Financiers see healthy outlook for Middle East aviation investment

The event was held in Dubai for the first time and provided an inside look at how airlines evaluate the jetliners they purchase. It marked the sixth year for the event that this year attracted more than 20 executives from the Middle East, Africa, South Asia and Europe.

Experts from Boeing Capital Corporation, the company’s financing unit, lead participating bankers and financiers through a detailed examination of the underlying dynamics and key decision drivers of the current global airline marketplace. Joining them were Boeing Commercial Airplanes executives, who discussed the industry’s current market outlook, airplane performance and economics and other issues.

Continuing a trend begun at last year’s regional event held in Istanbul, Boeing was joined in the presentation by an airline customer official. This year’s conference featured speaker was Mukesh Sodani, the chief financial officer of flydubai, who offered the carrier’s perspective on operating as Dubai’s first low-cost airline.  

“ Commercial aircraft investments have outpaced other asset classes, due to an aircraft’s long useful life and their extremely mobile nature,” said John Matthews, Boeing Capital’s managing director for the Middle East, Africa and South Asia. “Aircraft are also ideal assets for Islamic financing, which must be asset based. When combined with the strong performance of the Middle East’s air transport market, the result is real investment opportunity for financiers with capital willing to enter the aviation space.”

Boeing also recently, held its first-ever financier roundtable event in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, attracting about 20 of that nation’s aircraft investment leaders.

The company’s latest market outlook reports airline industry growth in the Middle East is expected to continue over the next 20 years. The 2010 outlook valued the Middle East market at $390 billion over the next two decades, which translates into an expected need for 2,340 commercial jets.