The result is a shortfall in financing, one tailor-made for a sale and leaseback. Even though the technique costs more in the long run, it produces short-term benefits. “Leasing is always more expensive in the long run,” says Moabery. But it also begets comparatively quick cash and helps manage the residual risk on the engine: a seven-year sale and leaseback equates to “zero risk of an asset write-down if the value of that engine is…more than the market is.”

By Jerome Greer Chandler