Commercial Aircraft Finance Market Outlook 2026 H1 Update

Welcome to the mid-year CAFMO, reviewing new aircraft delivery financing in H1 2026. This abridged document focuses on Boeing deliveries, with market insights & trends provided by our regional teams. We have also updated our previous deck with data from the latest version of the industry-leading Boeing CMO, which forecasts aircraft deliveries over the next 20 years.

Alongside a healthy delivery schedule across the industry in H1 2026,  there is steady progress towards reaching the previous record full-year $ delivery volume, last seen in 2018. Looking through the most recent data, we have seen customer funding strategies having to adapt to increasing geopolitical tensions and associated impacts from these events. We observed more regional variances in respect of financial product selection and a growing local and regional bank penetration across many of our markets. Underscoring all the preceding comments, is a pleasing level of competition for new aircraft delivery financing on a global basis. Pricing has remained tight from 2025 into 2026, particularly for strong credits.

Each of our regional teams has assessed trends in customer delivery finance product selection, with consideration to customer mix, aircraft type and jurisdiction. We have, for example, seen bank financing being notably successful in global widebody deliveries in H1 2026, often underpinned by long established relationships built with local/regional institutions. The leasing channel continues to be a force in single aisle aircraft deliveries with strength and depth in emerging and developed markets alike, bringing creative solutions both for pre-delivery and delivery financing requirements. Both of these financing channels actively trade/syndicate their loans and leases to a healthy secondary market that recognizes the inherent value in aircraft as an asset class.

With record order books across the industry, we acknowledge the importance to our customers of a robust financing ecosystem, offering broad and comprehensive transaction solutions. The new delivery aircraft financing market is set to grow by more than 50% by the end of this decade, and this step-up in scale will demand new market entrants, product innovations and level playing fields across jurisdictions. Our team at Boeing Customer Finance is already working with you to deliver those solutions that will support our customers' deliveries, and we appreciate the energy and passion that you bring to each and every transaction.

A stronger year-over-year delivery schedule and a change in regional delivery volumes has produced some subtle financing shifts for each of our regions that will be explored in further detail in the following pages. The geopolitical climate may already have had a bearing on aircraft funding strategies, notably a shift from cash to financing, but we will be better able to assess that statement once the full year is complete. What remains clear is that the appetite for aircraft financing remains positive, with affirmative signals on pricing, competitive terms and new market entrants endorsing that message.

Diversity of funding sources was a key reference point from our March 2026 CAFMO, and this product optionality prevented any single capital source from unduly dominating the financing marketplace. As highlighted by our own traffic light chart, the health of the aviation finance industry is satisfactory, which ensures a competitive landscape for customer financing. Strong credits in well-understood jurisdictions are able to command the best terms and pricing, often paying cash for aircraft and then refinancing post delivery to secure the most favorable outcomes. We note that bank debt has grown by some 20% from our March 2026 CAFMO publication, supporting both narrow, and more notably, wide-body deliveries. The leasing channel continues to be central to every market that we trade in for new deliveries. Airlines have selectively accessed capital markets (secured and unsecured), but these issuances are generally limited, which again reflects the optionality available to them from a range of other sources, which may have more flexibility in terms and conditions. The ECA and covered markets are collectively less active in H1 2026, but the extensive aircraft order books, particularly in the ME and Asia, would suggest a pick-up in volumes for these products over the coming 18-24 months.

The breadth of bank funding is a positive signal from 2025, and we envisage that as our deliveries extend to a wider geographical band of customers, more banks will engage in aircraft financing opportunities. As such we are mindful of the fact that funding is likely to become more regionalized, supporting local airlines, as opposed to broadening to international lending. Since the CAFMO analysis and report is aligned to new delivery financing, we recognize that there are many more institutions involved in secondary markets for new and used aircraft financing that we have not captured here. Our teams connect globally to the wider banking network to ensure that we offer appropriate insights and market data to facilitate the flow and availability of capital to our customer base.

Global interest in sale-leaseback products remains strong, as airlines seek to reduce capital expenditure burden and mitigate residual-value risks. Single aisle aircraft are the most favored collateral, with Asia-Pacific and Indian markets remaining heavily reliant on the SLB product, alongside Latin American airlines. Competitive pricing in the SLB market continues to secure a large number of North American deliveries.

We welcome and recognize the potential value of harmonized aircraft financing protocols that full adoption and implementation of, and compliance with, the Cape Town Convention would bring. Financiers appreciate a more predictable application of the rule of law when assessing transaction risk, which feeds into their price models. Cape Town signatories benefit from access to a broader pool of capital providers with consequential improvements in the cost of financing, notably where ECA structures are deployed (subject to all necessary qualifying declarations being made). Furthermore, the adoption and ratification of the Cape Town Convention may offer access to certain international markets with deeper pools of liquidity.  

We remain supportive of the AWG initiatives to broaden full adoption of, and compliance with, the Cape Town Convention (CTC) and are encouraged by recent progress in a number of countries in Southeast Asia that value the broad benefits of its implementation. Our teams remain active globally in supporting CTC initiatives that create level playing fields in aircraft financing.