Aviation & Aircraft Financing
A depreciating asset, a thin secondary market, and a credit event two years back. That's usually the file a bank kicks back on an aircraft loan — and it's usually still financeable. We place corporate jet, commercial aircraft, and charter fleet financing from $1M to $100M with a network of 8,000+ private capital sources built for exactly this collateral. No cost to apply, no credit pull to talk to us, and an underwriter on the phone within one business day.
Apply now →Aircraft lending isn't real estate lending with wings. The math and the objections are different, and most borrowers only hear the objection.
Asset value vs. loan basis. Banks lend against comps. Aircraft don't have clean comps — a 2015 Citation and a 2015 Citation with 400 fewer hours and an enrolled engine program are two different assets. The loan basis has to be built off current valuation (a real appraisal, not a blue-book estimate), hours, maintenance status, and engine program enrollment — not the price on the last invoice. Get the valuation right and the LTV conversation gets easy. Get it wrong and every lender declines for the same reason: they can't price the collateral.
Corporate use vs. personal use. These are underwritten differently because the repayment story is different. A corporate aircraft tied to travel for a revenue-generating business is underwritten against that business's cash flow and the aircraft's utility to it. A personal-use aircraft is underwritten against personal balance sheet and liquidity. Blending the two in the application — "it's for the business, but I also fly it personally" — is the single fastest way to slow down or kill a file. Pick the primary use and underwrite to it.
Charter revenue, when it applies. If the aircraft is going into charter or Part 135 operation, the lender wants a debt service coverage number built off realistic utilization — not the operator's best-case hours. We've seen more files stall on optimistic utilization assumptions than on the aircraft itself. A conservative charter revenue projection, backed by the operator's actual contract or management agreement, is worth more than an aggressive one.
Why banks decline these. Depreciation curves are steep, the secondary market is thin relative to real estate, and most bank credit boxes are built for conforming collateral with predictable resale. An aircraft with a credit event on the file, a non-standard use case, or a valuation that needs explaining doesn't fit the box — even when the underlying deal is sound. That's not a verdict on the deal. It's a verdict on the box.
What a private lender needs instead of the box. A real story: what happened, what changed, why the deal works now. Current valuation from a source they trust. Maintenance and engine program status. A clear statement of use. And a repayment plan tied to the actual cash flow behind the deal, not the cash flow the borrower wishes they had. Because this is a specialty asset category, pricing gets quoted per deal — there's no published rate sheet, because there shouldn't be. An owner-flown jet with a clean maintenance history and a charter fleet financed against contracted revenue are not the same underwriting problem, and they shouldn't get the same rate.
Most aircraft financing declines come down to one thing: the file didn't explain itself. The valuation was stale, the use case was ambiguous, or the credit event was left out instead of addressed. Tell us the real story on your deal and we'll tell you within one business day whether it's financeable — and if it is, which of our 8,000+ capital sources actually lends against this kind of collateral. Apply now to get an underwriter on the file.