Swine' bankers shun airline loans
20 Jun 2009, 0335 hrs, Bloomberg
PARIS:
The biggest threat to the global airline industry isn’t the swine flu outbreak, according to AirAsia’s Tony Fernandes. “We’ve been through SARS, bird flu, tsunami, you name it,” Fernandes, the founder and chief executive officer of Southeast Asia’s biggest discount carrier, said at the Paris Air Show this week. “The only swine now are bankers.”
Carriers from Air France-KLM Group to AirAsia, already coping with a slump in travel, also have to deal with banks that are unwilling to finance aircraft purchases. Airlines have to come up with money to pay for jets ordered years ago or face penalties for cancellations. In 2010, the funding shortfall may reach $36 billion, or as much as 60% of the spending on larger aircraft, said Nick Cunningham, an analyst at Evolution Securities in London.
“A year ago, when you wanted to finance an aircraft you’d have a queue through your doors,” Air France CEO Pierre-Henri Gourgeon said in an interview last month. “Once when we asked for three aircraft to be financed we got positive answers from 12 banks. Now it’s the reverse.”
20 Jun 2009, 0335 hrs, Bloomberg
PARIS:
The biggest threat to the global airline industry isn’t the swine flu outbreak, according to AirAsia’s Tony Fernandes. “We’ve been through SARS, bird flu, tsunami, you name it,” Fernandes, the founder and chief executive officer of Southeast Asia’s biggest discount carrier, said at the Paris Air Show this week. “The only swine now are bankers.”
Carriers from Air France-KLM Group to AirAsia, already coping with a slump in travel, also have to deal with banks that are unwilling to finance aircraft purchases. Airlines have to come up with money to pay for jets ordered years ago or face penalties for cancellations. In 2010, the funding shortfall may reach $36 billion, or as much as 60% of the spending on larger aircraft, said Nick Cunningham, an analyst at Evolution Securities in London.
“A year ago, when you wanted to finance an aircraft you’d have a queue through your doors,” Air France CEO Pierre-Henri Gourgeon said in an interview last month. “Once when we asked for three aircraft to be financed we got positive answers from 12 banks. Now it’s the reverse.”
