operating leases have initial terms running up to approximately 16 years, and the company varies those terms so that aircraft do not all come up for re-lease at the same point in the cycle. Ahead of an expiry it first tries to extend with the current operator, which reduces downtime and transition costs; if the operator does not extend, the aircraft is placed with another lessee or sold. Scheduled lease expirations through the end of 2027 were less than 7% of the fleet's aggregate net book value.

Who leases

AerCap serves approximately 300 customers. The five largest lessees together accounted for 18.5% of 2025 lease revenue from the owned portfolio: American Airlines at 5.1%, Azul Airlines 3.9%, China Southern Airlines 3.2%, EgyptAir 3.2% and SES 3.1%. Counted by the lessee's principal place of business, Asia/Pacific was 30% of total lease revenue in 2025, Europe 28%, United States/Canada/Caribbean 19%, Latin America 12% and Africa/Middle East 11%. Europe has risen from 23% in 2023 while Asia/Pacific has come down from 34%.

Parts and management

Through AerCap Materials the company distributes airframe and engine parts, leases components, runs consignment services and manages asset repair, and it disassembles aircraft and engines into parts at its own facility in Greenwood, Mississippi. That business began as the Memphis Group in 1971 and stocks parts for Boeing 737NG, Boeing 777, Airbus A320 and A320neo Family and Embraer aircraft, selling to airlines, maintenance, repair and overhaul service providers and aircraft parts distributors. The company separately manages aircraft and engines for securitisation vehicles, joint ventures and other third parties, charging a mix of fixed and rental-based fees plus performance-based fees tied to the managed assets. It also provides corporate administrative and cash management services under contracts with seven parties.

From AerCap's annual report on Form 20-F for the year ended 31 December 2025. The filing